Stealing Heaven

by Marion Meade

  Jourdain grinned. "He can't lose."

  25

  The roads leading to Sens on that first day of June swarmed with travelers on horseback and foot, and Heloise and Jourdain were among them. Student and priest, king and commoner, all jounced along to witness the display of relics, to have a look at the rising cathedral with its novel arches, and if possible to hear Abbot Bernard argue the Trinity with Master Peter Abelard. Because the town had no place to lodge this invasion, people camped outside the sand-colored walls, among the fields and vegetable gardens and the wild hyacinths.

  When Heloise and Jourdain rode up to the Troyes Gate, the mob was so great that they had to wait in line to enter. They inched over the drawbridge into the noisy commercial quarter with its three- and four-story houses and shops shouldering into the streets, their corbeled upper stories looming precariously overhead. Shopfronts were painted blue or garish red, many faced with tile, and a clutter of merchandise spilled from the stalls into the street—boots, cloth of gossamer and wool, savory spices, rosaries.

  The foot traffic separated Heloise's mare from Jourdain, and she had to rein in sharply to keep from riding down the honking geese that nipped around her mount's hoofs. Twisting in her saddle, she called back, "Jourdain! Rue du Temple, in case I lose you. Third house." He nodded.

  At the Knights Templars' house, she stopped and waited for Jourdain. A goodwife, white wimple bobbing, smiled at her and boldly asked for a blessing. Jourdain came. "This is incredible!" he cried. His voice was thick with glee. "Every monk in France must be here."

  Heloise tipped back in her saddle and laughed. Carefully, they picked their way down the Rue du Temple to the house of a widow who had donated a water clock to the Paraclete and counted it a great honor to lodge its abbess in her home.

  The Montauban family was lined up in the vestibule, the children washed and combed like archangels. Each of them scrambled forward, knelt down, and brushed a kiss on Heloise's ring. "Lady abbess," murmured Mme. Montauban, "are you alone? Where is your maid?"

  "I have no maid," Heloise said, smiling. "We are all equal at the Paraclete."

  "Lady, this is a great honor for our house—" Chattering nervously, she escorted Heloise to a second-floor chamber, where Heloise washed her face and shook the dust from her habit. She immediately went out again. On foot, she walked quickly to the cathedral to say vespers. As she returned to the house, a red sun flamed and slipped behind the roofs.

  A servingwoman told her that a young man had come, and she had sent him up to the abbess's chamber. Heloise swung up the stairs, breathless with excitement. The door slammed open. "Mama!" Astrolabe pulled her to his chest in a hug that cracked her elbows. "Mama!" he shouted, "did you ever see anything like this, did you?" and danced back.

  She caught him by the arm, planting a kiss on his cheek. "No"— she laughed—"I never have. Sweet heart, you need a haircut. Where are you lodging?"

  He ran his fingers loosely through the glossy strands. "The archbishop's guesthouse. Mama, Queen Eleanor is here. I saw her this morning. She has golden hair and the whitest skin."

  Heloise paid no attention. Astrolabe, face flushed, tunic askew, was prowling about the room like a caged lion. “Your father, is he well?"

  "Quite well." He threw her a surprised look, as if that were an irrelevant question. His eyes were dark and shining. "He's in splendid spirits."

  "Son, he has no idea I'm here, has he? You didn't tell him?"

  “You asked me not to. I can't see why—"

  Heloise smoothed his hair, loving the touch of him. His skin smelled like musk. "He doesn't like me to leave the Paraclete."

  "Well, you do."

  She looked away, smiling a little. "I know. But we're not going to tell him."

  "Everyone is here! Father's students followed us all the way from the Ile, Gilbert and Berengar and Arnold of Brescia—"

  Heloise started. Arnold was a well-known agitator, banished from Italy by the pope for his political activities and charged with heresy. She had not known him to be one of Abelard's students. She said, "That's wonderful."

  "They've all gathered at the Tournelles Inn. You should see them. Mama, come with me, you can meet them." He jabbed at her shoulder.

  She stretched out her arms and hugged him, saying, "Son, I'm too old to frequent taverns."

  "Oh, lady, you're not old. Please."

  She backed away and went to light a candle. Dappled light gashed the room with shadows. "Don't be silly," she said. "My sweet boy, I'm an abbess."

  He turned to her, face sheepish. A moment later, he was hitching up his girdle with a delighted smile. "Nobody will sleep tonight. We're going to stay up and talk."

  Heloise could see that he was impatient to get back to the noisy taverns and the cheering young men who would be thronging around Abelard. Kissing him, she sent him off into the darkness.

  Later, she stretched on the bed, watching the moonlight quiver in milky pools on the tile floor. She slept and dreamed of Fulbert's turret above the Seine.

  At daybreak, the great bells of the cathedral began to bellow.

  Heloise and Jourdain hurried toward the main thoroughfare, doubled back over the Grand Rue, and threaded their way through a warren of muddy lanes. "Jourdain," Heloise said, "Astrolabe came to see me last night. He said that Arnold of Brescia was with Abelard. Isn't he a heretic?"

  Jourdain looked at her with no particular interest and shrugged. "That's what they say. I think he's merely a hothead. Talks a lot."

  "But isn't that bad for Abelard?" she demanded.

  “Lady, there are hundreds of his students here. And former students. Some radical, some as orthodox as you please."

  They turned a corner and came out alongside the apse of the cathedral, into an area that looked like a work yard. There were sheds sheltering forges and a carpenter's shack next to a large pit where saws and long pieces of timber had been stacked. Some ten years earlier, Henry Sanglier had decided to rebuild the church, and he had hired the eminent master builder William to draft a ground plan. At Sens, as at Saint-Denis, a daring new style of engineering was being used, and people raved about the wonders of ribbed vaults and flying buttresses. Jourdain said, staring in awe at the scaffolding soaring into the hot sky, "This is going to take fifty years to finish."

  "More like a hundred," Heloise answered. "It's lovely, isn't it?"

  The yard, frosted with stonecutters' dust, stood empty today. They skirted the sawing pit and started around the side of the cathedral, only to run up against a solid wall of backs. Although the service had already begun, the bronze doors were jammed and people stood in the aisles at the rear of the nave. When Heloise presented her billet of admission to a Knight Templar, he advised her of the futility of trying to reach her place. People were climbing on tombs and hanging from the marble pillars, and when the knights herded them down, they crept back an instant later. At last, Heloise and Jourdain were crushed against a statue of the Virgin, and there they stayed, squeezed tight. They could hear, but seeing was more difficult. After the service came the presentation of relics; the golden reliquaries encrusted with rubies and diamonds were brought forth with their treasures—the Crown of Thorns, fragments of the True Cross, a drop of blood belonging to St. Clement, one of Judas's thirty pieces of silver. Or so Heloise heard, for she could see nothing but a blur of incense and tapers and billowing gonfalons.

  When knights tried to clear the aisles, the mob heaved back. There was silence. Slowly down the nave moved King Louis carrying a gold cross. He walked sturdily, the boy that Heloise had last seen huddled at his father’s feet in the Cite Palace, and his eyes were downcast in an attitude of humility. On tiptoe, Heloise caught only a glimpse before he moved on, followed by a queue of bishops and monks. There were not only the prelates of the diocese—Elias of Orleans, Hatto of Troyes, Manasses of Meaux—but many others whom she did not recognize. Jourdain whispered into her ear as they went by: the archbishop of Rheims; Abelard's old friend, Geoffrey o
f Chartres; and on and on they came. A thousand necks stretched to goggle at the jeweled miters, the vestments gleaming with gold.

  The procession wound down the center aisle, turned, and headed back along the north aisle toward the choir. The aisles filled again as the crowd surged forward. The chanting of the choristers trumpeted along the stone walls. The air inside the cathedral reeked of sweat and incense. As the morning wore on, sweat gushed on Heloise's face, and she felt on the verge of suffocating.

  When Jourdain grabbed her arm and began dragging her through the bodies, she followed blindly. Outside milled hundreds of people, but here at least there was air. They stood together on the porch, next to pilgrims speaking German, and gasped at the breeze. "Let's wait a bit," Jourdain said, panting. "It will be over soon and the court will be coming out. You don't want to miss that, do you?"

  Heloise did not care, but she nodded. All during the procession, she had been thinking of Abelard, hoping it was less crowded where he sat. She turned to Jourdain, and said, "I don't mind." Ceci would ask her if she had seen the young queen and demand to know every detail. Eleanor, duchess of Aquitaine, had been queen of France three years and she was still less than eighteen. Incessantly, people gossiped about her, even the nuns of the Paraclete. This granddaughter of William the Troubadour was supposed to be spectacularly beautiful—and spoiled. From Aquitaine she had brought troubadours to the Cite Palace, an incident which caused the pious Queen Adelaide to move out, and people also said that Eleanor did not get along well with the king either.

  The crowds wedged into the bronze doors parted, and Heloise could see the royal bodyguard shoving through roughly. Trumpets brayed and people began to shout, "Vivat Regina!" Behind Heloise, somebody said, "Three years and no babe. She must be barren." Another voice, full of mockery, answered, "It's the king—he's too holy to fuck." Heloise choked back a smile.

  Clouds of silk—red, rose, yellow, and orange—drifted through the summer afternoon like blossoms of dust raised by stallions' hoofs. Behind them sailed a radiant girl loaded down with bracelets and winking ear pendants. Heloise drew in her breath sharply. The queen's gown was made of magnificent lavender tissue, and over her blond hair, fastened to her brow by a circlet of wrought gold, flowed the sheerest of wimples. She had draped it around her neck and shoulders, and one corner cascaded over her left arm. When the crowd cheered, she scanned their gaping faces and smiled beautifully.

  Jourdain nudged Heloise. "She's got rouge on. Nobody has cheeks that pink."

  "Rouge?" she said dully. "I wouldn't know about that, friend." Staring at the long train on the queen's gown, she felt drab and ugly. "Let's go." She turned and stumbled down the worn stone steps to the street.

  “If you wish to understand the Word, you must love!" For more than an hour Bernard had been talking about love, and now even some of the most mesmerized of his admirers were beginning to shuffle their feet restlessly. "A cold heart cannot understand words of fire—"

  Heloise, bored, crossed her arms over her chest. Bernard performed all the difficult religious duties—he fasted, he suffered—but he could not endure the easy ones. He did not love. She let her attention drift to the abbot of Clairvaux's face. He seemed on the verge of collapse, but when had he not looked frail? A plucked bird, he had called himself at the Paraclete; he looked in worse condition now, if that were possible. She stretched her neck and shoulders, sweeping her gaze around the jousting ground, over the swaying heads and faces. Suddenly, Bernard's words jolted her back to the wooden platform above her head. "This man,” he was saying, "our theologian, says nothing about love or mystery, although he speaks a great deal." Around Heloise people began to buzz Abelard's name. Furious at herself for wandering, she began to push her way closer to the platform. She could see Bernard lashing out wildly with both arms.

  "—his arrogant manner. Of all the expressions in heaven and earth, there is only one that Master Abelard appears not to know." He paused and looked around. "The expression—I know not!"

  Heloise blinked hotly. A ray of reddish sunlight struck Bernard's hair, throwing a rosy nimbus about his face and his white robe. From where she stood, he looked like some cadaverous emperor delivering judgment, his fiery head seeming to touch the clouds.

  "Master Abelard is a monk without a monastery! A prelate without an office! He adheres to no law, has no rule to restrain him!" Whistles from the crowd corkscrewed through the fading light. "This man sweats hard to prove that Plato was a Christian. But he only ends up proving that he, Abelard, is no better than a pagan himself!"

  Shocked that he would dare stoop to this low, spiteful attack on Abelard, Heloise rattled her rosary in helpless frustration. Imbecile! He knew nothing of Abelard's philosophy. Bernard was hammering out venom: "He's a Herod in the trappings of a John the Baptist!" He hopped to the edge of the platform. "He was condemned at Soissons, but his new errors are even worse than his old!" Under her breath, Heloise screamed, "Liar!"

  "Master Peter and Arnold of Brescia—that pest that the pope threw out of Italy—these two heretics are actively in league against God and his Christ. This evil must be stamped out!" Bernard rocked convulsively from side to side.

  Eyes burning hard, Heloise stood there for a moment, and then she turned and plunged through the onlookers. She would listen to no more. Over to her left, a woman called out, "Devil, Abelard is a devil!" Heloise thrust her hands out, fumbling for open space. Two men passed a wineskin over her shoulder. Behind them, Bernard thundered, "This man is a teacher. His pupils idolize him and, mark me, he influences their minds and hearts. His books are spreading beyond the seas and the Alps, flitting from province to province, from kingdom to kingdom." He was gasping hoarsely, "This man's voice must be stilled!"

  At the edge of the field, under the shady green oaks, the air rushed spongy and cool. A sickle moon pierced the sky. Bernard was asking the crowd to pray for the unbeliever, Master Abelard, his words floating down over the field as careless as snowflakes. Heloise gathered up her skirts and ran.

  It was just after matins when she lay back on her bed, yet sleep would not come. Her mind revolved like a rusty wheel on all that Abbot Bernard had said at the tourney field. Abelard no Christian . . . voice stopped . . . pest. The savagery behind his words still echoed in her ears. She stirred restlessly, picturing Bernard as a fanged hound on the trail of a bleeding lamb. Except that Abelard was no lamb, nor was he wounded. Tomorrow he would devour Bernard. That was the only thought that comforted her.

  Heloise closed her eyes, but a moment later, it seemed, the serving-woman rapped on her door, saying that her son waited below. She shrugged on her habit and hurried down. The fire had gone out in the solar; only a single rushlight burned with a slim blue flame. Astrolabe, his face grimed with dust and sweat, stood very still in the center of the room. "Mama," he breathed quickly, "something bad has happened."

  She groped for the doorway. "He's fallen sick."

  Astrolabe shook his head. "He's well. It's Bernard, that bastard, son of a dog—" His eyes were murderous. Heloise, confused, stared at him.

  "—he's condemned Father. He's got all the bishops to condemn him!"

  "No!" She flared in irritation. "How could that be? This is not a trial. God's love, it's only a debate."

  "It's what I said. Tonight, Bernard invited all the bishops and abbots to a private meeting. It was a supper at the canons' chapter house." His voice rose, excited. "When they finished dining, Bernard sent for Father's books."

  "Go on."

  "I hate him!" Astrolabe cried wildly. "He started to read certain passages. Out of context. Somehow he persuaded them that Father must be condemned. And nobody—not one—uttered a word of dissent."

  "How do you know this?" Heloise asked.

  "Geoffrey of Chartres was there. He came to Father’s room afterward and told us."

  Heloise took a step toward him, keeping her eyes on his face. "So then Bishop Geoffrey must also have told you that it was all a farce. A man cannot be se
ntenced without a trial." Her head began to pound. She heard the servant tramping about in the pantry.

  Astrolabe wiped his face on the shoulder of his tunic. "Wait. Geoffrey said that everyone was drunk. The wineskins kept going around the trestles, and the men were laughing and making jokes. They called Father names."

  "Bernard was drinking!" Heloise said, startled. "I can't imagine—"

  "He got them drunk!" Astrolabe shouted. "By the end of the meal, most of them were half asleep and the rest were wagging their heads. When Bernard asked for condemnation, people started mumbling, 'Namus.'"

  She broke into harsh laughter. "Namus? We swim?"

  "Mama, they meant to say We condemn/ Damnamus." He turned his face into the shadows, breathing hard.

  Heloise cleared her throat and said, "What did Bishop Geoffrey have to say about that?"

  "1 don't know—nothing. He only said that Father should expect to be called to public account tomorrow, that he must either defend his views or repudiate them."

  "Ah. Then the assembly is no longer a forum but a court of law."

  "Geoffrey was very angry. He said that Father should refuse to appear. Go back to Paris."

  "Flee?" She frowned. "He wouldn't—"

  "No, he'll stay." He sank on a stool and hunched forward, his head cradled in his hands.

  Heloise came to him and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. "The servant is still awake. Can I order some wine?"

  "Please." He stared at the floor. "Mama, why do people hate Father?"

  Heloise was silent. After a moment, she said, "Did you notice the ribbed vaults in the cathedral? It's an entirely new principle of building. They appear to soar into the air and stand alone without any support."

  He lifted his head and nodded wearily.

  "Well," she said, "those vaults are like Abelard's thoughts."

  He began to cry in tiny hiccuping whimpers. Heloise kissed his hair and went to find wine.