Stealing Heaven by Marion Meade Page B

shopping money, Master Peter had a cough—could Agnes recommend a soothing posset?—and Heloise had made up a small jug of licorice and anise wine. She was beginning to feel as though she knew Peter Abelard, and in a vague way she did. At least, she knew that he suffered from bad headaches and his undertunics needed mending and that once he'd had a breakdown that sent him back to his home in Brittany for three years. It was some time, however, before it occurred to her that the garrulous Jourdain, with all his infectious tales about his friends, might be a two-way channel.
    On a sudden impulse one day, she demanded sharply, "Jourdain, you're always telling us about Master Peter. By any chance do you talk to him about us?"
    He flushed and began to stammer. "Uh, well ... I suppose . . . you might say that. But he's always asking. You don't mind, do you, Heloise?"
    She did mind, but was not going to admit it. “I guess not.”
    "He'd like to meet you."
    "Uh-huh." Surely Abelard was merely being kind to poor Jourdain. She had heard that he dined with kings and archbishops. Such a man could not truly be interested in an inconsequential person like herself, a nobody who was also a girl.
    Jourdain was smiling earnestly at her. "It's true, Heloise. He did say that. And he asked me to describe you."
    "And what did you say?" Immediately she regretted asking; she had no desire to hear herself described.
    "That you are not unattractive and—"
    Simmering, she swallowed and said, "Gramercy, fair friend, for nothing."
    Jourdain bounded to her side, his eyes cloudy. "Come now, lady, can't you tell when I'm teasing? I told him you are comely and brilliant." He turned soft, smiling eyes on her. I described you just as you are. Please don't be angry."
    The next morning while filling Heloise's tub, Petronilla calmly announced, "Jourdain wants to fuck you."
    "God forfend, what language!" Many times she had seriously considered reporting Petronilla's shameless outbursts to Agnes or Fulbert, but she always restrained herself in the end. She had no wish to get her into trouble.
    Petronilla went on. "It's no secret, you know." Humming, she poured boiling water into the tub. "Anybody with eyes can see. The way he looks at you."
    "You're mad. Jourdain is like a cousin. And he's only a boy."
    "He has a pizzle, doesn't he?" She grinned, pleased with the irrefutability of her logic.
    Suddenly Heloise remembered a time last summer when she had wakened in the middle of the night. She had had to use the chamber pot but, after fumbling about in the dark, realized that Petronilla had forgotten to bring it up. Muzzy with sleep, she groped her way downstairs to use the garden privy, a facility she normally avoided as it housed a large family of water bugs. At the door a noise stopped her; from the direction of the herb beds came the sound of a man's laughter, followed by hoarse panting, and then a girl's voice squealing in a queer way that she had never heard before. The last voice was Petronilla's, that she had been certain of, and she had fled into the house. By morning, she'd forgotten the incident, but now it came back to her.
    Petronilla opened her mouth, but Heloise would listen no further and sent her downstairs to her mother. For the rest of the day, she was in a foul mood, and when Jourdain came by just before vespers, she instructed Agnes to tell him that she was unwell. For several days, she managed to avoid him. Then, just when the lewd images sown by Petronilla were fading and she felt able to face him without blushing, he stopped coming. Strangely, three days went by without a visit, something that had not happened since they'd met, and she felt horribly guilty. Twenty times a day she reproached herself; he must feel that she didn't want to see him, he was staying away because she had hurt him. A week or more went by, a week of mounting loneliness, for she missed his bright face, until she resolved to visit his lodging and tell