Stealing Heaven Read Online Free Page B

should even know about.
    Sister Madelaine came into the room quietly. "You've come to say goodbye," she said in a raspy voice. The thin lips, outlined by a faint down, bore a smile, but there was no warmth in it today.
    "Did you imagine I wouldn't?" She could not endure this farewell, but she could not endure not coming either. Everything that she knew she had first learned from Madelaine, until finally the day had arrived, several years back, when the prioress had had no more to teach her.
    "Now you will go to Paris, where your uncle will find a rich lord who needs a decoration for his household." She pulled over a stool and slammed it down next to Heloise. "And soon you will spawn a castleful of brats and forget all about philosophy." She sank down heavily, frowning at the floor in accusation.
    "No," Heloise whispered, bruised inside. "Is that all you know of me?" Madelaine would not spare her; she had known it.
    The prioress laughed, lightly. "Ah, it's not that I lack understanding. I know that your pretty head is befuddled with dreams. Don't toss your hair at me, missy. If I fear for you, it's because I love you."
    Heloise turned to the window and watched Sister Adela's hound doing its business on the velvety grass under the abbess's favorite lemon tree. There would be trouble about that later. "Thank you," she said over her shoulder. "You can always pray for me." And then, because the words had come out edged with sarcasm, she added gently, "You needn't worry that I'll marry. I have other plans."
    "Such as?" The prioress glanced up suspiciously.
    "Oh. You know."
    "Be specific."
    Â  "You wouldn't understand." She swiveled around and waved her hand in dismissal. But Madelaine sat there, stony and unyielding, her brittle little face twisted into a silent command. “I’ll continue my studies of course. At the cloister school if Uncle permits, or else I shall study at home." She stopped and breathed deeply for a long moment. "And then I'll take students of my own."
    Madelaine bristled. "Excellent," she said angrily, "That's exactly what I meant when I spoke of your foolish daydreams. For all your learning, you have the sense of a flea when it comes to practical matters."
    "I told you that you wouldn't understand." Most people wouldn't understand. But she had thought that Madelaine might. She stood up and went to a cupboard where Madelaine kept the least precious of the convent's manuscripts. She took out Bede's De arte metrica, the old textbook she had used in learning to write Latin prose and verse. “I’m not so stupid as you imagine. Madelaine, listen, I could teach girls."
    "Faugh!" Madelaine grunted. "What land of twattle is that? What need have girls of Latin and—" She stopped and closed her mouth with an audible click.
    Furious, Heloise slammed down the book. "I don't believe it!" she shouted at the nun. "You wouldn't have wasted your time on me for nothing."
    Madelaine laughed cautiously. "Perchance I'm as big a fool as you. But a pupil like you comes along once in a teacher's lifetime. If she's lucky. How could I leave such an extraordinary field to lie fallow?" Impatient, she waved her arm. "But I never promised that your knowledge could be put to use. Or that it would make you happy." She took a jar of ink from a table and began to make her way along the carrels, filling the inkhorns. "I'm sorry if I misled you."
    Heloise shrugged. "Never mind. Books are my life. Think you that I’ll be stirring pots of soup and suckling babes?" She realized that she was clenching Bede's manuscript; she made herself take it back to the cupboard and replace it carefully. "Somehow I'll manage, I'm sure."
    The prioress set down the ink jar and regarded Heloise. "God forgive me for saying so, but he should have made you a man. Then everything would be simple." She came over to the girl and grabbed her by the shoulders. "Listen to me, child."
    Heloise's head flew up.
    "The only place for a man with a brilliant