Free Doctor Mirabilis by James Blish Page B

the garden-ensorcelled girlhood she would ever be able to remember.
    Adam was not challenged as he crossed into Eleanor’s apartments in the left wing of the castle, but he was recognized quickly
     and embarrassingly by her tiring-maid, a fresh girl of eighteen attached to Eleanor’s service as a courtesy by the Bigods,
     her dead husband’s claiming relatives; a girl all too plainly bemused enough by Adam to see in him her. Peter Abelard, and
     herself an Heloise; but Eleanor was not there. She would, therefore, be in the chapel which her brother had made for her,
     which was at some distance from the apartments; but there was a passage that Adam knew of, which perhaps King John had known
     but Henry did not, which led quite directly to the priest’s hole in the chapel from nearby, through the walls. It had been.
     Eleanor whohad shown it to him, for it debouched into her most private chamber, disguised as the monstrous black oak door of a wardrobe;
     and he took the route at once, shutting his Héloïse manquiee out first (and not without a shudder) with, ‘I will wait here.’
    She was waiting for him as he settled into the stone-cold niche. Though the chapel was dark except for two tapers burning
     before the altar, that was enough to figure for him the marvellous bent head in profile through the confessional window–once,
     no doubt, a full door to be used in passage to whispers and confessions in composition, not absolution, of sin.
Dona nobis pacem,
Héloïse-and-Abelard ….
    ‘Father … I was waiting. You said …?’
    ‘I was catching my breath, my lady. It’s a long clamber here. And we’ll needs be quick; I’ve a scholar above, promising, but
     too green in the vintage to leave abroad among so many Latins; and thy brother will call on me ere this work of his be done.
     And very ill it is, too.’
    ‘Certes, but rest thee a moment, Father, all the same,’ she said in a low voice – hardly more than a whisper but for the music
     in it. ‘Please, my need is greater. I’m afraid, I am most afraid’
    He saw her head turn toward him with this, and even in the two-starred darkness, he was momentarily riven of all his good
     advice by such fairness, less than half seen though it was. Judging both by images and by such members of the line as Adam
     had seen, the Plantagenets had always been notable for personal beauty – at least from Coeur-de-lion on – but Eleanor, of
     the high brow and wide green eyes, was to Adam that trial of his vocation which is greater than all the trials to which the
     princes of the world are subject, since to them it need be no trial at all.
    ‘You have more reason to fear in this cubby than you would in the hall,’ he said. ‘In seclusion, you appear most pointedly
     to be taking Hubert’s part. Your brother will be all the less likely to privilege you at Pembroke if you so humiliate him
     – as all will see it, not just the King.’
    ‘Then, shall I stay and weep in their very faces, while theycast my uncle down? I have infuriated Henry with far smaller shows.’
    ‘But that’s a woman’s role,’ Adam said patiently. ‘To weep shows the kindness in your heart, even toward a miscreant. But
     to be absent – that might mean complicity. Besides, my lady, Henry’s mind will dwell not long on Hubert now, for he’ll find
     matters far more quick to spark his tinder than your uncle is, before this feast is over. Therefore, I pray you, be present
     at the Hubert part, so’s not to be marked partisan while that runs its course; and should you weep, it will yet be forgotten
     when Henry weeps, as he’s sure to do, aye, and gnash teeth, too.’
    ‘You choose odd words to calm me, Father,’ she said; but there was a slight trace of amusement in her voice. ‘Must you be
     so ominous?’
    ‘By no means, my lady. That was not my purport. I mean only that the defiance of the barons is a greater thing to the King
     than his sudden hatred of Hubert, and will so seem to