Paris: The Novel

into the alley that Roland had used for his nighttime visits.
    She walked swiftly southward, skirted the Grève marketplace and made toward the river. As she had the evening before, she kept a shawl over her head to hide the bandage.
    It was only a quarter mile to the bridge that crossed from the Right Bank to the Île de la Cité. Just before she reached it, ahead of her, she caught sight of the high roof of the Grand Châtelet, where the provost of Paris dispensed justice to the people. University students like Roland, who only had to answer to the Church courts, were exempt from the provost’s stern rule. Martine smiled to herself. She had a special kind of justice reserved for young Roland de Cygne.
    She crossed to the island. Over the rooftops on her right rose the high vault of the Sainte-Chapelle, gray against the sky. The sacred relics concealed within might bring joy to the king, but the royal reliquary looked like a tall, cold barn to her that day. And the memory of her budding passion for the boy, when they’d gone in there together, was as dead as ashes. She crossed the Seine once more, by the narrow bridge to the Left Bank, and started up the long, straight slope of the rue Saint-Jacques.
    She didn’t often come to the Left Bank. The Latin Quarter, some people were calling it these days, since it had started filling with scholars. She cursed as she almost stepped in a pile of steaming feces that someone must have tossed from an upper window. That’s right, she thought grimly: thescholars could talk Latin and preach in church, but life still came down, in the end, to the same old stink in the street.
    She was nearing the top of the hill. She put her hand down and felt the handle of the long knife under her belt. Ahead of her was the gateway in the city wall through which the Compostela pilgrims passed. She knew Roland’s lodgings were somewhere here. A student came out of a doorway, and she was about to ask him if he knew Roland, when the young man himself appeared, from another house nearby. He saw her and stopped in surprise. She went quickly to his side.
    “We must talk at once,” she said urgently. “Alone.”
    He frowned, but led her a short way along the street and turned into a churchyard. It was quiet there. No one could see them.
    “What’s the matter?” he asked. “I was coming to you tonight.”
    “You can’t,” she said. “Look.” And she pulled back her shawl.
    He stared in surprise at the big red-and-black swelling on her face.
    “My God. What happened?”
    “My uncle. He beat me. He knows about us.” She watched him go pale. “I slipped out of the house to warn you.”
    “How? He was asleep when I left yesterday. I heard him snoring.”
    “The cook saw you. She told him.”
    “He knows who I am?”
    “Not yet. I wouldn’t tell him your name. But he has men out already making inquiries.”
    He looked thoughtful.
    “No one knows. Did the cook get a good look at me?”
    “She gave him a description.”
    “God be damned.”
    “Oh Roland.” She looked pitiful. “He’ll beat me again until I tell him your name. I can’t hold out much longer.”
    Roland looked away for a moment. Cursing his bad luck no doubt. She felt for the knife in her belt, but she didn’t draw it out yet. He turned back at her.
    “You don’t really think …,” he started.
    “Oh Roland,” she cried, “you’ve got to leave Paris. Leave at once.”
    “I can’t do that.”
    “You don’t understand. You don’t know him. Once he’s made up his mind … And he has the power.”
    “He’d really have me castrated?” He stared at her in horror.
    “Nothing will stop him. The king couldn’t stop him.”
    He was squirming. She watched him. It was perfect.
    “I can’t leave Paris,” he muttered. “I’ve nowhere to go.”
    “We could run away together,” she said. “I have some money. We could run away to Normandy. Or England.”
    “That won’t do,” he answered, staring at the ground. She knew he’d say that.
    “You don’t want me,” she wailed. “I am lost.”
    “No, no. I care for you,” he answered.
    There was a long pause.
    “He doesn’t mean to kill you,” she pointed out. “That’s something. They say that Abelard was a greater philosopher after it happened to him.”
    It was clear from Roland’s face that philosophy wouldn’t console him.
    “What can I do?” he cried.
    It was time. She reached below her cloak and pulled out the knife. He shrank