The Sharp Hook of Love (41 page)

If everyone kept silent, the facts themselves would cry out.

—HELOISE TO ABELARD

M
y life had ended. This I had known the instant Abelard revealed his wound, his eyes glittering, defiant, as though I had wielded the blade.

To think that, the last time I had seen him, his skin had burned with passion and his gaze with love, and his entire being had leapt with life.
In one brief hour, Fortune shows her darling lifted high in bliss, then headlong plunged in misery's abyss.
Love, on the other hand, burned as constant in my breast as the sacred fire of Vesta, extinguishable by no human hand.

I returned to Etienne's house that night with barely enough breath to sigh. As promised, my uncle had surrendered to the bishop of Paris on the condition that I confess to him all that Abelard and I had done: our love affair, conducted under his own roof—his first debasement, he said; our child, left to Bretons to raise—the second affront to his honor; our marriage, made in secret for Abelard's sake, and my denial, made falsely while accusing him among his own brethren of delirium; and my letter, which he produced for the bishop's perusal.

The bishop had said little as my uncle enumerated my sins, only lifted his eyebrows in surprise with each revelation. Suger,
however, had plenty to say, especially against Etienne, who had been summoned to the bishop's palace to judge our case.

“What sort of archdeacon would conduct a marriage in secret? Why would he condone such a union, between a teacher and his student?”

“ ‘He who is without sin among you, let him first cast the stone,' ” Etienne said mildly.

“Ah! So you admit that you conducted the ceremony.”

“Am
I
on trial?”

“Canon Fulbert says he was forced to keep his niece's honorable and legal marriage a secret so that her husband might defy the rules of the Church,” Suger said. “Did you wed them?”

“I did not know that we would judge Master Petrus today—and in his absence.”

Suger gritted his teeth. “Did you wed them, or did you not?”

“Ask
her
,” my uncle said, pointing to me as if I were not the only woman in the bishop's chamber. “She agreed to confess everything.”

I said nothing.

“Speak, Niece,” Uncle Fulbert commanded. I lowered my eyes to look at my wringing hands, and at my uncle's tapping foot. “Tell them, by God's head! Tell them what he has done to you.”

Why would I do so? Would they want to hear how Abelard had sharpened my wits and my tongue with the whetstone of his rigorous teaching? Did they desire to know how he had transformed me with his love from a shy, nervous mouse into a lioness shining with power? Would they rejoice at the one thousand blisses I had enjoyed in his arms?

“Master Petrus has taught me well,” I said.

With no confession from me, and from Etienne only a steadfast refusal to try Abelard until he might defend himself, Suger could only gnash his teeth and curse us both under his breath.

Bishop Guibert, on the other hand, took my uncle into his care, offering him lodging in his own palace. “It is the only place suitable for a man of your birth to live while you await your trial.” The bishop poured a cup of wine for my uncle from the flagon on the table. Of poor Jean, nursing his bleeding hands in the cold stone prison, no one said a word.

“Petrus is improved this evening,” Etienne said as he escorted me to his house, but worry furrowed his face. Some of Abelard's students had entered Etienne's hall that day, he said, wanting to tell Abelard of the rumors spreading like fire through the city—all of them cruel, and all untrue. “I forbade them to see him, for he needs to rest. But he will hear the slander against him somehow. God only knows how he will react.”

Abelard's future and mine, as well as Etienne's, I presumed, depended on the mercy of the Church fathers. “What rumors have you heard?”

What he said made me flinch: Abelard had fornicated with prostitutes and contracted a disease that he had given to me. He had fornicated with my uncle and me together, in the same bed. I had used my learning to conjure spells that drew him to me constantly and deprived him of his ability to resist . . .

To hear that scholars had slipped into Etienne's house made me grind my teeth. What if someone less friendly had reached him? I longed to dismount from that horse and hasten to him. But the nearer we drew to Etienne's house, the slower we moved, impeded by horses and riders, carts, and people walking in the street. Soon enough we saw the reason for our delay. Another crowd had gathered outside the house, not, this time, to call Abelard's name and cry for justice, but to listen to him speak. From the open windows he proclaimed himself innocent of any wrongdoing and a victim of conspiracy and debased my uncle with the foulest of insults.

I would not want to give you cause for finding me disobedient in anything, so I have set the bridle of your injunction on the words which issue from my unbounded grief.

—HELOISE TO ABELARD

W
ith a cry, I slid off the horse and began to run, heedless of the mockery and laughter pelting me like flung stones.

“Abelard! Tell them to let me in,” I cried. He did so and I, followed by Etienne, entered the gate and bounded up the stairs.

“Behold Heloise of my heart, whom I have made famous with my songs,” he called out as I joined him before the windows. “Does she appear diseased? Have I abused her in any way? Tell them, Heloise, that I am innocent. Why would I marry you, my scholar? Philosophy is my life, and, indeed, my wife.”

“Abelard,” I said quietly, “you must come away. This is not the time. You need rest.”

“How can I rest when all of Paris roils with lies and slithers with scandal?” he cried. “Are we married? Answer me,
sic
or
non.
”

I shook my head.

“
Voilà!
As I said, Canon Fulbert is a liar. He begged me to help him gain a promotion, and when he did not get it, he vowed
to destroy me. But he has not destroyed Petrus Abaelardus—he has done the opposite. I am stronger than ever before!”

A great roar arose from the crowd as, with Etienne's help, I pulled him away and closed the window.

“I have not finished.”

“Yes, you have,” I said, as we led him toward the bed. Once he had settled, Etienne went to call for a fire and our supper.

“Heloise, you would not believe what people are saying—about me, about you!” Abelard clutched my hand as though I could save him. “The truth is not enough for their filthy minds. We are accused of every sort of perversion, disgusting acts—”

“Yes, including many things we never thought to try. And I had thought us quite imaginative.”

“How can you jest?” He scowled. “Your uncle has destroyed my reputation, and yours.”

“I care nothing for the opinions of others, as long as you think well of me, and I think well of you.”

“Do you yet think well of me?”

“The best, sweetest. I love you beyond measure.”

He sighed and sank back into his pillow. “You still love me, even after . . . everything.”

“Of course I do. But you must not deliver any more lectures, not until we know what the bishop will do.”

“Etienne is the judge. He will favor me—”

“Bishop Guibert has excused him from your case, at Suger's insistence.”

“Suger.” Abelard winced. “He hates me. Ever since that day in the court, when I laughed at his remark about ‘young girls.' ” A moan fell from his lips. “God, Heloise, it hurts. I felt nothing while it happened, but now I am all on fire. And yet, there is nothing to feel. How can that be?”

I took the bottle of serum the healer had left behind and administered a dose to him. Relief spread over his face, and his grip on my hand relaxed.

“Amica,”
he murmured, drowsy. Not
amor.
No longer “lover,” but, now, “friend.” Yet, what dearer name could I ask from him, the best friend I had ever known? Emotion crested like a wave and broke upon me. I could have sworn I was crying, but when I touched a finger to my eyes, they were dry.

A
belard slept. I sat near him, keeping watch lest he awaken in pain—needing more of the physician's “elixir of oblivion,” as Abelard called it. For several days I remained by his side, desiring to relieve any discomfort, since I could do nothing to calm the storms of delirium that wracked him as he slept: his
Non!
like a clap of thunder, startling me, followed by unintelligible murmurs; his cries of
Stop!
; the toss of his head on the pillow, his perspiring brow; and then, the lightning crack:
Heloise! Mon Dieu!
My name screeched in my ears, a cataclysmic howl.

O Abelard! How patiently I waited those days and nights for his return to me, for his eyes glinting like starlight from under their insolent lids, for those soft, sweet lips curled like a question that I could not answer. When he did awaken, he only moaned for water, or for more of the serum. I offered him bread, soft cheese, meat, apples. He took only broth and a little milk.
Look at me,
I willed as I handed the bowl to him, and, as he returned it to me,
Look into my eyes. Look!
But, alas, he did not.

Even when he lay on his pillow and I sat on the bed beside him, holding his hand and waiting for the serum to take effect, he would not gaze at me as he once had done. If only I could see into those eyes again, feel their caress, dance in their light. Many years later, clinging to him as his life slipped away, I would
remember those days and nights after his mutilation and shudder at my selfishness.

How could I have spared even one thought for myself while my Abelard suffered, robbed of his manhood and also of the glory that he so richly deserved? Already, Etienne told me, Bishop Guibert had appointed Abelard's replacement at the school, at Suger's urging. Abelard would be forbidden to teach, some whispered. His books would never be read.

The whole world, it seemed, hastened to condemn him, whom it never understood or even knew. Abelard loved me. No knife—nor instrument of any sort devised by man—could alter what we shared. We were husband and wife, bound to each other for life by our vows and by our son. When, now, would we go to Brittany for Atralabe? Yet I dared not ask. Just to think of mounting a horse would cause him distress.

When, after two weeks, Abelard had begun to move about again—even going to Etienne's window to wave to the scholars who still gathered outside, waiting for news—Bishop Guibert and Suger came to see him. I tried to forestall them, saying he needed rest. The bishop hesitated, but Suger insisted they be admitted.

“Canon Fulbert has been expelled from the cloister and his manservant castrated,” he said. “It is time Petrus Abaelardus faced the consequences for
his
sins.” He lifted his upper lip as though the word itself gave off a rank odor.

“Being butchered in one's bed does not suffice?” I forced him to meet my steady gaze.

“For another man, perhaps.” He narrowed his little eyes. “But Petrus has a unique facility for turning even the worst humiliation into triumph. We have heard of the speech he gave denying his guilt. He has not grasped the gravity of his situation, it seems. A master does not seduce his own scholar without repercussions.”

“He did not seduce me.”

Bishop Guibert folded his hands and lowered his eyes. “We wish only to ask Petrus Abaelardus some questions essential to our investigation.” Reassured by his quiet manner, I relented and went to prepare Abelard for visitors.

Although I found him sitting up in bed, surrounded by parchments and scribbling in a tablet, he slid down under the covers when I told him who had come. “Tell them I am unwell. I wish to see no one.”

“They know of your appearances in the front window, and the speech you gave yesterday,” I said. Hearing rumors that he would be replaced at the school, Abelard had accused Guibert of weakness, called Suger the “devil's mouthpiece,” and encouraged his scholars to withdraw from classes in protest. The rousing cheers that had ensued surely resounded all the way to the bishop's palace.

“Besides, I cannot refuse the bishop of Paris.”

“I have had a relapse.” His groan sounded insincere. “I want more of that serum.”

“Abelard, they are coming in. You may allow me to help you dress and greet them with dignity, or not.”

“I will remain as I am. Let them see for themselves how I suffer.”

With a sigh, I went to the kitchen to discuss the morning meal. I had hoped that Abelard might join Etienne and me at the table today, but he seemed determined to prolong his convalescence for as long as possible. My head ached at the thought of enduring his complaints and constant calls for even one more day. Astralabe in his infancy had not demanded so much care.