The Sharp Hook of Love (18 page)

“I did—and altered the words.” He puffed out his chest. “ ‘May the day's risen light be the last that I see,' ” he sang, “ ‘if there lives a girl endowed with greater virtue.' ”

While yet the final note of his song hung in the air, he gleamed triumphant eyes and erupted in a great roar of laughter.

“He—he loved the song, Heloise, and—and he—he commended me for praising that which—which ought to be praised!” Abelard hiccuped, and tears streamed from his eyes.

A lightness rose through my body and, for the first time in ten years, laughter bubbled from my lips. I felt like a cup overflowing with joy.

“Hear your beautiful laugh!” Abelard cried. He embraced me and I knew again: I wanted
this.
We held each other until time stood still. I lifted my mouth to his. The only sound in the room was that of our mingling breaths, and, when the long kiss had ended, my sigh.

He turned and gathered his tablets and stylus and placed them in the pouch on his girdle. “Let us depart.”

“Depart? But the hour is late.”

“
Oui
.” He took my hand, smiling into my eyes. “It is time for us to go home.”

Hour by hour I am bound closer to you, just like fire devouring wood; the more devouring, the more plentiful its fuel. . . . You glitter, with perpetual light and inextinguishable brightness immortally.

—ABELARD TO HELOISE

I
slept past my usual hour the next morning, awakened by the sound of horses outside my window and Agnes calling my name. In the next moment, Jean had opened the door to her and she bounded into my room, exclaiming at the sight of me lying in bed, a smile on my lips as I recalled my time with Abelard the previous night. He had come back to me.
I am yours, Heloise
.

“Had you forgotten our plans for the day?” Agnes said, hands on her hips. In fact, I had forgotten—but now I arose in a hurry and pulled on my clothes. Today the seigneur Amaury would escort us to the Hautes-Bruyères Priory for an audience with the former queen Bertrade. On this day I might, at last, come to understand all that had happened to me, and why.

“Hurry!” Agnes said as she helped me braid my hair. Queen Bertrade expected our arrival midmorning, and we must not keep her waiting. We would take dinner in the abbey if the queen permitted it, Agnes said, as if I could even think of food.

“Where may I tell the canon that you have gone?” Jean said, frowning, as we stepped out the door. I gave him an explanation that I knew would please my uncle—that I hoped Queen Bertrade, having founded her priory and given it to the Fontevraud Abbey, might influence Robert of Arbrissel to make me his abbess.

We embarked on our journey not long after sunrise. Agnes eyed my dark-blue
bliaut
, which was, by now, familiar to her. She wore under her ermine cloak yet another gown that I had never seen: simple and flowing, of pale green silk embroidered with green leaves over a long-sleeved chemise of pale, fine linen, with a neckline that, for once, revealed not a hint of cleavage. When visiting an abbey, one must attire oneself modestly. Yet she had dabbed a hint of ocher on her lips, and on mine, as well. When meeting with one of the world's great beauties, one must appear at one's best.

My hands shook so that I could barely hold the reins. The queen had not only agreed to meet with me, but had said she anticipated with great pleasure a morning spent sharing memories of my mother. Perhaps she would reveal something about my father, as well.

“Heloise!” Agnes's insistent tone told me this was not her first call out to me. “Why don't you give your reins to Amaury”—his name rolled like butter over her tongue—“so that you do not stray off the road and into the vineyards? You are roaming so freely that I fear you will trample some poor villein, or, worse, injure your horse.”

Coming to my senses, I saw that my palfrey had ventured close to the edge of the road, causing some workers to step back in alarm. I corrected its course and strove to keep my mind on the journey, but my imagination continued to spin dreams of Mother, and fanciful tales such as Bertrade might tell about her
life. Surely Mother's closest friend would know why she had put me in the convent. But did I want to know?

“This invitation is special, indeed. My sister speaks of her friend Hersende to no one,” Amaury said. “Baudri of Bourgueil interviewed Bertrade for his biography of Robert, but when he mentioned Lady Montsoreau, she sent him away.”

“The queen will tell Heloise everything she wants to know,” Agnes said. “I can be very persuasive.”

“Of that, I have no doubt.” Amaury's gaze flitted to her; he twitched his mustache.

I had to look away from them. Sly phrases, secret smiles, the sweet indulgences of blossoming love: these made up our own private language, Abelard's and mine. Watching Agnes and Amaury together made me blush—was this how we appeared to others? The sidelong glances, the surreptitious touches, the way the air around us seemed to shimmer—we thought our
riposte
, spiced with allusions to carnal pleasure, the cleverest in the history of lovers. Hearing them, I blushed. Abelard and I would need to be more careful in my uncle's presence.

The morning sun struggled upward in a tepid attempt to warm the day as we approached Hautes-Bruyères, with its elegant arched gates, stone walls, and tall trees whose red-and-gold leaves illuminated the pale sky. Amaury gestured toward the chapel with its slender spires. The priory, he told us, held two hundred women. Queen Bertrade had founded it, with Amaury's help, to atone for her sins with King Philip. He said this with pride, as though he weren't repeating his sister's sins with Agnes.

Soon we were inside the gate, accompanied by a fat nun who waddled through the large, light cloister to the prioress's study. The room impressed me: Bertrade of Montfort had furnished it in a manner befitting a queen. Colorful Persian carpets cushioned the stone floor; creamy silk tapestries lined the walls. A fire
crackled in the exquisite fireplace of slender, rose-colored tiles laid in a herringbone pattern. Several lord's chairs with high, ornamented backs and arms lined the room's perimeter, and a large writing desk occupied a far corner. Sitting there was the prioress, who gathered herself and stood as befits a queen, her back and neck as straight as if she had been carved from ivory. She glided to us, or, rather, floated.

“Amaury, how handsome you appear! And this must be your Agnes.” She kissed them both, then turned to me. She gasped when she saw me, and I might have done the same: even in her veil, and at her age—nearly fifty, a decade younger than my mother would have been—she was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. Her skin gleamed like polished porcelain. Her sloe eyes lifted at the corners, their color so black as to be nearly purple. When she smiled at me, the room seemed to glow.

“My dear! You have your mother's face—her perfect little nose and her large, haunted eyes.” Her own eyes shone, luminous with tears.

She invited us to sit, and two sisters entered to move chairs before the fire.

“
Alors
, Heloise,” she said. “You have escaped from the convent, I see.
Bonne chance!
While I, the Dowager Queen of the Franks, have no other place to go.”

Amaury cleared his throat. “I have tried to make these surroundings pleasant for you.”

“They are pleasant enough, yes. But as you know, I would rather be riding a galloping steed than languishing inside these walls.” She shot a glance at me. “That doesn't offend you? . . . Good. You are your mother's daughter, then. But you!” She leveled her gaze at Agnes, who had pressed a finger to her lips. “Something amuses you,
non
?”

“I beg your pardon, my lady. I had expected a different answer, given the life you have led.”

Bertrade arched one eyebrow. “You thought I had repented for my sins? Indeed I have done so, but marrying King Philip is not one of them.”

“But you built this priory to atone for it,” I said.

“A mere display, to appease the Church. Those prudish popes would have excommunicated me straight to hell otherwise—but I intend to meet my husband in heaven. We married for love, as God intended.” She turned to Agnes. “Was that what you thought I would say?”

“My lady, I thought you would say that, instead of living in this priory, you would rather be making love to the king.”

“Indeed!” Bertrade brightened. “I would rather ride Philip's
verpa
than any horse.” She broke into laughter, nearly drowning out the peals of the refectory bell. I turned wild eyes to Amaury. Had we traveled all morning for this?

“Heloise has come to ask you about her mother,” Amaury said.

She arched a brow at me. “Your mother loved to laugh.”

“Did you know of me?” I ventured to ask.

“Of course. I knew everything about Hersende.”

“While I know almost nothing of her. She took me to the convent when I was seven, and I never saw her again.”

“And Fulbert?” Bertrade narrowed her eyes. “What does
he
say about Hersende?”

I glanced at Agnes and Amaury, hesitant to repeat my uncle's slanders before them. The dinner bell pealed; Bertrade clapped her hands, and a young nun entered. At the queen's command, she escorted the pair to the refectory for dinner. When they had left, the queen resumed our talk.

“If the world has been silent regarding Hersende, it is because
she insisted on silence,” Bertrade said when she returned to me. “She gave birth to you in secret—I know because I was there, stifling her cries and yours. Most of her servants were gone, dismissed because she worried they'd talk about her growing belly. She felt terrified that her family would find out, all those brothers and that father of hers always talking honor, honor, honor. She hid her love affair even from me, for a time. She feared I might judge her.” Bertrade wrinkled her brow. “As if I had never loved, nor suffered for it.”

“Uncle said she was ashamed of what she did. That is why she went to Fontevraud.”

“
Pfft
. The mirror he holds up to others, he should turn upon himself.”

“Uncle Fulbert helped my mother.”

She rolled her eyes. “Is that what he told you? He helped Hersende to avoid disgracing his precious family, yes. But what he forced your mother to do was far more shameful. And see how you have suffered, poor child!”

“What did he force her to do?”

“Ask that question of Fulbert. Ha! I would love to be there, to watch him cringe.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Take care with him, my dear. For all his false piety, he is not a good man. Why do you stare at me so? If I held my peace, the very stones would cry out. But I have upset you, which was not my intent. I do not wish to discuss Fulbert with you, at any rate. It is dinnertime, and the very thought of that man has stolen my appetite. Is there anything more you would know about Hersende?”

“Was Mother ashamed of me, too?”

“Hersende adored you. After all, you were a part of herself—and of
him
, as well. She would have told the world about you, if she could. She was not ashamed of anything that she did, except,
perhaps, placing you in Argenteuil at such a young age. Yet she did that, too, out of love. She didn't hide you away out of shame—this you must know. She was forced to take you there.”

“Forced? By my father?”

Bertrade pressed her lips together and shook her head. Her eyes glittered like ice. “She did what was necessary to protect
him
. Had the world known about them—about
you
—it would have destroyed him.”

“Is that why my father never acknowledged me?”

Compassion filled Bertrade's eyes. She squeezed my hand. “My dear, he never knew you existed.”