The Sharp Hook of Love (19 page)

Therefore my beloved, write something cheerful, sing something cheerful, live prosperously and happily. You who have almost forgotten me, my sweet, when shall I see you? Allow at least one happy hour for me.

—HELOISE TO ABELARD

PARIS

OCTOBER 1115

A
t my door, Abelard enfolded me in his arms and kissed me with a fervor that bruised my lips.

“If only this night would never cease,” he said, devouring my mouth, my throat, my bosom, “I would make love to you forever.”

All on fire with desire, how could I turn him away from my bed? When he lifted me up and carried me into my room, his eyes reflecting the hearth's flames, I forgot our vow to forbear these indulgences in my uncle's house. The touch of his hands on my body obliterated every thought. He removed my clothing with excruciating slowness as if doing so would delay the dawn. I remember every detail: the scent of passion on his breath; the pluck of my body's strings by his nimble fingers; his tongue between my thighs; the press of his palm against my gasping mouth, stifling my ecstatic cries. These days and nights might be
the last we spent in lovemaking for who knew how long? My uncle and Jean would return soon from Anjou, where they had gone with Galon to a synod of bishops. How, then, with even the birds throating songs about our love, would Abelard and I dare to take these risks under his very nose? So we rode slowly, savoring this night, prolonging it, wishing it never had to end.

Spent after our hours of delight, we lay entwined, my hair a river flooding his chest, his heartbeat murmuring,
Volupt, volupt, volupt
. How could I ever have doubted his love? In truth, it had outstripped my own, conferring upon me a debt that, too soon, I must repay.

A month had passed since our reunion at Etienne's, time spent in conversation rather than kisses, Abelard's fear of discovery having put its left foot against his desire, and my love for him compelling me to stifle my own. Possessing Abelard's love, I told myself, I needed nothing more. Why, then, did I feel adrift, as if set in a boat in the middle of the sea without an oar?

One day before my uncle's journey, I had lost my way walking to the market. Upon finding it at last, I tried to purchase some eels and realized I had left my money pouch at home. At supper, I wandered in my thoughts, causing my uncle to ask if I felt unwell. In my room, I vomited in my chamber pot.

Why? I knew well the answer. The sickness in my heart had made my body ill. I did not want to go to Fontevraud, but to remain with Abelard—which would be impossible to do. Even to voice my desires would be pointless. Who had ever asked for my thoughts concerning my life? I would depart in less than eight months' time. In the gown being sewn especially for the ceremony—the fabric bloodred, the color of sacrifice—I would take my vows to God, then be shorn of all my hair and attired in a nun's habit and veil. I might never see Abelard again.

I did not want to go. I wanted to remain with my
speciälis
, not
as his wife, for he could not marry, but as his mistress, as Gisele had been to my uncle, a position less honorable in the eyes of the Church but perfectly acceptable among Parisians. People in Paris pursed their lips in contempt over the reformists' insistence that clergymen remain chaste. Forcing men to deny their God-given desires was cruel and even unhealthy, many said.

Decades after Pope Gregory's reforms and his death, a new generation of zealots had begun to demand that priests and bishops live like monks, although, as everyone knew, monks themselves were not immune to temptations of the flesh. Unlike my ambitious uncle, however, many resisted these reforms. Abelard, who was neither priest nor deacon, might make a mistress of me without repercussions—were I not his scholar.

I lay on my bed that night, clenching my stomach. How would I tear myself from him? The wound would never heal. But I could not remain in Paris with him, either. Galon would know, then, that the rumors about us were true. He would eject Abelard from the school, covering him with disgrace. How would my dearest live? Could Etienne help him, given his own rivalry with Suger? To lift a finger on Abelard's behalf might prove too dangerous, friend or not.

My uncle would rage, too, of course. I shuddered: his hands were large; his fists, powerful. He had hurt me more than once for impudent remarks:
Just like your mother, thinking yourself above everyone else.
Who knew what he would do to Abelard for this betrayal?

Non
, I could not remain here. My destiny sealed, I must go to Fontevraud in June. Cold, damp memories covered my skin in gooseflesh. Would I return to the life I had hated, and live in darkness and silence for the rest of my days? And yet, loving Abelard, did I have any choice? I would destroy my own life without hesitation rather than harm a single hair on his head.

Nausea rolled over me, then subsided.

In losing Abelard, I would lose a part of myself. Who else had ever listened to my deepest thoughts and encouraged me to dream? Who else among men considered anything that I had to say? Abelard engaged my ideas and challenged me to defend them. His arguments sharpened my mind and, at times, my tongue, and yet, as with everyone else who had ever tried, I had never defeated him. After each debate, though, he praised my intelligence and skill.

Who else had ever burst into song while walking through the
place
with me? Gesturing with open arms one rainy afternoon, he'd dropped my packages in the mud, spoiling our supper, but had returned to each vendor and purchased every item anew—as well as candied chestnuts for me. I, insisting now upon carrying the capons and bread, had encouraged him to resume his songs, but he'd only laughed and fed the sweets to me one by one as we walked. Who, now, would buy me candied chestnuts? Who would feed them to me and then lick the sugar from his own fingertips, declaring them sweeter for having touched my lips? Who, now, would make me laugh?

And who, when my uncle began to curse me, would lighten his mood with an amusing tale? Since moving into our home, Abelard had protected me from my uncle's anger. No longer did Uncle Fulbert raise his hand against me, not when Abelard's presence filled the room—
non
, it filled the entire house—blinding Uncle to my impertinences and dazzling us with bold, mirthful light.

If only we might continue in this manner forever. A prayer rose to my lips—but how could I speak it? Although I cherished the love, and life, we shared, I also hated deceiving my uncle. He trusted us, and we betrayed him whenever the opportunity arose: in his home, in the cloister stables, on the riverbank at night, and
even—I cringed to think of it now, while my skin filled with heat—in the chapel behind Etienne's house. Our sins had increased in number until we had ceased counting them. We must end our deceptions soon or we would be discovered, torn apart, and cast into shame.

No, I must go to Fontevraud as planned, fulfill my destiny, and allow Abelard to fulfill his own—apart from me, but not completely. A part of me would remain with him for all time.

Love is not self-seeking
. I remembered the Scripture I had recited to him to demonstrate my knowledge of love. Soon the time would come for me to practice what I had preached to Abelard that day. I would take my nun's vows to protect him, loving him as Christ had loved. And he, thinking I wanted to go, would never realize my sacrifice.

Knowing that the Scriptures admonish us not to boast of our good works, I resisted the temptation to confess the truth to Abelard. Instead, I demonstrated my feelings in other ways, offering love from my mouth as a fountain, or a spring, in the kisses we shared in my bed after my nausea had passed and the house was quiet.

And, oh! When he had carried me to heights never before known—into other worlds, it seemed—I clung to him, dizzy, as if the earth had turned itself over. When he peered into my eyes from under those sultry, half-lowered lids, I saw questions whose answers I had never thought to ponder. Now, alone with him in the house, entwined in my bed, the fire that he had just fed roaring in the hearth, I began to ask questions of my own. Why, I wondered, had he sung of our love to all the world, endangering us both?

“My love for you filled my body to overflowing.” He smiled. “Had I tried to hold it in, I would have burst apart. You would not have wanted that to happen,
non
?”

“But what of my honor? Surely you heard the courtiers' murmurs that night in the palace. Surely you saw how they looked at me, as though I had fornicated with you on the floor before them all.”

“They were only amusing themselves.”

“And doing so at my expense!”

“They are nobles.” He shrugged. “They amuse themselves at everyone's expense.”

I sat up. “Noble birth ought to impose a higher standard of behavior, not excuse a lower one.”

“And one might think that a girl so highly born would disregard the opinions of others. Indeed, such a girl might even laugh at her detractors.”

“One might think that the man who loved that girl would defend her against defamatory remarks—
if
he were truly a man. And if he truly loved her.”

“Were we on the field of battle, you might need my protection. For
riposte
, however, you are as well equipped as I.”

“You said not a word to that disgusting old baron and his wife, who insulted me to my face.”

“Would you rather that they did so when your back was turned?”

“Do not obscure my point with rhetorical questions.”

“That old baron is a friend of Etienne's,” Abelard said.

“What use could Etienne find in that decrepit old goat?”

“That ‘goat' bathes himself in livres. He has the king's ear. And he supports Etienne against the reformists, who would have his head on a platter if they could.”

“So he is Etienne's friend, and Etienne is your friend.” I narrowed my eyes. “What, in the meantime, am I to you?”

“You are the love of my life, the brightest star in my constellation, my very soul and reason for being.”

I kissed him, pleased with this response. “And you are my closest friend.”

Confusion crossed his face. “I would have thought Agnes would hold that honor.”

“Agnes?” I laughed. “You are the one to whom I reveal my soul. You alone understand my thirst for knowledge, for you share it with me. ‘For he, indeed, who looks into the face of a friend beholds, as it were, a copy of himself.' How much more alike could any two people be?”

“But didn't Cicero say that friendship can exist only between men?”

“He lived more than one thousand years ago. Ours is a new era. More and more girls are becoming lettered. Soon we may see girls in the schools, studying alongside men. Why couldn't friendships form between them?”

Abelard laughed. “Didn't you hear Bernard's sermon? The reformists want to banish females from the cloisters and will never allow them in the schools. They might ask questions then, and who knows what would happen?”

“Well,
I
am a woman of letters, the likes of which Cicero never knew. Certainly he never knew a woman so like himself as I am to you. Our love, Abelard, has roots in the rich and ancient soil of friendship, of equal to equal.”

“You call yourself my equal?” The quick flash of his teeth. The jerk of his chin.

“I call myself your friend.”

His expression changed. He twisted my hair back with one hand and studied my naked face. “Perhaps you wish, then, to be a man.” He turned me around and, pressing me into the mattress, took me from behind, as one man takes another. During that too-short week we had learned everything there was to know of each other's body, trying every new thing we could devise,
limited only by our imaginations. We became artists in the bed, or, rather, musicians, or, rather, instruments of music. Struck by love, we resonated. We hummed and whispered, rustled the bedcoverings, sighed and moaned, hushed one another. Restraining my ecstatic song pushed my voice into a faint vibrato, chiming with passion, mingling with Abelard's gasps and groans, his murmur of my name in my hair, which, still coiled around his hand, he pressed to his mouth as he made me his in yet another new way. I submitted to him completely, and joyously, gasping with pain, quivering with pleasure, filling the room with our joyous noise—or, as we did not realize then, filling an entire house.