The Sharp Hook of Love (5 page)

The choir halted its chant and the procession entered the cathedral, stepping slowly down the center aisle: the master of the boys, followed by four boys singing a verse and response; the cloister subdeacons, including my uncle, and deacons in green chasubles carrying oil, balsam, and candles; a boy holding the ceremonial cross; and the bishops and abbots in their vestments of white and gold. Galon, the bishop of Paris, stepped weakly on his aged legs, squinting to see with his rheumy eyes. Etienne of Garlande, the archdeacon of Paris and the king's chancellor, flashed his gold rings and looked over the crowd as though he were, as rumored, more powerful than the king. Then came Abelard's nemesis William of Champeaux, now bishop of Châlons-sur-Marne, flaring the nostrils of his long, sharp nose, followed by Bernard, in a hooded tunic of undyed wool. His head, tonsured nearly to baldness with only a small fringe of hair, glistened with perspiration; his face held a glum expression, as though he marched at his own funeral.

When they had ascended the stair to the altar, Galon stepped up to the pulpit. A hush fell over the room. In the voice he used
for services—high, almost singing, pretentious—he introduced Bernard. The young monk had come on an important mission, Galon said: to denounce the spread of decadence in the Church.

“I have come to talk about decadence, yes,” Bernard said when Galon had ceded the pulpit. In contrast to Galon's whine, his voice resonated like a struck bell.

“In particular, I wish to discuss the degradation occurring in our most sacred places. A foul influence corrupts what should be pure, namely, the hearts and souls of those of us chosen to serve the Almighty God.” His stare fell upon Abelard's red-haired companion like an accusing finger, then shifted to me.

“Brothers,” he said, “answer me this: If dogs defecated on the cathedral steps, would you not scrub them clean? Do you allow lepers to handle your saints' relics, or to urinate in your baptismal fountain?”

Murmurs spread in a low rumble, then swelled to a clamor. Abelard's friend waved an ivory fan before her face. Abelard wrapped a hand around her arm, as protective as a sibling—but his intimate glances were anything but brotherly.

“Then why,” Bernard said when the din had settled, “do I see women in this cloister?”

His eyes flew open to stare at me with such loathing that I dropped my gaze all the way to the floor, my face as hot as if I had been caught in some unspeakable, indecent act.

“Women—daughters of Eve!” he cried. “Nay, you
are
Eve, the gateway of the devil. The one who unsealed the curse of the forbidden tree. The first to turn her back on the divine law. You are the one who persuaded him whom the devil was not capable of corrupting; you easily destroyed the image of God, that is, Adam.”

I winced under the force of his words. For this occasion, why had Bernard resurrected a speech by Tertullian, the ancient
Roman whose disgust for women permeated his writings? ‘Daughters of Eve'? Would the Church visit the iniquities of the mother upon the daughters? Didn't the Scriptures say,
Each one shall be put to death for his own sin
?

Bernard had become a monk only after the death of his mother, to whom he was said to be deeply attached. Now he praised the Virgin Mary as the supreme example of womanhood, apparently forgetting that, had his mother remained chaste, he would not have been born. Did only virgins merit God's love? Why, then, had the Lord given us wombs? And why did such men as Bernard blame women for the death of Man? Didn't God banish the first couple from the garden out of fear that they might eat from the Tree of Life and live forever? Weren't they, therefore, already destined to die?

As Bernard continued, his voice rising to a shout, his face reddening, a monk standing behind him—Suger, from the Saint-Denis monastery, I later discovered—narrowed his small, close-set eyes at me; his nostrils quivered as though I wafted a putrid odor. Flushing, I sought Abelard's eyes and found him whispering into
her
ear, his lips twitching with suppressed laughter. She smiled, showing teeth like matched pearls.

When the sermon had ended, my uncle joined me on the floor. I begged him to take me home. Never had I felt more unwelcome, and in the cathedral where I had so often prayed. He bade me to wait, however. We ought, at least, to speak with the
magister
, he said—but I knew he wanted to ingratiate himself with Bernard and also with Etienne of Garlande, who had descended to the floor and now talked with Abelard and his companion. Curious about the girl, I followed Uncle through the crowd of clerics and monks who now shrank back to avoid touching me.

“Remarkable,” the girl was saying to Abelard and Etienne, the king's chief adviser. But my gaze did not remain on them for
long: I could not help staring at the girl, whose
bliaut
fit her so tightly that I wondered how she could breathe, and whose neckline plunged to expose the curve and swell of her breasts—revealing attire, indeed, for the mass.

“What did you think of Bernard's sermon?” Abelard said to me.

My uncle, fearing I would embarrass him in front of the king's chancellor, squeezed my hand so hard I flinched from his grasp. But all waited for my reply. Pulling away from my uncle, I said, “Like your friend, I found it remarkable—for its irrelevance.”

“
Voilà!
Your opinion is also mine,” Abelard said. “I wonder if our reasoning is the same?”

“This is not the classroom,
magister
,” the girl said, prodding him with an elbow. But he kept his eyes on me.

“The speech was written nine hundred years ago,” I said.

“By Tertullianus!” Abelard cried in delight. “You have read him, also? Etienne. Agnes. Did I speak the truth about her, or not?”

“I knew the phrase ‘daughters of Eve' sounded familiar,” Etienne said.

“Blaming Eve for Adam's weakness is certainly convenient, isn't it?” Agnes said.

“Adam himself did so,” I said.

“Now we know how far backward the reformists would take us all—to the days of Tertullianus, the second century. Soon they will call for the veiling of virgins,” my uncle said, beaming at his own cleverness.

“Bernard has already done worse, in demanding that women be expelled from the cloister,” Agnes said. “I wonder that you did not challenge him, Pierre.”

Pierre?
I lifted my eyebrows at him, but he was looking at her, not me.

“Challenge him? Why? I see no error in his remarks. We men
are
weak, and women are to blame for all our sins—especially lust.” The grin Abelard exchanged with her sent a pang through my breast.

“Wickedness resides not in the bodies of women, but in the hearts of men,” I said, more sharply than I had intended.

“
Non—
not in their hearts, but elsewhere,” Agnes said, making Abelard laugh.

Etienne turned to me. “You bore Bernard's insults most gracefully.”

“I did not consider them insults, since they did not pertain to me.”

“Do you mean to say that you are neither a harlot nor a whore?” Agnes said. “How disappointing.”

Abelard's gaze held mine—for only an instant, before returning to the red-haired girl. “Heloise is no harlot, but the most learned woman in Paris,” he said.

“Of course.” Etienne bowed. “Who has not heard of Heloise, our fair-sex scholar?” He introduced Agnes as his niece, who embraced me and declared me “the Minerva of Paris.” The reference was flawed, for that goddess represents wisdom rather than knowledge—but I was wise enough, at least, not to contradict her.

“Now that we have all done our duty and gone to Sunday services, you must come to our house for dinner,” she said, tucking her arm into mine. “Pierre will bring you—but only if you will divulge your secrets.”

“Secrets?” I glanced at my uncle, whose fierce stare warned me to divulge nothing.
Your mother hid you away with good reason,
he had said this morning.
Her sins would have brought ruin and shame to our family. A single hint of scandal and I will never be promoted—never!

“Your secrets—yes! I especially want to know how you provoked that sour-faced Bernard to glare only at you, when
I
stood at his feet.” Agnes laughed, a sound as rich as butter. “I felt more than a pang of jealousy, I admit. I had anticipated the roll of his eye over me, daughter of Eve that I am. I even dressed for the occasion.”

Love does not so easily forsake those whom it has once stung.

—HELOISE TO ABELARD

I
n the hours between Bernard's sermon and Agnes's supper, she had transformed herself. Abelard and I entered Etienne's spacious house overlooking the Saint-Etienne Cathedral to find her even more breathtaking than before. She exuded the fragrance of roses. Her copper hair curled in ringlets against her flawless skin. Abelard stood more closely to her than necessary and breathed her in as though the roses embroidered on her gown were real. I looked on with a smile so broad it pained my face.

“You should have come sooner! You have missed the excitement,” Agnes said as Abelard pretended to shield his eyes, dazzled, he said, by the sun. She had adorned herself in saffron from the boots whose toes curled up and around like ram's horns to the turban perched like a sunlit cloud atop her curls. Saffron! I caught my breath at the sheer extravagance. In my linen tunic of pale green—my favorite, until that moment—I felt like a common weed. As she lifted one perfumed cheek, then the other, to Abelard's smiling lips, I vowed to ask my uncle for new clothes.

“Which sultan did you charm into giving you his cap?” he teased as she led us across a Persian carpet of red and gold into
the great room. There, Etienne stood with another man before large windows overlooking the city. Below, I saw the pale, bald Bishop Galon; Bernard, in his coarse, hooded tunic; and an elderly bishop with a stooped back all trotting away on horseback, talking and gesturing, oblivious of the crowds milling to and from the banks of the Seine.

“Do not tease! You know the count brought this turban from the Holy Land,” Agnes said to Abelard.

“The count?” I asked.

“My grandfather Guy, the Count of Rochefort.” She shrugged, as if everyone's grandfather were a count. “You should have come sooner, Pierre. The bishop of Paris has just departed in a rage with Yves, the bishop of Chartres. He and Bernard screamed at my uncle.” Her voice rippled with pleasure.

“Did they come to discuss the bishopric in Amiens?” Godfrey, the current bishop, was said to be near death, Abelard told me, and Pope Paschal II wanted to name his successor—a privilege the king of France had always enjoyed. Bernard, Suger, and Yves, prominent reformists all, had come today on the pope's behalf, hoping Etienne might influence the king for Paschal.

“It was hardly a discussion,” Agnes said. “Bernard foamed at the mouth, or nearly so. He spat every time he spoke the word
investiture
.”

Seeing my frown, Abelard explained the situation further: The reformists, determined to enforce the former pope's decrees, insisted that the Church, not the king, must appoint bishops. King Louis did not agree. Bishops controlled vast domains, collected large sums in taxes, and commanded many foot soldiers and knights. The king would not relinquish his power to appoint bishops loyal to him.

“The pope cannot win this battle. He might as well try to move a mountain as to change King Louis's mind,” Abelard said.

“So said Uncle Etienne. I thought Galon would excommunicate him and my father both.”

“Galon did not expect an argument?”

“Yes, but he didn't expect my papa. Uncle tried to reason with them, but Papa was not so inclined. He said that, were it not for the king, Galon would not be bishop of Paris, but only the wiper of the pope's
asne
.”

Abelard and Agnes laughed over this tale, while I cringed to imagine such abuse heaped upon a man of God—and a bishop, no less.

“Galon's insults were surprisingly imaginative for one so dull witted,” Agnes said. “He could not compete with the bishop of Chartres, however. Yves called Uncle Etienne a gambler and a womanizer, and my father a drunkard.”

As we reached the window, Etienne embraced us and introduced me to Agnes's father—his brother, Anseau, seneschal to King Louis. So alike were they that they might have been twins, except for their attire. Etienne had changed from his ceremonial robes to a fashionable
bliaut
of saffron silk with a blue, sleeveless cotte adorned with garnets about the neck and hem, while Anseau wore green silk embroidered with gold thread and trimmed in ermine.

“I hear that you have angered the bishops again,” Abelard said to Etienne, taking the
henap
from him.