Heloise

by Hager, Mandy

  She drops her face into her hands to smother her embarrassment. Does he mock her or pay a compliment? She does not know, merely hopes. When next she dares to peek, he has again taken his seat across from her, leaning forward, chin resting on his clasped hands.

  ‘You have much engaged my mind these past few weeks.’ His tone transforms from one of lecture to utmost intimacy. ‘I found myself rushing to my lectures in the hope you would be there. When you deserted me, I had to seek you out.’

  Her head springs up, expecting to find mockery but instead meeting a shyness she has not expected. He reaches over and snares her chin between his thumb and forefinger, turning her face this way, that. She cannot tell if the shaking she perceives comes from the tremble of his hand or her response. Possibly both.

  ‘You have a face impossible to forget,’ he says.

  She shrugs, not knowing how else to respond. Though she has seen herself from time to time in the reflected shine of a pewter dish or a still pond, nothing of any value has she spied there. Two eyes, by all accounts, the brackish brown of muddy water, lips too plump to foster the required pious delineation. Her cheekbones, too, are overly pronounced and her nose so straight as to make it nondescript. Her hair, her one slight vanity, she always plaits in a rope to her waist and rarely sets free.

  He brushes his finger across the raised contours of her lips as he releases her. ‘What is it that you seek from life, Heloise?’

  She tries to ignore the lulling nature of his voice and answer honestly. ‘Knowledge. Stimulation. A chance to fully feel the dimensions of my mind and find expression through words.’

  ‘What of marriage? Children? Are not these things all women want?’

  ‘All women, sir, as if one great amorphous lump? Is there no room for subtlety and variation? Or are all men, too, of the same making? Are you, William of Champeaux, Corbus, Fulbert, all equal in your needs and wants?’

  He laughs. ‘Heaven forbid!’

  ‘If given choice,’ she says, determined now to make her point, ‘it is as a writer, perhaps a poet first and foremost, that I would be known — although plays, too, take my fancy, and books. And if my uncle will allow me to remain here in his home, I see no reason why this cannot be.’ She hears the echo of her eight-year-old self assert this first to Sister Saris.

  ‘You would forgo all other attachment for this cause?’

  ‘Would you, sir, for yours?’ Her heart raps at her ribs.

  ‘I have,’ he says. ‘Here I sit, a man in the full flush of midlife, never having tasted of the Garden’s fruit.’ Despite the flickering of the candles’ light she is sure she sees him colour. ‘As James said: Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial.’

  ‘You must then own a will of iron, sir, for I have heard how women fly to you as bees to blossom.’

  He dismisses this with an impatient wave. ‘And most have an insect’s mind to match,’ he says. ‘Call me Peter or Abelard, as you wish. “Sir” sounds too elderly, although perhaps one such as you can see only the decrepitude of old age.’

  ‘Not at all!’ She almost smiles as she sees his vain relief. ‘I shall call you Abelard then, if I may. Peter, though a fine and handsome name, does not do justice to your standing — or worth.’ She fights a yawn, the strain of her day’s tense wait taking its toll. With great reluctance she stands. ‘I thank you. Do you feel it possible for us to meet again?’

  Abelard rises and puts an escorting hand on her arm to walk her to the door. ‘Lady, I propose we meet each night and that you send me letters on a range of given subjects throughout your day. I will attend to them in my breaks and together we will also analyse them at day’s end and set anew your next morning’s task. How would this suit you?’

  ‘Thank you, sir — Abelard — that would suit me very well.’

  ‘Then in the morning write to me of a playwright of your choice, one whose work you favour, and tell me why. Send your tablet through Corbus and, come the night, be ready to defend your stance.’

  She nods, the devil in her already choosing Hrotsvit. Let him think her sweet, doe-eyed and soft of breast, and then dumbfound at her choice … She reaches for the door latch but he grasps her wrist and spins her back to face him.

  ‘Goodnight, sweet Heloise. And here no end shall be, But a beginning everlastingly.’

  He leans over just as she looks up to return his farewell and his lips fall on hers with exquisite lightness. A butterfly’s kiss. She captures it under her hand and floats off to her bed.

  Six

  PARIS, 1115

  Heloise works on her set lessons, her stylus scoring away at the wax, manuscripts strewn around her as she combs through every page for the most fitting quotes. When they meet each night, he tunes her thoughts like a minstrel in search of the purest note.

  How hungrily she tries to please him: she takes the letter form and plies what skills she has to shape her correspondence with him into art. She makes her greetings lavish in their praise and often steals others’ words to fortify any concepts slippery to the grasp. Those dredged from her own mind demand line-by-line revision, erasing, changing, reordering until the language hums: May the Bestower of every art and the most bountiful Giver of human talent fill the depths of my breast with the skill of the art of philosophy … The more extravagant in her praise, the more it seems to please him.

  A month into their arrangement, he begins to reply, Corbus delivering Abelard’s sealed tablet every day as the bells for None call students back from lunch. They contain his thoughts as they occur throughout the day, more casual, friend to friend, intimate treasures to warm her heart.

  Today a cock crowed in the silence between words, causing much hilarity and gross comparison — I made good use of it …

  … There is dissent in the ranks, their evening jousts and war-games spilling over into name-calling: the English have been labelled cowardly and drunken by the proud and effeminate French (so called by the Romans), the Germans are all choleric, gluttonous and dirty (according to the English) and even the Romans agree they are seditious, violent and slanderous! We Bretons, for our sins, are deemed fickle and extravagant! What say you?

  She rises early and spends the hours until the bells for Terce solely in transcribing so she can read his jottings again at will. Next she composes her daily work. She draws on all his favourites from Augustine to Bede, and only when she deems the writing perfect does she allow Corbus to take it — and from that moment restless doubt sets in. The hours crawl until he comes; along with second-guessing Abelard’s response, her mind often flits to the memory of that tender kiss. It lingers in the air, a breeze-borne mote, so small as to be nothing until the light reveals its passing and then a charge will spark between them. Pure joy.

  Jehanne watches their game unfold with mounting worry.

  ‘Heloise, beware,’ she says one evening as Heloise skulks beside the kitchen fire waiting for his call. ‘Of all things that have life and sense we women are the most hapless creatures; first must we buy a husband at a great price, and o’er ourselves a tyrant set which is an evil worse than the first; and herein lies the most important issue, whether our choice be good or bad.’

  Heloise laughs, having taught Jehanne this quote less than two months before. ‘You worry for nothing, friend. It is a meeting of minds, no more.’

  Jehanne groans. ‘Open your eyes! Remember I watched the secret dealings at St Eloi, the batted eyelashes, the slide of tongues on lips. And I also heard the sobbing in the night after play gave way to force and man to beast. Your teacher may claim himself above all this but, trust me, he is not. Every man is either Adam or the snake, every woman Eve.’

  Heloise rounds on her. ‘Abelard is like no other man. He sits among the greats with the likes of Boethius and St Jerome.’

  ‘Really? Then you forget that one was executed for treason and the other accused of sins against the widow Paula.’

  This, too, Heloise had told her. ‘You twist their truths.’

/>   ‘You blind yourself.’ Jehanne turns her back.

  Hurt, Heloise spurns her advice, hating the niggle that Jehanne might be right. Instead she lives for the few short hours she spends with Abelard every night.

  ‘Good,’ he says of her day’s hard work. ‘Now tell me what you think of …’ Off they go, Abelard leading, posing questions, testing her quotes, arguing every point.

  This night they return to what has become a favourite theme. ‘What do you think of a deed done wrong but embarked on with the best of intentions? Is it still a sin?’

  An unseasonal chill makes her shiver. He drapes his cloak about her shoulders, its thick wool lined with white lettice fur. ‘If the intention is truly felt and the desired outcome is virtuous then, no, I cannot see it as a sin.’

  ‘What of the men who nailed Christ to the cross?’ He presses his fingers together and rests his chin on their peak. ‘Did they do it believing they were in the right — or did perhaps they do God’s bidding? How else are we to feel the intimate nature of resurrection and God’s forgiveness if not through Christ’s death?’

  ‘You stretch the point. For a start, I wager they did it for payment, not righteousness. And why would Christ ask his father for their forgiveness if it was not a sin? Besides, surely there are some sins so vile they can never be justified — the very nature of the word “murder” tells us its intent is a calculated act. As to whether the crucifixion fitted God’s plan, how are we to judge this? It is conceited to think we can understand His thoughts — though, to my mind, He would never will such a hateful act. He is love.’

  ‘You are forgetting how eagerly He smites and punishes when deserved. I saw the Lord standing upon the altar: and He said, Smite the lintel of the door, that the posts may shake: and cut them in the head, all of them; and I will slay the last of them with the sword …’

  ‘Come, you know full well for every phrase you can find to back a claim, another contradicts it. Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil …’

  He smiles. ‘I plan one day to write on this kind of dichotomy — perhaps you could help me collate other such contradictions?’

  ‘You trust me to research for you?’

  ‘Of course. I can think of no one better.’

  She sends him a joy-filled smile. ‘I would be deeply honoured.’

  ‘Good. Now back to our work … What of those unaware of Christ who, in their ignorance, reject the Christian faith because they think it contrary to the will of God?’

  ‘Then I believe Christ would also say of them, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do, just as he did his executioners.’

  Abelard reaches across the table and plucks a speck of fluff from the cloak, his finger brushing beneath her chin as he withdraws his hand. A jolt from his touch shudders through her.

  ‘Tell me this, then,’ he says, ‘what of a man who professes love for his kin but hands the whip to another to dutifully do his bidding? Does this second man sin, if he beats said kin at the man’s request?’

  A shift comes over the nature of the air; it condenses as if before a storm, every small sound swelling: the in and out of breath whistling through his nostrils, the stutter of the candle’s flame. Movement, too, grows more awkward and contrived: Heloise’s hand, rising to swipe away a strand of hair as if to ward off ill; the snail-creep of his elbows across the table as he slides towards her.

  ‘You speak of yourself and Fulbert?’

  ‘Would knowledge of who the players are affect your answer? It is the intention only of which we speak.’

  In her sudden fluster, the cloak becomes heavy. She shucks it off and rises to prowl the dark edges of the room. ‘Does this so-called “kin” truly deserve it?’

  He stands, his chair scraping the floorboards with a bull’s roar. ‘You tell me.’ He punctuates each word by taking a full step closer. ‘Does she?’

  She shrinks against the wall, breath held as he continues to approach. Backlit by the candles’ light, his face is masked until he comes within an arm’s bent length and looks down on her, pupils as dark as the entrance to the underworld and as unknowable.

  ‘In this case “intention” is a loaded word.’ The chance he might be serious in his desire to beat her is terrifying, yet she is spellbound as he steps so close she feels the rush of air as he exhales.

  He raises his hands, palms forward, and inches them closer to her breasts. He stops a hair’s-breadth short.

  ‘What do you wish for, Heloise?’ he says, and all the while the tips of her breasts are rising, tingling, straining to meet his hands. Soon only the linen stands between his skin and hers.

  Unable to back away further she finds her voice. ‘Please stop.’

  He drops his hands but does not retreat. ‘Your uncle is concerned by your solitary nature and lack of compliance. He tells me to discipline you in the way of his masters, to teach you obedience. He fears for your future.’

  ‘My uncle is better to worry for his own.’ Her heart is running so fast it pushes her to move. She feints to one side and slips away, making for the space at the centre of the room. ‘And as for you, sir, I would have thought obedience is not your strongest bent either.’

  He spins around, a bold grin stretching ear to ear. ‘Given your impudence I say I give him what he wants.’

  She is shocked. ‘You would laugh and speak of beating me in the same breath?’

  ‘Woman, hush!’ With great emphasis, he shakes his head. ‘Our good friend Seneca said Life is a play; it is not its length but its performance that counts.’

  She is still too stunned to follow. ‘What do you mean?’

  He holds one hand out and slaps the other hard down on it, the sound a clap of thunder in the room. ‘Take that!’ His grin widens as his voice carries between the floorboard’s cracks. ‘No more of your insolence! I am the master here!’

  Again he claps and she indulges him with a yelp, rewarded by a full-bloomed smile. ‘Oh, no you don’t, you little vixen!’ He stamps his feet. ‘Come back here!’

  He lunges, clashing his hands together like the teeth of a rabid dog. To her shame, she squeals as she dodges him, the slap of his hands only ever a side-step away. She darts past him but trips on the cloak, stopped from falling only by his outstretched hand. Once caught, he pulls her into his open arms, reaching around her, drawing her close, her ear pressed hard against his drumming heart.

  They stand still and she breathes his scent: bay leaves, yes, and hyssop too, the same potion to counteract sweat she also uses, and thyme from Jehanne’s soap, with its odour of tallow and ash. Below all this, she smells his human heat, foreign yet compelling.

  He edges her to the table and leans over the candle to blow it out. In the sudden darkness he kisses her crown, a groan deep in his throat.

  She has no notion how to react, so torn she does nothing. His lips scuff down the side of her cheek and into the hollow between her ear and jaw. She whimpers; cannot help it. It is ecstasy. At the sound he clutches her tighter, his full length against her, and nuzzles his way from neck to mouth. His first deep kiss swallows her moan, the wetness of his mouth igniting something she is loath to name. The strength of it bewilders her; it breaks her open as his hands travel up and down her spine, slowing, caressing, cupping, digging into secret spaces as he shuffles her over to the bench and gently lays her down.

  She can see nothing but uncertain shifts in the viscosity of darkness, not sure where he will come from next. When his hands run up her legs, ruching her gown towards her waist, her panic takes the lead.

  She catches him by the wrists. ‘Enough!’

  It is as if her plea further sets him alight. His tongue is hot and suffocating as his hands push to her breasts. He smothers her shamed animal cry in his hungry mouth, and she is so caught up in oscillating emotions she fails to notice one of his hands move until she feels it at
her undergarments, pushing them aside. He splays his knees, spreading hers so wide she fears she will split, and then he forces himself inside her, pushing his hard sex further with every thrust, her body shunted until their heads hang in midair. His mouth breaks from hers only when a groan dislodges and spirals up, spilling from his throat as his final thrust impales her. She bites back a sob.

  He sprawls on her, smearing sweaty gasping kisses, his full weight crushing as he pants like a landed fish. She shakes him off and rolls from under him, dragging her gown back over her torn and pulsing parts as she coils away, taut with shock, sick with shame.

  For several long moments she cannot calm her mind sufficiently to think. She eases down, careful not to touch him. But as she edges towards the bench’s end, he reaches for her, rolling over to snare her hand.

  ‘Dear God, Heloise, wait.’ He catches her in his arms and kisses her again, his hands stroking, grabbing, refusing to set her free. ‘I am so sorry. So sorry. I lost control. Tell me you will forgive me, tell me, please.’

  She feels as stone. Even if she desired to reassure him, her words have fled. In the end she manages to dredge up only three. ‘I must go.’

  A cry breaks from him as she gropes for the door but he makes no move to follow.

  How long the night; each hour shifting between the shame of having fallen and the knowledge that her body was so thrilled. She barely sleeps. When she sees the dawn’s silvering, she knows she cannot face him. She relieves herself in the chamber pot, dismayed but not surprised to see her water pink with blood. Gertrud told her of the virgin’s mark; Heloise is horrified hers has been spilled in a forced act. She curls back into the comfort of her bedding, her thoughts chaotic.

  When she does not appear, Jehanne comes in search of her. She cannot bear to look her friend in the face. But Jehanne hovers, arms first crossed then uncrossed and then crossed again.