Heloise

by Hager, Mandy

  ‘I cannot sleep,’ she says. ‘My mind whirls.’

  ‘It is indeed an impressive undertaking here.’ He steps in pace beside her. ‘I am glad for this moment alone. I would speak to you most plainly if you will allow.’

  Her step falters. ‘Speak away.’

  ‘It is clear to me your uncle has no suspicion of the — fondness — between you and our mutual friend. I would not like to see him hurt.’

  ‘Nor I.’ Any creeping tiredness flees.

  ‘Two things I know of Fulbert: one, that where you are concerned he is blinded by his love and, two, if he should think you have betrayed that love, God help you. Beneath that big-hearted fool lies a man so soured by bitterness, rage will override sense if he feels provoked to act.’

  ‘Fulbert is no fool. He is—’

  ‘Hush, my dear, I mean it fondly. All I ask is that you think very carefully before you carry on. Not only do you break God’s laws, but it is best you know I will not speak against Fulbert; he knows secrets I would rather not be told to others.’

  ‘You speak of Jehanne?’

  Now it is Garlande who startles like a hare. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You know full well. If we are to speak frankly then let us also speak of this.’

  To give him his due, Garlande does not try to deny it. ‘How does it have any bearing?’

  ‘Where there is one secret there are always others. Just as Jehanne would want to know from whom she came, so do I.’

  ‘Dear Lord, you are as cunning as a fox!’

  She grins. ‘How strange,’ she says. ‘For that is often how I think of you.’

  His laughter rings through the empty cloister, and he takes her elbow to guide her forward. ‘I have known many a sharp woman but none as astute as you. I can see why Peter has fallen for you, and why Fulbert desires your company to live out his days.’ He sighs. ‘None among my children are as clever — or as brazenly honest. They look to their own advancement, knotting up their thoughts with scheming rivalry.’

  ‘They have no doubt learned from a great master.’ One moment fox, the next a dove. She cannot tell which lies at his core.

  He chuckles. ‘No doubt they have.’

  ‘Yet you have a daughter in Jehanne pure of heart with a mind quick to learn. If you give her the opportunity she will do you proud.’

  He removes his hand and pauses in his tracks, looking around in case anyone might have overheard before he breathes in sharply. ‘Be that as it may, if you tell her you will open her to needless pain.’

  ‘Why? Is it so terrible that she should know her father cared enough to secure a safe position for her?’

  ‘You have no inkling of the games at court. If I allowed such information out, every enemy I have will find a way to use this to attack me — and her.’ He shakes his head as if to dislodge this threat. ‘The Church is desperate to curtail all spiritual authority gifted by the king, and in these volatile times a daughter born in sin might well be reason enough to have mine removed.’

  ‘But she is not a sin! She is a woman who is truly good, and who has suffered not only from other’s cruel assumptions but from the pain of never knowing who she is. Such a thing can eat away at you; every hour of every day there is a voice whispering that you were not worthy of a parent’s love.’ Heloise swallows back the lump of her own self-pity. ‘If you fear God’s judgement, then speak to her in private and put her mind to rest. If you ask her to keep your confidence, I believe she will.’

  Garlande makes no answer; instead he ushers her on. They walk one full stretch of the cloister before he speaks again. ‘If I negotiate with Fulbert, would you take an hour each day to teach her?’

  ‘Will you tell her who you are?’

  ‘I will consider it. Please, push me no further on this for now.’

  ‘Then I will gladly teach her, and you will see her bloom.’ His hand is cold as she squeezes it. ‘Thank you.’ She takes two steps away and then turns directly to him. ‘Now, will you tell me of my family?’

  Although the moon casts little light, Heloise senses his resolve harden. ‘That I can never do. I gave Fulbert my word, as he has pledged me his. And, besides, if you can trust this old fox on anything, trust that the knowledge would cause you only pain. Fulbert is right to keep it from you. Do not judge the capacity of their hearts by his.’

  ‘Was she the Hersende who lived at Fontevraud?’

  ‘No, Heloise, she was not. The widow Hersende, despite tattling tongues, lived a long and virtuous life.’

  Heloise’s keening disappointment surprises her. ‘Well, if you will not identify my family, then at least tell me why they killed my mother?’ Heloise is ambushed by the grief that stabs at her, as if the loss is fresh. ‘Please do not try to deny it. I heard your conversation with Fulbert the other night; I will never be able to wash the horror of his words from my mind’s eye.’

  She feels Garlande stiffen. ‘You heard? Ah, now here is a difficult thing. I am sorry.’ They walk on together as he weighs this information up. ‘Very well. But you must understand, your uncle speaks from pain. To say they killed her is to extrapolate somewhat. In truth, she died by her own hand.’

  ‘What?’ Her feet take root. ‘How? Why?’

  ‘She threw herself from a tower two nights after your birth.’

  Heloise clutches tightly to his arm, not trusting her legs to hold her. ‘I thought at first my birth had killed her and felt guilt enough; but to know she took one look at me and flung herself to her death—’

  ‘Come now, Heloise. It is far more complicated than that. There were many causes but none personal to you. The circumstances of her marriage caused much trouble within the family; and when you were born a girl the fiend who fathered you sent you away while your mother was still too weak to act. Your loss destroyed her will to live.’

  ‘Dear God!’ This she never could have guessed. She did not even want to imagine the horrors. ‘But why did her own family cast out my uncle as well?’

  ‘He was not so much cast out as turned his back on them because they knew how poorly she was treated and would not act. He had great love for your mother and cannot forgive them.’

  ‘You will not tell me their name at least?’

  ‘I gave my word.’

  ‘And my father? What of him?’

  His voice hardens. ‘He is a beast: powerful and very, very dangerous. Your mother’s family felt they could not afford to war against him.’

  ‘Did he ever love my mother?’

  ‘Love?’ Garlande snorts derisively. ‘Though he preached much of it he did not practise it. I do not think he has capacity to love.’

  Preached? She thinks of Jehanne’s stories of St Eloi. ‘Is he a man of God?’

  ‘I will say no more and beg you not to pursue it. He wields power still.’

  A phrase of Fulbert’s chimes from her past, the anger in his voice still potent after so many years. Power trumps all, Heloise.

  ‘How old was she?’

  ‘From memory, around fifteen.’

  ‘Why did they allow her to marry him in the first place?’

  ‘Marriage has many objectives, Heloise. A girl’s daydreams of love are of little consequence when property is at stake.’

  It hurts; not just that her family would send Hersende to her death but that they would not support her uncle in his brotherly love. Garlande is right: these are not people she wants to know. ‘Very well. Thank you for your honesty. Will you perhaps explain one final thing? How did you and Fulbert come to know each other’s secrets? It is a strange thing for two waifs such as myself and Jehanne to wash up at the same door.’

  ‘Not so strange when one knows the softness at the core of Fulbert’s heart.’ Garlande clears his throat. ‘Your uncle stumbled over my secret in the course of executing a business deal for me and, in solidarity, he confided his own sad tale of his sister’s loss. We have a mutual understanding to keep each other’s confidence and both maintain it still. Pleas
e do not speak to him of this; he will view it as a breaking of our compact.’

  ‘Why would he not tell me himself — even if just about my mother?’

  ‘I think the pain is too intense. It was he who found her dead and he who scoured the country for years seeking you out after your father paid some agent to dispose of you.’

  Dispose. As if worthless. The word sits like a stone in her gut as she remembers the day Fulbert came, the tender giant who scooped her up and changed her life. ‘Thank you. I will keep your confidence. I hope you one day find great pleasure in Jehanne.’

  Heloise lies awake for hours afterwards, tumbling over their conversation again and again. She can see how her uncle once claimed it murder, though the hand that pushed her mother off the edge was her own. Heloise has never forgotten the way the word burst from Fulbert’s mouth the day they met. What kind of man disposes of his own child? Only fifteen. Heavens, she was that age when she came to Paris, still wet behind the ears. Her poor mother. Poor Fulbert. Does he blame himself for her death, unable to stay her hand? If so, it explains his panic whenever Heloise sinks into despair. Perhaps it also explains his drinking: to hold that image in his head must be a lifelong curse.

  Her audience with Robert of Arbrissel the following day is no less eye-opening. Slowly, with Robert leaning hard on her arm for support, they stroll through the well-tended gardens of Fontevraud’s walled estate. First the kitchen garden, well provisioned with vegetables and edible herbs, then the scented medicinal garden and finally the orchard, where the trees stand bare but for the last of autumn’s thinning leaves.

  Robert asks which writers and thinkers she has read, and seeks her thoughts on many books, quick with wise observations of his own. When Abelard’s name comes up, he follows her conversation closely, and when she tells him of Abelard’s work on intention, he questions her as if he were the work’s examiner.

  ‘He has indeed a prodigious mind,’ Robert says, when the subject has run its course. He points to a stone bench beneath the spreading branches of an apple tree, and they make their way to it. Once settled he continues. ‘I can hear in your voice the depth of your admiration for the man.’

  ‘I do believe he has the best mind of our age,’ she says. ‘Excepting your own, sir.’

  He chuckles. ‘I have found’, he says, ‘a great distance between the minds of men and women.’ He pats her hand as he sees her bristle. ‘This is neither criticism nor shallow prejudice but rather a meditation on men’s blind spots. What I have seen is a difference in the way the world is viewed: men forever seek out grand ideas to glorify their name and make their fortunes, while women’s every thought is coloured by emotion.’

  Heloise’s defences stay alert, still unsure of his point. ‘Yet you have chosen women for the most practical of your dealings here. Surely you are not saying a woman is weakened by expression of emotion?’

  ‘At times.’ Robert smiles, his face lit by such pure sweetness she cannot take offence. Indeed, deep down she knows it to be true … at times. ‘But it has been my observation that, overall, it is better to be whole-hearted in one’s thoughts and deeds, and bring the wealth of an emotional life to thought as well.’ He pauses, his eyes closed to the sun’s glare as he continues. ‘Take Petronilla: twice she has been married and twice lost her mate and sorely grieved. What this gives her is a natural understanding of others’ losses and pains, and an ability to make decisions based on compassion and true need, not just a cold calculation of the facts. She seeks to mollify and appease where she is able, and always to cut to the core of issues and make peace between those at war. She views compassion not as a stain of weakness on her character but a living embodiment of the love of Christ. Hersende before her was the same. Few men make such a distinction. They use their heads instead to undermine the message of their hearts.’

  That name again. Is Garlande to be believed or is he covering for something else? ‘Abelard has often—’

  ‘Heloise d’Argenteuil, listen. I have little time before the Lord will take me, and much to tell. Men like Master Peter are rare, but also inherently weak. The gift of genius often brings with it a curse; a mind unable to still and find its peace. Those with it sometimes have the strength of feeling women do, like you, but men deny its reign for fear that it will overwhelm them. It eventually eats them away, mark my words. Master Peter’s mind is only ever as strong as his ability to acknowledge its vulnerabilities.’

  Heloise bristles again, unwilling to hear any suggestion of Abelard’s weakness. But her own she recognises well. ‘Stilling the mind is indeed a difficult thing,’ she says. ‘It is my daily struggle.’

  ‘That is the beauty of prayer, child. When one repeats the liturgies with due attention it allows all other thought to rest.’

  ‘It is true — although I find this also when I occupy my mind with writing and books. Nothing can compete with that perfect absorption.’

  ‘Perhaps.’ Robert turns his sharp gaze on her. ‘There is another thing I would like to speak to you about before the bells. A warning. There is conflict brewing, not fully sated by the atrocities of Urban’s holy war or Louis’s skirmishes. I speak of the closing down of opportunities for any who see through the current posturing to the inevitable pain such reckless fighting brings. When men choose to draw their bows before God, they do so not to fight for His glory but to seize it for themselves. And once they scheme of domination and the taking of their enemies’ land and wealth, they also look about to see who among their friends is weak enough to cede their power and riches without a fight. The Devil cloaks himself in greed, Heloise; he knows full well it is the greatest seducer of men’s hearts — it even usurps sex.’

  She thinks aloud Matthew’s words, recalling a long-past conversation with Gertrud: ‘No man can serve two masters … ye cannot serve God and mammon.’

  ‘Exactly. Therefore, beware! Women will not do well in this; they witness the losses where men see only the tally of gains. Actions such as the ousting of those at St Eloi will happen again with ever more frequency. Guard well your heart and hearth, Heloise, and in the future, should you find yourself in charge of an abbey, make sure to secure everything by papal seal, as I have done for Fontevraud. Those in power would see all women silenced and reduced again to slaves.’

  Heloise does not want to insult him by admitting she will never take the veil, but cannot resist challenging his tacit hypocrisy. ‘And yet here, too, you call upon your followers to be silent. How can they work for good if also gagged?’

  For a short moment, Robert looks taken aback, but then a smile dawns on his pleated features. ‘Ah, you mistake the true purpose of the vow of silence. It is not to stop acts of speaking out, but to still the mind. A head filled with competing voices does not know which to listen to. The nuns here speak when need overtakes them, yet they quickly learn that little talk is necessary when one can communicate kindness and compassion through simple acts.’

  ‘And Petronilla?’

  ‘Proof, if any was needed, of a woman’s ability to stand shoulder to shoulder with men. What protects Petronilla, and Hersende before her, are the institutions I have laid down for this community. If not agreed to by His Holy Father, I wager, the day after I die they would strip the place of women’s power and claim it for their own.’

  ‘Why do you tell me this?’

  ‘I simply wish to warn you to keep a sharp lookout for Greed’s armed horsemen and Jealousy’s knights. No woman within the Church should ever lower her guard.’

  Again? Is his mind failing? Better to tell the truth, then, than to allow this misconception to continue. ‘I am not in the Church, sir — nor do I intend to be.’

  ‘But how else will you make the most of your learning? You would choose to hand your gifts to one man rather than serve all through God?’

  To him no other course is comprehensible. ‘I do not wish to marry either. My hope is to care for my uncle and continue to learn.’

  He pulls at his bottom lip, r
evealing yellowed teeth, and then sighs. ‘Well, all I can advise is to look into your heart and let the gifts God gave you guide the way ahead. If Master Peter is right and “intention” is the key — and I think it is — question yourself as rigorously as you would any of the puzzles your teacher poses, for if not mindful you can fool yourself on this but not fool God.’

  It is as if he can see through her deceit and knows she sins. What was she thinking, to fall so low? The fear of eternal punishment is so intense, she clenches her fists to hold back a tearful confession to this kind man. If revealed it will destroy them all. Instead she chooses another path, though no less crucial.

  ‘May I ask you of something that greatly occupies my mind?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Do you happen to know the story of my birth?’

  ‘A little,’ he says. ‘Why?’

  ‘Just last night I learned my mother took her own life. I wonder at her motive and cannot help but think that if she truly loved me she could not have done it, but would have sought me out.’

  ‘Oh, child, what good is taking this act upon yourself? If she had not loved you she could have purged you from her body at the start or killed herself while you were helpless in her womb.’ He sees her shock and smiles. ‘You think I do not know of such things?’

  ‘I—’

  ‘Listen to me, child. That she did not choose these paths and held on long enough to give you air should tell you all you need to know. From the little chatter I have heard of it, the guilt lies with the man who fathered you. He paid scoundrels to foster you elsewhere, and you were passed about for the first year until you ended up at the place your good uncle found you. A monstrous act, especially given your heritage.’

  ‘Tell me, am I somehow connected to the Hersende who lived here? The coincidence strikes me although I have been told otherwise.’

  To her surprise he nods. ‘Indeed, you come from the same stock, although different branches. I gather it is a common family name within Montmorency circles, as is Heloise. Did you not know this? Surely while you were at Argenteuil you were told of the connections?’