Heloise

by Hager, Mandy

  Heloise is not even certain she wants to force Abelard’s capitulation. In part, her love is built on his questing mind and big dreams. To diminish him might kill the last of the admiration and respect she feels for him. The trouble is that, despite his vanity and self-obsession, he makes her feel alive, her brain fully engaged. To lose Astrolabe is already like a death; to lose Abelard as well would finish her.

  To add to her discomfort, the prioress, Renee, who so hounded her and Sister Saris, still survives and is convinced Heloise has returned to take the veil. Any denial prompts under-breath snarls so tart Heloise retreats to the library’s familiar peace.

  At first she does little but brood on Astrolabe’s sweet mousey smell and his softness to the touch, but in the end a restlessness drives her to write. She works on poems and short plays that she later erases for fear of ridicule, but they help to reorder her shattered thoughts. Ovid claimed that writing a poem without another to hear it was like dancing in the dark. Every day she dances alone, the writing her private insurgence. When her own words fail to capture the utter turmoil she feels, she memorises other pieces to recite as she circuits the cloister.

  Well I know that in the woods, amid wild beasts’ dens, it is better to suffer and carve my love on the young trees. They will grow, and you, my love, will grow with them.

  Returning to Argenteuil, Heloise regards it afresh. She can appreciate the communal fellowship, but now more than ever it is evident that the men who pull the strings do so to serve their own whims, not those of the women in their care. The women are like sheep herded by smallholders, fenced in by fear of ousting, and valued only for their compliance and willingness to serve, nothing more. In many ways, she realises, ignorance and an uninquisitive mind would make for an easier life.

  Within days of her flight, Jehanne sends word that unhinged fictions are again whispering in Fulbert’s mind. He views her escape at Abelard’s suggestion tantamount to divorce and is enraged, claiming Abelard has forced her to take the veil, as if he would … or could.

  Her uncle arrives one day at the abbey’s door, insistent they speak, but is denied entry due to drunkenness. ‘Tell her she is duped,’ he shouts as she cringes out of view. ‘Tell her that devil takes his pleasures from whores down by the wharves.’

  Her head knows this is delusion but her heart has pangs of doubt.

  When, two days later, Abelard visits while the sisters are joined in prayers for Sext, Heloise lobs Fulbert’s accusations straight at him.

  He laughs and raises his hands in mock surrender. ‘My sweet, how could you take that poor man’s word as truth? Use your sense. Why would I sup on the scabs of whores when I have drunk the juices of an angel?’ He glances around, checking the room’s dark corners. ‘Come, let me prove my desire is hot and real for you.’

  She takes his offered hand, craving his touch, craving comfort. He draws her to him and kisses her as if famished. Caught up in the moment, they fall against the door, barring entry, and he lifts her gown to slide himself inside, enlivened by danger’s thrill. Like a man possessed, he thrusts, the door latch rattling, and he buries his cry in her redundant breasts as the drone of prayer and pious chant floats across the cloister to underscore their sin.

  But of their future and Astrolabe’s fostering, Abelard still refuses to speak. He fobs her off, preferring to seek her thoughts on his current work — exposing contradictory statements of the Church fathers in an expanded dialectic he plans to call Sic et Non.

  ‘So many of their ideas are taught simplistically, in terms of true or false, yes or no, when what is needed are subtler readings. I want to explore the writings of the saints as an exercise to test my students.’

  Heloise offers to help him. She needs to occupy her mind beyond its constant fretting and hopes to steady Abelard. She needs him to be mentally strong again if they are ever to have a future. And she needs him to need her.

  ‘Let us trust it is my students’ dimness rather than our saints’ lack of subtlety that makes it so difficult to pin one meaning on these words,’ he says. ‘And, given the Spirit drives such words, why do we mere humans expect instant understanding?’

  ‘What disturbs me most is how their meaning can be skewed by context or mode of speech.’

  ‘So how best do I tackle this? I am eager to reach not just those who think as I do, but those who are intractable and unsophisticated in their thoughts.’

  ‘The challenge, I think, is to resist stripping away all the mystery, even if for greater clarity. Such ideas are veiled because the more effort required to decode a work’s secrets, the more precious they are.’ Heloise plays this back in her head and cringes at its intellectual arrogance. She means there is a measure of poetic beauty and wonder in faith that would be sad to gut. Surely faith at its heart is not based on logic but awe? ‘Did not Pope Gregory say: it has pleased God to make Holy Scripture obscure in certain places lest, if it were perfectly clear to all, it might be vulgarised and subjected to disrespect or be so misunderstood by people of limited intelligence as to lead them into error’.

  ‘Ah yes, the perfect quote! I wish I had you there to challenge my students!’ Abelard says. ‘Many come with the professed goal of opening their minds, yet demand pap in case they offend the beliefs of their family or local fealties. It is a problem of the young that gravely vexes me.’

  ‘Is that not the test of any true teacher? Explaining without dulling down, expressing the subtleties without having to resort to simple-minded thinking or prosaic words? You are the master of this.’

  They settle into a pattern of meeting twice monthly, his visits timed to enable them privacy while others pray. Where possible she serves his body’s need for touch without engaging further — although it often leaves her own unmet — but mostly she craves their talk; she finds no one else who can stretch her mind. Visit by visit the creep of hope returns: if they could forge from this disaster a bond robust enough to outlast their separations, in time she might persuade him to live as a family and bring home their son.

  However, when next she is summoned to the abbey door, instead of finding Abelard’s dear face, there stands Corbus.

  He thrusts a cloth-wrapped scroll at her. ‘My master sends his apologies. He is otherwise delayed.’

  She turns it over in her hands, puzzling. ‘Does he expect a message in return?’

  ‘I neither know nor care.’ Corbus turns his back and makes to leave.

  ‘Corbus, wait!’ She reaches for his shoulder, but he springs away as if her touch is tainted. ‘Is there some problem with my husband?’

  ‘Your husband? Your fool of an uncle may buy such nonsense but do not expect the same stupidity from me.’

  Heloise grasps the door-latch for support. ‘You were there! Did you not hear the marriage vows?’

  ‘Your destruction of my master makes me sick to the gut.’ He spits on the ground. ‘You make him a laughing stock. You have ruined him — and me.’

  ‘You?’ Surprise roots her to the spot.

  ‘He picked me to serve him; the greatest mind in all of France and I his right-hand man. But you, Madame, have dragged him through the muck and so defiled his mind he acts as madman.’ Spittle collects at the edge of his mouth like a priest in full sermonical flight.

  His words so shake Heloise she slams the door, trembling. What is it in her that so goads him? She tears the cloth from Abelard’s gift and unfurls a small portrait of his face. On the back in his flowing hand is written Forget me not.

  It is only a matter of days later that Renee rouses Heloise from Sext. ‘There is a woman at the gates demanding you see her. She says it is urgent.’

  The sight of Jehanne’s pale face scares Heloise. ‘Is it Fulbert?’ Grief is already nipping as Jehanne vehemently shakes her head.

  ‘Oh, Heloise, it is a thousand times worse.’

  ‘Dear Lord, is it Abelard or Astrolabe? Tell me now!’

  A sob breaks from Jehanne. ‘At last night’s darkest hour two villai
ns — aided by that loathsome pig Corbus — snuck into Master Peter’s quarters and—’ Another sob silences her.

  ‘Is he dead?’ Heloise’s pulse thunders in her ears.

  Johanne shakes her head. ‘In some ways.’ She hauls Heloise to the seat placed by the door to catch the evening sun. ‘Oh, Heloise, they have castrated him.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘They wound a cord around his purse and sliced it open, removing its two sacs just like a farmer quietens his bull.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  Jehanne nods. ‘They did it swiftly and performed it clean but he is left undone. You must come. He is in deep despair.’

  ‘Is this Fulbert’s work?’

  Jehanne nods again.

  Eye for eye, member for member, manhood for unflowering …‘Please God, tell me they did not blind him, too?’

  ‘No, but two of the villains were captured and dealt with swiftly by Garlande’s men — both castrated and blinded: one was that cur Corbus.’

  Corbus’s involvement staggers her. Had he not declared his love for Abelard only a little time before? ‘And you are sure Fulbert is to blame?’

  ‘Corbus named him as they wrought their vengeance on him. I was woken by the guards in search of him and we found Fulbert has fled.’

  Heloise needs to hear no more. She mounts the horse Jehanne has reined to hers and they gallop along the narrow country lanes, not slowing until they reach Abelard’s lodgings below Sainte-Genevieve. Already word has spread and hordes have gathered, students and townsfolk, young and old, poor and rich, some stunned, others lamenting, cries and groans rising all around them as Jehanne and Heloise push through the crush to reach his door. They climb the stairs with the hiss of accusatory whispers and the sting of shame nipping at their heels.

  They are stopped before entering Abelard’s room by a distraught Stephen de Garlande.

  ‘Dear God, Heloise, I returned this morning to find this tragedy done.’ All colour is leached from his face. ‘He is within, thoroughly checked by my physician, his body bearing up well — although his mood is low.’

  ‘I must go—’

  ‘He will not see you.’

  Heloise brushes him aside. ‘Of course he will.’

  She cracks open the door and enters, fearing what she will find. The uproar from the street seems to swell as she approaches the bed. Abelard is curled in on himself, his back to her.

  ‘My love.’ Abelard tenses but does nothing more as she walks around the bed to sit at its head. When she strokes the hair from his sweat-soaked brow, he flinches. ‘Forgive me, dearest. This outrage’s fault is entirely mine.’

  He says nothing, eyes closed to cut her off. She fights back tears, every joyful coupling they have shared incandescent in her memory.

  ‘Are you in pain, my love?’

  His eyes press tighter shut.

  ‘Many congregate below to show their support. The whole of Paris grieves for you.’

  ‘Send them away.’ His voice is thick, slurred by pain-dulling remedies.

  ‘But you must see how this act has unleashed their love. Take a moment at the window to assure them that you live.’

  Heloise longs to take him in her arms and put his pains to right. But now he opens his eyes to level his anger at her. She cannot blame him. She has done this to him: she, Heloise, alone. If not for her denial of the marriage so whipping up Fulbert’s rage, this might never have been. Guilt crushes her.

  ‘Leave me.’ He lowers his lids again to shut her out.

  ‘I will not. I am—’

  ‘LEAVE ME!’ His roar knocks her backwards.

  She staggers up, cheeks stinging. ‘Very well. I will return when you are rested.’

  On the landing outside, Jehanne and Garlande stand tense. At her appearance, Jehanne rushes to wrap Heloise in an embrace. ‘He will survive this, Heloise. He is strong at heart.’

  Heloise nods, unwilling to meet her friend’s eye lest her tears release. She pulls away and addresses Garlande. ‘What will become of Fulbert when he is found?’

  He shrugs. ‘Like it or not, Fulbert can claim justifiable retribution. Blood feud is lawful even if he failed to give Peter fair warning — although Peter’s supporters will undoubtedly bay for Fulbert’s blood.’ His sigh sounds exhausted. ‘The Church, however, will not like it at all.’

  ‘To what end?’

  ‘Who knows? It depends how long it is before Fulbert returns.’

  She leans against the wall for support. ‘What does your physician say?’

  ‘That they made clean work of it and with rest the wound will heal.’

  ‘It is not his body’s healing that concerns me. How will we stop the disintegration of his mind?’

  Garlande shakes his head, so grave it seems an old man stares back at her. ‘God only knows. It must be the focus of our prayers.’

  The noise of the crowd outside reaches its crescendo with a bruising assault on the lodging’s door. Before any can act, a horde of weeping mourners rush the stairs, a stream of Abelard’s faithful, scholars and students, all devastated, trespassing on his room and refusing to leave despite the crush. They hover in groups, some weeping, assuring his unyielding back they will persist in their support, a heart-rending sight made more excruciating by Abelard’s utter lack of response.

  The stream does not slow despite pleas to allow him rest. Each time they try to stop this parade, the mood sours so, Heloise and Garlande withdraw for fear of riot. In the end the landlord announces he will open the doors to them again at dawn but now they must leave. By midnight the last few stragglers finally depart.

  Through all this, Abelard has neither spoken nor taken food or drink, and he does not acknowledge Heloise when she bids him goodnight. She spends the darkest hours at rue des Chantres, every creak jolting her awake as she thinks it Fulbert’s footfall on the stair.

  The morning brings no happier news. The canons of Notre-Dame have met and ordered the expulsion and confiscation of all Fulbert’s possessions and goods and, with the Church no longer brooking any compromise, she and Jehanne are now effectively dispossessed along with him. Although her heart rages against her uncle, she cannot help but weep for the man who built his life here and offered to take her in.

  On her return to Abelard’s lodging, she is stopped by many wanting news — some in genuine anguish, others caught up in the thrill of scandal. Inside, she finds Abelard in conversation with Bishop Gilbert, a discussion from which she is firmly barred. Heloise waits outside the door and attempts not to dwell on the implications of his injury; the loss is too immense to quantify.

  When Gilbert emerges, he insists they speak in private. The landlord’s parlour is soon made free.

  He wastes no words. ‘Master Peter has confirmed the facts of your secret marriage.’ His demeanour bears little sympathy.

  So here, at last, is the reckoning. She is glad to be rid of the lie. ‘It is true, Your Grace.’

  ‘Then you must know this makes it impossible for him to teach at the cathedral school. Both policy and decency do not allow it.’

  ‘But he has—’

  ‘Nothing, if he cannot uphold the school’s most basic tenets.’ Gilbert rolls his episcopal ring around its inroad on his finger. ‘Given his popularity and undeniable State support, we have come to an understanding.’ Heloise feels her misery lighten, thinking the bishop stands on compassion’s side. ‘I have agreed, at his request, to allow him to take the cloth. And to placate his many followers I will instruct Adam, abbot of St Denis, to accept him, so they still have access to his mind.’

  Has she misheard him? ‘As a teacher?’

  ‘No, Madame, as a monk.’

  Her heart stalls. ‘Abelard has agreed to this?’

  ‘He has taken the option with much relief.’

  ‘You must excuse me.’ She rushes to Abelard’s room, not caring if she offends Gilbert.

  He hunches at the window, watching the mourners below.

  ‘Yo
u have asked to become a monk?’

  Abelard turns, wincing. ‘I have little choice.’

  ‘I cannot agree. Let us go from here; find a place where we can be together with our son.’

  ‘What use am I to you or him? I am unmanned. A eunuch. No more than a gelding. How can I show my face in public? I will be pointed at, derided by every tongue, a monstrous spectacle to all I meet. This is the only choice.’

  ‘You are wrong!’ Heloise flings herself at him, embracing him as he stands unmoved. ‘Can we not still love? Do you think I care only for your sex? Abelard, do not do this to yourself, or me. We have a son.’

  He peels her off. ‘If you truly love me you will take the veil as well.’

  ‘What?’ Heloise stumbles back. ‘You would have me sacrifice my life to aid you in this cruelty? Do you not care for me at all?’

  ‘I care too much!’ His voice cracks open. ‘How do you think I will feel locked in that dungeon while some other man takes you in his arms and gives you what I now cannot?’ Abelard rubs a hand across his unshaven face, the bristles peppered with silver in the window’s light. ‘If you love me as you claim, then make this sacrifice to ease my misery and shame. The fault was yours as well.’ He loses composure now, crumpling onto the bed as tears flow in heaving sobs. ‘I am undone, undone.’

  Abelard is her teacher, lover, husband, the shining constant of her last three years, the most brilliant mind, the fiercest wit, the tender hand that woke her needs. To see him so cowed with despair wipes all other thought from her head, except how to relieve his terrible grief.