Heloise

by Hager, Mandy

  ‘In that case, I sense more trouble brewing.’

  ‘Indeed. Such enthusiastic worship is bound to reach his rivals’ ears, especially as this venture has eaten up all his funds and he is forced to break his vow and charge his students for his services.’

  Heloise broods on this, feeling great ambivalence. It is good that Abelard has founded a sanctuary of his own making, a roost to rule, yet paid teaching puts him at odds again with those who hold the power. But what galls her most is how he has once again shaped his life with no consideration for her. At Fontevraud, Robert housed both women and men, yet Abelard chooses instead to cater only to men. When did he forgo his Aristotelian ethics of justice and greatest good? This might have been their chance: he could have invited her to come and teach by his side and reclaim their son. That he has not is another stinging slap.

  What Garlande does not tell her, but she hears from Basilia, is that as soon as Suger secures the abbey of St Denis, he hands Paris’s bishopric to Stephen of Senlis — a man fixed upon Church reform who harbours bitter hatred for all in Garlande’s family.

  ‘He does have some cause,’ Heloise admits, as the two women sit in Basilia’s office to work over the abbey’s books. ‘Garlande’s actions on behalf of Church and State are often dubious at best — a family trait, from all I have heard — although in his dealings with me, Jehanne and Fulbert, and Abelard, too, he has only ever been notably kind.’

  ‘Senlis claims Garlande’s wealth and secular power is anathema to his role as archdeacon of Notre-Dame. He does his best to stir up Bernard and Suger to force him out.’

  Despite his own difficulties, Garlande does not forget her, and she hears from him next when he sends word that Fulbert’s health is failing and her uncle wishes to heal their rift before he dies. With Basilia’s blessing, Heloise sets off at dawn, her memory stirred by this same journey she took with him when first she went to Paris. By the time she comes to stand at his bedside, Heloise has dug up again the tenderness she felt for her uncle back in her youth.

  Though Garlande had warned of Fulbert’s whitened hair, Heloise is unprepared for the fine cobwebs that cling so tenuously to his leathery skull. Where once this giant man swung her on his shoulders to climb many a ruin’s tower, now he cannot lift his head. His bones shine through sallow skin, lips loose, knuckles the barren knobs of winter trees. But for all this, he knows her and his clouded eyes seep tears.

  She kisses his parchment brow. ‘Dear Uncle. I have mourned our parting. I come to give my undying love and gratitude — and to seek your forgiveness.’ These words are easier to utter than she expects; the man whose rage destroyed her is long gone and only his sweetness remains.

  ‘My child.’ He is short of air to shift his words. ‘Forgive my inexcusable brutality.’ He coughs up a solid clod, gagging as he swallows it back down. ‘I see now it was jealousy. May God forever flail my soul.’

  ‘It has flowed past and gone, Uncle. I owe you everything: my mind, my heart … my blood.’ Her tears fall as his frail twig fingers creep across to capture her outstretched hand.

  ‘Your mother loved you, Heloise.’ He struggles to deliver the words. ‘She could not bear the loss of you.’

  Although she knows this already from others, to hear it from his lips is a comfort indeed. That he forgets he has never told her of her father’s cruel act matters little. He was the only one who sought to put the wrongs to right.

  Fulbert falls to coughing again, all wheeze and sputum as she spoons him drops of the honeyed milk in which Jehanne has slipped henbane to numb the pain of his body’s failings.

  When he has rested and calmed, she presses the question burning at her lips. ‘Who are we, Uncle? To whom will I belong?’

  His wavering eyes fix on her face, his mouth working though nothing sounds but the rattle of his breath. She leans in to catch his words, and as her ear skims his bristled cheek she hears his awkward utterance.

  ‘Heartless brutes,’ he says. ‘You do better with God than ever with them.’ He attempts to rise to one elbow, but the pain that besets him is so sharp he cries aloud. Jehanne and Heloise both lunge to settle him against his bolster, but still he pants like a dog left in the sun, his tongue the grey of boiled meat, black-tinged at its tip. From his mouth comes the stench of open drains.

  These are his last coherent words. Over the next two days, he sinks into a shallow-breathed but peaceful stupor. Heloise’s vigil is rewarded with the occasional smile when she rouses him to sip Jehanne’s soothing brews. It seems he will leave life as he entered it: a sweet child, no longer aware of the traumas and tragedies in which he was embroiled. She thinks how life is a testing thing, often straddling the distinctions between unfair and just.

  Late afternoon of the third day, Jehanne summons the priest to read the rites, although in all but ragged, irregular breath Fulbert is already gone. When the last air stills in his lungs, it drains with a sigh so slow and satisfied Heloise feels a tired relief. Though God will hold him to account, she trusts that He will see the man who swept her from that field to hand her a rich new world with all its wealth of stories.

  They hold his funeral in Garlande’s chapel, which is surprisingly well attended. At its end, Heloise and Jehanne sit on, talking of the future.

  ‘There is a place waiting for you at Argenteuil,’ Heloise says. ‘Name your chosen role and I will see it made.’

  She watches Jehanne study the chapel’s columns and its vaulted ceiling. ‘Thank you. That is very kind, but my father has offered to take me into his household and I have agreed.’

  Either Garlande’s fortunes are so bleak he no longer cares about others’ judgements, or his sharp eye for what is politic has lately dulled. But, whatever the reason, how can Heloise not be filled with joy at her friend’s happy smile, even if Garlande has laid claim to the only true friend she has left? She takes Jehanne in a fond embrace and plants a kiss onto each cheek. ‘Nothing is more fitting or deserved. It lifts my heart.’

  Heloise is glad to be the maker of such a happy reunion, and proud Garlande heeded her audacious counsel — and oh, the glow of Jehanne’s face is a priceless jewel. This woman, so long shunned, now at last has a home, a family and a father who, taking time to know her, now finds a treasure worthy of welcome in his home … just as Fulbert once did with Heloise. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one’s youth. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them.

  As she rides back to Argenteuil, orphaned in every practical sense, Heloise’s mind wanders over the happy times her uncle enabled; times she would never have had without his courageous stance against her flesh and blood and offered her his home. Stories, laughter, learning, the security of his love before it was soured by her own hand. He was as close to a father as she will ever know. She packages up this gift to treasure forever, secured within for the rest of her life by the strings that bind her heart.

  Fourteen

  ARGENTEUIL, 1122–1129

  With Fulbert gone and Jehanne lost, Heloise writes poems under the guise of local obituaries to give voice to her thoughts. For the death roll of one of their parishioners, she composes with Fulbert in mind to send a secret token of her love.

  Alas grief! He who has been consumed by death cannot be revived by sorrow nor sighs, therefore why cry? What is the benefit of so much anguish?

  Nothing is gained with sadness, except hurt.

  But though nothing useful follows lamentation, nevertheless, it is human to grieve the death of a father.

  Despite the abbey’s congregation of sisters, she feels very alone, especially as Garlande is now so embroiled in battles with his rivals that he rarely comes to see her. Instead it falls again to Jehanne to divulge the latest dramas of Church and court — and there is much to tell, a complicated fretwork of greed and shifts of power in Garlande’s tussle with Suger, who has joined forces with Stephen of Senlis. Bernard of Clairvaux, too, is starting to take aim at the Church elite, demanding stricter austerity
.

  When Garlande finally visits, as grey and drawn as Jehanne has described in her letters, he escorts Heloise outside Argenteuil’s walls, where they sit under the shade of an oak that overlooks adjacent farmland. The fields are ripe with wheat, patchworks of shimmering gold that promise full bellies for the winter. He is uneasy, speaking little and instead asking much of her. In the end, Heloise falls as silent as a mouse in the granary and waits for him to confess what is really on his mind.

  Garlande clears his throat, a flush creeping up his neck. ‘Did you hear Suger and Senlis had the audacity to move the cathedral school? They have handed Notre-Dame’s power to those scoundrels at St Victor.’

  ‘No! Surely not? How are they allowed to do that?’ This is not what she expected; she feared he brought bad news of Abelard. ‘What of you? Is your position safe?’

  Across the fields a man swings his scythe in a fluid arc back and forth, shafts of wheat falling like legions of broken men. At her side, her old friend looks so haggard it makes her want to weep.

  He picks a stem of grass and peels away its layers. ‘With King Louis elsewhere, his queen Adelaide has stepped centre-stage to bare her claws. She claims I use the role of seneschal for the betterment of my family.’

  ‘Can you not just laugh it off?’

  ‘It is not so simple. She tells all who listen I seek to rule instead of serve, and sets me up through petty games. She plucked my brother from his role as royal butler and gave it to Senlis’s brother solely to provoke me.’

  ‘Then you must tread with care and avoid her traps — and do nothing that can be viewed as seditious.’

  ‘It is too late. All swords are drawn against me.’ These last words catch in his throat as he fights for control.

  This is bad. Heloise can feel his desolation. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I have been stripped of everything, Heloise. Seneschal. Bishoprics. The lot. They took my land and put hammers to my house and even uprooted my vines.’ His colour is grey, eyes red and bagged from lack of sleep.

  ‘Oh, dear Lord, I am so sorry. Surely they did not destroy it all?’ To see him so broken is a pitiful thing; the fox now trapped and frightened. If he can fall so easily out of favour, what hope is there for anyone else?

  ‘St Aignan they kept, thank God, but nothing else. All I have is what you see, my purse spent fighting their litigious games.’

  ‘What of your family? Are they safe? And what of Jehanne?’

  ‘She stays with us at my family’s country estate. We have grown very fond of her.’

  While overjoyed for her friend, Heloise feels for Garlande. Despite his morally dubious outer skin, inside lies a better man than many know. ‘What will you do?’

  ‘Take some time to collect myself. While Louis is distracted, I can do nothing … but I am prepared to wait.’ He plucks a burr off his cloak with a shaky hand. ‘I am afraid I bear bad news of Peter, too. He has clashed with his students and evicted them all, inciting a revolt that eventually forced him to accept them back.’ Garlande’s face is laden with sorrow. ‘I do not need to tell you how he is when under threat. His fears have multiplied with news of my descent, suspicions rising along with his exaggerations. He claims his enemies have crossed the country spreading slander, and his trial at Soissons haunts him with forebodings.’

  ‘Is there any truth in it?’

  Garlande shrugs. ‘Who knows? It is not without the bounds of possibility. But anxiety disrupts his moods so much I have contrived a shift away before the pressure fells him. It is the last thing I can do to help; I no longer have access to the royal ear.’

  Heloise leans on his shoulder, as much for her comfort as his. To hear of Abelard is always a two-edged sword. ‘Where have you sent him?’

  ‘He is now abbot at the monastery of St Gildas-de-Rhuys.’

  ‘Where in the world is that?’

  ‘On the coast of Brittany, to the west of his home. He has family there who can watch his state of mind — and it is far enough from Paris’s foul intrigues that they can cause no harm.’

  ‘He has agreed to this? He holds no great love for the place.’ Heloise is wracked with jealousy at his proximity to Astrolabe. But perhaps on sighting their son, his heart will move more tenderly back to her.

  ‘Fear drove him to take it up, but my hope is it might do him good. Though, God knows, he still has managed to write. Thibaud built him a scriptorium to store his many notes and the manuscripts he took from St Denis.’

  ‘I heard rumour he rewrote the Theologia, resurrecting it from Conon’s flames.’

  ‘It is true. But you know Peter: he gave it a new title — Theologia Christiana — and thinks no one will guess its roots. And, worse, he extends the thoughts that so exasperated them and has added again to his Sic et Non. The man is obsessed, drafting more glosses on Porphyry’s logic, a Soliloquium with himself, and tops this with Platonic dialogues between philosopher, Christian and Jew!’

  ‘You have read them?’

  ‘What I have read so far confirms his brilliance.’

  ‘I look forward to reading them one day. I certainly envy his output. I spend my life consumed by the needs of this place or teaching.’

  ‘And I am reduced to grovelling to my family. Who would have thought I was so recently right-hand man to the king?’

  ‘But you will always be able to say you were! Is that not a miraculous thing? How many men can say that? And just think what you have seen and learned.’

  ‘Very little, it would seem.’ Garlande seeks and holds her gaze. ‘Beware, Heloise. In their rush to grab what they can, no one is safe. There is talk of further evictions such as St Eloi.’

  ‘There is no need to worry for Argenteuil; women have served here as nuns since its inception. Besides, the king would never allow this.’

  ‘Just stay on guard, this is all I ask. I do not trust them at all.’

  She gives this little air. She and Basilia have already checked the deeds and found within their papers two ancient charters, both drawn in the reign of Charlemagne’s father Pepin, which prove their full and unequivocal independence from St Denis, much to everyone’s relief.

  When Garlande rises, she stays him with her hand. ‘Please, I must ask you something. Now Fulbert is gone, will you tell me of my family? I know I am somehow linked to the Montmorency name.’

  Garlande rears back. ‘Do you indeed?’ He vehemently shakes his head. ‘What good would it do you to know this now? We have been through this already. They do not deserve you.’

  ‘But I—’

  ‘Heloise, please. They have had ample time to make themselves known if they cared to — you are spoken of throughout France for your skills. And besides, believe me, to have the chain of a family name around one’s neck can be a curse. Be who you are. You need neither family nor Peter to define you.’ He holds her hand. ‘Whenever I act, I have the full weight of my family’s expectations on my back — and, now I have failed, that weight is a terrible burden indeed. I would not wish this on you.’

  ‘There is also a burden in never knowing who you truly are,’ she says. ‘But I am sorry. I understand. It is just, with Fulbert’s death …’ She sighs as she rises to kiss his cheek. ‘Very well. You take care, my friend. And try to maintain hope. These things go around in cycles.’

  ‘I take strength from Jehanne’s resilience, and your own.’

  Heloise smiles. ‘Jehanne’s indeed is a worthy lesson for us all. Mine is as vacillating as the weather.’

  Garlande takes her by the arm. ‘Then prepare for storms, my dear. The winter is upon us.’

  Within the year, Argenteuil’s first whiff of trouble comes. Basilia returns from Paris and calls Heloise straight to her office.

  ‘The news is bad,’ she says. ‘Suger and Bernard are talking up tales of sex and scandal at St Jean in Laon and work to throw them out.’

  All the hairs on Heloise’s neck rise up. ‘Is there any substance to it?’

  ‘Nothing until Ber
nard of Clairvaux was heard to accuse them. He dubs them the brothel of Venus.’

  ‘But those are the very same words they flung at the poor nuns of St Eloi.’

  ‘I know! They must think us fools. We have to stay alert and give them nothing to use against us.’

  ‘But we have the charters.’

  ‘Who knows if we can count on them? Louis can amend anything he wants.’

  ‘How is it fair we have so little power? They ignore Christ’s message and actively work against us.’

  ‘You may as well ask how it is fair the sun sinks every evening. This is how it has been since God first made us from Adam’s rib.’

  ‘In ancient times women were worshipped for their ability to create new life.’

  ‘That is exactly the kind of talk that will see us routed.’

  ‘I know. Forgive me. I promise never to speak of it again … but it roils inside my head and pains me. How can they act so appallingly and get away with it? Please, tell me honestly if you have an answer. When I try to make sense of it my conclusions scare me. I promise to repeat nothing.’

  Basilia rubs her hands together and watches their slide as she considers. After a long pause, she leans in closer, her words so muted Heloise can barely hear. ‘I think they live in constant fear of their own inescapable death. I have seen it time and time again. As well, they resent that we hold the power to bring forth life and they do not. And, like every other creature birthed and suckled at its mother’s breast, I think they fear abandonment and mask their vulnerability through absolute control. They hate the female body’s power — that is why they abuse it. If they debase us they think they can own us … and those who resist they hate even more.’

  Is it possible her role as mother challenged Abelard’s sense of power? ‘Perhaps’, Heloise ventures, ‘that is why they so despise emotion. Bonds formed by love are intrinsically stronger and more vital than those produced by peddling fear. This, too, is no doubt viewed as a threat.’