The Sharp Hook of Love

by Sherry Jones

  “So he does every night. Pierre pays him to keep vigil at your uncle’s house whenever Canon Fulbert is at home. At the first sign of trouble, Pierre would send someone to help you.”

  “But he would not come to me himself?”

  “How could he do so? Did you know that Pierre’s scholars have complained about him to Bishop Galon? He neglects his classes, they say. One word against Pierre from Canon Fulbert might cost him his position at the school. Would you want that to happen?” Agnes shook her head. “Selfish though I am, I would never wish the man I love to give up his life for me.”

  Soon I had bathed and dressed and slipped down the alleyways to Etienne’s house to share my news with Abelard. A child of our own! Now reassured of his love for me, I hoped he would greet the news with as much joy as I felt. Abelard had watched over me. He had not withdrawn his love, but only his presence, and certainly not his protection from the danger my uncle posed. Now, by God’s grace, I would bear his child, not as a consolation for losing him—for he had never left me—but as a gift to us both.

  When I knocked on Etienne’s door, not Ralph but Etienne himself opened it to me. “Welcome, Heloise. Agnes told me you would come. Please, come in and join me in the garden.” He led me through the house into the courtyard. I seated myself on a bench in the shade and he sat beside me, his face expectant as though I had come to talk with him. Though I would not have insulted Etienne for anything in the world, I needed to speak with Abelard and told him so. But he shook his head. He had already knocked at Abelard’s door and told him I would visit. Send her home, Abelard had said.

  My face filled with heat, and I looked down at my clenched hands. What must Etienne think of my coming here after Abelard had commanded me to stay away? I must appear pitiful in his eyes, or careless of my beloved’s desires. But when I looked up at Etienne, I saw only loving concern.

  “I must speak with him,” I said.

  Etienne drew his brows together. Pierre admitted no one to his quarters, he said, not even Etienne himself. “When at first he hid himself away, I worried. But I had forgotten how he used to be. To make certain that he fared well, I opened a window and beheld him stooped over his desk, surrounded by trays of uneaten food, stumps of burned candles, and broken tablets, his beard grown like weeds over his face and his fingers clutching a stylus.”

  As Etienne watched, Abelard wrote, scratched out words, wrote some more, then scraped the wax clean to begin again, cursing and crying all the while.

  Had a demon possessed him? Had he gone mad? I rose to my feet. “He needs me. You must take me to him, Etienne.”

  “He needs you least of all.”

  I stared at this man who had once professed friendship to me. Had he now become my foe?

  “No one achieves what Pierre has done without complete dedication to his studies. God is my witness, Heloise: philosophy obsesses him, or it did before he met you. Pierre dined on ideas, drank deep drafts of discussion, dreamt about Plato and Porphyry. Every inhalation of breath provided a question, and every exhalation, an answer. I had never seen a man so possessed.” Etienne paused. “Neither have I witnessed such a struggle as Pierre’s these past months. His love for you has given him much pleasure, yes, but I have seen him falter in his work as though love were a rope binding him.”

  Abelard’s love for me had caused paralysis—of his mind, Etienne said. “In earlier times, he lived for a higher purpose, but no more. Now, Heloise, he lives only for you, and for love.”

  Wherein lay the fault in living for love? I wanted to argue. If Abelard thought knowledge the way to God, he had erred. The only true path to goodness—to God—is love.

  “We can see how this love has altered him,” Etienne said. “He used to carry himself with pride, strutting like a cock. Now he stoops and walks like an old man. He is diminished.”

  I shook my head. If love had impaired Abelard in certain ways, I said, it had improved him in others. Having always taken what he wanted from life, he had learned to give. Now, he thought of another besides himself. Abelard had cared for me, consoled me, exalted me, and now, even in the midst of his crisis, watched over me to ensure my well-being. He had written beautiful songs for me, and not only for me but for all who knew love, which was why the minstrels still sang them in every place. Women adored Abelard because, with his songs, he’d taught men how to love them. I could find nothing to lament in the diminishment of his arrogance and pride.

  Yet, his anguish over being unable to write had affected me deeply. Not for anything would I deprive him of his soul’s sustenance—or so I had thought. Now I would do whatever I must for the sake of our child.

  “Etienne, I love Abelard and do not wish to interfere with his work. But it cannot be helped. I have urgent news for him that he must hear.” He shook his head, his eyes regretful. “Please, Etienne. As God is my witness, I will not ask again. If you are my friend—”

  “Of course I am your friend.”

  “Then allow me to speak with Abelard once more. Only allow me to knock at his door, I pray. When he hears why I have come, he will admit me.”

  “Perhaps you would consider telling me your news. I would help you if I could.”

  My secret sprang to my lips—were I to tell Etienne of the child, he would lead me to Abelard in the instant, I knew. But I resisted the urge. Etienne had known Abelard for many years not only as a friend, but also as a benefactor. I would let my beloved decide whether to confide in him, and when.

  How, then, to move Etienne to grant my request? If only I could cry! Tears would certainly influence him. Instead, I resorted to hyperbole.

  “Etienne, I beg you,” I tried once more, reaching for his hand. “I must speak with Abelard. It is a matter of life and death.”

  My words had the desired effect. He lifted his gaze sharply to mine before, at last, relenting. “How could I say no to such a heartfelt plea?” He rose to his feet, helping me to mine, and led me outdoors to the servants’ quarters, where he rapped on the door. Hearing Abelard’s reply, Etienne bowed to me before stepping across the courtyard and into his manor.

  “For the love of God, why can’t you all leave me be?” Abelard said through the door. “I am working and must have solitude.”

  “Please open the door. For the love of Heloise.”

  Silence was my answer. I pressed my ear to the door: Had he gone away?

  I rapped on the wood with my knuckles, hoping he could hear me. “Abelard, I must speak with you. It is urgent.” Still hearing no response, I added, “If you won’t open your door for Heloise, then do it for our child.”

  I heard the bolt slide in the latch.

  The door swung open and he stood before me, unkempt, nearly wild, his overgrown hair waving like a mane, his face unshaven and his eyes shot with blood, and the same plain tunic I had seen on my last visit hanging even more loosely on his thin frame.

  “A child?” he said in a hoarse voice, then thrust out his chest and grinned. “The men of le Pallet are known for our fertile seed.”

  I laughed, dizzy with relief, and stepped into his arms, which he wrapped around me so tightly that I could hardly breathe. But who needs breath when one is attached, heart to heart, to the very source of life? My blood changed to wine, intoxicating me, as I inhaled his fragrances—apple, aniseed, and soap, for although unkempt he had, at least, bathed—and I forgot myself completely as he led me into the house to his bed.

  “Show me,” he said, lifting my bliaut.

  I pulled the tunic over my head, revealing my belly, and his gaze wandered over it as though he could see the growing child within. He lowered his head and kissed me there, filling me with warmth. His hands stroked my waist, my back, and my thighs, making me gasp at the feeling, nearly forgotten, of flesh, his and mine, liquid with desire, running together like confluent streams.

  “I must return to my uncle’s soon,” I protested as he began to remove the rest of my clothes, but he heeded me not and I did not resist. Soon I lay
naked beneath his devouring mouth, ravished by kisses along the tender undersides of my arms, his lips suckling at my nipples and sending waves of pleasure coursing down to my cunnus, which became a well. The kisses he bestowed upon me there, the sight of his curly head between my parted thighs, the stroke of his fingers inside me, intensified my pleasure until I burst forth in a cry, or, rather, a song, a note struck deep within that reverberated through my being. On and on I sang as ecstasy rose to bliss, and bliss rose to oblivion. I forgot all else, for nothing else mattered but Abelard and me, together again until the end of our days.

  “Heloise, my singular joy, my honey-dripping comb.” Tears roughened his voice and shone on his face. “Life without you had lost all its sweetness.” Kissing my lips, my hair, and my cheeks as though I were the one who cried, he begged forgiveness for abandoning me.

  “It hurt me that you did so, but I understand your reasons.” Deciding not to mention his jealous mistress, I added, “My uncle carries a sharp knife. Anyone would be afraid.”

  Abelard snorted. “I don’t fear your uncle’s knife. Let him try to touch me with it! Non, not his blade, but the sharp edge of his tongue frightened me. He could cut me off from everything that has ever mattered to me.”

  “And yet, knowing the dangers, you lie with me now.”

  “When the lantern boy reported your screams, I thought the worst had happened. If Fulbert had harmed you, I would have killed myself, I swear it.” I suppressed a smile; Abelard loved himself too much to take his own life. “He can do to me what he likes, now. God is my witness, my jewel, my unique one: without you, I would not want to live. Because life is nothing to me without your love.”

  “I thought you lived for your mistress Urania,” I could not resist saying now.

  He waved his hands as if dispelling a fog. The Muses are mere inventions, he said, echoing the sentiments I had expressed. His difficulties with the stylus had nothing to do with the jealousy of imagined mistresses, he added—or with loving me.

  “I could not write because I did not discipline myself. How shall I think great thoughts when I neglect to set aside the time?” He gestured toward his desk, upon which he had set many tablets one upon the other—all filled with words that he had not scratched out. “Philosophy requires diligence and commitment. I needed only devote myself to my studies now as in the past, and voilà. Urania returned to me. As you have done.” He clutched me more tightly and kissed me all over my face. “If only we never had to part from each other again.”

  I laughed. “What could separate us now except death?”

  He creased his brow. “But you will depart for Fontevraud soon.”

  “And take the veil while heavy with child? To do so may suffice for one of Robert’s meretrices, but I have no intention of bringing up a boy or girl in the abbey, as I was raised.” I shuddered. “And of course, our child will know its father.”

  He paled. “And what of the father himself? What will be his fate?”

  “He shall continue on the path to glory, with a mistress and child always waiting to receive him.”

  “But you know that cannot be.”

  “Cannot be?” I frowned. “But why not? God has willed it.”

  “Does God will my ruin? I have taken a vow of continence, or had you forgotten?”

  “And who demanded it of you? William of Champeaux, a mere schoolmaster. Surely no one expects you to emulate him, whom you have already surpassed—unless you wish to become a bishop, too, or a mad ascetic.”

  “I am supposed to set an example for my scholars—of virtue, not vice.”

  “To which vice do you refer? Love?”

  “Lust. Fornication. Deception. Now the truth will be written on your body, for all to see. Dear God, how could we have let this happen?”

  “How, indeed?” Emotion flooded me, sweeping me up from the bed and onto my feet, where I pulled on my clothes with such force that I tore my tunic. “Suddenly I am asking myself that very question.”

  “My work, my reputation, my very life—I could lose all.”

  “Are you referring to the life which is nothing without my love?”

  Abelard stood, too, and walked to the farthest end of the room. “Fulbert is to blame. You are in his care, and yet he gave you to me for the price of a few silver coins.”

  “He trusted you.”

  “ ‘Would you trust timid doves to a hawk? Would you trust the full fold to a mountain wolf?’ ”

  “I would not repeat those lines to him, were I you.” My uncle had already blamed the Ars amatoria for my sins and returned the book to the scriptorium.

  “Does it matter what I say? He will kill me, anyway.”

  “ ‘There’s no fairer law than that the murderous maker should perish by his art.’ ” I could quote from Ovid as readily as he.

  “How can you speak so callously? Don’t you care about my fate?”

  “And what of mine?” My voice rose. “I hoped you would take me in—that you would bring me here to live with you.”

  “Are you possessed?” He stared at me as though I were strange to him.

  “The child is growing, Abelard. Soon my condition will become visible. What will happen to me once my uncle notices?” What he forced your mother to do was more shameful. Queen Bertrade’s words struck me with foreboding, like a fist to my chest. I sat on the bed’s edge, trying to calm my careening pulse. Uncle would deprive me, too, of my child; indeed, he must do so in order to send me to Fontevraud.

  “You, at least, do not have to fear for your life.”

  “If he takes our child from me, I shall kill myself.”

  “Take the child? Why would he do so?” Abelard frowned. “You are inventing difficulties before they arise.”

  I stood and crossed the room to him, holding out my hands, taking his in my own. “You will not allow it, will you, Abelard? You will protect us?”

  “Protect you—from that demon? I could not defend you before.” He withdrew his hands. “Indeed, the best protection for us both would be your return home, and an end to these meetings of ours.”

  I gasped. “Would you abandon me again? Would you cast aside the mother of your child? Would you leave me to the mercy of my uncle?”

  “You speak of Fulbert as though he were a monster, or a demon. He will not harm you, Heloise, not when he learns about the child. The worst he would do is send you away, which might be better for us both.”

  “May God damn you!” I shouted. “You care only about yourself, and nothing for me. Non. Do not bother to protest. I see the expression on your face. A few moments ago, when my body was a source of pleasure to you, your eyes were as soft as a kitten’s. But in the instant I mention responsibilities, you shut the door of your heart.”

  “At least I possess a heart.”

  “And I do not?”

  “Our world is crumbling, I stand to lose my very life, and you have just cursed me. Where is your heart, Heloise? Where are your womanly tears?” His eyes flashed defiance; he thrust out his chin. “Do you realize that I have never seen you cry? It makes me wonder, yes, whether you possess a heart.”

  “And I wonder where are your colei.”

  “I appreciate your concern for my testes, now that I stand an even greater chance of losing them.”

  I looked around for an object to hurl at him but, finding nothing, threw words, instead—words that would haunt me until the end of my days.

  “If losing them would diminish your incredible arrogance, then I would cut them off myself.”

  6

  Farewell, my bright star, golden constellation, jewel of virtues, sweet medicine for my body.

  —HELOISE TO ABELARD

  I was a brittle tree blown by the wind, on the verge of snapping. I was a pear left on that tree too long, bitter and rotting.

  Abelard had cast me aside again, not only me but also his child, leaving us to the mercies of my uncle, who had awaited me in my room when I returned.

  “You’
ve been to see him, haven’t you? Whore!” he screamed as he struck me to the floor. Panting, he seized my hair; I cried out as, with his other hand, he tore at my clothes and flesh, his eyes wild until, thanks be to God, Jean ran in, waving his arms, and shouted at him to stop. Uncle had no choice, then, but to release me, but not without a kick to my back, which I had turned to him, protecting my child—our child.

  As I lay on the floor, cradling my belly and moaning, Jean made my bed, then lifted me onto it. Now I remained in my room, not locked in but refusing to leave, scorning my uncle’s entreaties, fearing for my little one’s very life. Perhaps Abelard had spoken the truth, and telling Uncle Fulbert about the child would stop him from striking me, but I dared not risk his wrath again. He might hurt the baby or, worse, take it from me, as he had taken me from my mother.

  My uncle had forced her to abandon me—this I knew, as surely as I knew my own name. The memories now rushed in a great torrent: the lilt and ripple of my mother’s voice, golden and warm; the powdery softness of her skin when she pressed her cheek to mine; and her fragrance, like the spring breeze. Mother! We must have had servants in our home, but perhaps, as Bertrade had said, she’d sent them away to avoid my being discovered, for in my mind there is only Mother, humming and laughing as she danced me, spinning, in her arms; Mother teaching me to read from a book of hours whose angels seemed nearly to leap from the page; Mother holding me close in her feather bed and singing me to sleep, her voice, that final night, choked with sobs.

  I remembered our journey on her palfrey of gray, her arms about my waist as my uncle led us by the reins. The horse’s rocking, as steady as the beating of my mother’s heart, lulled me to sleep; when I awakened, with a pain in my neck that made me cry, she pointed to the stone buildings towering over us like rain clouds. Their gloomy appearance only increased my tears. When she bent down to kiss my cheek, her face was wet, also.

  We stopped, and Uncle Fulbert came with raised arms to help me down. I clung to Mother, crying all the more, sensing that this strange man had nothing good in store for me. My mother’s tears exceeded mine as she pulled my hands from around her neck and told me she was sorry, that she loved me, and that she would write to me often. Then my uncle carried me, squeezing the breath from me, through the great wooden doors of the Argenteuil Abbey. I flailed and kicked, screaming for my mother. He smacked my bottom so hard that, for days afterward, it hurt me to sit down.