The Sharp Hook of Love (11 page)

“We will help each other.” Uncle Fulbert's cheeks flushed with wine and excitement. “Help each other, as friends—friends!”

“
Oui
, but I want to help Heloise, too. Such a brilliant and capable girl deserves the best teaching.” Abelard furrowed his brow, pondering—then brightened. “Fulbert—you possess a spare room,
non
?”

“The room on the top floor would accommodate one man. But it is a narrow, cramped space, far removed from any hearth.”

“Believe me when I say that it cannot be colder than the warmest room in my house. How pleasant it would be to come home to you, my dear friend”—Uncle Fulbert wriggled with pleasure—“and Heloise, my brightest pupil. And your house is closer to the cathedral than my own.” I looked down at my hands, scarcely able to believe what I heard.

“Not the attic,
non
,” my uncle said. “The room is not worthy of you.”

Jean returned to clear away the food.

“But your hearth is warm and your cook is exquisite. I would pay a king's ransom not to take another meal in the refectory.” Abelard laughed. “I think the cook there procures his meat from the gallows at the place de Grève.”

“A king's ransom, for my attic room?” My uncle shook his head. “I would not demand such a high rent. No, I would accept only the amount you charge to instruct my niece.”

Listening to their negotiations, I pressed a hand to my skipping heart. Abelard, live here! The Lord had answered my prayers, and more: to spend every evening of our remaining months together was more than I had dared to ask.

I winced to hear my uncle's demands, however. Would he turn Abelard away for money's sake, rich as Uncle Fulbert was? He needed no rent; he had paid for his house long ago and earned as much as a count from his benefice. But even the greatest wealth cannot extinguish insatiable greed.

Abelard unleashed his lion's roar of a laugh and sent me another wink, dispelling my fears. “Fulbert, you fox! Are you suggesting I waive my teaching fee in exchange for a room in your attic?”

“Indeed not.” My uncle glanced at Jean. “For that price I will give you Jean's room and move
him
into the attic.”

Jean's eyes darted from side to side as he wiped the table. “You are giving my bedchambers to the headmaster? But who will guard Heloise? Didn't you place me next to her for that purpose?”

“That was your idea—yours. I never thought she needed guarding, and indeed she has not, chaste and devout girl that she is. They taught her well in the convent—very well! When I am away, however, your duty will be to watch the house—and, on all days, to empty Master Petrus's chamber pot.” As my uncle laughed, Jean turned away with the dishes in hand—sending a dark look Abelard's way before stomping from the hall. When he had entered the kitchen, we heard a crash, then a string of expletives.

“I do not wish to cause difficulty,” Abelard said, although his broad grin belied his protest. I had to look away or be consumed by the flame I saw leaping in his eyes. The corners of my mouth twitched with a smile of my own, which I suppressed, not wanting my elation to show. Living here, with me! Warmth
spread through me as though the sun had taken residence in my chest.

“Jean has served me since I was young,” Uncle Fulbert said with a wave of his hand. “Nearly thirty years! He will sleep anywhere I say, and happily. He's as faithful as a dog, eh, Heloise?”

Indeed. I could not understand why Jean endured my uncle's belligerent, wine-soaked rants and, when Uncle was especially drunk, his kicks and slaps. With a straight back and impassive eyes he bore Uncle's every insult, his every blow. Of course, I endured the same from Uncle Fulbert, but I had nowhere else to go.

“And so it is settled,” my uncle said. “You will live with us. In exchange, you will instruct my niece—and we will both save money. Everyone is happy.” He hoisted the
henap
in a toast, took a drink, and handed the cup to Abelard.

“Everyone is happy, yes, except poor Jean,” I said, but Abelard's lips had curled in a slippery grin. I, however, did not like the twist of Jean's mouth upon his hearing that he must move upstairs. I had explored the attic room and found it dank and smelling of rats.

The meal finished, my uncle staggered to his chambers and I retired to the study, where I began work on a letter to Abelard.

In a few moments, as I had expected, he came in, rubbing his palms together. “Good fortune is mine once again.”

“Good fortune? You have given up a substantial sum tonight.”

“Yes, and gladly, in order to be near you.” Abelard took my hand and pulled me close, then slid his arm about my waist. “My God, Heloise, you feel like heaven. I dreamt of this nightly while I was away.”

“All this feels like a dream to me, too.” I leaned against him, feeling as though I might melt. “To have you in Paris again is
strange enough. It seems you might disappear at any moment, as though you were an apparition, or made of smoke. But to see you every night—I cannot believe it.”

“I cannot believe how easily Fulbert fell into my trap.” He laughed again. “And now he has consigned his little lamb to the wolf.”

“You deceived him.” I pulled away.

“Ah, but deception is not a sin.” Abelard wagged his finger. “You have said so yourself.”

“What I have said is that, in determining the sinfulness of an act, one ought to consider the doer's intentions.”

“Behold the bold flush of your cheeks, the flash of your eyes!”

“My uncle trusts you, and yet you mock him as though he were a fool.”

“I only did it to be with you, my lamb.”

“Do not call me that.”

“I only did it to be with you, light of my days. Think of it, Heloise—now we will see each other nightly. I will ride home with your uncle at vespers, and here you will be, your face shining with love—”

“Your presumption astonishes me.” Yet I had to smile.

“Your face shining with pleasure at the prospect of another stimulating evening, first at supper and then, afterward, here, where we may talk into the night for as long as we desire. Your eyes bright with excitement, as they are now.”

He pulled me closer than before, so that I felt his pulse thumping against my chest and another part of him pressing against my thigh. I gasped, sensing danger, as though an intruder lurked at my door. I shifted my hips and would have moved away, but his hands remained firm at my waist.

“Are you sorry I took such a liberty?” He pressed his cheek to mine.

“I worry that
you
will be sorry. You will regret this move, I fear.”

“What shall I regret—giving up a salary I do not need? Yes, that's right, dear girl, I do not need your uncle's money. Do you hate me for pretending otherwise? Had I told him the truth, he would not have believed me. Such men cannot know what it means to despise worldly riches, as you and I do.”

Truer words were never spoken. Abelard had given up a lord's château and all the privileges of landed wealth for the pursuit of knowledge. I, who had never owned anything, dreamed not of moneyed counts as Agnes did, but of heading the Fontevraud Abbey so that I might endow generations of girls with the gift of knowledge as my teacher, the prioress Beatrice, had done for me at Argenteuil. Never were two minds more alike than Abelard's and mine.

Our eyes met, and we joined ourselves in another kiss, becoming one in breath as in mind. Our mouths feasted hungrily, but, rather than sate my appetite, Abelard's kisses only made me yearn for more. I groaned.

“Shh! I feel the same way, but we do not want Fulbert to hear.” Abelard laughed tentatively, as though tiptoeing across humor's prickly terrain.

“That is what I meant when I said you might regret this move. Are you certain you wish to take such a risk? What of the danger to you—to us both?”

His lips twitched. “ ‘The wise man regards the reason for his actions, but not the results.' ”

I had never agreed with Seneca on this. “I beg you to reconsider. If Uncle Fulbert discovers us, he will kill us.”

“A man cannot kill you if he cannot see you.” Abelard's gaze roamed across my throat, down to my breasts. “Or, if he sees two of you.” He nuzzled my throat and stroked the small of my back,
sending pleasure coursing up my spine. He smelled of woodsmoke and wine, and, underneath, of soap. “What should I reconsider—my agreement with your uncle or my feelings for you, which I could no sooner relinquish than my need for air?”

As he kissed my forehead, my cheeks, my nose, I relished the bristle of his unshaven cheek, his flavor like wine, his heat—Abelard, for whom I had ached these past months, Abelard at last. “I worry that the price will be too dear.”

His voice broke and quivered. “For one night with you, my love, I would give my life, which, without you, would be no life at all.”

His murmurs turned to whispers as he held me close, closer, kissing my ear, stroking my hair,
my love, my lovely Heloise,
words bubbling like a spring from his tongue. I, trembling against his chest, heard his heart's beat and, playing like a song, his words more beautiful than any poem:
my love my love my love.

To her love most pure, worthy of inner fidelity; through the state of true love, the secret of tender faith.

—HELOISE TO ABELARD

T
he sun shone more brightly, it seemed, after Abelard came to live in our home. Warm breezes blew across the city, delaying the autumn; the birds rivaled the morning trumpet with their cheerful song. No more did I tarry in the scriptorium and arrive home late for supper, but waited eagerly for Abelard's arrival every day after the vespers bell. Home was where we all wanted to be—all, that is, except Jean, who scowled as the rest of us laughed at Abelard's witticisms, and as he complimented Pauline on her cooking and begged her to divorce Jean and marry him. Even I joined in the merriment, I who had not truly laughed since my seventh year, when my mother and I had danced in the sunlight singing nonsense songs and wearing chains of daisies in our hair.

As much as I enjoyed our suppers, however, I cherished the hours afterward even more, when Jean and Pauline's son, Jean-Paul, had come to accompany his mother home and Jean and my uncle had retired. Then Abelard would join me in the study, and we would resume our lessons, in which I learned little of philosophy but much of love.

He spared no effort to please me, plumping the cushion for my chair; presenting me with a pen made from the quill of a peacock; taking his seat so near that I could scarcely breathe—and yet I would not have had him move away, not even were I gasping for air.

“Here you have wished me ‘the secret of tender faith' through ‘the state of true love,' ” he said one evening, critiquing the letters I had sent to him in Brittany. “You have mistaken spiritual love,
caritas
”—he gestured toward the words I had written—“for carnal love,
amor
.” His fingers brushed against my arm, standing the hair on its ends, as he spoke the word
carnal
.

“But love is love. It is all the same.”

“Then why do we utter one word for God's love, another for the love of a friend, and another for erotic love?” His brusque tone made it clear that he did not expect an answer. “Of course a difference exists. Do you feel the same love for your uncle as you do for God?”

I did not feel love for my uncle, but only gratitude and, at times, fear—but I forbore straying from the topic at hand. “Are you saying that different types of love exist because of the words we use? Having read your
Dialectica
, I am surprised to hear you take this position.”

“You have read
Dialectica
?” Pleasure shone on his face.

“I devoured every word.”

“And what did you think of my arguments? The Count of Poitiers praised them as ‘skillfully and subtly written.' ”

“I cannot argue with that assessment, although I found the discourse rather
too
subtle at times. You dwell at length on the functions of words but little on the ideas which they express.”

His expression changed. He slid his chair away from me. The chill night air blew into the space between us.

“The subject matter is too abstract for a woman's mind,” he said.

“And yet I did appreciate your theories about universals and particulars.”

“I cannot believe you have read my
Dialectica.
” He gazed at me as fondly as if he were a proud papa, and I his child who had performed some difficult feat.

“And the classifications we give to things, you wrote, are mere words.”

“My dear girl! Dialectic is not too abstract for your grasp at all.” He reached for the stylus, pressing his knee against mine.