Heloise

by Hager, Mandy

  To drag Jehanne’s future into this as well is low indeed. Heloise grasps the table’s edge to fortify herself. ‘So, let me see if I comprehend this: unless I marry Abelard and then agree to live apart from him, refuting all love ties when asked, I deliver destruction to us all?’

  Abelard groans. ‘Of course we will continue to meet on the quiet, my love. It is solely the public face that must be false.’

  ‘And what of the baby?’

  He and Garlande exchange a glance. ‘We will devise a suitable resolution.’

  ‘But how can I exist if the life I am leading is a lie? I could never take Astrolabe outdoors or speak for fear of slipping — and Jehanne would find herself also forced to conspire in this sin.’

  ‘There are ways to circumvent the truth without committing a sin,’ Garlande says.

  Heloise turns her back on him and presses her points to Abelard, having no doubt Garlande is a master at bending truth to suit his stance. ‘What of intention in this, dear teacher? If we make a solemn oath before God to marry and live as one, while knowing our intention is otherwise, does this not make us both sinners of the most amoral kind?’

  Abelard turns to Garlande. ‘Is it possible, friend, for you to watch the child while we take some air?’

  Garlande nods. ‘Spend all the time you need. It is not so long since I tended my own that I forget.’

  As soon as they are alone in the night, Abelard draws her to him and kisses her with great tenderness. Despite their argument, in this moment she melts into his arms. It is a homecoming, her anxiety fleetingly wrested aside as their two breaths merge.

  At length he pulls away and he leads her, hand in hand, silent into the dark woods, refusing to reveal their destination. But as they negotiate boulders and trees, she realises he is taking her to the grotto where she has shed so many lonely tears.

  Such is the slant of the rocks that moonlight slithers in through tangled branches and casts a silver halo upon the wooden mother. They stand reverent in her presence, each tied to their own thoughts, until he touches her again, and his urgency is plain.

  ‘Dear Lord, how I have pined for the feel of you,’ he whispers, his breath hot in her ear.

  Heloise eases him from the Madonna’s eyes as his hands roam new-made curves and reclaim her breasts from Astrolabe’s sole acquisition, wrenching off her robe to study Nature’s changes in the moon’s cool light. And though she warns of her blood he does not stop, scaffolding her in his arms to work his way inside her, pushing ever harder as she groans in discomfort and reunion until his want is spent.

  He helps her dress and they sit beside the stream, the noises of the night rising up around them. He tells her of his loneliness and unceasing love.

  ‘You must come,’ he says. ‘Not to salve Fulbert’s grief but because I cannot live without you. Life is only half made when I do not have you in my arms.’

  ‘But you are asking me to—’

  ‘Heloise, hush! If marriage, albeit secret, is the only way to keep us together and know you are safe from others’ arms and your uncle’s fists, then every risk is worth it. Once he has you in his sights and no longer feels deserted, his anger will recede. Surely you must see this?’

  The warmth of his embrace still lingers and her resistance is weak. But though she has no power to deny him, or her body’s searing call, she finds no peace in this. Such deceits are fated to lead to Hell.

  ‘Very well. But the sorrow to come will be no less intense than the love we two have already known.’

  Abelard laughs. ‘Dear girl, you are ever a writer of tragedies and dramas!’ He pulls her close, his arm around her shoulders, and swallows her in a lengthy kiss. ‘Now come, let us tell Stephen our pact is made, so we can fall between the covers and spend what is left of this night in each other’s comfort once again.’

  Like a knight offering his arm to his kingdom’s queen, he helps her to her feet. In the trees above, two tawny owls call back and forth, the quick kew-wick of the female followed by the quavering hoo-ho ho of the male’s answering cry. How strange the variances between the male and female of every creature God has made, she thinks, from voice and size, to countenance, to completely different ways with which to view the world.

  At dawn she lies against him while their son suckles at her breast. Perhaps, after all, God will grant them a good family life, albeit secret from the start? She smiles at the thought of Fulbert’s doting ministrations, imagining Astrolabe’s eyes springing wide when he hears for the first time the same tales Fulbert told her in her youth. She dreams of teaching him, of whetting his appetite for education and opening his mind to the world’s marvels.

  But upon arising, Abelard announces that Astrolabe is to be left in Denyse’s care.

  ‘We will return for him once the situation is more certain,’ he says. ‘Until the marriage is made and your uncle has calmed, it simply is not safe.’

  ‘But I must tend to him.’ She looks to his sister for support, but Denyse ducks her head and turns away, a blush scalding her cheeks.

  ‘Dagobert has arranged for a wet nurse,’ Garlande says. ‘She should be here in good time before we leave.’

  Heloise sweeps Astrolabe from his cradle and hugs him to her. ‘I will not give him up.’

  Abelard lays a hand onto each of her shoulders, locking her in the cage of his arms. ‘It is temporary, my love. Why would you take him into danger if not necessary?’

  She shakes her head. ‘Fulbert would never harm a child.’

  ‘Until this is sealed, we must take no chances. The man is crazed. Look what he did to you, the only one he professes to love.’

  Ever tighter she clasps her son, the thought of losing him unbearable. ‘Between Jehanne and me—’

  Garlande steps in, speaking slowly, in the tone of one who seeks to calm a wayward child. ‘You are not thinking straight, my dear. So soon after birth, no woman can use logic and enduring sense. You must put your trust in your husband-to-be. His only care is for the safety and well-being of you and the boy.’

  Neither tears nor pleading will sway them. The last sound she hears above the horses’ hooves as she rides away with them is the thin, wrenching wail of Astrolabe’s hungry cry.

  The ride to catch the river boat tests both her body and her mind. Her seat is sore, her breasts bursting with curdled milk that sets to throbbing stones. Every jolting step takes her further from her newborn son. At dusk, she cries for the lack of him; at dawn, she wakes with grief perched heavy on her chest like a gorgon, grim and fiercely glaring.

  Although Abelard is now willing to talk of Fulbert and the days ahead, Heloise has neither will nor energy to attend his words, all her effort used in enduring the journey’s trials. By nightfall, exhaustion leaves her numb, barely able to respond as Abelard fondles her to relieve his needs. She is a vessel, nothing more, gritting teeth against the loss that threatens to undo her. She feels trapped; knows that for all her grand words and thoughts of controlling her own destiny, in truth she has no power. Where would she go if she spurned Abelard and rejected this chance to bring them all together as a family and make peace with her uncle? She wants to believe Abelard still loves her and desires to mend this, but his actions make it hard for her to trust him, to love him back. The only way to cope in the face of such unrelenting loss is to cling onto the numbness as a defence against the pain.

  Abelard, meanwhile, is a spindle wound so tight his mind is out of kilter. He seethes at long-held resentments he cannot let go, relitigating every side-swipe ever aimed at him. At other times, he jumps into the role of entertainer, crooning his incriminating songs, his humour better suited to the taverns.

  Garlande attempts to break through Heloise’s miseries to justify her wrench from Astrolabe and this infernal ride.

  ‘Although Ivo of Chartres is now dead, others such as Galo continue Pope Gregory’s crusade for purity. Did you hear how Ivo took the late king to task for his bigamous marriage?’

  Heloise nods, rec
alling Fulbert’s instruction when she was young, and even now she often hears Ivo’s name spoken in awe for challenging the king. Since Ivo’s recent death, many have hailed him as a saint, and even Abelard has been influenced by his writings. She, too, has studied Ivo’s works on canonical law, including his emphasis on love, although it seemed to her his focus was more on concepts deemed virtuous that also enriched the Church.

  ‘One important thing you must understand, my dear, is that this proposed secrecy is both a blessing and curse. If Peter should be revealed as married in stealth, it will cause him more harm within Church circles as if he had married in the usual way.’

  Her mind is far too strained to follow this. She wishes he would leave her be; she does not want to brood further over sins about to be committed in expediency’s name.

  ‘Some might view his secrecy as fraud,’ Garlande continues. ‘His students come from far and wide, not just for his brilliance but for his long-held reputation for continence. Any whiff of infamy risks destroying not only his career but his twenty years of work.’

  ‘Is it not already a little late for that?’

  Garlande grunts. ‘It makes one wonder, certainly. I am reminded of the time Ivo withdrew a canon’s benefice for marrying quite legitimately. I vaguely knew the poor man, whom Ivo said lapsed from “continence into conjugal voluptuousness.”’

  She hears the fear in Garlande’s voice. He is married himself, with bishoprics galore granted by the king. To Heloise it appears the Church’s stand against attachment and simony is more concerned with property and power slipping from its hands than with the purity of its leaders; she and Abelard are caught up in matters far beyond their control.

  ‘It seems I cannot win. I must marry Abelard to save him from my uncle’s wrath — a wrath that has the power to unseat him from the cathedral school. And yet I must keep our marriage secret and risk a similar unseating. Love has no say in this at all. Anyway, has not Fulbert disclosed Astrolabe’s parentage? Surely every student and churchman in Paris already knows Peter Abelard is responsible?’

  Garlande winces at her bitter tone. ‘Bring forth the blind with eyes, and the deaf with ears.’ He waves away a thickening cloud of midges. ‘While Peter is filling the Church’s coffers with his students’ funds — and I hold the king’s ear to support him — they will continue to look the other way unless forced to act. But have no doubt, the moment they see his status slipping, or mine, they will crucify him … and you, and me.’

  She feels as a fish must when caught in a net and left on land to gasp with no hope of salvation.

  As they proceed, Abelard grows more fidgety and anxious while she withdraws further into herself. One night when the grief of separation from her son overflows, she slips from Abelard’s side and steps to the door of their wayside lodgings to escape its stale air. While the pulsing vastness of the heavens hangs above her, wave after wave of sobs retch up. Oh, that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night.

  She does not notice Garlande until he places a hand onto her shoulder. ‘Sorry, my dear, I heard your tears.’

  Heloise fights to control her breath and tries to leave, but he restrains her. ‘Let it out, girl. A gem cannot be polished without friction, nor a man perfected without trials.’ He draws her to him, and holds her as a father would while her sobs shudder on.

  The shoulder of his robe is wet by the time she pulls away, gulping air. ‘Forgive me,’ she says. ‘My reserves run low.’

  He sighs, his whole chest heaving. ‘This tug-of-war is harsh indeed. I had hoped Peter’s evident unravelling would convince you of the urgency.’

  She is pulled up short, realising she has not truly analysed Abelard’s frenzied behaviour. ‘Denyse asserts he has both mania and melancholy.’ She now feels foolish and self-absorbed.

  ‘The pressure pulls him apart,’ Garlande says. ‘For weeks he has been arrested by his mind’s great fear. If we do not find a solution to his crisis with Fulbert, we risk losing one of the greatest thinkers of our age.’

  ‘But he told me how productive he has been — his Dialectica all drafted and another treatise on the way.’

  ‘That is true,’ Garlande says. ‘Never have I known another like him — he has a gift for thought, a great skill for teaching, and he dares to stand up and push at the boundaries of others’ worn-out ideas. But I fear his star will burn out if we cannot curb the mania that holds him in its grip. Fulbert, too. They both stand on a precipice, staring down into the face of agitation and delusion.’

  This image strikes her hard, summoning up her mother’s death. For the first time since they came for her, she fully considers her lover’s distress. It leaves her guilty and broken-hearted.

  Together they enter their lodging again, and she stokes the fire as Garlande pours a warming tot. They sit and stare into the embers as if interrogating Delphi’s Oracle, although no reassuring pronouncement comes forth. Heloise thinks of how she once so boldly declared her wish to live as a writer and scholar, eschewing all thought of family or marriage. Yet now she has looked upon Astrolabe’s sweet face, the mother in her has awakened and all else pales. For a moment, she resurrects that buried dream in a new form: a life free to live in love and intellectual stimulation with Abelard and, now, their son, with Fulbert and Jehanne happy nearby. Is it possible they could still achieve this?

  ‘I wanted to study philosophy like Peter when I was a boy,’ Garlande suddenly says. ‘But I was pushed in an administrative direction.’ He kicks out as if at an errant behind and grins. ‘And always in cut-throat competition with my father and brothers — much as Peter vies with his fellow philosophers. The effect of such rivalry over time turns to an insatiable hunger, so strong it feels all life depends upon it.’ He rubs his jowls. ‘It makes us ever on the lookout for the last scrap on the plate to seize before others swoop.’ He laughs. ‘I don’t know why I tell you this … except perhaps it explains a little Peter’s obsession as much as my own. You draw out the truth in a way that few men can — even those whose job it is to take confession. I have missed our tete-a-tetes.’

  ‘Have you spoken much with Jehanne? She owns a good listener’s ear.’

  ‘Yes, I have seen her often while attempting to console Fulbert. These months have been hard, but she endures them well.’

  ‘Has my uncle been kind to her? Pray tell, he has not been at her with his fists?’

  Garlande shakes his head. ‘He has dealt her many a harsh word but has not raised his hand. This much I made sure to press on him.’

  ‘Then I hope by now you have noticed the sharpness of her wit?’

  He runs his fingers through his hair, the ruby in his signet ring winking in the fire’s glow. ‘Indeed. There is certainly more to her than meets the eye.’

  The thought of seeing Jehanne soon is the one shaft of light in this dark night. Heloise wishes the chancellor pleasant dreams and returns to her bed, where Abelard snores on regardless. Her breasts ache, a constant reminder of what she has left behind. Despite all the claims in this arrangement’s favour, she feels as torn as Medea, as volatile and desperate.

  So it was all in vain I reared you, O my sons; in vain did suffer, racked with anguish, enduring the cruel pangs of childbirth. ‘Fore Heaven I once had hope, poor me! high hope of ye that you would nurse me in my age and deck my corpse with loving hands, a boon we mortals covet; but now is my sweet fancy dead and gone; for I must lose you … and in bitterness and sorrow drag through life. And ye shall never with fond eyes see your mother …

  As she drops into sleep, one last thought spins in her mind. Why does God allow women’s fate to lie in the hands of men whose first thought is not for the well-being of their lady or their child, but for themselves? It seems Eve’s punishment for disobedience is to never be forgiven, despite all the Bible’s lofty claims.

  Twelve

  PARIS, 1117

  They enter Cathedral Close just as the gates are closing, both Heloi
se and Abelard hooded in cloaks to avoid detection. At Garlande’s sumptuous house, they wash and eat before each is sent alone to devote the night to private vigil. Abelard has insisted the marriage take place at daylight before Fulbert can change his mind.

  Since last she saw Garlande’s chapel of St Aignan, the bulk of its structure has risen complete. Its clean-lined bones are pleasing, the ceiling’s ribbed vaults arching out from columns topped by sculpted capitals. During this long night, Heloise studies their symbols by the candle’s flicker and reflects on her life’s great mess. Fantastical beasts peer down in judgment, disapproving, and the fleurs-de-lis remind her she has fallen a long way below the virtues of Mother Mary. She is chided by the scrolling acanthus leaves that promise enduring life, but also signify endless discomfort and punishment for sins … as if she needed reminding.

  Heloise travels back down the wayward road that has led her here and tries to make genuine peace with God. It is hard. Her most pressing dilemma is how to go happy into this marriage and not allow secrecy to destroy it. This is not yet resolved. She focuses on the thought that soon she will be wife to a man she loves. It is a privilege and yet it feels like a cost. A most unsettling thing.

  She truly does believe the joining of two people who freely love each other must breed content — well, that and perhaps respect for each other’s minds. By the grace of God, this happy state should leave no vacancy for straying and, therefore, serve up life-long harmony. If she and Abelard can come together on this there is still hope … but only if his frenzy calms. She kicks herself for not having given more credence to the warning signs. It is as if he has two halves: one, the Abelard she loves; the other the beast fed by his mania.