The Sharp Hook of Love

by Sherry Jones

  Her voice caught. She blinked rapidly and smiled as if she stared into the sun. “Forgive me, please. I know it is your choice. I—”

  “But it is not my choice,” I blurted. “To take the veil is my . . . destiny.” I felt myself blush. The words sounded ridiculous even to my own ears.

  Queen Adelaide tipped the final drops of wine into her mouth, then handed the beautiful henap to me—a gift, she said, for a new friend.

  “What woman ever has a choice for how to live? We are like animals, non? Good for breeding, and nothing more. I wonder if this is what God intended when he fashioned Eve.” Clearly, she spoke of herself. I would never bear a child.

  Yet I could not deny anything that she said. Men belonged to themselves, while women belonged to men. The Church had owned me once and would again; in the meantime, my uncle could do with me as he willed. As I walked to the door of my uncle’s house, the henap the queen had given me tucked into my belt, I pulled my mantle over my chest and clutched it tightly, holding it there, hoping again that Uncle had not stayed up past his usual hour to await us. As Jean opened the door, I lowered my head, not wanting to breathe in his direction lest he detect the scent of wine. Uncle Fulbert would ban me from the court if he thought it had corrupted me. Abelard, on the other hand, had drunk all he desired and now staggered up the steps, and no one would protest.

  Jean lit a fire in my room, then offered to help Abelard undress. “I will sleep in my clothes,” I heard him shout before I closed my door. In a few moments, I heard a knock.

  “The master sleeps.” Jean did not bother to whisper, knowing from experience the soundness of a wine-soaked slumber. “He is intoxicated and made a clamor, but I do not expect he will disturb you now.” His gaze dropped to my exposed bust—I had removed the mantle—before I covered myself with a hand.

  “You are mistaken about the master,” I said, trying to draw him in with my smile, hoping to make him forget the tightness of my gown. “Wine does not intoxicate him. He remains sober no matter how much he drinks. He told me so tonight, on the ride home.”

  My jest had no effect. Jean remained as rigid as before. “Do you require anything more? If not, I will take your horses to the stable and then retire.” He began to walk away, then stopped and turned toward me again. “It appears that my young mistress drank a bit of wine tonight, as well?”

  “With the Queen of the Franks.” I pulled from my belt the henap she had given to me and held it up for him to see. “This is her cup, my gift from her. Is it not remarkable? We became friends.” Let him tell that to my uncle, and no harm would come to me. I thrust the cup toward him, offering it for a gift. I would have no use for it in the abbey, I said—but he refused. He said that my uncle paid him amply, but I knew the real reason he declined. If he became my ally, which was the reason I had offered the cup, he could not spy on me for Uncle Fulbert.

  In my room, I undressed and lay on the bed to gaze at the fire and contemplate the night—the courtiers’ glinting stares; Abelard’s beautiful songs; the love for me that he had proclaimed; Queen Adelaide’s knowing laugh and her disapproval of my plans to take the veil.

  “Your poet loves you,” she had said. “How can he permit you to do this?”

  I longed to tell her about my past, and my parents—perhaps, then, she might understand that I had no choice—but I did not dare. Although I sensed that she would sympathize, I did not want to violate my uncle’s trust. Or was that the reason I had held my tongue? I did not believe Queen Adelaide would betray any secret I confided to her. Tales, too, of my years at Argenteuil had formed on my lips, but I had swallowed them rather than reveal the unhappiness I had endured there. Admitting it to her meant admitting to myself the awful truth, one that would not serve me—and which might destroy me.

  I did not want to go.

  I sat up in bed, my pulse frantic.

  At that moment, another knock sounded on my door, so quiet that I might have imagined it. I stared at the fire, gasping for breath. Something shifted inside me. I did not want to take the veil. I wanted—

  The knocking sounded again, more loudly now, accompanied by Abelard’s murmur. My heart leapt. I pulled on my pelisse, then opened the door and pulled him into my arms, sighing with wonder. He wrapped himself around me and kissed me, murmuring my name, my precious love, more beautiful than any song, filling me with his scents, clove and aniseed and wine, and with a certainty of life that I had never before known. I felt as though I might lift off the floor and glide to the heavens. Love in all its terrible beauty had presented itself to me, or, rather, God in his mercy had sent it to me so that I might know, at last, not only the true meaning of the word but also the purpose of life. How had Christ lived his own brief years on Earth? Had he begun a school or tonsured his head and retreated into an abbey or become a hermit in the woods? Non. He had drunk deeply of the flawed world, to the very dregs, healing the sick, helping the poor, touching the men and women around him every day with the perfect love of God. Now, the Lord had sent Abelard to relieve my loneliness, and to fulfill the promise of God’s love for me. Would I forsake his gift?

  “Ma chère,” Abelard panted, kissing my throat. “My only love.” My blood quickened. My body seemed suddenly to ripen, filling with moisture, swelling me until I felt I might burst open like a juicy peach. He pulled open my pelisse and moved his hands over my skin, cupping my breasts, which were heavy with desire, and eliciting a moan from my throat.

  “You were the most beautiful woman in that castle tonight,” Abelard whispered. “A hundred men ravished you with their eyes—but only I have the privilege of doing so with my body.”

  He picked me up and lowered me to the bed, where I opened my arms and welcomed him. I wanted this; I wanted him. As we kissed, my very essence seemed to overflow like a river flooding its banks and pour from my mouth into his.

  “Dear God, how I want you,” he rasped, his breath hot on my neck, my ear, my cheek. “Heloise, let me come in. I must feel you encompassing me! I need to become one with you at last.”

  This was not the first time Abelard had asked for union with me, but it was the first time his mentula had prodded my inner thigh while he begged to enter. Never had we come so close to the precipice. I wanted him, but I could not succumb—thinking of the pain, yes, but also of the danger that we might be heard. I worried, also, about Abelard’s intoxicated state. Tomorrow, when he had sobered, would he regret breaking his vow of continence? Would he blame me for his sin? I, who could find no iniquity in loving, dreaded his pointing the finger of shame at me. So, consulting my heart and finding it timid, I thought it best in spite of my body’s promptings to delay our joining until we both possessed ourselves fully and could unite in joy.

  “I—I have drunk too much wine. I cannot, not tonight. But tomorrow, Abelard! Our minds, and hearts, will be clear then.”

  He sighed. The room fell into silence save for the cracks and pops of the fire. He rolled over and lay beside me, and I asked him to hold me for a while before returning to his bed. He slipped his arms around me and, kissing my hair and neck, murmured the sweetest words of love ever uttered. I pressed myself into him, molding myself to his form, wishing I might slip through his skin into his body and truly become one with Abelard.

  Yet, to lie with him in this way, curled in his embrace, was enough. Here was where I belonged, in the arms of Abelard, my one and only love, and here would I remain—not in the abbey, not living according to the wishes of my mother, who had abandoned me, nor at my uncle’s command, but only for Abelard. Here, I felt safe and protected as never before. Here, no one could harm me. Abelard’s breath stroked the back of my neck like a calming hand until I slipped into a deep, dreamless sleep.

  Or did I dream? For I felt, in my slumber, the graze of his lips on my breasts, the suckle of his mouth, the sweep of his hands, again, on my skin. I saw the dark shape of his head over mine, faintly limned by the moonlight slipping in through the shutters, and heard his quick, excited pa
nts—

  And awoke to a stabbing pain between my thighs. I would have cried out but his mouth was on mine, imbuing me with his breath, muffling my cries, which soon changed to delighted sighs. Pleasure filled me and grew with each slow stroke. I wanted this. I wrapped my legs around his waist and drew him in more deeply, reveling in the feeling of him atop me, around me, and inside me, as though we had indeed become one. It may be, as he had argued, that humans do not share the same essence, but in that moment Abelard and Heloise joined together in spirit as well as in body. Although the night covered his face, I could see him clearly, even the blue of his eyes, as his thrusting increased in force and speed. Then he stiffened, gasped, and sighed my name once more: Heloise, my singuläris, you delight me more than I had even imagined.

  As he held me close, his pulse twitching against my ear, my teeth rattled with unquenched passion. I wanted more.

  “Heloise, your body trembles. Have I hurt you, dearest?”

  “No, my love.” My voice quavered, as well.

  “What? Are you crying? Dear Lord, what have I done?”

  I lifted my eyes to his face, smiling, but he could not see me in the dark. “What have you done?” I said in my sweetest voice, about to tell him that he had made me the happiest woman in all the world, but before I could do so he uttered a curse.

  “I have ruined the woman I love. God help me! Heloise, what did I do? I awoke with your soft, slender body in my arms and the fragrance rising from your hair, and I forgot everything. I forgot your desire to wait; I forgot my vows.”

  I drew back, dreading that he might rebuke me for our sin as Adam had blamed Eve. But how could Abelard point his finger at me? He had taken me while I slept; I had not assented. Or had I? I recalled his face above me in the dark, and the tug of his lips on my breasts. When had I awakened?

  “Dear God, forgive me,” he said. “But—why should he do so? Why should you?”

  “There is nothing to forgive.”

  “How can you say that? I forced myself upon you, and most brutally—dear, dear Lord!” His voice broke, and when he kissed my cheek, he wet my face with his tears. “How can you ever forgive me? How will I ever forgive myself?”

  “There is nothing to forgive, Abelard. I wanted it as much as you did.”

  He sat up and covered his face with his hands. “Please, avert your eyes. I cannot bear for you to look at me now, despicable creature that I am.”

  I sat up, too, and slipped my arms around him. Now he was the one whose body shook. Then we heard Jean’s footsteps over our heads.

  Abelard leapt from the bed. “Jean will find me here. I must leave you.” He leaned down to kiss me, wetting my cheeks with his tears. “Heloise, I have wronged you most grievously and cast us both into sin. Do not despise me, I pray.”

  “I could never despise you.” But I did not think he heard me. Snatching up his chemise and braies, he hurried across the room and out the door to his own bed before Jean might discover him here. If that happened, neither bribe nor cajoling would convince Jean to keep our secret. He had disliked Abelard from the first time they’d met, but having to move into the attic room had planted seeds of contempt in the servant’s heart. His anger surely increased each time he emptied the magister’s chamber pot. Were he to learn our secret, he would tell it to my uncle—and who knew what Uncle Fulbert would do?

  I smoothed the bedcovers where Abelard had lain, then turned onto my side and closed my eyes, feigning sleep and hoping that, when Jean came in to lay the fire, he would not hear the hammering of my anxious heart. Abelard and I had behaved carelessly, but we must not do so again. For myself I had little to fear except my uncle’s heavy hand, and that my uncle might send me away sooner rather than later. But for Abelard, the consequences of betrayal would be disastrous. He’d laughed when I’d warned him of my uncle’s temper, but I had felt Uncle’s fist. What would he do to Abelard for betraying him under his own roof?

  13

  So much pain sprouts and thrives in my heart that not even a whole year would suffice for its description. My body, too, is sad, my spirit transformed from its usual cheerfulness.

  —HELOISE TO ABELARD

  Pauline’s eel pie, although delectable to the tongue, gave me no pleasure at dinner the following day. I choked down only a few bites, tasting nothing yet forcing myself to eat under my uncle’s suspicious glare.

  “You are corrupted—corrupted!” He smacked the table with his hand. “Jean told me how you came home in a whore’s dress, stinking of wine. By God! I should not have allowed you to go to that pit of iniquity.”

  “I sat with the queen, at her invitation. She gave her henap to me and invited me to visit her again.”

  “That you shall never do. That court is the wickedest place in the realm—wicked! I have heard all about it from Suger. Gamblers, adulterers, fornicators: sin oozes from the very walls. By God, I should not have allowed you to go, but Petrus promised to protect you from harm.”

  “I am capable of protecting myself.”

  “Indeed. Behold your pale cheeks and trembling hands.” Uncle narrowed his eyes. “I know the ravages of excess as well as anyone.”

  I met his gaze. “Indeed.”

  “Chienne!” He bared his teeth and gripped my arm so tightly I cried out. “I ought to send you upstairs to put on that meretrix’s costume you wore last night. Then we can judge who is the greater hypocrite.”

  “Agnes has already sent her servant for the gown,” I lied, pulling my arm from his grip. “But I assure you, it was no more revealing than any other costume I saw there, including the queen’s own attire.”

  “And where was Petrus? I hold him responsible. You are degraded—degraded! He is to blame. Now I know why he did not come to dinner today.”

  My food stuck in my throat. I lowered my gaze lest my uncle note my distress. Why, indeed, had Abelard not come? Except for his months in Brittany, he had not missed a meal with us. Men revel in the hunt, Agnes had said during the feast in King Louis’s court. Having finally claimed the prize he had pursued all these months, would he now forsake me?

  I should not have opened my door to him. Or I should have sent him back to his bed rather than inviting him to lie with me. Now we shared the guilt in an act so unspeakable I could not even face him this morning. I had remained in bed all morning, feigning illness—not a falsehood, since I felt sick both in my head, which throbbed from too much wine, and in my heart, because of Abelard’s remorse over what we had done and my part in it.

  Agnes had suggested the revealing gown, but I had agreed to wear it, imagining, in truth, Abelard’s arousal at seeing me so daringly attired. I had stirred his passions, then passed the cup with Queen Adelaide too many times, aware all the while of his gaze, which fixed itself again and again on my exposed bosom. My own desire stirred by his, I had welcomed him into my room when I should have turned him away. Had I heeded my own inner warnings against overindulging in wine, I should never have done so.

  I had hoped to talk with him after dinner today, during relevée, while my uncle napped. Where had Abelard gone? To Etienne’s house, to confess the act for which he felt only shame and self-loathing? I had rejoiced in our union, thinking only of myself even in the face of his torment.

  After dinner I retired to my room, exhausted. I closed my shutters and lay down to wait until supper and the opportunity to face my love again. Did he despise me now, or did he yet love me after all? One look into those blue eyes, and I would know.

  But at supper I sat again at the table with only my uncle. Abelard had not come. Neither had he sent a message excusing himself, a lapse that caused Uncle Fulbert to point the finger at me.

  “Why isn’t he here? Your face has guilt written in every pore. Tell me, girl—has something happened?” He narrowed his eyes. “By God’s head, if you embarrassed him, or me, last night—”

  “Nothing has happened, except that I have neglected to relay his message to you,” I lied, a sin that paled next to the
others I might confess. “King Louis invited him to court again this evening for a private lecture on philosophy.”

  “Good, good.” Uncle nodded. “He may attempt again, if he forgot last night, to speak with Suger about supporting me for the deacon’s post. Why do you frown?”

  “I do not like Suger. He has the eyes of a vicious creature—the sort that lives underground and only emerges for the kill.”

  “He also has the ear of the bishop of Paris—the bishop!—and the heart of the king of the Franks.” My uncle’s eyes bulged. “By God, did you tell him you are my niece? Did he see you in that whore’s gown?”

  I closed my eyes, remembering the monk Suger’s accusing stare. So begins the debasement of a great man, he had murmured, unheard by anyone but me. For his sins, God will banish Petrus from the garden of knowledge—and you, his temptress, will be crushed under your lover’s heel.

  That night in my room, I tried to study while listening for the sound of my beloved’s footsteps. Would he come for our lesson? My pulse quickened at the thought.

  At last I heard his heavy tread. My heart beating wildly, I sprang across the room toward the door, ready to receive Abelard—but it opened to reveal Pauline.

  “I am glad you are faring better, miss.” From the sack in her hand she pulled the bedsheet, stained with the blood of my lost virginity, which she had removed from my bed and laundered. I sucked in my breath, but she only smiled.

  “I know many remedies for female troubles. If you need it, I could provide you with something for your pain.” I thanked her—but nothing could soothe me now.