The Sharp Hook of Love by Sherry Jones Page A

letter over, not satisfied, but the messenger awaited and I would not send him to Abelard again with empty hands. When the youth had gone, I crushed the herbs in the window pot, relishing thyme’s woodslike scent, inhaling lavender’s perfume, and remembering Abelard’s fragrance, which, God willing, I would enjoy soon.
    He loved me, yes. I’d seen love in his eyes when he’d kissed me under the linden tree, felt it in his embrace at my uncle’s door. His every letter pulsed with love, and so did I, down to the marrow in my bones. It warmed me even on these chilly days, as though his arms perpetually encircled me. For the first time since my childhood, I felt not at all alone.
    From outside my window I heard my name. I opened the shutters to see Agnes of Garlande below in a green silk bliaut , her copper curls springing about her face in spite of the braids she had tried to impose upon them. I felt, again in my plain, dark tunic, like a weed in a garden of roses. I sighed. Now that she had seen me, I must receive her.
    She shimmered into the great room, all color and light. Her eyes sparkled as we embraced.
    â€œPierre is returning to Paris. Did you know?” she said.
    â€œI received his letter today.”
    â€œHe wrote to Uncle Etienne, also.” Her bright smile did notquite reach her eyes. “He has been away long enough, non ? Paris seems dull without Pierre.”
    Jean entered and gave her the henap , whose stem she rubbed absently with her thumb and forefinger.
    â€œI look forward to resuming my lessons with him,” I said carefully. “I have much yet to learn.”
    â€œAnd in so short a time.” She gave me a shrewd look. “I suppose you think the abbey to be your only recourse?”
    â€œIs that why you have come?” My voice sounded colder than I felt, but I did not soften my tone. “You have heard of my plans to enter the abbey, and you wish to learn when I will go?”
    â€œI have come to help you.” She surveyed the room to make certain Jean had gone. “Heloise, I know about your father.”
    My body stiffened; my knees tensed, as though I might run. I heard my uncle’s low growl: No one must ever know .
    Controlling my voice with great effort, I asked her what she thought she knew. With whom had she spoken about me? Only her mother, she said, to exclaim over the cousin she had met.
    â€œMother insisted that I am mistaken. William of Montsoreau had no daughters, and he died seven or eight years before I was born. But—aren’t you and I similar in age?”
    â€œ Oui , and we are not cousins, as you have discerned.” I lifted my chin. “You bear no obligation to help me.”
    â€œBut—are you truly returning to the cloistered life? How could you do so? When I mentioned Argenteuil at Uncle Etienne’s dinner, you appeared stricken, as though someone had died.”
    I thought of my mother, her tear-streaked face, the letters she did not write. My body felt heavy, too great a weight for me to carry. I lowered myself into one of chairs Jean had set before the fire.
    Agnes took the other chair and told me of her cousin whose husband had repudiated her for barrenness after six years of marriage. In shame she had taken refuge at Fontevraud. “I visited herthere. The gardens are glorious; the cathedral is splendid—and the abbey is as dank as a tomb. Convents are where women go to die, not to live.”
    I closed my eyes against the dark and the cold of the abbey; the hunger and fatigue; the feeling that, if someone did not speak, I would lose my mind. And yet, was the nun’s life worse than marriage?
    â€œBetter to die than live as a meretrix with a man I do not love,” I said.
    â€œ Pfft! Love is for lovers, not for husbands and wives.” She stood and took the henap from the mantel. “Women marry for money, and for children. Don’t you want children?”
    I felt a