The Sharp Hook of Love Read Online Free

uncle’s fist pounding the table and his voice shouting my name.

2

    What king or philosopher could match your fame? When you appeared in public, who—I ask—did not hurry to catch a glimpse of you, or crane her neck and strain her eyes to follow your departure? Every wife, every young girl, desired you in your absence and was on fire in your presence.
    â€”HELOISE TO ABELARD
    M y uncle’s insulting words, his heavy hand—the memories clung to me like a bad smell. I placed a bowl of herbs and ointments in the window of my bedroom and let the scented breeze carry him away, then remembered the volume of Ovid that I had brought home. I might have been the only scholar in the world who had not read his Ars amatoria . The prioress had not taught it at Argenteuil, although we had studied the Heroides and his Metamorphoses. Roger, my uncle’s assistant in the scriptorium, had praised the Ars amatoria as one of the great works of literature.
    Now the first task for you who come as a raw recruit
    Is to find out whom you might wish to love.
    The next task is to make sure that she likes you:
    The third, to see to it that the love will last.
    What would Ovid recommend—that the man sing to his beloved as she walked by?
    I dismissed the thought. Curiosity, not any hope of love, had sent the teacher to me: the novelty of a lettered female. Yet, if a man wished to attract a woman, what better way to draw her eye as well as her heart? Every woman in that crowd had envied me. My shame melted away at the memory, and a smile touched my lips.
    Pierre Abelard had sung only for me. Who in the world had not heard of him, the poet whose verses rang out in every place , the philosopher whose brilliance blinded all who dared to peer into his light? As headmaster of the Nôtre-Dame School, he had reached the pinnacle of success. I had known him the moment I first saw him, months ago, surrounded by scholars shouting questions, challenging him, scowling as he drove home the final riposte, sharper than any sword. They always returned for more. Having spent only a few moments in his presence, I could easily discern why.
    The memory of his eyes returned to me now, not only their dark blue beauty, like sapphires, but also the intensity of his gaze, as though he beheld my naked soul. When he took the parcels my uncle had so rudely thrust into my arms, his eyes had danced with amusement. For the first time, I’d seen Uncle not as a brute to be feared but as a sort of bouffe , graceless and awkward and as full of wind as a storm—and, as storms always pass, so did his temper. Why hadn’t I thought to laugh at his clumsy antics, his fumbling words? Entering the cheerless convent at such a young age had stifled my joy—until today, when Abelard’s eyes had prompted its return, and I had felt merriment bubbling in my mouth.
    But why would a man of his eminence sing in the place for me? My star might rise, but would never shine as brightly as his. A woman, I was only a pale moon in a world of suns, reflecting the light of men but emitting none of my own. Whatuse had the sun for the moon? What use had Pierre Abelard for me?
    An answer whispered itself, and heat flooded my skin. Non . If he wished for that, he had only to snap his fingers. Girls and women far more beautiful than I filled the city, any of whom would open her arms—and legs—to the handsome poet willingly, even eagerly. Not I. Scandal would not an abbess make. I would teach girls in my own school—at the Fontevraud Abbey, if Uncle had his way.
    A knocking at the door interrupted my thoughts. For a moment, I considered feigning sleep, fearing my uncle had come. Renouncing Gisele, his henna-haired mistress with a laugh like a raven’s cry, had altered Uncle Fulbert in disturbing ways. At first a jolly and loving man who had earned my trust with his kindness, he now drank copiously every night until he either flew into a rage or fell into