A re-telling of the true 12th century love story of Heloise and Abelard. Abelard is a great philosopher and theologian who has taken, like many academics of the time, a vow of celibacy. When he is hired as a tutor for the brilliant and beautiful Hel...
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We were wed in secret, by the light of a dim candle. It was in the basement of a priest's home - a trusted priest Fulbert knew would keep our secret. It was only Abelard, Fulbert, and I in attendance. It was a solemn affair. It was shameful and quick; and I did not like for our love to be so hidden in the shadows. I did not like the way my uncle would not meet our eyes... the way his lips sneered to see our son, born out of wedlock as he was.
Abelard and I could no longer be left alone in each other's presence. I was staying in Fulbert's home - not even in the cloisters! He no longer trusted me to be left alone, even behind the secured walls of the monastery. I had to be kept under his constant watchful eye. Abelard was staying, far from my doorstep, in his own townhome in the centre of Paris.
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The marriage, it seemed, was only a way of ensuring my security. It did not mean much else, to Fulbert, for Abelard and I to be husband and wife; all it meant was that Abelard was bound to me - it meant that he had promised to take care of me.
There was an implicit agreement, however, that Abelard and I would no longer see each other, or else Fulbert would ban Abelard from lecturing in his cathedral. There would be nowhere else, now, that Abelard could lecture. If Abelard left, Fulbert could so easily spread this gossip around like wildfire to every canon in the country, and there would be a permanent mark left on Abelard's name. And so Fulbert had this hanging over our heads - the weight of this heavy secret. He could control us any way he wished, and all that we did, we did to appease him.
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All the love I once had for my uncle had evaporated. He no longer regarded me as family either, but rather as a tiresome burden. I could see it in his eyes - and in the way he left the room in our shared home if ever I entered it.
I could not breathe there.
He would grow hostile and angry if Astrolabe made any sound. It felt I was trying to raise this beautiful flower in the dark of shadows - that I was trying to make it grow without sunshine, without light, without love... he needed space to breathe, too. I looked down at my beautiful baby and knew we needed to leave.
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He needed to be raised in the rolling hills of Brittany. He needed to be raised beside his cousins, laughing and running and having the freedom of childhood that I had. We could no longer live in this small, dusty room, scared into our silence.
And I felt lonely too; I craved the company of Abelard's sister. I craved the sunshine, and the way the days there relaxed my bones. Here, I saw no one else but my uncle. I was in a quiet and frightful state. I was always tense, like a string wound all the way up and on the brink of snapping.
I would leave small, folded letters tucked away at the bottom of a flower pot outside, and Abelard would send someone to retrieve them. Each day, I would lift the flower pot in secret to see what letter had been left for me, and to exchange it with my own.
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Please, take me back to Brittany, I begged Abelard in the latest letter.
I knew that Paris - and specifically my uncle's cathedral - was the only place in France Abelard could live and work as a teacher now.
If I were to leave Paris, I would be leaving alone.
But what would it matter? I was just as alone here. No matter where I was, my Abelard had been taken from me. At least there, my son could have a chance.
Abelard was understanding; we journeyed on horseback again, sometime early at dawn before anyone had awoken, and I felt I could finally inhale again for the first time once we left the city gates. I felt the expansion in my chest, marrying the expansion of the opening hills as we rode on.
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The last words he spoke to me were promises - promises between frantic kisses - that we would be together again. Soon. Everything would be okay. He would make it so.
I watched his horse ride off into the distance, both of us looking back at one another yearningly until he was nothing more than a spot on the horizon.
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Note: the map included here depicts both Notre-Dame and Fulbert's home (in red), where Heloise was staying.
