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slave?
    â€œI must convince Fulbert to keep you with him for a while longer, then. I did promise to help him gain a promotion. Perhaps as his friend I might influence him.”
    â€œHe thinks you are friends now. He boasts of it even to the servants.”
    â€œAnd to every canon in the cloister. You should have seen Bishop Galon’s puzzled frown on the day after Bernard’s sermon. Your uncle told everyone at the dinner with Bernard and the rest that he and I are ‘brothers in intellect.’ ”
    â€œHe thought to impress Bernard, I suppose.” I sighed. Didn’t my uncle know how Bernard hated knowledge and learning? While Abelard insisted that questioning could only strengthen one’s faith, the reformists demanded blind obedience to the Church. “He wants so badly to advance. Poor Uncle.”
    Mirth filled Abelard’s eyes, but neither of us laughed. At that time, at least, we respected my uncle.
    At the door of Uncle Fulbert’s house, Abelard tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, brushing my skin with his thumb and sending a shiver down my arms. He pulled the astralabe from his pouch and handed it to me in spite of my protests, telling me that he already possessed an astralabe and that he had bought this one especially for me.
    Then he pointed upward to that bright and beautiful planet,pink edged in gold on that night. “The loveliest body in the sky cannot compare to the one beside me now, but she will have to suffice. Venus is not difficult to find, except when clouds veil her.” Using the astralabe, he showed me how to find her in position to the moon, and then in position to the place where we stood.
    â€œI shall gaze at her bright face every night before bedtime and think of you,” he said. “Will you do the same and think of me?”
    â€œShall I send you messages, too?” I teased. “Would you hear them over the singing of the spheres?”
    â€œThat music plays ever in my heart. It commenced on the day we first met and has not ceased.”
    Abelard pressed his lips to mine as softly as a sigh, making me forget, again, myself and all I had vowed I would never become. I yielded and submitted until my lips had parted to admit his tongue, whose flavor dissolved me in delicious bliss until we heard the shutters open over our heads. We looked up to see Jean in my window, searching out over the cloister for me. Abelard pressed a finger to my lips and then, after handing me the astralabe, slipped into the shadows and away.
    â€œI am here, Jean, studying the stars,” I called softly as I stood on the mounting stone with the astralabe in my hands.
    â€œIt is neither seemly nor safe for a maiden to be out alone at night. I beg you to come indoors, my lady.” In a moment I heard the creak of the inner door, then the latch of the outer one, and there stood Jean with a lantern. As I stepped inside, my fingers felt the inscription on the mater, and I turned the astralabe over to read it in the light.
    To his Venus, from her Adonis . The goddess of love and the god of beauty—and passionately in love. I smiled and might have burst into song but for Jean, who, watching me more closely than usual, narrowed his eyes. Then I remembered the rest of the lovers’ tale, and my smile disappeared. As I passed him, I pressed my fingers and thumb against the engraved words, trying, in vain, to blot them out.

6

    An equal to an equal, to a reddening rose under the spotless whiteness of lilies: whatever a lover gives to a lover . . . yet my breast blazes with the fervor of love.
    â€”HELOISE TO ABELARD
    R obert of Arbrissel limped across the altar, his bare feet slapping the wood, his cane’s tap punctuating each labored step. From behind me came a contemptuous snort. “Behold the mighty orator! He resembles a common beggar.”
    â€œHe is ill, have you heard?” another replied. “This may be his final