The Tenth Chamber Part 20

And later, when he rode off to the west, never, he supposed, to see her again, she staunched her tears and serenely walked to the chapel where her nuns were waiting for her to preside over Vespers for the very first time.

Abelard's time in Brittany proved short. He directed his sadness and frustrations into an autocratic style and before long had so alienated his new flock, who had expected him to be a lax master. He wrote furiously, prayed with anger in his eyes, cruelly cut the monks' rations and worked them like beasts of burden. His only release was his episodic use of Enlightenment Tea to take him away from his torments and replenish his zeal. But once again, he saw it was time to move on when his brethren at Saint-Gildas-de-Rhuys expressed their displeasure with his autocracy by trying to poison him.

Thus began the last chapter in his life, fifteen peripatetic years which saw him at Nantes, Mount St Genevieve, and back to Paris, where he acc.u.mulated students the way a squirrel acc.u.mulates acorns. And everywhere he went, he made sure he had a good supply of his precious plants and berries not a week went by without an indulgence.

By twisted fate, unable to live in matrimonial bliss with his one true love, he felt he had little to lose by freely expressing his views. In tract after tract, book after book, he vented against the traditions of the church with his mighty intelligence and each publication eventually made its way to the desk of Bernard who had bit by bit become a theologian second in influence only to the Pope.

In Sic et Non Sic et Non, Abelard almost made parody of orthodox leadership and made it seem that the fathers of the Church could not express themselves clearly. Bernard gritted his teeth but the work was not, in and of itself, actionable. Finally, Abelard crossed the line, as far as Bernard was concerned. He believed that the eunuch's Expositio in Epistolam ad Romanos Expositio in Epistolam ad Romanos, spat at the feet of the Church by seeming to deny the very foundation of the Atonement. Had not Christ died on the cross as payment for the sins of man by dying in their place? Well, not to Abelard! He maintained that Christ died to win men's hearts by the example of reconciling love.

Love! This was too much.

Bernard threw the full measure of his weight to the task of crushing Abelard once and for all. The time for private warnings was over and Bernard took the matter to the Bishops of France. Abelard was summoned to the Council of Sens in 1141 to plead his case. He reckoned he would have the ability to meet his accuser openly, to debate his old friend and spar with him the way they had done during their convalescence at Ruac.

When Abelard arrived at Sens, he learned, to his horror, that the evening before, Bernard had met privately with the bishops and a condemnation had already been meted out. There would be no public debate, nothing of the kind, but the Council agreed to let Abelard have his freedom for the express purpose of making a direct appeal to Rome.

He never made it that far.

Bernard saw to it that Pope Innocent II confirmed the sentence of the Council of Sens before Abelard made it out of France, not that it would have mattered, because a few months earlier, one of Abelard's students had coughed in his face, and had seeded his lungs with consumption.

Scant weeks after Sens he became ill. First came fever and night sweats. Then an irritated cough which progressed to paroxysms. The green flux from his lungs went from pink-tinged to streaky-red to gushes of crimson. His appet.i.te dried up like a spent well. His weight fell.

He even lost desire for his red tea.

An old colleague and benefactor, the venerable Pierre, Abbot of Cluny, intervened when Abelard pa.s.sed through his gates, as he persevered in his struggle to venture to Rome for an audience with the Holy Father.

Pierre forbade him from travelling on and confined him to bed. He obtained from Rome a mitigation of the sentence and even got Bernard to stand down when he pa.s.sed word to him that Abelard was dying. Was not further earthly persecution of the monk pointless and cruel, he asked, and Bernard had sighed deeply and agreed.

Past the new year and into the spring, Abelard grew weaker. Pierre believed a sister house to Cluny, The Priory of St Marcel, was a quieter venue with more tender hands, and that is where Abelard was sent to die.

A procession of nuns on horseback snaked into the clearing. It was a windy evening in April. The men in the camp stopped their cooking and rose to their feet. There was a murmur. A gust blew the hood back from a woman who rode straight in the saddle and took the veil with it. She had long grey hair in a single braid.

One monk ran to fetch the veil and helped her dismount.

'Welcome, Abbess,' he said, as if they had met many times.

'Do I know you, Brother?' she asked.

'I am a friend of your friend,' he said. 'I am Barthomieu, of Ruac Abbey.'

'Ah, from years ago.' She looked at him curiously but said no more.

'Would you like me to take you to him?' Barthomieu asked.

She exhaled. 'Then I am not too late.'

A coverlet was drawn to Abelard's chin. He was asleep. Even though the consumption had melted the flesh from his face, Heloise whispered he looked better than she had expected, then kneeled at his bedside and placed her hands together in prayer.

Abelard opened his eyes. 'Heloise.' From his weak lips the utterance sounded more like a breath than a name.

'Yes, my dear one.'

'You came.'

'Yes. To be with you.'

'To the end?'

'Our love will never end,' she whispered into his ear.

Despite the whisper Barthomieu heard her, and he excused himself so the two of them could be alone.

Barthomieu waited outside the hut all evening and all night, like a sentry. Heloise stayed until the first light of morning, excused herself for a short while then returned, as fresh and determined as ever to maintain her vigil. When Barthomieu asked if she needed the a.s.sistance of the infirmarer, she brushed him off and said she was perfectly capable of attending to all his needs.

Later in the day, there was a commotion when a group of men, King's soldiers aggressively rode into the Priory. Barthomieu met them, had a word with their captain, and blanched.

'When?' he asked.

'He's not far behind us. Maybe an hour. And you are?'

'His brother,' Barthomieu muttered. 'I am Bernard of Clairvaux's brother.'

A soldier opened the door for him and Bernard emerged from his fine, covered carriage looking pale and drawn. He was fifty-two but could have been mistaken for an older man. The pressures of high office and the years of spartan living conditions had turned his skin lax and sallow and rendered him arthritic and stiff-limbed. He took stock of the ragged conditions of the camp, a pilgrims' enclave, and the a.s.semblage of clerics and scholars, men and women.

Will I engender as much adulation at the time of my death, he thought. Then he called out, imperiously, 'Who will take me to see Abelard?'

Barthomieu approached. The two men briefly locked eyes, but Bernard shook his head and looked elsewhere for a moment before refocusing on the man.

'h.e.l.lo, Bernard.'

He was momentarily angered by the informality. He was the Abbot of Citeaux. Papal legates sought his counsel. He had sat by the side of popes and the current Holy Father valued his advice over any man. He was the founding benefactor to the Knights Templar. His name was uttered by Crusaders. He had healed great schisms within the Church. Who was this monk to simply call him Bernard?

He looked into those eyes again. Who is is this man? this man?

'Yes, it's me,' Barthomieu said.

'Barthomieu? It cannot be you. You are young.'

'There is one, younger still.' He called over to the camp fire. 'Nivard, come here.'

Nivard came running out. Bernard had not seen him for half a lifetime, but his youngest brother Nivard would be well into his forties by now, not this strapping fellow he saw before him.

The three men embraced, but Bernard's hugs were tentative and wary.

'Do not fret. All will be explained, brother,' Barthomieu said. 'But be quick, come and see Abelard while he still draws breath.'

When Bernard and Barthomieu entered the sick house, Heloise turned to hush the intruders, then realised the great man of the Church had entered.

She rose and made her intentions clear to kiss Bernard's ring but he shooed her back and bade her keep at Abelard's side.

'Your Excellency, I am-'

'You are Heloise. You are Abbess of Paraclete. I know of you. I know of your intellect and piety. How is he?'

'He is slipping away. Come. There is still time.'

She touched Abelard's pointy shoulder. 'Wake up, my dear. Someone is here to see you. Your old...' She looked to Bernard for guidance.

'Yes, call me his old friend.'

'Your old friend, Bernard of Clairvaux, has come to be with you.'

A weak huffing cough signalled his wakening. Bernard appeared shocked at the sight of the man, not because he looked like skin and bones, but because he looked so young. 'Abelard too!' he hissed.

Barthomieu was standing in the corner with his arms tightly folded around his chest. He nodded.

Abelard managed to smile. In order to speak without inducing a paroxysm he had learned to whisper, using his throat more than his diaphragm. 'Have you come to drop a heavy weight upon my head and finish me off?' he joked.

'I have come to pay my respects.'

'I was not aware you respected me.'

'As a person, you have my utmost respect.'

'What about my views?'

'That is another matter. But we are finished with those arguments.'

Abelard nodded. 'Have you met Heloise?'

'Just now.'

'She is a good abbess.'

'I am sure she is.'

'She is a good woman.'

Bernard said nothing.

'I love her. I have always loved her.'

The abbot shifted uncomfortably.

Abelard asked that Bernard and he be left alone and when Heloise and Barthomieu withdrew, he beckoned Bernard closer. 'Can I tell you something, as one friend might say to another?'

Bernard nodded.

'You are a great man, Bernard. You perform all the difficult religious duties. You fast, you watch, you suffer. But you do not endure the easy ones you do not love.'

The old man slumped into a bedside chair and tears filled his eyes. 'Love.' He said the word as if it were foreign to his tongue. 'Perhaps, old friend, you are right.'

Abelard gave him a sly wink. 'I forgive you.'

'Thank you,' Bernard answered with a touch of amus.e.m.e.nt. 'Would you you like to confess to like to confess to me me?'

'I am not sure I have the time left to confess all my sins. We have not seen each other since that night in Ruac when we drank some tea together.'

'Yes, the tea.'

Abelard had a coughing fit and stained his mouth cloth red. When his breathing was under control he said, 'Let me tell you about the tea.'

Two days later, Abelard was dead.

Heloise took his body back to Paraclete and buried him in a grave on a small knoll near the chapel.

She lived to be an old woman and in 1163, according to her wishes, she herself was buried next to him, certain in the knowledge the two of them would rest side by side for eternity.

TWENTY-EIGHT.

Thursday, Midday The taxi ride to the Palais-Royal was a brief one and didn't give Luc much time to reflect on what he had just heard.

Was it possible there was a connection between the Ruac ma.n.u.script and the chaos and carnage of the present? How could a twelfth-century monk's fanciful tale of infusions and monastic intrigue ripple through the centuries to affect his life?

When Isaak had finished translating the Latin he became excited, saying, 'You know, Luc, I don't know about this concoction, this brew, Barthomieu keeps writing about, but the independent first-person account of the affair and the coda to the romance between Abelard and Heloise is priceless. I have to put on my commercial hat. If the ma.n.u.script is recovered I'd love to broker the sale to a museum or the State.'

'I hope it is. But anyway that would be up to the abbey to decide. It's their property.'

Isaak nodded and promised Luc he'd contact him as soon as the next email arrived from the decoder. But they'd see each other again over dinner. They would eat and drink to Hugo that night. Both of them wanted that closure.

He tried Sara by phone one more time in what had become an obsessive and futile routine. The midday traffic was fairly light. The Place de Concorde was wide open and magnificent as always. He glanced absently at his knuckles. They were less red; the new pills were definitely working. He'd almost felt guilty taking them. People were dead. Sara was missing and he was attending to a mundane hand infection. He got angry with himself and in the flick of a physiological switch, the anger turned to melancholy. He put his hands to his face and literally shook his head, trying to shake out the demons. But he couldn't permit himself to wallow. He had work to do.

Maurice Barbier had agreed to see him on short notice. Here was a man who had grown into his affectations. While Einstein hair and a cravat had marked him throughout middle age as somewhat of a dandy, it suited him as an older man. His office too, in the ministry, was an exercise in unselfconscious ornateness, an overstuffed a.s.sortment of archaic artefacts and pre-cla.s.sical art on loan from the storage cabinets of the Louvre, an extravagant spectacle that seemed less ridiculous the older he became.

Barbier was sedate and serious. He guided Luc by the shoulder over to his gilded drinks cabinet.

Luc relaxed when he saw they were going to be alone.

'You thought I'd ask Marc Abenheim to sit in?' Barbier asked.

'I thought you might.'

'I have too much respect for you to play the tricks of a politician. He doesn't even know you're here.'