‘Look at Bernard of Fontaines . . . I’ve read that he claimed to have driven away a woman, who crept into his bed to keep herself warm, as if she were the devil . . .’
‘You’re joking! As Jerome would say, he shall walk upon burning coals and his feet shall not be burned. But very well . . . if that’s what he’s really like, he will become a saint. Become his biographer!’
He gave me a sideways glance and saw me smile.
‘A biographer of saints . . . What a life! I’m too old,’ he said. ‘Robert will be my last. And he really does frighten me.’
We took shelter in the scriptorium and Andrew said nothing while I took out the implements, the tablets for the draft, the parchment and goose quill. He paced to and fro around me, gradually immersing himself in the gilded legend of the last days of Robert of Arbrissel. His features lit up.
‘We should have killed him before now,’ he said at last.
‘Why do that?’
‘This endless slow death, it’s already taken too long, people won’t like it. And the groaning at the end . . . too sad, a suspicion of paganism, traces of doubt, not enough light. The Virgin Mary’s missing. We can do better! Come on!’
He warmed himself by the fireplace, the only one in the abbey. Light from the flames was flickering about his face.
Suddenly we heard the sound of voices coming from the north gallery of the Close. We glanced at one another. Andrew sighed. I laid down my pen.
Bernard and Peter Abelard were alone with Petronilla in the chapter room.
‘The words,’ thundered Abelard, ‘did you hear the words that came from his mouth?’
‘I heard the will of Our Lord,’ Bernard said softly.
‘There were over three hundred of us in the abbey and the Lord spoke to you alone?’
‘Keep your arguments for your students, brother, as well as your logic . . .’
‘“In the dust and in the mud.” Isn’t that what he said?’
Abelard shifted his gaze and gestures from Bernard to Petronilla. He didn’t understand. He was used to being able to convince people in a flash, with a word; but God’s reed was a resilient athlete.
Petronilla looked away. A simple and more human sorrow afflicted her. So many people wanted Robert to have his tombstone beside the altar and she was weary of the constant struggle. Then . . .
‘We shall bury him in the church,’ she said finally, not daring to look at Abelard.
He conceded defeat while Bernard raised his open hands to heaven.
‘May God’s will be done, brother.’
The two men glared at one another and neither gave way – the dark eyes of the philosopher versus the light, transparent, intense gaze of the Abbot of Clairvaux.
‘Take care,’ Abelard said eventually in a muted voice, ‘not to confuse your own will with His.
‘What can I do if He speaks to me,’ said Bernard with his steely sweetness, ‘and if I hear Him?’
The lay brothers heaved up the stone to create the space that awaited Robert.
Still more wretches arrived on foot, their hose, or the rags that were wrapped around their feet, torn to shreds along the stony pathways; lords on horseback, bishops, Jews, people from Montsoreau, from Bourgueil, from Tours, even from Orléans; the roads bore their tears, and the Loire had become the river of grief.
Christ’s champion was dead.
I could scarcely remain standing during Mass.
In front of the church, Bernard of Fontaines was preaching abnegation of the world, love of solitude and the beauty of the deserts. He was speaking about his vale of Absinthe, about Clairvaux. Five or six young men, noblemen with childlike eyes, stood beside him: they truly believed that honey can be tapped from rocks. They would follow him shortly.
Abelard left on his own.
As Robert’s coffin sank slowly into the ground, I left the abbey like a thief stealing relics. I felt very weak and very small. I forbade myself to imagine Brother Andrew’s expression when he discovered I was missing. His old hand would have to complete the life of a saint who was not and never would be holy.
Once outside the walls, I left the priory of St John quickly. The merchants were already offering single hairs from Robert’s head or the sandal that first set foot on the soil of Fontevrault. I risked being noticed in the crowd if my face wasn’t streaming with real tears: I fled in the direction of the Vienne, towards Candes – and thence to the Loire. I needed paths that widened into roads, streams that became torrents and rivers.
Dusk had already fallen, and at the church of St Martin the bells were ringing out the canonical hours. I would not be singing the office. I walked along narrow lanes in the lengthening shadows. I found a husk of bread, drank water from the stream and breathed the air of the birds.
I did not know why I walked up that hill and why my legs were no longer painful.
When I reached the top, the figure of a horseman almost sent me tumbling to the bottom.
It was Peter Abelard, swathed in his cloak, with his dark skin and clothing, his black eyes and his face darkened by the furrow on his brow, surveying the landscape and watching this little man climbing towards him.
He dismounted, tethered his horse and sat down in front of it. He smiled and hailed me with a finger.
‘So, you’re not with God’s flock?’
‘No.’
‘Then what are you doing? Were you following me?’
‘I think so.’
His chest heaved with laughter. His warm voice enveloped me. I felt drunk without having touched any wine. He opened his hand to me.
‘Let us sit down and talk.’
At first we did not speak. The moon cast silver beams over the stream. The breath of his horse warmed me.
‘Were you really following me?’
‘I was following you or I was fleeing, it depends . . .’
‘Do you know who I am?’
‘A master.’
‘What do you want from a master?’
‘Nothing, really.’
‘And yet you were following me. You should do what I do, friend: kill your masters.’
As the fires began to glow and the air grew cool, I didn’t ever want to leave this weary man who spoke like Jesus. I envied the solitude that weighed him down. I was ashamed of the words I wanted to utter as he stretched out his heavy body and tightened his horse’s saddle. He wrapped himself in his cloak.
‘You’ll have to make your own way, but you’ll know the reason why.’
‘And if I don’t want to make my own way?’
He did not reply. The shadow of his horse disappeared into the moonlit landscape. My heart was thumping.
I had found him, this master whom I did not seek.
III
I approached the town in crab-like fashion. My feet were hurting me badly and my coat was too big for me.
Just as I was reaching the top of a hill, a group of horsemen rode past, spattering me with earth. I heard them shouting: it was a prince returning home, accompanied by jangling soldiers and groaning prisoners; surrounded by his trusty barons, he was sure to have