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course.” Etienne bowed. “Who has not heard of Heloise, our fair-sex scholar?” He introduced Agnes as his niece, who embraced me and declared me “the Minerva of Paris.” The reference was flawed, for that goddess represents wisdom rather than knowledge—but I was wise enough, at least, not to contradict her.
    â€œNow that we have all done our duty and gone to Sunday services, you must come to our house for dinner,” she said, tucking her arm into mine. “Pierre will bring you—but only if you will divulge your secrets.”
    â€œSecrets?” I glanced at my uncle, whose fierce stare warned me to divulge nothing. Your mother hid you away with good reason, he had said this morning. Her sins would have brought ruin and shame to our family. A single hint of scandal and I will never be promoted—never!
    â€œYour secrets—yes! I especially want to know how you provoked that sour-faced Bernard to glare only at you, when I stood at his feet.” Agnes laughed, a sound as rich as butter. “I felt more than a pang of jealousy, I admit. I had anticipated the roll of his eye over me, daughter of Eve that I am. I even dressed for the occasion.”

4

    Love does not so easily forsake those whom it has once stung.
    â€”HELOISE TO ABELARD
    I n the hours between Bernard’s sermon and Agnes’s supper, she had transformed herself. Abelard and I entered Etienne’s spacious house overlooking the Saint-Etienne Cathedral to find her even more breathtaking than before. She exuded the fragrance of roses. Her copper hair curled in ringlets against her flawless skin. Abelard stood more closely to her than necessary and breathed her in as though the roses embroidered on her gown were real. I looked on with a smile so broad it pained my face.
    â€œYou should have come sooner! You have missed the excitement,” Agnes said as Abelard pretended to shield his eyes, dazzled, he said, by the sun. She had adorned herself in saffron from the boots whose toes curled up and around like ram’s horns to the turban perched like a sunlit cloud atop her curls. Saffron! I caught my breath at the sheer extravagance. In my linen tunic of pale green—my favorite, until that moment—I felt like a common weed. As she lifted one perfumed cheek, then the other, to Abelard’s smiling lips, I vowed to ask my uncle for new clothes.
    â€œWhich sultan did you charm into giving you his cap?” he teased as she led us across a Persian carpet of red and gold intothe great room. There, Etienne stood with another man before large windows overlooking the city. Below, I saw the pale, bald Bishop Galon; Bernard, in his coarse, hooded tunic; and an elderly bishop with a stooped back all trotting away on horseback, talking and gesturing, oblivious of the crowds milling to and from the banks of the Seine.
    â€œDo not tease! You know the count brought this turban from the Holy Land,” Agnes said to Abelard.
    â€œThe count?” I asked.
    â€œMy grandfather Guy, the Count of Rochefort.” She shrugged, as if everyone’s grandfather were a count. “You should have come sooner, Pierre. The bishop of Paris has just departed in a rage with Yves, the bishop of Chartres. He and Bernard screamed at my uncle.” Her voice rippled with pleasure.
    â€œDid they come to discuss the bishopric in Amiens?” Godfrey, the current bishop, was said to be near death, Abelard told me, and Pope Paschal II wanted to name his successor—a privilege the king of France had always enjoyed. Bernard, Suger, and Yves, prominent reformists all, had come today on the pope’s behalf, hoping Etienne might influence the king for Paschal.
    â€œIt was hardly a discussion,” Agnes said. “Bernard foamed at the mouth, or nearly so. He spat every time he spoke the word investiture .”
    Seeing my frown, Abelard explained the situation further: The reformists, determined to enforce