The Secret Eleanor by Cecelia Holland Page B

You mentioned Augustine, father of us all, who wrote that men are so corrupted by the fall of Adam that if we act freely we can do nothing but sin. And Erigena is proscribed.”
    “Yet,” the master said, “we should come to God freely, and of our own will, as Jesus Himself has told us. And if it be sin to come to God, my lord Abbot, how sweet to God that we sin?”
    Eleanor burst out laughing and put her hand over her mouth; Louis reached out and gripped her sleeve. Bernard wheeled toward her for an instant and turned back to the master.
    “You make a mockery of everything you touch, even your own false idol reason. Go out, get away; you don’t belong here.”
    Louis was pulling on Eleanor’s sleeve. “Don’t try to deal with this; this is between the priests, don’t you see?” He waved his hands at the masters, who were already moving off. Thierry had circled quietly around behind the dais. In front of the King, Bernard wheeled toward the throne, his gaunt face like a plowshare behind his thrusting jaw.
    He said to Eleanor, “You laugh at sin, lady.”
    “Make a joyful noise unto the Lord,” she said.
    “Yes. Birds can imitate sounds also, without knowing what they mean. And they too are beautiful, and they too are utterly of this world.”
    Eleanor raised her brows at him. “Do you compliment me, my lord Abbot? I accept.”
    Then, from behind her, Thierry’s voice poured over her good spirits like a sluice of icy water.
    “Sire, listen to the revered abbot—send her to a convent, shut her away from the temptations of the world, that she might be saved for God.”
    Eleanor stiffened, cold to the bone; she had forgotten about him, her worst enemy. They were closing in around her, Thierry behind her, Bernard in front, and at the mention of the convent, for an instant a vision of that life opened before her: she felt the stone beneath her knees, the constant prayer, the dirty habit full of lice, the airless, sunless days.
    Louis said, “The Holy Father himself charged us to remain together.”
    Bernard’s bony head swung toward him. “You have done all that God could wish of you, Sire, and yet He withholds the blessing of a son.” His eyes flickered at her like darts. “Two children in fifteen years, and both girls. God speaks in such wise. The vessel is impure, can cast only impurity. Perhaps a convent might—indeed—”
    Eleanor sat straight, her hands twisting in her lap. His voice was edged with malice, and she dreaded the convent but she saw the opening before her. She could not seem too eager. She had to seem reluctant. She said, “It’s true, we have no prince.” She lowered her head, as if this were a very great grief to her.
    Through the corner of her eye she saw Louis’s face working, fretful, and his fingers stroked the robe over his knees. He spoke to his knees. “I cannot—this cannot be the will of God, to immure her. Then there would be no prince ever.”
    Eleanor lifted her face, solemn, earnest with hard thought. She let her voice come slowly, the words unwilling. “Sire, perhaps the blessed Abbot is right—another wife, another woman would be more favorable to God, and bear a son to France. That may be the only solution.”
    Bernard gave an unsaintly, throaty growl. She turned to look at him. “It’s true—we should not be married anymore.”
    Bernard’s eyes widened in a blue fury. Thierry said, “Sire—if the marriage ends—we lose Aquitaine.”
    She ignored him. She kept her whole attention on the tall, lanky Abbot of Clairvaux, her quarry. He half-turned away, the hoods of his eyelids shuttering down. His white robes hung around him like dirty wings; his sparse white hair clung to his scalp like softest wool. Lamb of God, she thought, take away my sinful marriage . She said, “My lord Abbot? What say you on this?”
    His voice grated like broken teeth. “She is right in that, twisted though it be, as everything she does is twisted. Your marriage is a curse upon