Free The Secret Eleanor by Cecelia Holland Page A

the cup, he made a little homage to it and drank.
    Eleanor said, “What do you think of my church, then, my lord Normandy?”
    Beyond him, in the shadow of the pear trees, she saw Bernard twitch abruptly and turn toward her, and wondered what she had said this time.
    Henry said, “I think it a great marvel. In all the world surely there is nothing so splendid. Some of it reminds me of a church in England, although that is not so great—Durham, it is.”
    Bernard leaned forward into the light of the sun, grim-lipped, his half-hidden eyes darting from Henry to Eleanor and back. “Many of the masons came from Durham.”
    “Yet it is not the same,” Henry said. “Durham is excellent, but this church is something new; it seems so much larger, the vault, the way the columns are set so far apart, the windows, all united in one work, one idea about space, about light. And a new idea.”
    His eyes flashed; he stirred on the bench, eager with enthusiasm, and his voice quickened, higher pitched, questing after his thoughts. “There are so many new ideas. In your Studium here, in the new books, in the very air, it seems—our time is full of change. It’s as if some great wind, blowing through the world, sweeps away the cobwebs. My grandfather was called the Schoolboy, because he was so learned, and yet he knew nothing of such things as this church, any more than he knew of Alhazen and the order of the stars.”
    Eleanor cast a warm look on him, smiling. Beyond him, over his shoulder, Bernard stood watching her, but his voice was a scythe to mow down Henry’s new ideas. “God ordered the stars before He made Adam. There is nothing new under the sun.”
    Louis began to whisper, leaning toward Henry, trying to restrain him; Eleanor, pleased, saw the young man shake the King off. He had turned to face Bernard, and his voice had no respect in it. “Yes, the stars have always been there, the first great Book, but nobody understood them before.” His back was to her; she faced Bernard over his shoulder.
    The saintly monk recoiled, sliding back into the shadows, his hands rising before him like a barrier. “This is dangerous false knowledge, full of delusion and pride.”
    Henry shrugged. “What’s a danger to one is a weapon to his enemy.”
    Eleanor set her hands on the table. “Is that all it is, then?” She kept her voice quiet; she knew they would all listen. “Is it always a war? Abbot Suger’s ideas led to the sublime beauty of this church, not to a battlefield.”
    Henry wheeled around toward her, his face shining; she saw how he loved to argue. Before he could speak, Bernard’s voice rolled forth again. “A church that draws the soul away from God.”
    Between him and Eleanor, Henry swiveled his head around toward the monk again. “Or leads the mind to Him.”
    Eleanor put her elbows on the table and set her chin in her hands. She sensed every move he made, every breath, as if they were her own. She said, still quiet, making them listen, “Why did God give us the power to think, if we are only to do as we’re told?”
    The monk’s voice cracked like a door slamming. “God tempts us, to test our faith. God sets seeming choices before us. But there is no real choice.”
    Henry said, “All your syllogisms have only one term.”
    On the heels of this, the bell for Nones began to ring. Bernard stood up, going to his prayers. He looked down at Henry, still seated on the bench, and said, “When the term is God, I need no other.”
    “Oh,” said Henry, with a snort, “that puts you beyond the reach of reason, surely.”
    Bernard stood like a withered tree, staring at him. His head hung slightly forward of his body, as if a wire into the top of his spine connected him straight to heaven. “Reason will not serve you if faith fails you, boy. If faith guides you, reason will tag along behind.”
    “That’s bread and water,” Henry said. “I’ll let logic and ideas lead me; there’s more meat in them. Do you