Free The Sharp Hook of Love by Sherry Jones

sermon.”
    â€œHe is so thin and unkempt, how can anyone tell whether he is ill or well? His hair resembles a bird’s nest, all tangled and dirty. And behold the scabs on his chin!”
    â€œHe shaves his beard without water, it is said.”
    â€œThat tunic hangs on him like a sack, and full of holes. He ought to be ashamed, defiling God’s holy house with such filth.”
    Having reached the front of the altar, the preacher lifted his cane and tossed it to the side, where it fell with a clatter onto the floor. His eyes, the same shade of gray as his wild hair, surveyed the crowded room: the canons in their white albs and rope cinctures; the priests in black; the tonsured monks in brown; the nuns,gathered like birds in their discrete flocks; and, in the front of the congregation, the colorful nobles, lords, and ladies and their families from Orléans, from Tours, from Paris itself. On a dais behind the altar, across from the choir, sat King Louis, who, although slightly younger than Abelard, appeared older by virtue of his protruding belly and the gray in his curling hair.
    â€œRobert is overwhelmed,” someone whispered. “He didn’t expect the king to be here.”
    â€œNonsense,” came the reply. “Robert of Arbrissel has preached for the pope many times. He would not quaver before a king.”
    Then Robert’s searching gaze fell upon me—and stopped. His lips moved. His right hand reached blindly; an altar boy handed him the cane he had dropped. He took it without moving his eyes from my face.
    â€œHe has seen you—seen you, my girl! I told you, non ? You are so like your mother than he will beg you to take her place.” Uncle, standing behind me, squeezed my shoulders, sharing an excitement I did not feel—until Robert spoke.
    â€œWhere are my people? I want my people,” he cried, tapping the cane loudly on the stone floor. His voice rolled like thunder over the chapel. “I came to bring the good news of Christ’s love to the wretched, not to hypocritical clerics, wealthy monks, and men with soft hands and silk braies.”
    Murmurs rustled through the room. “Why does he keep his eyes on me?” a woman said.
    â€œ Non. Not you, but me,” another said.
    In fact, he spoke to me, his clear eyes holding me rapt as he lifted his fist into the air and shook it, as he raged against vanity, against greed, against simony, against injustice—but not, as Bernard had done, against the wickedness of women. I moved through the crowd in a trance, pressing to the front, desiring only to be near him, and wondering where I had seen him before.
    â€œVanity of vanities; all is vanity,” he was saying. “Whatever is under the sun is vanity and affliction of the spirit. Hypocrites, listen to me! The spirit of pride is bad, but the pretense of humility is worse.” He raked his eyes over the nobles swathed in finery.
    â€œThe preacher ought to remove the beam from his own eye,” the murmurer behind me said. “Dirty rags and bare legs are the worst sort of vanity if a man can afford better.”
    â€œThe spirit of envy is bad, but the pretense of love is worse.” Robert’s voice rose.
    I glanced at my uncle. His dark eyes peered shrewdly about the room; his fawning smile gave his mouth a greasy appearance. He would pretend to love the devil if doing so would gain him a promotion.
    â€œThe spirit of lust is bad”—Robert’s voice broke, and he hung his head—“but the pretense of chastity is worse.”
    Silence fell over the room. I thought of Abelard, the headmaster, sworn to chastity yet touching my body with his eyes, his hands, his lips. My palms grew damp. Was this “the spirit of lust,” or something more?
    The sermon finished, a crowd of women swarmed about the great preacher.
    Seeing that we could not get near him, my uncle led me, instead, to greet Etienne of Garlande,