“God pity Stephen!... Who else at table, beside thee?”
“An Oxford friar. Roger is his name also. A learned and famous philosopher. And he holds his liquor too, valiantly.”
“Three doctors—counting Stephen. I’ve always found that means two atheists.”
Thomas looked uneasily down his nose. “That’s a wicked proverb,” he stammered. “You should not use it.”
“Hoh! Never come you the monk over me, Thomas! You’ve been Infirmarian at St. Illod’s eleven years—and a lay-brother still. Why have you never taken orders, all this while?”
“I—I am not worthy.”
“Ten times worthier than that new fat swine—Henry Who’s-his-name—that takes the Infirmary Masses. He bullocks in with the Viaticum, under your nose, when a sick man’s only faint from being bled. So the man dies—of pure fear. Ye know it! I’ve watched your face at such times. Take Orders, Didymus. You’ll have a little more medicine and a little less Mass with your sick then; and they’ll live longer.”
“I am unworthy—unworthy,” Thomas repeated pitifully.
“Not you—but—to your own master you stand or fall. And now that my work releases me for a while, I’ll drink with any philosopher out of any school. And Thomas,” he coaxed, “a hot bath for me in the Infirmary before vespers.”