“And I stand on the edge of the grave,” snarled Roger of Salerno. “Who pities me?”
“Hush!” said Thomas the Infirmarian. “The little creatures shall be sanctified—sanctified to the service of His sick.”
“What need?” John of Burgos wiped his lips. “It shows no more than the shapes of things. It gives good pictures. I had it at Granada. It was brought from the East, they told me.”
Roger of Salerno laughed with an old man’s malice. “What of Mother Church? Most Holy Mother Church? If it comes to Her ears that we have spied into Her Hell without Her leave, where do we stand?”
“At the stake,” said the Abbot of St. Illod’s, and, raising his voice a trifle. “You hear that? Roger Bacon, heard you that?”
The Friar turned from the window, clutching the compasses tighter.
“No, no!” he appealed. “Not with Falcodi—not with our English-hearted Foulkes made Pope. He’s wise—he’s learned. He reads what I have put forth. Foulkes would never suffer it.”
“‘Holy Pope is one thing, Holy Church another,’” Roger quoted.
“But I—I can bear witness it is no Art Magic,” the Friar went on. “Nothing is it, except Art optical—wisdom after trial and experiment, mark you. I can prove it, and—my name weighs with men who dare think.”
“Find them!” croaked Roger of Salerno. “Five or six in all the world. That makes less than fifty pounds by weight of ashes at the stake. I have watched such men—reduced.”