“And change them toward the Greek ideal while you’re at it, I’ll bet-and the same for their bodies. I haven’t seen too many modern people who have those builds.”
Arouetto smiled with delight. “You have caught me! But yes, there is a certain sameness to all the faces, and to the bodies, too. It is the Classical style.”
“I take it you enjoy working with nudes.”
“If you mean, do I find sexual pleasure in it, the answer is yes,” Arouetto said. “I caress the feminine form divine with my mind as I am making it appear on its pedestal-but I take equally great delight in the contemplation of its proportions and its line and grace, when I am done.”
He was honest, at least.
“I might accuse you of glorifying the human form.”
“Might, but would not?” Arouetto smiled wickedly. “So you, too, believe that human beings are perfectible!”
“Well, yes, but they’re depravable, too,” Matt said slowly. “I do think our race has an amazing number of good qualities and hidden potentials-though I sometimes despair of them ever being developed.”
“Still, you have faith in humanity?”
“I’m afraid I do,” Matt sighed, “though it does make me feel gullible. I wouldn’t say I believe that all people are born fundamentally good, but I think most of them are. Doesn’t always last until they’re grown up, of course. I take it you do believe humanity is good in and of itself?”
“Oh, I think that people are wonderful! They are a never-ending source of wonder and mystery, even the bad ones! But yes, I find that there is more good than bad in them, and believe that we as a species can be made perfect.”
“You are definitely a humanist,” Matt said. “What else are you?”
Arouetto spread his hands. “I am a scholar who seeks to become a philosopher. That is all.”
“That’s enough, Heaven knows.” Matt noticed that the man didn’t flinch at the word “Heaven.”
“But how do you make a living?”
“I inherited enough to live in comfort if I lived plainly,” Arouetto said, “and found that I had to make a choice. I could live in genteel poverty and devote myself to study-or I could marry, rear a family, and pay the price of having to labor and scheme in commerce to support them. I chose to devote myself to Knowledge, my true love.”
“And Art,” Matt pointed out. “Couldn’t you have made a living as a sculptor?”
“Oh, my hands have neither skill nor talent! I cannot paint or sculpt in the real world, Lord Wizard-or no better than a clumsy child can. It is only here, in a realm that can be governed by pure thought, that the glories I imagine can become real!”
“Sounds like your ideal habitat,” Matt said, “provided you could leave it whenever you wanted to, for a little socializing. What did you do to get sent here in the first place?”
“Nothing.” Arouetto smiled sadly. “I existed. That was enough.”
Matt stared. “All you asked was to be left alone to study, and the king sent you here?”
“No, Rebozo did-or rather, the king’s were the hands that sent me, but it was at Rebozo’s urging. He told the king that I was a threat, though I cannot see why.”
“I can,” Matt said darkly. “Rebozo’s power rests on the power of Satan, and you have the audacity to ignore it. If everybody else started thinking the way you do, people actually might start living morally, without fear of the Devil or faith in God, just because it was the right thing to do, just because life was better that way.”
Arouetto’s smile was sad again. “Come, my friend! Next you will have me believe that water flows uphill and winter is warm! I believe in the worth of humanity, but even I am not so foolish as to believe that most people will be good without some form of coercion!”
“Rebozo believes it, though,” Matt said, “and anything that might encourage people to be good is going to win his instant animosity. As to the king, he’s young enough to believe most of what his chancellor tells him.”
“He will grow, though, and gain wisdom for himself,” Arouetto said. “Oh, yes,” Matt said softly, remembering the conflict he had witnessed between chancellor and king. “You may be sure of it.”
“He may then find my ideas not as threatening as his chancellor does.” Oddly, Arouetto didn’t seem all that eager about it. Matt studied him closely a moment and guessed that his calmness was more a matter of willpower and discipline than of gut-level emotion; it spoke of the Stoicism of Marcus Aurelius. Also, now that he looked closely, he saw that the scholar wasn’t really all that old; the bald head and the stooped shoulders were signs that, in this case, were misleading. His face was wrinkled, yes, but mostly with crow’s-feet and laugh lines, along with some grooves in his forehead, and that prow of a nose made the whole face look leaner than it really was. Matt’s revised guess for his age was mid-fifties, maybe sixty. Of course, in a medieval world, that was old. “Yes, I think the king would find your ideas interesting, even now,” he said slowly. “In fact, I think he would find them vital-if he knew about them.”
“There is the little problem of informing him, yes.” The scholar sighed. “But why do you think he would find my studies so fascinating, Lord Wizard?”
“Because he’s trying to convince himself that there’s no Heaven or Hell,” Matt said, “which means no God or Satan. In brief, he’s trying to do away with religion.”
“Then my ideas would not please him!” Arouetto said severely. “I believe most strongly in God, Lord Wizard-which no doubt had something to do with Rebozo’s eagerness to be rid of me.”
“But you also believe in humanity.”
“I do, and see no conflict between the two. The churchmen teach that we are born in sin and are animal by nature. I cannot argue with our essential animality, but I will also affirm that we each hold within our souls a spark of the Divine. I have dedicated my life to discovering and revealing that innate goodness in man and woman which comes from God, and to developing all that is best in human nature.”
“Ah! Then you believe that if you are a scholar, you have the obligation to teach!”
“Only if I am asked.” Arouetto smiled. “And I have not been.” He seemed relieved. Matt was not. ‘Too bad there aren’t any universities to confer the degree-you’re definitely a Ph.D. No wonder Rebozo thought you were a threat.“
“Yes-for if someone had asked me to teach, my students might have begun to think and question.” Arouetto’s eyes sparkled. “But you’re no threat at all to King Boncorro’s overall plan-in fact, your ideas are just what he’s aching for!”
“All the more reason to hide me away here, is it not? No, I am no threat to King Boncorro’s goals-but I am a threat to the chancellor’s plans for frustrating his Majesty’s efforts, and corrupting the king himself into the bargain.”
“Oh?” Matt’s attention suddenly focused even more sharply on the scholar’s words. “I only met the two of them briefly, you understand. You think the chancellor has a deliberate plan to stop Boncorro’s chances of doing good?”
“Not just to stop him-to pervert all his efforts for the good of his people into ways to cause them suffering as great as any they have ever known. Nay, worse, for it will be a kind of agony of the spirit they have never encountered before, and are ill-prepared to endure!”
“That makes sense,” Matt said slowly. It really did-the king having his own private in-house brothel, conferring status and legitimacy on prostitution; the organized campaign to seduce country girls into the business, and the men into crime-Matt realized that something that grew up that fast had to have been planned and encouraged. He wondered if Rebozo had agents leading the runaways south, instigating and twisting their revelry. “You mean Boncorro has a whole strategy mapped out for the enrichment of the commonwealth, but Rebozo has a strategy for corrupting it?”