Friar Bacon groaned, and bowed his head for a second over his pen and paper. Then he said quietly, but without looking up:
“Sit down a moment, lad, while we consider all this as steadily as we can. What would you advise us to do, Ghosta? Both John and I — that’s true, isn’t it, lad? — hold the view that at most dangerous and ticklish crises, it’s often from the feminine mind we get the best hint as to what to do.”
Ghosta didn’t hesitate a second. “How did the shock of this wicked accusation,” she enquired, “strike your sister and brother, Master John?”
“Well, to tell you the truth—” and it was clear to everybody that young John was very glad to be asked that question, “I felt proud of the way they took it! You know it was Nurse who first told us about the dastardly fabricated tale which this devilish wretch started; and we were all together up in the nursery at the top of the house when she blurted it out. Father had come up about this attack on Tilton’s shrine; and no sooner had Nurse used the word than Tilton threw his arms round Lil-Umbra’s neck, and gave her a great hug and a lot of loud kisses all over her face. ‘Don’t you mind, my darling!’ he cried. ‘If I ever tried to do such wickedness to you I’m sure the good God would strike me dead before it was done!’”
Roger Bacon’s face lit up with satisfaction, and with a certain humorous amusement too, young John thought, as he eagerly watched him; but the Friar’s words when he spoke were anything but final or conclusive:
“But now listen to me, my children both, and you two also my kind friends,” and he made a double gesture with the hand that held his pen, one in the direction of Colin, and the other in the direction of Clamp, “what we’ve got to do now is to think of some way of out-witting this self-appointed representative of the Holy Father, supported — and the thing’s not without precedent in the history of our mad purblind human race — by this local nest of rapscallions. If any better idea comes into your head, Ghosta, while I’m explaining my scheme, let’s hear it at once, and don’t mind interrupting me if you’re afraid of forgetting what you suddenly thought of!
“But this is what has just come into my mind as a good plan. A week ago I had a communication from my friend Peter Peregrinus, who is now lecturing in France, to tell me that the famous master in philosophy, Albert of Cologne — who belongs to the Dominican order, and indeed is such a loyal Dominican that, when he speaks in the University of Paris, he defends his view of Aristotle against both all the Arabian and all the Latin Averroists and completely demolishes them — is at this very moment visiting Oxford! This is an astonishing piece of news to me. I had heard that he was interested in the Summa Theologicae of Alexander of Hales, but I never thought I’d live to hear that the great Albert of Cologne should actually be in this island, still less that he should be visiting Oxford!
“I have exchanged letters with him a good many times, as I suppose all disciples of Aristotle have done, and he and I have always agreed that the science of life didn’t end with Plato or with Aristotle or even with Grosseteste or with any other student of philosophy. But, my dears, the reputation of Albert of Cologne all over the world is terrific, greater than that of any other modern master. Every man who can read and write in this whole west country, whether they’re Franciscans or Dominicans, Monks, or Friars, Abbots, or Priors or parish priests, have heard nothing but praise of him since they first began their A. B. C.! When you come to metaphysics he’s the top boy, so to speak, of the whole schola mundi, if you leave out Israel and India and China! Now if we could send to Albertus some wise and diplomatic representative of our side, in this quarrel with Bonaventura, it strikes me that it’s not at all impossible that the great teacher from Cologne might be persuaded to come, as the most famous Dominican, to confront this troublesome Franciscan.
“That would soon, as we used to say in Ilchester, ‘settle the hash,’ of our Bona, the Venturesome! I am perfectly certain that what started the whole thing was the fact that your excellent parents, John, gave shelter in the Fortress to my Brazen Head. It was this that kindled all this obstinate rage in our ex-legate’s mind. He’s somehow got it lodged in his one-track sanctified midriff that the Holy Trinity we all worship has received a staggering blow from my having dared to create in the person of my Brazen Head a rival creation to Adam and Eve. I tell you, my good friends, I tell you, John dear, if we could only hit upon the right person to send as an ambassador to the great Albert now in Oxford, a person who would be in a position to escort him down here, with him as the chief Dominican to confront this pseudo-saint of the Franciscans, the whole affair would soon be settled.”
As can well be imagined, both Ghosta and John were now murmuring, each with their own special manner of emphasis and intensity, the name of Raymond de Laon; and Friar Bacon, as if to seek still further confirmation of this idea, looked first at Colin and then at Clamp. Both men came so close on getting this faintly interrogative glance that they completely hid the Friar from Ghosta and John, but a double vote of unqualified recognition of Raymond as their Ambassador to Albert of Cologne these two certainly did give; for the voice of Colin seemed to flap its wings in widening circles above every back and every head in the place; and the voice of Clamp seemed to drive in one rusty nail after another as he fastened up their decision over the Norman arch of the event.
“Well then, my friends,” cried the Friar, rising from his seat and moving quickly round the two men who were bending over him, “we may take it that our Council chamber has uttered its decisive verdict, and that Raymond de Laon shall be our ambassador to the great Albert in Oxford. Will you convey our request to him, John my lad, and let us know the result as quickly as possible? And now I think I must beg you all to descend to the lower regions of this hospitable Priory; for it is really absolutely necessary for me to finish this page of what I am calling my Opus Major before I sleep tonight; and your arrival, gentlemen, is the cause of this necessity, and I cannot tell you how grateful I am to you all for being this same cause.
“For the real truth is that your sudden appearance and the more than startling interest of what you have announced to me, combined with the expectation of encountering, man to man, he a Dominican and myself a Franciscan, the great Albert of Cologne, has caused me to remember certain intensely important details that I had completely forgotten relating to the journey of Brother William of Rubruck to the Grand Khan at Karakorum in Tartary, where he stayed from December 1253 till July 1254.
“It was Brother William himself when I met him in Paris who told me these things; and although at this moment I was writing about the sermon he told me he preached in Constantinople on Palm Sunday 1253, I had absolutely forgotten that great congress of religions over which the Mongolian Khan presided at Karakorum, a congress of the Mohammedan, Buddhist, and Christian religions, and I really must write about it while it has come back so vividly to my mind. I am sure I would have left out Brother William’s description of that Karakorum congress of religions altogether if our little meeting tonight, and our decision to send an ambassador to bring the head of the Dominicans to deal with the head of the Franciscans, hadn’t stirred up my memory of what the brother told me.”