a thing?” He nodded at a young man in the front row. “Master Pike?”
Pike, tall and gangly in his front-row seat, had already stood. “I should say, sir, that he was barking mad.”
“And what proof might you offer, Pike, as demonstration of his lunacy?”
Rafe clucked his tongue. “Poor Pike. He couldn’t even get through Book One of the Considerations.”
“Now, now, pet. Pike could have hidden depths.”
Rafe sighed wearily. “I am in a position to be able to tell you with the utmost confidence, Joshua, that there is far less to Pike than meets the eye.”
“We know, as a first principle,” said Pike, apparently unaware of the spray of contumely behind him, “that a larger object falls more quickly than a smaller one.”
Rafe snorted. “Yes, because we’ve investigated the question so closely.”
“If the earth had the same kind of movement as other bodies,” Pike continued—why, oh, why must he insist on speaking through his nose like that?—“then it would fall out of the heavens, leaving all other objects that rest and move on it, heavy and light, animals and humans, floating in the air.”
De Bertel looked as pleased as if his dog had performed a trick correctly. “Quite so. But it pains me to have to say that the moving-earth crowd are hardly the worst offenders against the legacy of Rastin.” Ah, so this was where he was heading. “Of late, an idea has arisen that makes Chickering look like Fontanus.”
“And here we go,” Rafe muttered.
“With what?” said Micah.
A few more of Rafe’s classmates looked back at him to catch his expressive eye roll. “Those who espouse this new idea,” continued de Bertel, “suggest not only that the earth moves, but that it moves around the sun—and that it therefore cannot be the center of the world.” Gods, how thick was he going to lay the naïve amazement on?
De Bertel turned, of course, back to Pike. “What, Pike, are we to make of their claims?”
Pike said nothing; hardly surprising, as he hadn’t read the answer in a book. But de Bertel was in a generous mood. “Don’t worry, Pike, I won’t keep you on the hook. I’d be disappointed, in fact, if you’d devoted enough time to such nonsense to be able to answer my question.”
“No matter how well the scorned lover knows that scorn returned will avail him nothing,” sighed Rafe, “he still finds himself powerless not to strike back.”
“Someday you’ll be a scorned lover, pigeon, and then you’ll sympathize.”
Rafe rolled his eyes. “On the day the sun declines to rise.”
“Of course, such a notion is preposterous”—finally de Bertel was looking directly at Rafe, as were, for that matter, most of the others in the room—“an insult to thinking men everywhere, and its benighted adherents dreamers lost to reason who make mock of true scholarship.”
“Oh, pigeon.” Joshua’s voice combined sympathy and regret. “I should have insisted Anselm try harder to stop your oration in the tavern.”
“I would have just bitten him harder.”
“I am grieved to know,” de Bertel went on, looking more and more like a cockatrice with raised hackles, “that there is one among us who has so abandoned his senses as to subscribe to this feculence.”
“Gods, how long is he going to take with this?”
Joshua patted his hand. “Come, now, pigeon, you’ve had far worse beatings than this.”
“Yes, and enjoyed them far more. I think I shall have to move things along at a somewhat quicker pace.”
Joshua was a mother hen solicitous of her wayward chick. “Rafe . . .”
But there was Micah to consider. The boy didn’t deal well with unpleasantness, and Rafe had no wish to unsettle him. “Remember how upset you got two days ago,” he said, touching Micah’s shoulder, “when Matthew and I fought about his absolutely ridiculous theory of circular motion?”
“Well,” said Micah, “your theory was ridiculous, too. But Matthew got really mad.”
“The fight I’m about to have is going to be much worse.”
“I’d better go, then.” Like a shadow, Micah’s small form moved along the wall and down the stairs.
De Bertel ignored him, caught up in his oration against the unnamed “one” who espoused such absurd notions of celestial place.
Rafe sat straight and gazed, expressionless, at the high vaulted ceiling. “O, how his hope-spent mother’s heart would grieve,” he said, his high, clear voice cutting effortlessly through de Bertel’s gravelly one, “to hear such wibber-wash as yon fool prateth!”
All noise ceased at once, and it was not without satisfaction that Rafe noted every eye in the room on him.
De Bertel, for his part, had gone quite still. “You know, Fenton,” he said casually, “I find myself recalling your perplexity a few days ago in the matter of—was it Chesney? Yes, I believe it was. You said you were utterly incapable of determining, after reading Observations on the Nature of Heaviness and Lightness, whether he was actually insane or simply a cow of dubious intelligence.” He looked so pleased with himself that he had to be preparing a lightning bolt of no ordinary proportions. “Allow me to suggest that you should be the last among us to be perplexed by the question, since you have in fact shown yourself to be both.” The class laughed but Rafe felt the air in the room grow more charged.
“You have to admit, pigeon, that wasn’t bad.” Joshua sounded apologetic.
Rafe looked at the ceiling again. “He does have his moments. But then, so do I. And I’ve read more poetry than he has.” He recited:
The cowherd told his talking bull, “The day
Thou best my wit, I die by mine own hand.”
“Then live,” the bull replied, “thy wits unmatch’d.
Debate thyself, whilst I attend thy wife.”
De Bertel acknowledged the sally with a very slight bow. “Your wit, Fenton, admits of no equal.” He assumed the air of a man who has just remembered something of mild interest. “You have your examination still to sit, don’t you?”
“Indeed, sir, and never has a prisoner eyed his jailer’s key ring with greater fervor.”
“I have the honor of informing you that the Board of Governors met this morning and, piqued by the ill-advised and bombastic gathering last week, decided to vote on their proposal immediately.”
“What?” Rafe stood so fast he almost fell, swayed, and threw his hand onto Joshua’s shoulder for balance.
“Needless to say, it passed, by what I am given to understand was an overwhelming majority. And, now that it occurs to me, I realize I’ve been remiss in my duty to you and to the University. I’ll have to make sure I’m one of your examiners. After the enlightening time we’ve spent together in my lectures, I shall enjoy testing your mettle to discover whether you’re qualified to become a master.”
“My school—!” The color had vanished from Rafe’s face. His hands were trembling.
“Oh, pigeon,” whispered Joshua.
“I’m sure, Fenton,” continued de Bertel pleasantly, “that you’ll have no trouble whatsoever convincing each and every examiner of your qualifications.”
Rafe finally found a response. “As fascinating as this lecture is, professor,” he said, his voice shaking only very slightly, “you’ll understand if I decline to stay for the rest of it. I have a great deal of true scholarship still to make mock of, and I must go