Eifelheim - Michael Flynn [150]
Ockham shook his head. “First the earth moves, then the people move with it to explain why they do not constantly stumble; then the air must move with it to answer a second objection; then the arrow, to answer another; and so further. Dietl, the simplest explanation for why the stars and the sun appear to circle the earth is that they do circle the earth. And the reason why we feel no motion in the earth is that the earth does not move. Ah, ‘Brother Angelus,’ why waste your powers on such trivia!”
Dietrich stiffened. “Do not call me that!”
Ockham turned to Joachim and said, “He would be at his readings before the morning bells and stayed at it by candlelight after the evening bells, so the other scholars called him—”
“That is a long time since!”
The Englishman tilted his head back. “May I still call you doctor seclusus?” He grunted and sought another bout of ale. Dietrich retreated into silence. He had thought to share a fascinating idea, and Will had somehow created a disputatio. He should have remembered that, from Paris. Joachim glanced from one to the other. Ockham returned to the table. “This is the last of the ale,” he said.
“There gives more in the kitchen,” Dietrich answered.
They discussed the “calculators” at Merton and the death of Abbot Richard of Wallingford, who had invented a new “triangular” geometry and an instrument, the rectangulus, much favored by navigators. “And to speak of navigators,” Dietrich added, “the Spanish have discovered new islands in the Ocean Sea.” He had the tale from Tarkhan, who had it in turn from his master’s agents. “They lie off the coast of Africa, and boast great flocks of canaries. So it may be that a ‘new way’ across Ocean may be found, leading to the ‘oversea lands’ on Bacon’s map.”
“One may more easily explain Bacon’s Land by a cartographer’s imagination and the lure of blank spaces.” Ockham smiled and added, “Much as your rustic wood-carvers here have filled in the walls of your church with giant grasshoppers and the like.”
Joachim had a slice of pumpernickel in his mouth and nearly choked until Dietrich had helped him to swallow some ale to help it down. Ockham rose, saying, “I’ll fetch more ale from the kitchen.” But Joachim gasped, “No, there waits also a giant grasshopper.”
Unsure of the jest, Ockham barked puzzled laughter.
XIX
JUNE, 1349
At Nones, The Commemoration of Bernard of Menthon
MANFRED STYLED his banquet “a symposium,” and promised a quodlibet between Dietrich and Ockham as the postprandial entertainment. But as some entertainments were not to everyone’s taste, this did not supplant Peter’s singing or the dwarf’s acrobatics or the juggler’s display of plates and knives. The dwarf’s trained dog drew but a pursed lip from Will Ockham; but Kunigund and Eugen laughed hugely, especially when the dog tugged the dwarf’s hose down to reveal his bare ass. Einhardt, like Manfred, paid more particular attention to the singing. “Einhardt has held me ill,” Manfred had confided earlier to Dietrich, “for missing the bohorts, so this is my peace to him.” Dietrich, having verified the knight’s famous stink, gave thanks that his corpulent wife, Lady Rosamund, sat between them.
The sideboard was laden with game birds and aged venison, and continually refreshed by a never-ceasing bustle of servants bearing platters, retrieving empty trenchers, and spreading on the floor fresh rushes mixed with flowers to surrender their scents when stepped upon. Behind each seat a page awaited the diner’s every need. Tarkhan ben Bek, brushed and combed into respectability, did service for his master, for Malachai’s rites did not permit him to eat of Manfred’s bounty, but only of his own provisions, prepared under his supervision. Normally, two of Manfred’s hounds would prowl the room, scavenging scraps that fell from the table; but, from respect for the Jew’s sensibilities, the animals had been barred from the feast. Their piteous howling could be heard faintly from the