Sheen on the Silk - Anne Perry [71]
She looked down, hating what she was thinking. “Perhaps he is a genius, and can see all these things, but is he wise? The two are not the same.”
“I have no idea,” Nicephoras answered gently. “What is it you are afraid of? Would it be bad to see things in the distance more clearly? He writes of being able to fix some of these lenses in a contraption so you could wear them on your nose, and those who cannot now see would be able to read.” His voice rose with his excitement. “And he studies also the size, position, and paths of celestial bodies. He has worked out great theories on the movement of water, and how it could be used in machines to lift and carry things, and to create an engine that transforms steam into power which could drive ships across the sea, regardless of the wind or the oar! Imagine it.”
“Can we make these things that explode?” she asked softly. “Machines that create steam to drive ships across the sea, without the wind in the sails, or men at the oars?” She could not rid herself of the fear of such things, the power it would give the nation that possessed them.
“I expect so.” He frowned slightly, as if at the first touch of a chill. “Then we need not be prisoners of the wind.”
She looked up at him. “The kings and princes of England come on crusade, don’t they?” It was a statement. Everyone knew of Richard, known as the Lionheart, and of course more recently Prince Edward.
“You think they will use these things in war?” Nicephoras was pale now, his excitement bled away, leaving horror like an open wound.
“Would you trust them not to?”
“Bacon is a scientist, an inventor, a discoverer of the miracles of God in the universe.” He shook his head. “He is not a man of war. His religion is one of wonder, the conquest of ignorance, not of lands.”
“And perhaps he thinks all other men are the same,” she said dryly, an edge of sarcasm in her tone. “I don’t, do you?”
He was about to respond again when the door opened and John Beccus emerged from the emperor’s presence. He was imposing, a gaunt and hatchet-faced man. He wore his magnificent robes with elegance, the silk tunic under a heavy, sweeping dalmatica. But far more than his mere physical presence, there was a power of emotion in him that commanded attention.
After acknowledging Anna, he looked at Nicephoras. “There will be a great deal to do,” he said almost by way of an order. “We must have no more disturbances like that last miserable affair. Constantine seems incapable of controlling his adherents. Personally, I have doubts about his own loyalties.” He frowned. “We must either persuade him, or silence him. The union must be carried through. You understand that? Independence is no longer a luxury we can afford. We must pay a certain price in order to avoid having to pay everything. Is that not obvious enough? The survival of both church and state are tied to the issue.”
He chopped his large-knuckled hand savagely in the air, his rings gleaming. “If Charles of Anjou invades—and make no mistake, if we are separate from Rome he will—then it will be the end of Byzantium. Our people will be decimated, exiled to who knows where? And without our churches, our city, our culture, how will the faith survive?”
“I know that, Your Grace,” Nicephoras answered gravely, his face pale. “Either we yield something now, or everything later. I have spoken to Bishop Constantine, but he believes that faith is our best shield, and I cannot shake him from that.”
A shadow crossed Beccus’s high face, and a flash of arrogance. “Fortunately, the emperor sees the stakes even more clearly than I do,” he replied. “And he will save every jot he can, whether some of our more naive religious orders can see that or not.” He made an almost cursory sign of the