by James Blish
Some sounds besides those of the sea came into Roger’s cell from outside. There was obviously a road not far away –close enough to allow him to hear, now and then, the bray of a donkey, a clanking of pots, the bell and cry of a leper, or even indistinct human voices, sometimes of children –and, daily, Otto hitching two of his animals to the wagon, to go buy in the market for the brothers far above. To hearken to these, Roger came more and more to spend even fair days in the alcove, where, furthermore, he now and again was vouchsafed a vagrant current of sweet air. But this was impossible to do in the winter; though there was no part of the cell that was not cold then, the niche seared the skin even through the rags, and the wind made a prolonged dismal fluting over the lip of the mysterious embrasure, as it did also during storms.
Then, too, there were the animals. Nothing could be done with the rats; sporadically, Otto tried to trap them, and in consequence they were unapproachable. But Roger found that mice made pleasant companions. They were exceeding shy; yet by long patience he trained several to-trust him, and one would even sit on his palm, grooming its fur like a cat but with much quicker strokes – there was something almost bird-like in the movement. He had little to give them for a reward, but that little seemed to be more than they were accustomed to. For some reason, it never occurred to him to give them names.
The cockroaches, like the rats, were invincibly self-centred and vicious, and horribly stupid, too; Roger learned to loathe them. But he also learned to his astonishment that spiders, for all their cruelty, love music. There was one near the door which would invariably let itself down on its cable if he whistled. It did not seem to be able to hear the voice, which was fortunate; for the second time Roger tried it with a fragment of plainsong, several other prisoners took up the tune, the horses panicked and kicked each other, and then there was no food for three days. In Roger’s nightmares, all the fiends had horses’ heads.
And for more than a year – or was it two? – he tried to compose in his mind the Summa salvation per scientiam; not that there was any hope of committing it to writing, but only to see how it would go; and perhaps to memorize it then, to have it in his soul for the Judgment. Thinking without parchment and quill was not so impossible as he had always before supposed, and for a while he fancied that he was making a little progress; until he realized that for the want of authorities to quote, he had been for months inventing them; one, a St. Robert of Lincoln, had even somehow in his mind acquired a life history, although he knew well enough that there was no such saint.
Hunger impeded him as well, and cold; even the stench, though he was no longer more than intermittently conscious of that; and the constant galling of the gyves; and the swollen bleeding gums of the scurvy; and then, the gradual, inexorable dementia of pellagra, until he sometimes could not tell the imaginary vermin which gnawed him from the real. Now when he sat all day in the niche, he thought more and more of less and less: over and over again, one sun-ripe day in the gardens at Tivoli would pass through his memory, and then again, and again, like the cumbers of the unseen Adriatic; or he would dwell helplessly upon some line of Boethius, whom as a boy he had so meanly despised … the little lambs, frisking their tails in spring … the little lambs.
One year as he sat, it seemed to him that he heard someone breathing. He made nothing of it, for he often heard such things; they were only sent to torment him; often he had been promised even death and it had been snatched away. Yet the sound was very loud, and ragged, and after a while began to turn into sobbing. It was the voice of a child; and real or unreal, Roger was of a sudden distressed with God for the sorrows of His children.
He tried to speak, but could not; it had been too long. The second time, some words emerged, though in no voice he recognized as human:
Demon, do not weep.
The sound choked off abruptly; and then there was the faint drumming of running footsteps; and that was all. Yet some days later, Roger again heard the sound of breathing –now rapid, but somehow no longer sorrowful.
‘Who is there?’ he whispered.
The breathing quickened further, but there was no other reply. Perhaps it was an Italian demon, and did not understand good Latin. He had a little Roman, remembered from – he did not know when; he tried that.
‘Who is there?’
‘Are you real?’ a child’s voice came back to him, tremulous, in that language. It came, like the sun, through the brick-shaped hole. He had not expected so hard a question, and tried to think of an answer; and when he had given it up, the light was gone and so was the voice.
Nevertheless it was back the next day. ‘Who are you in the hole?’ it said directly.
That was easier. ‘I am called Roger Bacon, the schismatic.’
‘Are you in prison?’
‘Yes … yes, I am.’
‘Everyone says the March is a prison. But the friars say it is only an old monastery. Were you a grave sinner?’
‘Very gave.…’
‘Then I shouldn’t talk to you.’
‘That is also true.’
‘How did it happen? Was it very grave?’
‘I do not know any longer how it happened. Why were you weeping, when I first heard you?’
‘Was I? I don’t remember. I sit here all the time, in this little niche in the wall, when I’m thinking. Maybe they’d punished me. But it never spoke to me before. Can you see through that black place?’
‘No!’
‘Can you see my hand?’ There was a faint sound of scrabbling, very like a rat’s, and then the tips of four small fingers wove like seaweed over Roger’s head.
‘Yes. I could even touch it.’
The fingers were snatched back. For a while there was silence. Then:
‘Do you know any stories?’ Far off, in Ancona, a bell began to toll. ‘O, I have to go. Will you be here tomorrow?’
There was a long hiatus, until Roger became sure that it had been only another hallucination. But finally the voice came back, again demanding a story, and during their exchange, Roger learned that he was talking to a boy of six ae, the youngest son of an olive merchant. Roger told him the story of Thomas Aquinas’ encounter with the brazen head of Albertus Magnus, but he did not much care for it; the story of how the mighty Gerbert rode the eagle was better received.
Each day, Roger ransacked his memory for legends; and in the meantime, he was gradually building up a picture of how they sat together. It seemed evident that this twin alcove had originally been nothing but a priest’s hole, which meant that his wall had once not been on the outside of the fortress; the structure must have been centuries old to have required such thick inner walls.
There came a day when the boy came into earshot already babbling excitedly, of what, Roger could not tell; and then, there was the slow, also indecipherable rumbling of an adult male voice. Then, came the usual gambit: ‘Here I am today, Roger. Tell me another story.’
Roger was ready, for having run out of folk-tales, he had been for some weeks steadily working his way through the Aeneid; though puzzled, he proceeded as well as he was able. The preceding night had been unusually wretched, and his voice often broke, but he managed to finish without other incident.
The boy’s voice said clearly: ‘See? What did I tell you!’ And then again there was the slow rumble of the adult voice. Now it was all over, and Roger would have to go back into the silence; obviously the boy had told his father or some elder brother of the delightful mystery of the talking wall, and he would be forbidden to come again; no one of mature years in Ancona could fail to know what the March was.
The deep voice stopped. The boy said, all in a rush: ‘My father says you are a learned man and very kind and is there anything you need T’
He seemed thoroughly delighted with himself. But how to answer the question? There was nothing that Roger did not need. After a while, he said, slowly, ‘I thank your knightly father. What I most need is better food. But I fear me it will never pass through that stone r
at-hole.’
The boy reported this. Then he said, ‘My father says if you had a bit of money could you put it to any use?’
‘I do not know. I would have to try.’
Now there came the scrabbling sound of the boy’s hand, and then the pursed fingers were above him, like a closed anemone, precariously pinching a coin. As Roger took it, the hand was hastily withdrawn, as though the flesh behind the voice were still more than the boy could bear. Roger stood shakily on the stone block and looked at the chip of metal in the scant light. As nearly as he could tell, it was a ducat, not much clipped.
‘God bless you both. I would my blessings were of some avail. I … can say naught else.’
A silence. The sea moaned.
‘My father says that Virgil is said to be a waste of time except in Latin. Can you teach me that?’
Roger put out a hand for support against the wet stone. ‘I can teach you better Latin in a week than any other master could teach you in a year.’
‘He says I will be back tomorrow. O Roger, I wish I hadn’t. Now it will be more like school.’
‘Oh no. You will see. We will go right on telling stories’
On the next morning, Roger left his bowl on the stone seat, and instead held out into the corridor his open palm with the ducat in it. Such was the gloom out there that Otto, seeing nothing but the hand, passed by with a snort; but at the end of his rounds he was back again, peering more closely first at the outstretched palm, and then bending to glare through the slit. Finally, he took the money. Roger left his hand where it was.
‘Where’d you get that?’ Otto growled. Though it was difficult for him, he was obviously trying to be as quiet as possible. It was the first time he had spoken to a prisoner since Roger had come to the March – somewhere between four and six years. Roger remained motionless, and said nothing.
‘Somebody’s talking to you through some hole, eh? I can seal that up in a hurry.’
Roger withdrew his hand. ‘They give me money every day,’ he said.
‘Much good it’ll do you.’ But Otto did not go away. Finally he said: ‘What do you want?’
‘Some fruit. A bit of fish. Even a little meat. Clean water.’
Otto laughed. ‘How about a stoup of wine, Your Lordship? Go back and rot.’
The next morning, there was nothing put into Roger’s bowl. Otto came to him after the rounds and said, deep in his throat: ‘Where is it? Hand it out.’
‘I have nothing yet.’
‘So you get nothing. Hand out the ducat.’
‘No.’
Otto went away. After three days, Roger had two coins to chink together in his cupped palms as Otto went by; and on the fourth morning, his bowl held not only the usual mash, but also a decayed orange and the head of a herring. He gave back one ducat; and after thinking the matter over for a short while, Otto silently took it.
The feast was more than Roger’s body could bear: he lost it all into the privy-hole. The next, however, he kept down; and although there were other bad days, he began gradually to feel stronger. Having someone to talk to was almost more healing than the food.
In this most curious of all schools the boy, whose name was Adrian, learned in fair weather his Latin and his Greek and his logic, and even other subjects that could not ordinarily be taught through a hole, such as the Elements of Euclid and descriptive astronomy. Roger saved his ducats as he was able, and in turn learned the unspoken art of mutual blackmail, at which, though the advantage lay sometimes on this side and sometimes on that, he found himself to be a better practitioner than Otto; for in the majority of their conflicts, Otto was faced with the ultimate resource of the condemned man, nee spe nee metu - no hope can have no fear. Nor had the gaoler any real cause for complaint, for even the most that he gave for the money would buy a score of times as much in the outside world where he moved free.
On one fine spring morning Roger was ready for the most bold of all his undertakings. Though he had been unable to win himself new rags or new rushes, because Otto would not enter the cell for any amount of money, so that no betterment could be gained that would not pass through the slit in the iron door, he felt well and cheerful; and he had hidden in the privy-hole - for there was no other place to hide it -no less a sum than twenty-seven ducats, hoarded over three years. For this wealth he meant to demand nothing smaller than the removal of the horses from the corridor. He did not think that Otto would try to take it away from him, not after having been three years sole owner of the golden goose.
But Adrian did not come that morning; nor ever came again. While Roger waited in the alcove, the ducats in the privy were given out one by one, for nothing but food; and the moment Roger began to try to conserve them, Otto sensed that there were soon to be no more. For the last few he gave back nothing but the old slops from the horse-trough, and for the last one, he gave nothing at all, but simply starved it out of Roger’s hands.
A fuzzy square of light on the ceiling, motionless. No, it was raining. A wailing in the night; someone was dying. A wrinkled scum of ice over the privy. Blood in his mouth, and livid spots under his filth. Horses with rats’ heads. Rain. An incessant hammering. The little lambs in spring. The structure of the eye. As I shall prove to Your Holiness by many examples. Look in the mirror, Beth, just for a moment Would God allow? If you have no time to examine these difficulties, Joannes is more capable than anyone. I gave him thirty pieces of silver. I have these smaller manuscripts, aliqua capitula. Here, Petronius, here, puss. Why don’t they stop that hammering? Virtue, therefore, clarifies the mind so that a man may comprehend more easily not only moral but scientific truths. Is it today that He gives us the onion? For san et haec olim meminisse juvablt. Tonight we shall see Mars and Jupiter in trine. Sit here, Livia. Is that rain again? I will explain everything. Silence and study. If I were not so cold, I could explain it all. Mother of God, sit here. I can explain it all.
One morning there was a commotion in the corridor after the horses were taken out, an angry shouting, and the flaring of torches. It went on all day, and in the evening the horses were not brought back. When the noise resumed the next morning, he crawled to the slit to watch.
The trough too had been removed. Otto was directing some three or four men with spades; they seemed to be attempting to clear the corridor out, a truly Augean task. From this activity as much as from their talk, which Roger could hardly understand, he deduced painfully that some important personage was coming, to see that the remnants of the schismatics were still properly imprisoned.
This could be of no moment to him. None the less he watched; for any change, however trifling, in the routines of the March helped to pass the iron days. The shovelling and cursing went on all week, and now that the horses were gone there was also a change in the food - lumps of bread instead of congealed mash. At the end of the week, it might have been said that the corridor was a little cleaner.
On Sunday morning - easily identifiable by its bells - the visitor came. Roger could not see him, but he heard the door open, and then a strange voice:
‘Are these the spirituals, the disciples of Joachim?’
Its tone seemed angry, perhaps even incredulous. Otto’s reply was in so unusually low a voice that Roger could not make it out.
‘Would that all of us and the whole Order were guilty of such a charge as this! Gaoler, release them,’
‘Release them? But Your Eminence, my most clear instructions from Your Eminence’s predecessor—’
‘He is no longer responsible for the Order. I am. Let them out, I say!’
One by one, the black doors were opened, protesting blindly for that they had not been stirred in more than a decade. Several of them required the combined strengths of Otto and all his crew. At each cell, the ritual was the same:
‘I am Raymond de Gaufredi, Minister-General to the Franciscans. Who art thou, holy friar?’
‘I am called Angelo of Clareno, Your Eminence.’
‘Go thou with God, w
here thou willst Strike off his chains.’ And then there was the sound of a hammer.
But not after all at every cell, for there were several of those wretches who could neither reply nor come forth, but needed to be led out, or in one instance, carried; and there were some doors which no longer needed to be opened. Roger watched and listened with only the barest comprehension of what was happening, and that little not to be believed, until the slit that fed him was jerked away from his face with a mighty squeal.
‘Who art thou, holy friar?’
‘I… am called Roger Bacon, Your Eminence.’
‘Go thou with God, where thou willst.’ At Roger’s feet, Otto knelt with the hammer.
‘Your Eminence… your pardon, if I… would you tell me… what year is this?”
The one thousand two hundred and ninetieth of Christ our Lord.’
The hammer fell, and thus he was answered. It had been thirteen years.
XVI: FOLLY BRIDGE
Blind as moles they blundered about in the even lemon glare of the sunlight, all those that survived, as confused and full of wonder as men just expelled from a garden. For the serious business of convalescing, Raymond di Gaufredi gave them three whole months, and they all went about it with the high seriousness of scholars; though there were some hurts no herbs nor unguent nor hour could heal, especially in that fortress in whose dungeons they had so long groaned and heard no other voice.
For Roger, it was overwhelming. He could assimilate it only a little at a time, beginning with such small matters as he had become accustomed to seeing at the boundaries of the universe: cracks in the wall, the taste of salt, the touch of water, the shape of his shadow; and then, gradually, the sound of voices; and then, the movement of their sense.