The Forest Laird(136)

“He won’t stay away longer than he needs to, not with Mirren so close to her time. May I ask you a question now?”

“Of course. What would you like to know?”

“Tell me a little about France, if you will, about your time there, what you learned. Is it exotic?” I knew that within two years of his early ordination, Lamberton had been selected by a cadre of Scotland’s senior bishops to attend university in Paris.

“Well, goodness, where to begin? It is beautiful, heavily forested, and it has unimaginably long, straight roads that run without a bend for score upon score of miles, joining together far-flung cities. The roads were all built by the Romans, of course, as were the great roads of England. But the French have more of them, and better, because the Romans were in Gaul for hundreds of years longer than they were in Britain. Here in Scotland, of course, we had little to attract the Romans, and so although we have some of their roads, we have no great ones.

“Is France exotic?” He thought on that for a moment and then shook his head decisively. “No, not, I think, in the way you mean. It is not strikingly foreign, in the way that Africa and Greece are foreign, visibly and tangibly. France is much like England, in fact, but not quite so green and not quite so wet all the time.”

“What did you learn there?”

“Much that you might expect. I studied canon law with some of the finest teachers in the world. But much, too, that I had not anticipated. That sprang from being exposed to brilliant and inquiring minds.”

“Such as whose?”

He pursed his lips and looked at me as though he was considering a choice of options. “There is a man called John Duns. They call him Duns the Scot. Have you heard of him?”

“I have heard the name—Duns Scotus is what they call him here. He is a Franciscan, is he not? He is earning a reputation for himself as a free and unique thinker.”

Lamberton nodded. “That’s the same man. He has been resident at Oxford now for more than a decade, beginning as a very young student, and is now a teacher of philosophy and theology. He is surprisingly young, considering his accomplishments.”

That made me smile, as it echoed what I had been thinking about Lamberton himself a short time earlier. “No, I’m serious,” he went on. “The man is no more than three or four years older than I am and already he is revered. His ideas are … I am tempted to use the word exciting, even though it is not a word normally applied to theology or philosophy. Nevertheless, his opinions are vibrant, and some of them have set the world of scholarship reeling, without scandalizing the orthodox majority—a signal accomplishment.”

“It sounds as though you know the man, Father. Have you been, then, to Oxford?”

“No.” Lamberton almost laughed at the thought. “But I do know him. I met him in Paris, when he came to debate with several of the faculty at the university, and I had the privilege of spending many pleasant hours listening to him speak, and speaking with him, during the few weeks that he remained in Paris.”

I tried to imagine what it must be like to sit in the presence of a truly brilliant and original thinker and to drink in his words. “What a privilege, to meet and speak with such a man,” I said.

“He impressed me greatly. But there was yet one other man I met there whose ideas stirred me even more, in some ways, than Father Duns’s, perhaps because I sensed a connection between their ideas that had not, and may not yet have, occurred to them. This second man made no attempt to formalize his ideas; he merely spoke to and from his personal convictions. Yet I was convinced, merely by listening to him on one sole occasion, that he lives by and would die for his ideas, and that they will forever direct his life.” The corner of his mouth flickered in a tiny grin. “His name, too, you will have heard.”

“From Paris? I think not, Father. You overestimate my knowledge of the world. I doubt if I could name a single person in all the city there.”

“Then you must expand the city to embrace the realm. I was speaking of Philip Capet.”

“Capet?” I blinked at him in astonishment. “You met King Philip of France?”

“I did. He came to speak with Father Duns one night when I was visiting him, and I was graciously permitted to remain with them.”

“That surprises me. From all I have heard, Philip the Fair prefers to hold himself aloof from human contact.”

“Aha! Then, my friend, you have been listening to people who are but repeating hearsay. All men need human contact, and there are no exceptions to that rule. Even the strictest anchorites must communicate with other men from time to time, or risk going mad. I am not saying Philip is a hearty and gregarious companion, or even that he is particularly hospitable, but he has a certain personal amiability when he chooses to display it. Yet he is a man conscious of owning a destiny. And men of destiny, I am told, are seldom easy to deal with, requiring great finesse and circumspection, even dedication, in the handling.”