Heaven's Fire by Patricia Ryan Page A

matter of appearances than practice. Half the teachers keep mistresses, and some are even married.”
    “Aye, but they’re at a disadvantage for promotions.”
    He smiled. “Ah, so you have ambitions.”
    “I’ve been approached by the Bishop of Lincoln. He’s got ultimate jurisdiction over Oxford and any teaching that goes on here. Right now we’re just an informal little studium generale , loosely overseen by myself as Magister Scholarum, the Abbot of Osney, and the Prior of St. Frideswides. But Bishop Chesney thinks we’ll someday be a great university. He wants to speed that process by appointing a chancellor to organize the masters into a guild and oversee the growth of the schools.”
    Will motioned for a refill of their tankards. “And he offered you this position?”
    “Not yet, but I’m the leading candidate. It doesn’t even seem to much bother him that I’ve renounced my vows. He wants a man the teachers will respect, and since they’ve already elected me Master of Schools, he feels that man should be me.”
    “They elected you Master of Schools after only... How long have you been in Oxford?”
    “Just six months,” Rainulf said. “But I had something of a reputation in Paris.” The most beloved teacher in Paris , they’d called him. A worthy successor to Abelard . And now he could never go back. “Apparently that reputation preceded me. All the masters and Church officials here knew of me before I arrived.”
    Will nodded. “I’m impressed. But what has the chancellorship to do with your celibacy?”
    “As Chancellor of Oxford, I’d no longer be a mere teacher—in fact, I wouldn’t teach at all. I’d be an officer of the bishop, and therefore required to be chaste.”
    “Parish priests are bound by the same requirement, yet everyone knows what goes on behind the doors of their rectories, and no one much cares.”
    “Aye, but I’d be much more visible than your average parish priest. And I understand Bishop Chesney is especially uncompromising about the reputations of his officers. I’ll be watched constantly, my behavior carefully monitored.”
    “But you haven’t been appointed to the position yet.”
    “Nay, nor will I be for another five months. My lord bishop will make his decision at the end of the summer.”
    Will brightened. “Ah! So in the meantime—”
    “In the meantime, I must conduct myself as befits the position for which I’m being considered. Any hint of impropriety, and my chances are ruined. I have no intention of jeopardizing this opportunity, Will.”
    “It means that much to you?”
    “More than you can know.”
    Will looked at Rainulf curiously, but questioned him no further, for which he was grateful. He had no desire to discuss the self-doubt that had made teaching—once the joy of his life—so painful. He still craved the excitement of disputatio , the thrill of imparting knowledge to eager young minds. But his pleasure in teaching was one he had no right to, inasmuch as he was unfit for the task. His students trusted him, even revered him, hanging on every word from his mouth as if it were Gospel, even those who clearly couldn’t fathom what he was talking about. They assumed he was a man of faith, a man sure of his convictions and fully qualified to guide them through the moral and intellectual complexities of logic and theology. In reality, he was a fraud. He didn’t even know what he himself believed; what right did he have to train young minds when his own was filled with doubt and uncertainty?
    All he wanted was to retreat from his students—from everyone—into the safe and undemanding administrative position to which Bishop Chesney seemed disposed to appoint him. In the meantime, he must do nothing to cause the bishop to question his suitability—certainly not consort with a whore in a Pennyfarthing Street brothel. In truth, he should have left the moment he realized what this place was. He would have, had he not been waiting for an