Putting Grassi, Scheiner and Borja on the Commission seemed to be a sop to the anti-Galilean opinion and, perhaps, to the Spanish. Even together, and even assuming Scheiner and Grassi went against their vows, they would not change the outcome. Unanimity was not required, from what Sinceri had said in an earlier meeting. The lawyer seemed to be enjoying his chance to be a judge and was now holding forth, from the one word in three Barberini was catching, on whether the evidence permitted a conviction as it stood or whether all they could find was vehement suspicion calling for a public abjuration.
Barberini half-turned in his chair to see what Inchofer would say to that, and was not disappointed.
“He holds it, it is certain,” Inchofer said. “He did his best to respect the formalities, but the man is so full of conceit that he put every contrary case—”
Cardinal Francesco Barberini waved him down. “So long as there is room to say that he did not mean heresy, the details don’t matter.”
Scheiner cleared his throat noisily, and spoke for the first time in one of these meetings. “If Your Eminence will permit, heresy was the last thing Galileo would have meant—but it was still the first thing he wrote in this book.”
Antonio sat up straight. There seemed to be some life in these tedious meetings after all. “Father Scheiner, do you say we should absolve him of heresy?”
“No, Your Eminence,” Scheiner said, half turning to address Antonio. “And with Your Eminence’s permission, I shall explain.”
Barberini nodded. Indeed, everyone in the room sat up straighter to hear Scheiner’s contribution. Having their complete attention, Scheiner went on. “What one must always remember of Galileo is that he is capable of great personal malice.”
“He is an ignoramus, and arrogant!” Grassi snapped.
“Just so,” agreed Scheiner, “and a plagiarist, and bereft of manners. Above all else, a monstrous conceit afflicts him, far above that which must motivate any natural philosopher.”
Grassi barked a laugh in agreement. Of those in the room who had had encounters with the Pisan, his had been the most bruising.
Scheiner went on again, glaring. “The fact that he is often—not always!—right is no great soother of our hurts.” He paused, and laughed briefly. “And that hurt led me, until these last few weeks, to think him a damned heretic. Which he is! Not a page of his book passes without he arrogates to himself matters of scriptural exegesis.”
Sinceri nodded. “The very pith and marrow of the grave crime of heresy,” he said, in his best graveside manner.
Scheiner harumphed. “But he meant to win an argument, and perhaps guide and persuade those for whom deciding what is and is not heresy is their duty under God.”
“You, too, are Copernican now, Scheiner?” Borja demanded, from his seat beside Scheiner. Grassi just glowered.
Scheiner took a deep breath and folded his hands. “As God is my witness, and may He forgive me, but I despise that man and I pray that he may be wrong in every particular and iota of his work. It may be that he is wrong about the Copernican hypothesis. But then again, he may not be.”
Scheiner raised his eyes to heaven. “I would give all I have and all I ever will have to see Galileo Galilei humbled for all the wrongs he has done me. I am a natural philosopher and an astronomer, Grassi, and unlike you I have seen my own work stolen by this fraud, not just reviled as yours was. But in this”—he picked up Galileo’s book—”he says much that is true. Did you but compare him with Kepler and the Tycho you championed yourself, Grassi, and with this new learning—”
“Basta!” Grassi got to his feet, shaking a finger at Scheiner. “I can read Kircher’s letters from Grantville as well as you can!”
There was a silent moment. Antonio Barberini tore his eyes away from the two Jesuits. Borja was rigid, his small mouth pursed tight as a cat’s ass. The regular inquisitor-cardinals were leaning forward, impassive but watching and listening carefully. The other priests were looking decidedly uncomfortable. They were used to the gentle tones of theology or the sedate protocols of cardinals. To see the kind of mayhem that natural philosophers regarded as convivial debate practiced in front of princes of the church was embarrassing them. For himself, it was all Barberini could do not to burst out laughing.