William has a very erudite conversation with Severinus the herbalist. We walked back down the central nave and left. I was still troubled by the conversation with Ubertino. “That man is . . . odd,” I said. “He is, or has been, in many ways a great man. But for this very reason he is odd. It is only petty men who seem normal. Ubertino could have become one of the heretics he helped burn, or a cardinal of the holy Roman church. He came very close to both perversions.
