The Ruby In Her Navel Page 29

  In the company of these good people, whom I had known and trusted for a good many years now, my heart was eased and my case began to seem more hopeful. She had been prevented from coming, and from sending word.

  Something had occurred, some unexpected obstacle. But she would find a way to circumvent it. I had her love, she had shown it when still hardly more than a child and now again as a grown woman. And she was resourceful, I knew it of old – how often, in my thoughts of her, I found comfort in this resourcefulness, proved over and again in the stratagems of childhood.

  "But you have lost weight, you are thinner, even your face," Maria said.

  She was stout of figure and broad-cheeked, with a high colour and luxuriant eye-lashes and very lustrous black hair, often in some disorder. She believed in feeding as a means of solving all problems, whether of heart or mind or spirit. She had used this method with her three sons, she was fond of saying, and they had all grown up to be full-bodied men and were making their way in the world. It was extraordinary to listen to her and look across at Stefanos and see how lean he was.

  She had not had time this evening to prepare a wealth of courses but what she served was plentiful and delicious. We had chicken on the spit in the Greek style, flavoured with cumin and garlic, a great platter of minced cabbage and lentils and beans in the pod, wheat cakes flavoured with honey and the sweet pastries she had learned to make from Arab neighbours – in this region, on the south side of the Cala, Arab and Greek lived happily enough together. With the meal we had the red wine that comes from the slopes of Mount Etna, and it was good and fresh, only recently fermented.

  Under the combined assault of food and drink and warmth of friendship, I came very close to unburdening myself to them, confessing my feelings for the Lady Alicia and the difficulties we were encountering in the course of our love. I did not do so, whether from caution, care for her name, the habit of reticence, I do not know. I have wished often enough since that I had spoken of her then. Stefanos' position in the Diwan was not exalted, he was in the third category of the administration, but he had been there many years and heard many things, and he was observant and shrewd and retentive of memory; he might have known something remembered something, perhaps only a scrap but it could have changed everything.

  Instead I asked about the things that had happened during my absence. In this way I learned that Demetrius and his Byzantines had ended their work at the Royal Chapel, and were gone from Palermo. I was sorry to hear this, though it was no more than I had expected, and I could tell that Stefanos, who was of the Greek faith, was sorry too. The new people who had come were Lombards and northern Italians, he said. Some spoke only German. The King would come to the chapel for the Feast of the Transfiguration on the Sunday after next. It might be the last time he attended in single state to hear the liturgy: he was soon to marry Sibylla of Burgundy.

  As he spoke of the Transfiguration – a feast day formerly more celebrated among the Christians of the East but gaining much in importance also in the Latin Church of late years, though Rome had not yet established a date for it – something tugged at my mind, something heard or witnessed, something quite recent. But it eluded me and Stefanos's next piece of news distracted me from it: old Glycas had died, his monumental task of proving the existence of Sicilian kings in remote antiquity still uncompleted. "He died as he lived," Stefanos said. "Pen in hand, at his writing table, between one phrase and the next."

  "So the work will be abandoned. If such a scholar as he, after so many years…"

  "Abandoned?" He surveyed me across the table, the usual gleam of irony in his brown eyes. "There is another already appointed to continue the work. It is just this continuing that matters most to our King Roger. So long as the search continues, the thing sought for can be said to exist.

  If it did not exist, it would not be sought for."

  I had my doubts of this on the plane of logic, except in the negative formulation that it could not be said not to exist. But I knew better than to take him up on it; he was subtle and quick-witted in argument like many Greeks, and very tenacious for so mild a man; an issue of this sort could occupy the rest of the evening, and I was likely to have the worst of it. "Well," I said, "however that may be, to abandon the quest is to admit defeat and so our good King is right to continue in it."

  "There is something else you may not have heard, good news this time, a reprieve. That evening of the day you left Potenza word was brought to the King that the Serbs have risen in revolt against the Byzantine yoke.

  They are supported by Hungarian mounted archers, who have crossed the border in what is said to be large numbers. Whatever the numbers, Manuel Comnenus will be forced to take action to quell the uprising, and by the time he restores order – if indeed he succeeds in doing so – winter will be upon us, the seas will be rough, all thoughts of invading Sicily will have to be abandoned, for this year at least."

  "That is good news indeed." I thought of Lazar's face as I had last seen it, in the tavern at Bari, full of rage at being refused the expected payment. I remembered my self-contempt as I sat on there, after he had left. Whether this rebellion was his doing could not be known for certain. But he would claim the credit, there was little doubt of that.

  And with the credit, the reward. Another journey for Thurstan the Pursebearer, more clinking of coin. But of course, if my hopes were realised I would be Thurstan the Pursebearer no longer… "Our work has borne fruit at last," I said.

  There was a pause while I resisted Maria's urging to eat more of the pastries, her third or fourth attempt at this; I wanted to please her but had no space left in me even for a crumb.

  Stefanos passed the wine. "There is not much else to hearten us in recent events," he said. "This failure of the crusade has brought much harm in its wake. Conrad Hohenstaufen, who calls himself the Emperor of the Romans and claims title to Italy, cut an execrable figure, having lost his entire army and only saved his own skin by fleeing the field.

  This has called into question his God-given right, as he sees it, to be the sword and shield of Christendom in the west. And now here is our King Roger, who took no part in the crusade whatsoever, putting himself forward as the champion of Christianity, in alliance with Louis of France. Conrad has always hated our King as a usurper of his ancestral lands. He will hate him all the more now as a usurper of his imperial prerogatives. Such hatred cannot bode well for us. Then there is the change in the situation of the Arabs, you will have seen that yourself."

  I thought for some moments. Yusuf had spoken of this, with a passion unusual in him, but he had been speaking of a gradual process of loss and subjection. Other than this, what was there? I had been so much concerned with myself of late, first there had been Favara and the exchange of promises, then the presenting of the dancers and the turmoil of my feelings for Nesrin, then Potenza and the waiting and the disappointment… "No," I said. "As you know, I have been away a good deal lately."

  "Perhaps it is also because you live in a better neighbourhood." He smiled, saying this, to take any suspicion of grievance out of the words. "I mean less mixed," he said. "Here we live cheek by jowl with Arabs, we see them at the markets, we chat together sitting outside our houses in the warm evenings, we use the language of the Cala, which is also mixed – like the people. We bought this house with Maria's dowry and we have lived here for thirty years, since before King Roger was king at all. But now friendship is more difficult for all of us. "

  "Why is that?"

  "The failure of the crusade, the manner of its failure, was a great humiliation for the Franks, as you know. They cannot avenge that defeat in Syria, where it happened, because they lack the power and the will, at least for the moment. But they can avenge it in a hundred small ways on the Moslems who live among us, who have lived side by side with us all their lives, and know nothing of the Holy Land."

  "But that is unjust. Any cases of insult or violence should be reported to the officers of the Royal Diwan and brought be
fore the King's Justiciars."

  Stefanos smiled, and there was much affection for me in this smile. He shook his head. "Thurstan, I will say this to you, and it is something I have often thought before and not permitted myself to say because you are in greater authority at the Diwan, but you are young enough to be my son and I wish nothing but your good, so you will not take it amiss. You are too straight a man for the crooked ways they make you walk. It is not that your mind is simple, but you are not pliable, you are too frank in your feelings and open-hearted, you have too much need for belief in those you serve. The need for belief is a mark of innocence, and those who are truly innocent will always remain so, in despite of experience.

  It would not be different if you stayed another twenty years in the palace service, except that you would grow always more unhappy as belief became more difficult to maintain. "

  "And you?"

  "I have never had this need, not since the days of my childhood." A trace of the smile still remained on his face, but his eyes were serious as he regarded me. "The King does not see what happens in the streets of the Cala, should I decline to serve him on that account? Should I lose my stipend and be reduced to beggary because the King closes his eyes?

  Even if he saw he would take no heed. Why should he? Does it threaten the peace of the realm or the safety of the throne?"

  He paused for a moment and lowered his head, as if taking counsel with himself. When he looked up the accustomed light of irony had returned to his face. He said, "The world is changing, and the King's justice must keep pace. He is always just, naturally, but his justice is exercised on varying objects. Just now it is directed to appearing as the champion of Christendom at home and abroad, strengthening the ties with France and gaining the good will of Pope Eugenius so that his rule may be recognised in Rome. It does not consort with the King's justice at this present time to show clemency towards the Moslems or defend their rights. Rather he will wish to show himself severe towards them."

  I was taken aback by these words of his, coming as they did from one who had spent his life in faithful service to the King. He had never spoken in such a way before, some recklessness had come to him, perhaps, I thought, released by his frankness about my qualities of character. I took no exception to this last, because I knew he was swayed by affection for me, though I privately thought myself more sinuous of mind and more versed in the ways of the world than he gave me credit for. But he had spoken of the King as one might speak of any mortal, his tone had verged on disrespect, almost he had impugned the King's constancy…

  And now, as I hesitated over my reply, he went even further. "As for these reverend Justiciars," he said, "they will look grave and purse up their lips and put their finger-tips together and then proceed to deliver the judgement that their royal master desires."

  "We have known some like that," I said, speaking in haste to forestall more words from him, "but I believe them to be a small number. I have been wondering about the Anatolians. I suppose by now they will be well on the way towards home."

  "Well, yes." He was looking at me now with a different expression, as if there were a joke contained in my words. "All but one, that is."

  "What do you mean?"

  "You did not know? I thought she would have told you she was intending to stay." He smiled suddenly and broadly. "She is a law unto herself, that one. She saw no need to speak of it and so she did not."

  A number of feelings contended within me on hearing this news, which was both welcome and not. I felt my life to be difficult enough just at present without Nesrin returning to it. Despite myself, however, an obscure excitement began its climb towards my throat. It was halted, at least for the time, by the sudden memory of her face at the moment of bidding me farewell, that look of absolute composure. Of course she was unmoved – she had never had any smallest intention of leaving! Thinking of this, the effrontery and obstinacy and self-containment of it, and the hidden glee, I felt the cramp of my anxiety loosen and dissolve, and a laugh of pure amusement came from me, the first for many days. "As you truly say, she is a law unto herself. She has been here all the time then? Where is she? What is she doing, dancing in the streets?"

  "She is living here, in Palermo. She has taken a room near the Church of the Ammiraglia, above the bottega of the saddle-maker in Via San Cataldo. No, she is not dancing. She is living on her share of the money they received. She has enough to last a year, so she tells me."

  "You see her then?"

  "I see her four times a week."

  I stared at him. "How is that?"

  "She comes for lessons in Greek."

  "Early in the morning," Maria said. "Before he leaves for the Douana. He wanted to ask only a little for the lesson but she found out the price that is paid and made him take it. How she found this out I do not know.

  She comes on foot through the streets. I make an infusion of mint and honey for her and she has a little bread or sometimes a piece of the cake with cherries and walnuts that my mother taught me how to make. She does not eat enough, she is like a bird. I tell her to take another piece of the cake but she will not."

  "She asked me not to tell you about the lessons," Stefanos said. "I am not sure why. Perhaps she wanted to surprise you. Well, I have told you now."

  "So it is quite some time that she has been coming?"

  "Since the King left for Salerno and the dancing was delayed."

  I remembered now that I had noticed an improvement in her Greek the night we had lain together, when we were talking beforehand, but I had not remarked on it, being too much taken with desire for her.

  "She learns quickly," Maria said. "Stefanos has taught her the alphabet, already she can recognise some words when she sees them on the page.

  Sometimes she stays here after he has gone, she helps me in what I am doing and we talk together. She has had a hard life, her parents also were wandering people, they died when she was still young. She is a beautiful girl, do you not think so?"

  "Yes," I said. "Yes, I do." I felt the eyes of both upon me and a spirit of rebellion rose in my breast. "A beautiful dancing girl," I said.

  "When we practise the forming of questions, she asks many questions about you," Stefanos said. "Also when we are not practising anything she does the same. Your habits, your work at the Douana, your life in the past. She takes great interest in all this."

  These were not words that a man finds it easy to reply to. In fact I did not attempt any reply but after a moment reverted to the subject of the King's forthcoming nuptials. After fourteen years as a widower it was clear to all that he was driven by the need for legitimate heirs, there being only William now left alive of all his sons. It was felt generally that Sibylla, a sister of Otto of Burgundy, was a wise choice: she was young and the stock was good.

  From this we went to other things and the evening passed without further mention of Nesrin, for which I was thankful. I had noticed the care Stefanos took to tell me exactly where she was living, but even before I rose from the table, I had resolved to avoid seeing her. I had betrayed Alicia once with her, but that had been an accident of proximity and circumstance – or so I told myself. I had been flushed with wine, with the success of the dancing and my singing, we had found ourselves alone together, she had shared in it. But now to go and seek her out, saying nothing of my betrothal, that would be a wrong indeed, out of keeping with my fealty to Alicia and the knightly Thurstan I wanted to be – wanted still to be.

  XXII

  I do not know if this resolve of mine would have held. I like to think that it would; it was truly felt and there was respect for Nesrin in it, as well as for myself. In the event it was not put to the test – or at least only very briefly, for the next eight or nine hours of my existence in fact. The following morning, as I issued into the street on my way to the Diwan, I found Caspar waiting for me at the corner holding his horse by the bridle. His face was more sombre than I had ever seen it. "You must come with me at once," he said. "My mistress is
in sore distress."

  I needed no more than this to accompany him. Ever since Potenza the shadow of some disaster had lain on my spirit and it had grown darker through the hours of hearing no word from her. I tried to elicit something from Caspar as we rode together, but he would not speak, other than to tell me our destination, which was the Monastery of the Crocefisso, three miles or so outside the city walls in the foothills of Mount Pellegrino.

  Here we were met by a monk in the dark habit of the Benedictines and I was led through the cloister to a narrow chamber adjoining the chapel.

  Caspar did not accompany us. From that moment I never saw Caspar again.

  I waited a little while, then the same monk came for me and brought me down a short passage to a stout oak door. He knocked and opened and bowed me in, closing the door soundlessly behind me. This was a much larger room, high-ceilinged, with frescoes going round the walls. Before me stood two men that I knew: Abbot Alboino and Bertrand of Bonneval.

  Even in this moment of uncertainty and apprehension I was struck by the contrast they made, the sad-faced abbot in his monastic habit, the huge Norman in a long white surcoat, with his blue-eyed stare and bushy eyebrows. Of Alicia there was no sign.

  "How good of you to come with such promptness," Alboino said. "Please sit. May I offer you a cup of wine? It is excellent, I can recommend it, they make it here in the monastery. Many things are said these days against the Benedictines, but no one questions their skill in the making of wine."

  Whatever I had expected, it was not this. He spoke as if I had not been brought here, as if I had decided from courtesy to make this morning visit. I sat in the chair he indicated and waited while he poured the wine and brought it. Bertrand also seated himself, though without speaking. His broad and ruddy face wore an expression of deepest seriousness reminding me strangely of his look when engaged in the delicate task of cutting out the hart's tongue. Alboino too remained silent for a while, and this silence made a tightness in my chest after I had been led here on such an urgent summons.