The Ruby In Her Navel Read online

  "True, the number is very great."

  I paused on this, not quite sure of the best way to proceed. I was experiencing the usual difficulties in finding common ground with Muhammed. He was old enough to be my father and his power and wealth and force of will and readiness to do wrong made an aura round him. He was devious but at the same time strangely simple. Unlike myself, he had no sense of service or dedication to a higher cause. I could not appeal to his better nature; he had not enough of this for my words to take lodgement. But this was not the reason: in my work I encountered many who were without a better nature, but I could still appeal to it, because they made a pretence, whereas Muhammed made no pretence at all.

  He was a good family man, kind to his wives and his numerous children; he would defend his own interests and his own clan to the utmost sanguinary limit; he was faithful and recognisant when he felt himself indebted. These were his guiding principles and it was important to understand them, because Muhammed was of utmost importance to the ordering of life in Palermo. Adding to my difficulty was the fact that I liked him, despite myself, and felt that he liked me.

  His lineage was ancient, going back to the tribal group of Yaman. He claimed descent from Hamza al-Basri, the famous philologist and reciter, who came to Sicily in the days before the Norman Conquest. However, Muhammed himself, though possessing a taste for poetry and music, had not followed in these illustrious footsteps. He was the chief of the strongest and most numerous criminal clan among the Arabs of the city, formed mainly from his own family members but reinforced – for the moment at least – by loose alliance with the Ahmad Francu family.

  "We knew it could not be your people," I said. "That thought did not so much as enter our minds. I have not come to make accusations. It is in all our interests to keep a proper balance. The Jews have broken silence. If they do not find redress, their young men will start killing Moslems. There will be bloodshed. We have seen this before."

  "So we have," he said, "so we have."

  "Bloodshed within one community, that is normal, but between communities it is dangerous, it spreads quickly, it undermines the peace of the realm."

  "It is bad for trade."

  "Very bad indeed," I said, seeing in this the first sign he had given that he might be disposed to help. There was no doubt that he could do this if he would, and easily enough. If he did not know the culprits already, he could soon find out, it would be a small matter to him. He was on close terms with Al-Mawla al-Nasir, the hereditary Sayyid of the Sicilian Moslems, and so at the heart of a network of information extending from the Fatimids of Egypt to all Saracen communities in Sicily and the south of Italy. He enjoyed rhetoric and I sensed that the time for this had come.

  "Our great King inherited a land that was inhabited by Jew and Arab and Italian and Greek, races and faiths existing side by side. In his wisdom he understood that this harmony had to be preserved, that the well-being of all depended on it. He has devoted twenty years to this great task, with the loyal support of people like you and me, his servants. We have different ideas of paradise, which is quite natural. For us it is to join the ranks of the blessed. You perhaps lay more emphasis on physical ease and the gratification of -"

  "We will have the supreme happiness of seeing God face to face."

  I did not think it likely that he would attain to this joy but naturally did not let my doubts show. "However," I said, "there is one aspect of paradise we can all agree on and recognise, and that is the earthly paradise that comes from good governance. Our King is striving to create that paradise and we are his agents."

  I was sincere in saying this, while not believing that my words truly applied to Muhammed's activities. At Bologna, where I had studied law, they had set me to read the disputes of the churchmen, and I had seen from these, and absorbed the lesson well, that even for the godly there is always in argument the need for persuasion and this need makes for suppression, or at least dilution, of the truth. My true feeling was that Muhammed, and all those who battled for power and wealth and preyed on one another below the surface, were necessary to the order and harmony of the Kingdom, though not themselves interested in achieving this settled state, but only in winning battles that in the end nobody won. I had formed in my mind a figure which I thought well expressed this feeling of mine. The King was rowed on a silver barge, with silver banners, he was shining in silver and so were the oars that rowed him.

  This shining was reflected on the water so that it dazzled the eyes and made the figure of the King difficult to gaze upon. But the silver shone so brilliantly by virtue of the dark water; below the surface were creatures who stalked and feasted and fought and maintained themselves, some by force and some by cunning, and in doing so they maintained that shining world above them and kept the King's barge afloat.

  As I waited now for Muhammed to reply, Hafiz must have changed his position, or perhaps there had been some shift in the sun's rays that had gone unnoticed, for I now could see the shadow of his head and turban lying across the pavement. I inferred his presence there only from the fact of this shadow and it seemed strange to me that this should be so. And it brought back my feelings as I entered the courtyard and could not see the face of Muhammed, but only the whiteness of his form, like a white shadow, and with this a feeling of uncertainty came over me and I felt a momentary threat to my balance.

  I was brought from this by the sound of Muhammed's voice. "A great responsibility indeed," he said. "The King's agents! But even the King's agents have to accept their limits."

  He had been looking away as he spoke but now he turned his face towards me. His air of indolence had disappeared. His eyes were wider and he looked intently at me. "They must accept their limits, whether Christian or Moslem or Jew. We do but they do not".

  This had to be answered quickly, before he was launched on the grievances of the Arabs. "You are right, you show the wisdom you are everywhere known for, the secret lies in limits. The extortion of money from the Jews, the threat of insult to their dead, these go beyond the limits, I think we are agreed on that. Let Arab quarrel with Arab and Jew with Jew. That is natural and belongs to the order of things. You are here in La Kalsa, the Greeks are in their district of the Martorana, the Lombards in the Albergheria, and so on. We do not pray together, but we can live together."

  "Thurstan the Viking, tell me, is it worse for one Arab to kill another than for an Arab to kill a Jew?"

  "It is worse in its results, it is worse in the degree of harm to our realm. I do not make a judgement about the wickedness of it."

  "A wise reply. We cannot make such a judgement, do you not agree? No two killings could ever be exactly alike in all particulars, even to the temper of the blade or the knotting of the silk. And how can degrees of provocation be compared? As it has been truly said, though clouds in the sky are constantly changing, two might be the same for the briefest of moments. However, this moment can only be witnessed by God, the All-Seeing."

  "True," I said, "true." I did not know whether this was a verse from the Koran, the words of an Arab sage, or merely an invention of Muhammed's own. But I did know that he was seeking to draw me away into one of the discussions he so much enjoyed, interminable, abounding in metaphor, always inconclusive. "Our great King has given us an example to follow,"

  I said. "In his Assizes at Ariano he made a code of laws and in this he laid it down that all the subject people within his realm should live under the laws and customs of their fathers."

  I heard Muhammed sigh, which was what he intended. "In which court, and by whose custom and tradition would it be tried if those disputing were a Roman Christian, a Norman let us say, and a Moslem? Thurstan, I have a place for you in my heart, but we must speak of things as they are, not as we would wish them to be. This is a lesson you have yet to learn. The balance is changing – this balance you speak of with such eloquence.

  Every day brings new numbers of Franks and Lombards, people differing in degree but all of the Latin Rite. T
he King gives grants of Arab land to Lombard farmers, who turn our people into serfs, he founds monasteries for the Latin clergy, he gives fiefs to the Norman knights, as he did to your father."

  "How do you know this?" I had never spoken of my father to him, and it was almost fourteen years now since our estates had been made over to the Church.

  "As it has been truly said, a man with many friends is like a fortunate fisherman. He casts his net wide and the catch is always good."

  "Yes, I see." I did not want to talk of this with Muhammed; the loss of the land had seen the end of my hopes of knighthood, and it was still bitter to me. "It is true that many have come from the north to make their homes with us," I said. "When the balance is threatened, there is the more need for care."

  Muhammed sighed again. "We do not like the Jews," he said. "They do not respect this balance, they lend money at exorbitant rates to our people and send violent men to frighten them if payment is delayed."

  "But you also have your moneylenders, is it not so? Their rates must be even higher, if your people go to the Jews."

  "Palermo is getting richer," Muhammed said, looking at me very steadily.

  "And the sign of this is that everyone wants to borrow money. We do not like the Greeks any better. Greek cripples put on turbans and beg in our streets, using our own language, because they know that our religion enjoins charity on us. Where is the balance in that? It is deceitful and shows a low level of morality. Some of them are not even true cripples.

  The Sicilians of Palermo we do not like. They want to take everything into their own hands, they are not interested in sharing. They kill our people and try to take over our trade with our fellow-Moslems. Tell me, Thurstan the Viking, where is the balance in that?"

  He was talking now about the trade in drugs, the hashish that came from North Africa and the opium from Anatolia. This last was costly: the caravans from the poppy fields of Mersin passed through Byzantine lands on their journey westward and so were subject to high dues, which greatly increased the price on the streets of Palermo and Messina.

  "You cannot answer," he said. "Answer there is none. There are also the Normans."

  He paused for a long moment on this. Then he said, "We like the Normans, our King is a Norman, we live under his rule. We call him the Powerful Through God. You yourself have Norman blood. But this is Sicily, the Normans of Sicily have lived in the sun. Thurstan, I will say this to you because we are friends, we speak our minds to each other. They have lived in the sun, their brains are not damaged by ice. This freezing of the brains in cold climates was remarked first by Said al-Andalusi. In his writings on the subject of Europe he says that the cold winters stunt the brains of the Franks, and his words have been proved true before the walls of Damascus."

  I knew what was coming now, knew it from the extreme gravity that had appeared like a mask on Muhammed's face. It was impossible during these months to talk to any Moslem about events in the world without becoming aware of the secret joy they felt at the disastrous failure of the Second Crusade, which had ended some months before in the ignominious defeat of the Christian army. It might be cloaked by an air of grave moral reflection, it might be concealed beneath an appearance of regret, but it was always there.

  "They sat in counsel together and decided to attack Damascus," Muhammed said, shaking his head and pursing his lips. "O, what a catastrophe! O, what a terrible mistake! The Burids of Damascus were their natural allies against the power of Nur ed -Din. And where did they set up their camp? In the orchards below the walls? No, on the plain before the city, where there was no water, no shade. In this situation the only thing was to attack at once, but no, they sat there for four days, quarrelling among themselves, dying like flies. On the fifth day they abandoned the siege. They set off back to Palestine without even making the assault!

  The greatest army the Franks have ever put in the field. O, what a calamity! O, what a humiliation! And just think – before that they were considered invincible."

  As on similar occasions before I found that the best response to this was silence. And in fact Muhammed, who understood the need for dignity, clearly did not expect a reply. After a moment, in changed tones, he said, "It is not my people who have desecrated the graves of the Jews and used threats to extort money from them. But you have come to me and we are friends. We will find out who these people are and we will speak sharply to them."

  "These words of yours afford me great pleasure," I said. "Yusuf ibn Mansur will also be delighted."

  "God's blessings on his head. They will not be able to walk without sticks for a week or two. So we keep our paradise, eh?"

  He looked at me with a humorous narrowing of his eyes. I sensed that our conversation was coming to a close and began to rise. I heard Hafiz shift his feet and after a moment saw him come into view. Muhammed rose also; his, as the person of greater consequence, would be the final words on parting.

  "No, rest assured, Thurstan the Viking. We cannot repay the money, it will all be spent by now on harlots and evil courses. But we will talk to them. To offend against the natural human respect for the dead! What animals! The fault lies in their upbringing, they are not taught respect. Young men of good instruction, if such an intention had formed in their minds, what would they do? Would they not come to discuss the matter, ask our permission?"

  V

  The day before leaving I rode out to the monastery of Santo Spirito, where my father was a monk. Always, before setting out on a mission that might hold danger for me, I felt the need to see him, though he showed little interest in me, or in my life or doings. He had not lost all affection for me, but I belonged to the world outside his gates, the world he had turned his back upon.

  The monastery lay in the foothills to the west of Carini, over towards the sea on that side, a morning's ride, starting early. The day was beautiful, still fresh when I set out, with the sun rising over the bay.

  The plain of the Conca d'Oro opened before me with its parklands and gardens and its groves of orange trees, and the first rays touched the crags of Monte Pellino and made them glow red as fire. I cannot know now if it is merely to be wise after the event, looking back to find signs that were not truly there, but it seems now to me that I had a presentiment that morning, as I rode out so early, some foreknowledge that my life was soon to change.

  I followed the plain westward as it widens in its shape of a shell, through orchards of almonds and figs, where the land on that side comes closer to the sea and the air is sharpened with salt. It was here that the Kelbite Arabs, in the days before the Normans came, founded the industries that made the island rich, sugar and cotton and silk. They mined for mercury and sulphur and silver also, but these mines have been long abandoned – my way led past some of the disused workings.

  The sun was already high as I passed through Carini, a town full of stone houses, whose people have grown rich through the exporting of carob beans and dried figs, in their own ships, to every part of Italy.

  An hour more and I was entering the narrow track, loose-surfaced in places and difficult for the horse, which winds steeply up on the seaward side overlooking the gulf that is named after the town and ending at the gates of the monastery.

  On the terraces of olives below the walls there were men working, lay-brothers in their white habits and some who seemed common labourers.

  Arriving I asked the monk on duty at the gate, who recognised me from other visits, if he would send word to my father. I waited in the cold room where we always talked together when I came to see him, a square, stone-flagged room with a raftered ceiling and a low stone bench running along one wall. I was heated from riding in the sun, urging my horse up the rough track, and I seemed to feel the chill of walls and floor on my face, a sensation familiar to me, waiting for my father in this room. To see him at all was a privilege: the Cistercian Order, to which he belonged, was founded on a strict return to the rule of St Benedict enjoining solitude and silence on the brothers. The privilege w
as for him, however, not for me; coming from the knightly class and bringing with him the revenues from his estate, which he had granted to the monastery in perpetuum, he was given a certain latitude. All the same, as far as I knew, I was the only one from the world beyond the monastery walls that he ever saw.

  He came at last, walking slow and very upright, as always. He was tall – he had given his tallness to me; he had to incline his tonsured head a little as he passed below the stone arch of the doorway. He had laid aside cowl and scapular and wore only the white habit of his order. He apologised for the time I had spent in waiting, but gave no reason for it. He would have come from the oratory, from the singing of the midday office, I thought, in company with his fellow choir monks – the lay brethren did not take part in this. He would not have much time for me: soon there would be the afternoon liturgy that came between Sext and None. I knew all the offices and the times they kept, all the observances of my father's life. To bring him closer to me in my imagination, I had made careful study of the Benedictine Rule and read the Parvum Exordium of Steven Harding, where he gives the history of this new foundation.

  He did not approach very close to me or offer to take my hand, but he smiled as he motioned to the bench, and this I took as a sign of some pleasure at my visit – I chose to take it thus, to give myself heart. He was firm of step and sure in the carriage of his body, as I always remembered him. But abstinence, which I suspected went far beyond the requirements of the Rule – St Benedict had never asked his followers to go hungry – had wasted him; every time I saw him it seemed to me that his habit was looser on his frame and the bones of his face more prominent. It was a handsome face, though very fixed and unmoving, with blue eyes like my own, and a big chin and an obstinate moulding of the mouth.

  We sat together on the bench and I asked after his health. He was well, he said, with the grave courtesy that belonged to him, but his eyes did not stay on mine. I began to say something about the journey I was soon to undertake, not that to Bari, I would not have burdened him with that, but the one I was making to Calabria in my capacity of purveyor. And I was aware as I spoke, by no means for the first time, of the paradox in this: my father's retiring from the lures and pleasures of this world, had led to my career of providing them.