The Ruby In Her Navel

by Barry Unsworth

  Lazar stood up abruptly. "I have come all the way from Belgrade only to hear my people insulted."

  "I too have travelled far," I said.

  "I will report this to my council. I will report your words and manner.

  This betrayal of us will seriously delay the rebellion."

  With this he flung away from me and disappeared down the steps. As a parting shot it was not effective – the rebellion was seriously delayed already. But I had no satisfaction in this thought or any other that came in my mind as I sat on there, after his departure. I had lied about my reasons for joining those kneeling penitents, I had lied with the oil fresh on my lips, and Lazar had anticipated me in the lie, thus associating both of us together in it. Contrary to my instructions and my own resolutions, I had shown pleasure in refusing the money and even smiled at my own poor joke; I had spoken sarcastically of the Hungarian cavalry and the killing of the tax-collector, and too openly about the King's reasons, always a mistake, even when they are known on every hand. Yusuf would not have approved of my conduct, had he witnessed it – and he would get Lazar's account if the reports from Belgrave continued.

  But it was not fear of Yusuf's displeasure that troubled my spirit now.

  Dislike for Lazar, yes. But as I stared before me with the sour taste of the wine still in my mouth, I was aware of a deeper dislike – for the stranger who sat alone here, and for the work he did.

  X

  There was nothing now to keep me in Bari. I did not relish the prospect of that long journey back over land, and there was no need for it now. I decided to ride only as far as Taranto and take ship from there. But before leaving I wanted to see the Madonna Odegitria, which Stefanos had told me of, he being very devout and full of knowledge. He had said she was kept in a chapel behind the church of San Sabino, which was now being rebuilt after damage suffered during the wars with the Saracens. I wanted very much to see her, since it is the truest likeness anywhere to be found, both in face and form, having been made from a drawing of her by the Apostle Luke, which he did in the time before the Crucifixion – she did not allow any more drawings of herself to be done after, because of her great grief.

  However, I was destined not to see her likeness that day, and in fact I have never seen it. I asked twice for the way but the streets that led to the church were narrow and meshed closely together and to a stranger's eye they looked all alike. I took a wrong turning and found myself at a market of vegetables and fruit, with roofless stalls that took up most of the short street, and beyond them a sight of the sea. I was about to ask one of the stall keepers for the right way when I was caught up in a throng of pilgrims, who suddenly appeared from I know not where, I think from the direction of the harbour, they were jubilantly singing as if in joy at having landed safely. There was a sound of piping among them and a jingling of bells, and it seemed that all the dogs of Bari had joined them, barking and cavorting in a state of great excitement. Added to this were the angry shouts of the stall keepers, whose trestles were in danger of being overturned.

  I was swept some way on the loud tide of these pilgrims and then, to get free of them, turned into a street on my right-hand side that led away from the sea. This brought me after some time to an open space, where there were the ruins of a fort, or perhaps only a fortified house, I could not tell. Not much was left of the walls but there were two low, rounded arches and some fragments of a floor mosaic. In my search for the chapel of the Madonna I had climbed higher than I knew. Beyond the walls and a narrow waste of thistle and wild oats the sea was visible, but it lay well below.

  The jingling and the singing and the barking died slowly away and were succeeded by a silence that settled round me. The sea was unmarked, there was no wind, no movement in the grasses of the open ground. This calm, after such turbulence, was strange, rare in a town the size of this one. It seemed like a blessing, a visitation. I went through into the square of ground where the building had stood, stepping over the walls where they were low enough. There was a scutter of lizards on the sunwarmed stone, and a cat the colour of cinnamon walked slowly along the wall on the side farthest from the sea.

  How long I stayed alone there I do not know. A sort of dreaming state descended on me, as if I had passed through some narrow gate and found sanctuary here. My mood, which had been sombre since the meeting with Lazar, lightened now and I began to think more kindly of myself and the part I had played. There was the picture that acted on my mind like touching a talisman, and I summoned it now, the shining silver of the King's barge that I was helping to keep afloat on the dark water.

  I was standing on the broken pavement, breathing deeply in this peace surrounding me, trying to make out the fragments of mosaic; there was part of a peacock's tail, the curving stem of a plant. I heard the clatter of hoofs and looked up from my scrutiny to see a small company on horseback approaching. They were three, two of them women, the other, who led the way, a groom in livery of green and red, richly turned out from his hose to his plumed hat, and wearing a sword. They were in file, with the younger of the women coming close behind the groom. She was dressed differently from our Norman ladies in Italy, and differently from her companion, though this was a confused impression of mine – all I saw as she drew nearer was the Saracen style of the hat she wore, a white turban, set back on the head, allowing the fairness of her brows to be seen and the pale gold hair that curled round them.

  They drew level, the ladies sitting straight-backed and not sparing me a glance, though the groom eyed me carefully and slowed his horse to a walk – I supposed the better to do so. He was a broad-faced, handsome man, in middle life, and he had not the bearing or the glance of a servant. They would have passed thus, in silence, but at the last moment before they did so I thought I knew the younger lady's face and her name, and this broke from my lips almost without my willing it.

  "Alicia," I said. "Lady Alicia, is it you?" My throat tightened as I spoke, for fear I might be wrong.

  She reined in her horse and looked at me, and this made me think she was who I thought. Her expression was not cold, but there was no recognition on her face. Certainly my clothing did not help her; I was wearing still my rough cloak of a pilgrim, open because of the warm weather, to show nothing beneath but belted tunic and dark leggings. But the cowl was thrown back, my face was uncovered as I looked up at her. The groom turned his horse now to place himself between me and the lady, and I spoke as he came forward. "Do you not know me? You knew me once."

  For some moments longer she looked closely at me, then her face broke into a smile of surprise – and of pleasure too, as it seemed to me.

  "Thurstan," she said, and my heart expanded because after these many years she still remembered my name. "You have grown tall," she said, still smiling.

  She turned to her companion and spoke my name to her, though not my father's name, which I supposed she did not remember, and told me that the lady was Catherine Bolland and related to her by marriage. I made the best bow I could and heard Alicia explaining that she and I had known each other as children, that we had both been sent to the court of Richard of Bernalda to learn manners in our different ways. She did not say that we had been sweethearts, that she had filled my mind for two years, the first one ever to do so, that we had both wept when she had left at fourteen to be married. These were not things to say in the hearing of a groom and an attendant lady – I knew from the tone Alicia used with her that she was this, knew it from the way she was asked now to go forward some distance and wait.

  This she did, the groom following her, leaving Alicia there before me, though I knew she could not remain there long. How could she linger, even had she been so inclined? She was accompanied, richly mounted; I was on foot, poorly dressed, alone. To meet like this, and then have no time to talk together! My breath came quickly. I felt like one drowning in a sea of things unsaid. "Is it Bari where you live now?" I asked her.

  "No, I am recently arrived in Italy. I have come from Outremer, from Jerus
alem. I am staying with my cousin here in Apulia. I am only in Bari for the day of the saint. And you?"

  "I am leaving for Palermo later today." I heard the sound of voices and laughter from somewhere further along the street. "We will go our different ways," I said, "and we will never -"

  She glanced once over her shoulder, then spoke quickly, in lower tones.

  "If you are leaving later today, you might want to stay somewhere close by so as to be early on the road tomorrow. There is a house of the Hospitallers, a hospice for travellers. It is where the road from Bari comes to the first houses of Bitonto. The monks hold the land in grant from a neighbour of my cousin, William of Sens. If you go there, speak his name to them and they will look after you well."

  With this she urged her horse forward and moved to join the others, and at that moment the people whose voices I had heard came into view. They were country people, on holiday from their fields for this day of the saint, talking and laughing together. When I looked back to the way the riders had gone, there was no sign of them and no sound of hooves, and for some moments I could hardly believe that this encounter had taken place.

  There was no longer room in my thoughts for the Madonna of Odegitria.

  Alicia was marvellous likeness enough – to herself, to the girl of fourteen I remembered loving. I had one sole object now: to recover my horse, pay for stabling and fodder and start on my way to the house of the Hospitallers. She had not said she would be there, but she had lowered her voice, she had not wanted the others to overhear, she had wanted it to be something between us. And this caution had been familiar to me, like a secret remembered across the gulf of years, recalling the backward glances and whispered tones of our courtship, when we had schemed to contrive a brief time together in some corner of the castle that was not overlooked, a game of conspiracy, but one that we played for our own pleasure, when so much of our play was striving to please others, our elders.

  The sun was setting when I reached the hospice, and the bell of the cloister was sounding for vespers. The monk on duty at the gate came to let me in, and I used the name Alicia had given me and asked for lodging. There were beds in the dormitory, but I offered to pay more for a separate place to sleep, and this was agreed. My reason for it was the rule of curfew for guests in monastic houses, those in the dormitory being required to be in bed with lights out after the office of compline, whereas I wanted to keep my freedom of movement in case Alicia came and we could talk together. I was shown to my place, one of a row of cells on the ground floor, with no furnishing but a narrow bed, a water jug and a chamber-pot. I left my few belongings here and came out again into the courtyard; I wanted to be where I could see the gate, have the first sight of her – if indeed she came.

  There was an ancient walnut tree in the courtyard and a fountain with a ram's head carved in stone. When we wait with heightened feelings in a place that is strange to us, this very strangeness can sometimes make a deeper mark on memory than the sights of every day. Even now, after all that has passed, those overarching branches and the shadows they cast, the docile head of the ram with its dripping mouth, will come back to my mind unbidden and carry me back to that time of waiting.

  There was some coming and going of travellers in the yard, but not so very much. It seemed likely to me that the hospice would always be more frequented on the eve of the saint's day, when many would arrive after dark and seek a bed here rather than continue to Bari so late. Alicia had made a good choice for me – and for herself, I was hoping.

  Dusk was falling, and they lit lamps at the gate and on the walls of the yard, and the white crosses of the hospitallers who carried the lamps stood out on their dark habits. And suddenly my waiting for her and not knowing if she would come was like the many times when we had plotted to be together but could not be sure of succeeding because of some claim that might be made on us, some errand or task that came at the last moment to disappoint our hopes.

  I did not notice her at first among the other girls. She was seven when she came and I was eight – I had been there a year. I saw her every day without remarking her at all; we boys spent much of our time in the women's apartment on the third floor; while the girls were learning sewing and embroidery and singing, we were waiting at table, setting up beds, attending the lady wife of our overlord and striving to meet her every wish. Alicia was like the others, anxious to please, homesick – like all of us. But she was not fearful, as I was to learn later, and this made her different; submissive in behaviour, yes, as she had been taught to be; but I never found fear in her, only caution, by no means the same thing – for my sake she was ready to risk disgrace, as I was for hers.

  It was only when I could see her no longer that I missed the daily sight of her. And this makes me think there must have been some earlier signs between us that the stronger feelings of later overlaid. When I was twelve my voice began to break, and the strange croaking I sometimes made meant that I was approaching too close to manhood to stay among the women. I was moved down to the second floor under the tutelage of the baron himself, and his seneschal and his constable and his chamberlains.

  Here there were different lessons: riding and the care of horses, exercises with the sword, and later, as my strength grew, on horseback with the lance. We saw the girls more rarely now; we slept below on beds that were set up in the great hall of the donjon, they remained with the lady, sleeping in the hall above, which was kept guarded – someone was always on guard at the door which led from the spiral staircase in the donjon wall. We saw each other on court occasions, at dinner when there were guests, at hunting parties, at the lists, when the girls and women together watched the jousting from their balconies. But occasions for speech, for private words, were few. Glances came before words. When was the first time that we exchanged glances and knew?

  I was seeking to trace in memory this elusive moment when I heard a mailed fist strike at the gate, saw the gate open, saw them pass through, three men-at-arms with Alicia in the midst of them. A serving-woman came behind, but of groom and lady attendant there was none.

  I had thought to go forward and greet her, but I faltered when I saw her so surrounded, and stepped back into the shadow of the tree. She was beautiful as she passed under the light. She wore no turban now, her pale hair was dressed with silver threads and she wore a veil across the lower part of her face, in the fashion of Moslem ladies, but very thin, the red of the paint on her cheeks glowed through it. And perhaps it was this too, this beauty of hers, that made me draw back, the gleaming threads of silver in her hair, the rose-glow of her cheeks through the delicate veil: I had been absorbed in thoughts of her childhood face, the lustrous pallor of her skin, the long hair parted in the middle and gathered behind, without ornament.

  I remained where I was while the horses were seen to and the party conducted within. I counted the moments as I waited there. The serjeants would be allotted beds in the dormitory; for the lady Alicia a chamber would be provided, the best they had, with a place close by for the serving woman, so she could be within call. The courtyard was overlooked by a short gallery with a balustrade, roofed but open at the side, and after a while I saw the two women pass along this, led by a monk who bore a lantern, holding it high to give more light. A door was opened for them and they passed from view.

  She would come down alone, she would know I was here, she would ask, no doubt idly enough, if a man travelling alone had given the name of William of Sens, she would guess I was waiting here, in the courtyard.

  The time passed and it seemed long to me. Then I saw her pass again along the gallery, without her servant now, and descend the steps. She entered the yard and paused there, as if in doubt. I saw she no longer wore the veil. I stepped forward from the refuge I had taken in the shadows, and we regarded each other at a distance of some half-dozen paces, smiling, not speaking in these first moments.

  "I thought you might not come after all," she said, drawing nearer to me. "I thought you might decide to ride furthe
r on your way, being Thurstan Beauchamp and not afraid of the dark, not afraid of anything, as you would tell me."

  "Was I so boastful? I have learned to be fearful since. Did you really think I would not come, when you had counselled it? When I thought that you -" I stumbled here, aware of my clumsiness, afraid of offending.

  "That I intended to come myself? Well, so it was. But whether I so intended before our meeting or only after, it is more modest in me not to say. You will understand, we can talk only here, in the open."

  "Of course." I glanced up at a sky that seemed throbbing with stars. "It is a good place to talk. Any place would be good."

  "So long as the company pleases."

  "If there were no limit but that, I would stay in this courtyard for ever. I will ask them to fetch chairs for us."

  She laughed at this and her laughter was low and pleasant to the ears, but I could not tell whether this quality of her laughter was a thing remembered or a thing discovered only now.

  "I see you are more used to inns than to the houses of Saint John," she said. "Where would they find chairs? They have benches in the refectory, they have benches in the chapel. In no other place do they ever sit. The master will have his chair, quite a grand one, but I cannot believe he would give it up very readily."

  "Not to me, certainly."

  "In any case, their chairs would be like their beds, made for penance, not comfort."

  It was the tone of one who had travelled, one acquainted with luxury.

  She came from Outremer, where the beds were said to be soft. Thinking this, I was in sudden thrall to an image of her lying naked in one. The demon of lust is an agile climber, he can make himself thin, he can enter by any chink or cranny. It is Peter Lombard, as I believe, who first spoke of this thinness in the second book of his 'Sentences', that devoted to angels and demons and the fall of man.