The Ruby In Her Navel

by Barry Unsworth

  "If you will deign," I said, "there is a muretto that goes round the fountain there, broad enough to sit on. And we can rest our backs against the wall, if we so choose, one on either side."

  "Yes, let us do that. You were always resourceful. The ram will not mind, he has seen and heard everything by this time."

  "The resourceful one was you," I said, as we took our places there.

  "Why do you say that?"

  "You always found good reasons." I paused here, wanting to say how much I had admired this courage and cleverness of hers, this steadiness in deceiving those set over us, when she knew full well what disgrace the discovery of our trysts would mean for her. In this respect there had been no comparison between us; I would have been punished in some manner, but for her it would have been an immediate return home with reputation tarnished. I could not see her well now, in the dimness of the yard – the lamps had been all extinguished, save only the one above the gate. I could see the gleam of silver in her hair when the thread caught the light, and the oval of her face, and the outline of her form in the long riding-cloak, as she leaned back against the wall. "I will never forget how much you ventured for my sake," I said.

  I saw her smile. "Venturing made the kisses sweeter. There was the excitement of it, the time together was short so it was precious."

  "As it is now."

  "We are not children now. We can have more time, if we want it."

  "Tonight? Tomorrow?"

  "I was not speaking of tonight and tomorrow," she said. "I hope our future will contain more days than that." As if to forestall any reply I might make to this she said quickly, "You risked for me too."

  "You were worth any risk, a hundred times over."

  "And you were not? There were windows that looked down over the exercise yard. I used to watch you at practice. I saw you hurl the darts at the target. I saw you do the cut and block with the other boys. I saw you dash down the straw men with your lance. I thought you so splendid.

  Where you were the sun always seemed to be shining."

  Such was my pleasure at this that I was driven to shift the subject for fear that some quiver in my voice would betray me. "Well," I said, "if we shared the risk, now let us share the credit, because it is the fact that we were never found out."

  This again brought laughter from her. "No," she said, "but we came near to it sometimes. Do you remember that boy, he who was made the chamberlain for the women's apartments? He was a page still, younger than you. He watched me and followed. He found us sitting together on some stairs, do you remember? We bribed him with the honey cakes my mother used to send me."

  "I remember him, yes. His name was Hugo. He fell ill not long after and was sent home and never came back. It was a disorder of the stomach, everything he ate he vomited up. We never learned what became of him."

  "It was providential. He would have betrayed us in the end, the supply of honey cakes was not regular enough to prevent it."

  "He would have asked for more than cakes from you. They always ask for more. Hugo watched the boys as well as the girls. He was only ten but spying and extortion came naturally to him. He was the first of that kind I ever knew. There have been a good number since."

  I had spoken with a bitterness that I at once regretted; it was a note too harsh for this enchanted occasion of our meeting. For a moment or two she was silent, then she said, "I do not know what your life has been, but your face is that of the boy I knew."

  This was very gently said and it acted on my soul as if a gate had been opened to let out trapped water, because she who sat there close to me, though half-obscured now in the dimness of the yard, had still the face I had loved when my hopes were high, when everything had seemed possible. I told her of my disappointments, of my father's decision to retreat from the world – she had heard nothing of this, she said, having been away all this time in the Kingdom of Jerusalem. I told her – and my voice shook on it a little in spite of myself – how sick I was of carrying the purse and counting the coin, how I longed to live in the light of day. I told her what I had told no one else, I spoke of the figure I kept with me like a talisman for my spirit to touch, the shining silver of the barge, the glory of majesty that made the King so dazzling to the eyes as he rested on the dark water, the creatures below the surface that kept the balance.

  She said little, but I could feel the closeness of her listening. And when I had done she attempted no easy words of comfort, but in her turn told me of her fortunes since the time when, soon after her fourteenth birthday, she had left to be married to Tibald of Langre, an acquaintance of her father's, a man of thirty-four whom she hardly knew, who had amassed money in the wars with the infidel and wanted to settle down. He had a fief in the Holy Land, as a vassal of King Baldwin, also estates in Sicily.

  "We had no issue," she said. "He blamed me for not giving him an heir and I took the fault for mine, as it is always considered the woman's fault. But Tibald had other loves, and made no secret of it, and none of them bore him a child that I know of. So I do not know if I am barren, I have not put it to the proof except with him." Her face was turned towards me as she spoke; there was not light enough to read her expression, but I felt she had spoken these words for me, and my heart was stirred.

  He had died the year before, while taking part in the siege of Ascalon, not of wounds but of a seizure. "He always ate too much and drank too much for the climate there," she said. "He was like many of them, he saw no need to change from his habits in France. He drank wine for his thirst, and he ate fat meat. It was pork that killed Tibald, if I have to find one word for it. One evening, after a day in the saddle, when he tried to rise from his chair, where he was sitting among the others, he fell back and could not move and lost his power of speech. They carried him to bed but he died that same night, without finding his voice again."

  There was no trace of sadness in her voice, or even of much regret, except perhaps for Tibald's habits of eating; she might have been talking of any man's death. If she had wept for him the tears were long dry. It surprised me a little that she did not affect sorrow, even if feeling none, because such is the practice of the recently widowed. Then I understood that she was paying me the compliment of frankness, and I remembered suddenly that she had been the same in the days of our courtship, deceiving others but never me, never pretending reluctance, never requiring to be persuaded or cajoled, not disguising her eagerness any more than I disguised mine.

  Since Tibald had died without issue, the land had come to her, both that in Jerusalem and that in Sicily. She would return, or such was her purpose at present. She was used to the life there and liked it, but she had wanted to see her parents, who lived in retirement on their lands near Troina, in the Val Demone. She had been accompanied from the Holy Land by her brother Adhemar, a knight in the following of Raymond, Count of Tripoli, who had given him leave. But she had come to Bari without kinsfolk, to partake of the holy oil and give thanks to Saint Nicholas for bringing her safe to Italy. On the morrow she would return to Borsora in Apulia where her cousin, Simon of Evreux, had his lands. She would stay there two days more then return to her parents. Her father wanted her at home. How long she would remain in Sicily she did not know, she had made no plans.

  "To say truth I am enjoying the freedom that has come with my widowhood," she said. "I suppose it is wrong to say this, even to you, but I cannot help feeling it. There was always someone's permission to seek. Now it is only a pretence. I defer to my father and my brother, but it is only for the sake of manners. And this is because I have come into possession of Tibald's lands, they are in my grant. I am Alicia of Bethron. Of course I must marry again, and before too long, my estates in Jerusalem will need a man to manage and defend. Ascalon and Jaffa are close and they are still held by the Moslems. But I will never be given away again, I will choose, I have vowed it."

  I saw a hand stray to her throat but could not see what lay there. For a short while there was silence between us. When she spoke
again it was in a tone much lighter. "There is no doubt of it, more is permitted to a widow than a wife, much more. Otherwise, how could we two have sat here in the dark so long?" With this she rose. "It is late," she said. "You have a weary way to go tomorrow."

  "Thoughts of you will make the way seem lighter." I rose and took some paces towards her, following the curve of the muretto. "All these years, and I have never forgotten you," I said.

  She moved forward a little and stopped, as if hesitating. I thought she might come close to me, close enough for me to take her in my arms, but she did not. Two paces more, and I could have touched her, laid my hand on her hair or her cheek. Some grace in me conquered this impulse, kept me standing still there.

  "Nor I you," she said, "my splendid Thurstan, my valiant boy at the lists."

  She was turning away. "And tomorrow?" I said. "Will I not see you tomorrow?"

  "We will leave not much after daybreak."

  "I will be waiting here, by the fountain, if it be only for the sight of you."

  "Well," she said, smiling now, "I hope we can greet each other at least.

  It is not many hours away, we have talked long. Good night, Thurstan Beauchamp."

  "Good night, my lady, and a sweet repose to you." I watched her move to the stairs that led to the gallery, saw her mount them and pass briefly under the lamp that lay over the door of her chamber. The door was opened and closed, she passed from my sight. I stayed there some time longer, gazing up, as if by not moving I could somehow prolong a sense of her presence. The words of a song came to my mind, one from Provence, which I had sung sometimes: To console me for her loss, I think of the place where she is… I heard no voices from within and thought that perhaps Alicia had not wanted to wake the woman who attended her, who would be sleeping now. She would undress and prepare for bed unaided, and this consorted with what I felt to be the kindness of her nature.

  I will confess here, since I am resolved to confess everything, that for a little while, as I stood there, I put to use that faculty of speculation I have spoken of before, encouraged in me by Yusuf, but I think already there in strong enough measure, and I began to picture this undressing of hers, but did not go far with it. She was all marvel to me, not flesh. She was my lady found again. And I was her splendid Thurstan, not a spy, not a lecher.

  I was there at my post at daybreak, having slept very little for fear of sleeping too much. But our time together was brief. She sent her people to wait beyond the gate, except for one of the serjeants, who held the horse for her while we walked about the yard. The bleak light, the presence of others, the imminence of our farewells, all this constrained us.

  "Take good care on the road," she said. "You are returning to difficult times."

  "How can I see you again? But perhaps you do not want to?"

  "Yes, I want to. I will come soon to Palermo, very soon."

  She glanced up at me as she spoke and my heart lifted at the promise in her glance and in her words. "Angels guided my steps in Bari," I said.

  "And mine. Now I must be on my way, and so must you."

  There was still no touch between us. She looked once more at me, then turned towards the man who held her horse. He would have dismounted to assist her, but I went forward and took the bridle from him and brought the horse to her. I knelt in the dust of the yard and made a stirrup for her with my hands and lifted her thus into the saddle and wished her God speed. I felt the touch of her hand on my head and the murmur of her voice above me, "Thurstan, my knight," or so it sounded – her voice was very soft. Then they were gone with a clatter, and one of the hospitallers was already closing the gate.

  XI

  Her face of the evening and the morning, her voice and her smile and the touch of her hand on my head, stayed with me all through the journey to Taranto. I went over the circumstances of our meeting again and again, how I had blundered by purest chance into that deserted place, with its weed-grown terrace and broken walls and vestiges of mosaic. I remembered the sense of relief that had come to me there, with only the cat and the lizards for company, the peace and self-pardoning after the ugliness of my talk with Lazar. It had been like a stage, a place prepared, swept clean for our meeting by kindly spirits…

  But on boarding the ship I had news that put her image out of my mind, at least for a while. It came from a man I fell into talk with, a bailiff, as he told me, on the royal lands at Castel Buono. "Well," he said, "the times were not easy before, but they will be worse now."

  "Why is that," I asked him.

  "There is only William left and the King has no wife." He glanced now more closely at my face. "You have not heard?"

  "I have been long on the road. Has some ill befallen Duke Roger?"

  "He died eight days ago."

  "But there was no illness or weakness in him when I left." I was staggered by the suddenness of it, so much so that I could scarcely credit the man's words. "How could such a thing have come about?"

  "He died of a fever – or so it was given out."

  "What do you mean?"

  "It cannot be natural," he said. "I have been in the King's service for near on twenty years now. When Queen Elvira died, he had five sons born in wedlock, all in good health. Then Tancred died, then Alfonso, then Henry, and now Roger, the eldest, the heir to the throne, the one he pinned his hopes on. Four strong sons, with the blood of the Hautevilles in their veins, gone to their maker in a space of ten years. And not one of them died of wounds. It cannot be natural."

  I was deeply distressed by the news of this death, and needed time to ponder it in private. But Yusuf's teaching was always strongly present to me. Let the one you talk to think he knows more, so you will find out what he thinks, and so you will find out what he knows.

  "You don't believe someone had a hand in it?" I said.

  "It is the Germans," he said, "and I am not alone in thinking this. They should not have been allowed to come so close to the throne – our King's Confessor is a German now. I don't speak of him, but there are those who work for Conrad among them, those who would like to see the Hohenstaufen get his hands on Sicily and bring it into his empire of the Romans, as it is termed, though there is little of Rome in it that I can see. He is Emperor of the Germans. And let us not forget, the Pope has not consented to crown Conrad."

  "That is true."

  "What has Conrad promised him in return for the imperial coronation?

  That is what a good many of us would like to know."

  "Well," I said, "you will not know it, nobody will, not for certain. You can be sure it was not set down in writing." I thought again of Hugo the pageboy. What honey cake had Conrad offered Pope Eugenius? A Sicily with a different ruler, one more submissive to the demands of the Church?

  It was not until some time after this conversation, when I had retired to consider the news on my own, that I realised that Alicia must have known of this death. She had been with her parents near Troina; they would have had word of it soon after. She had said nothing, and my heart gave full approval to her for it; she had done, I thought, as I myself would have done, she had allowed no intrusion into that charmed talk of ours, nothing to mar the brief time we had for ourselves. Perhaps only then, at our parting, it had been in her voice, when she spoke of difficult times ahead…

  I half-expected that some difference in me might be remarked upon when I was back in Palermo, so much did I feel myself changed by my meeting with Alicia, as if there were a light about me. But if this was noticed, nothing was said. And as the days passed and my usual tasks were resumed and I heard nothing from her, this light began to fade into that of common day.

  The King was said to be unconsolable in his grief for his eldest-born, and he kept to his apartments and saw no one. I could not make my report to Yusuf immediately, because he was closeted with others of the Curia Regis in matters arising from Duke Roger's death, speculation as to who might take command in Salerno, interminable discussion of the merits and defects of various possible
brides for the King – it was obvious to all that he must marry again, and soon.

  While waiting for Yusuf's return to the Diwan I asked Stefanos to fetch one of the palace tailors. "Red and silver and black are the colours I want," I said. "Both for the dancers and the two who play the instruments. I want him to bring the stuffs with him so we can choose."

  As Purveyor it fell to me to see to the appearance they made who came by my arrangement to perform before the King. I had decided that the men would wear red tunics and black pantaloons and black turbans with silver stitching, and that the women would repeat these colours but in a different order – black bodices and red skirts and silver girdles. This I thought would be tasteful and sumptuous at the same time. "These palace tailors think they are princes," I said. "He is to make careful note of the time he spends and the cost of the materials. He is not to exaggerate in anything, because we will infallibly find him out."

  Stefanos nodded. "I will see he is told this, but it is time wasted, these warnings make no difference." He smiled saying this, a smile of regret and resignation mixed. Stefanos was a gentle soul, but he was shrewd. He had been many years as book-keeper in the Diwan of Control and he was old now – I thought he must be fifty at least. His hair was scant, and poring over the accounts had given him a stoop, but his brown eyes had the glint of irony and humour in them, and little escaped his notice. "They add the warnings to their costs," he said. "It goes down on the bill."

  "All the same, it lends us an advantage to have warned him when the reckoning comes."

  Stefanos smiled again. "A moral advantage, you mean? We might feel that, but will he?"

  "I will see that he knows it. They are housed well enough, the people?"

  "Yes, they are close to the guard house at the west gate, the one near the outer wall, where the stables used to be, until the yard was found too narrow and the horses were moved. There was some trouble at first with one of the dancers."

  "That would be the younger one."