The Ruby In Her Navel

by Barry Unsworth

  Caspar had waited there while I read it. He was only a servant, however elevated, and I strove to remain impassive under his gaze, with what success I know not. My joy was almost equalled by my wonder. To contrive to be included in the King's retinue at such short notice, and on a visit of state! It was barely three days since I had learned that I myself would be going. Once again it came to me how great must be her family's influence at court, though it could not be her father to exercise this in person, lost as he was in the darkness of his mind…

  "Tell your mistress I shall not fail," I said.

  He bowed and would have retired, but at the last moment it occurred to me to ask him how he had found me, how he had known it was here that I lived. He looked at me without expression for a moment or two, as if slightly at a loss, taken aback by my simplicity in asking such a question. Then he said, "We made enquiries. My lady thought it better her note should be delivered in private." With this, he bowed again and withdrew, leaving me, as always in my dealings with him, a prey to some wonder as to the nature of his duties and his standing in Alicia's household.

  We went by ship from Palermo to Salerno and thence overland to Potenza.

  There were eight of us in this advance party, the others all being members of the King's household sent ahead to help in the preparations for the royal arrival: a wardrobe mistress, two serving-women who kept very closely together at all times, two Norman serjeants-at-arms, made attempts to separate them, a Sicilian stable-master and a cellarman of Stephen Fitzherbert's, whom I knew slightly, a Greek named Cristodoulos, rather womanlike in his ways and modes of speech but very strong in the arms and chest from hefting barrels.

  A mixed company – in normal circumstances we would not have had much to say to one another. But the arrival of King Louis on our shores had released a flood of gossip in Palermo and it formed the topic of our talk through much of the journey, though I said little myself, content for the most part to listen.

  I learned nothing that was new to me, but I was made aware, yet again, how ready the humble are to rejoice at the mischance of the great, and how easily one kind of error is confused with another, as if they all belonged in the same box. Errors of one sort or another there had been in plenty in the calamitous two years that had elapsed since King Louis set out at the head of his Frankish army through Bavaria on the second crusade. He was twenty-six at that time, famous for his piety but not for much else – certainly not for strength of character or military capacity. Travelling with him was his wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine, the niece of Raymond, Prince of Antioch, the greatest heiress in France and as resolute – some would say wilful and some among the present company did – as her husband was hesitant. Already, according to some in their following, there was strain and ill-humour between these two.

  The miserable story of the French king's vacillations and failures of judgement, culminating in the disastrous decision to commit his force to an attack on Damascus, were known to all, as were the terrible losses suffered in the retreat. What interested my travelling companions more were the months prior to this fiasco, in particular the time that the high-spirited and beautiful Eleanor and the devout and lugubrious Louis had spent in Antioch.

  "We have to remember the troubles she had been through," the wardrobe mistress said. "We must not judge her too harshly." She was of those who, under the appearance of understanding and pardoning, insinuated strong disapproval for the queen's behaviour. "She had nearly been killed by those heathen Turks," she said. "She had nearly been wrecked at sea. It is no wonder that she was glad to reach Antioch and fall into the arms of her uncle, Prince Raymond."

  "It was not only his arms she fell into," the stable master said. "She fell into his bed."

  On this issue the company was divided, there being no evidence that Eleonor had slept with her uncle, but the majority thought it probable on the grounds that she had sought his company and made no secret of the fact that she preferred it to her husband's. "

  "Incest is incest," one of the serving-women said, "but as men there is no comparison. Prince Raymond is a proper man, he is handsome of face and well made and brave in battle and he knows how to talk to a woman. I like that same type of man myself."

  There was general agreement as to these advantages of Raymond's, though none of us had ever set eyes on the prince. "And a great commander in the field," one of the serjeants said, "Which no one can say for King Louis."

  "In my opinion, it was his endless praying and prostrating himself that set her against him," the stable master said. "It wore her down."

  "She would have stayed there, she would have stayed in Antioch with her uncle," Christodoulos said. "She didn't want to go any farther. Louis had her dragged to the ship by force. She won't forgive him that. I wouldn't, if it was me. Well, would you?"

  As I say, I took little part in these discussions, except to put in a few words now and again, so as not to seem to be assuming airs of superiority – otherwise, they would not have talked before me. By virtue of my office I knew some things they did not yet know. I knew that Eleonor was seeking a divorce. I knew that her beloved uncle, abandoned by Louis, had been killed some three weeks before in what many regarded as a suicidal assault on the Turkish host – he had attacked Nureddin's army with four hundred knights and less than a thousand footsoldiers. I knew that his skull had been sent in a silver box to the caliph of Baghdad as a proof that this great enemy of Islam was truly dead. And I knew that Eleanor had recently learned these things and been grief-stricken, and that she laid the blame on her husband, who in his jealousy had denied to her uncle the support of the Franks in defending Antioch.

  None of this presaged well for the marriage, and I was privately convinced that the two would not remain much longer together, though it was rumoured that one last bid was to be made: after leaving Potenza they were to journey to Tusculanum, where Pope Eugenius was currently residing, and ask for spiritual guidance. The outcome of the Holy Father's advice was of concern to me insofar as it might affect the prospects of an alliance between France and Sicily, but I did not think it could touch on my personal fortunes, not then.

  By the end I was weary of the journey and of the company and of the incessant howling of wolves in the hills around Potenza, and I was relieved to see the donjon of the castle before me on its rise of ground. It was early evening, still light. The watchman on the wall saw us as we came up to the stockade, the bars of the gate were unfastened and we passed over the drawbridge and into the gatehouse, where the iron door had been raised for us – it was a sliding door of very new invention, that could be raised or lowered by a winch above. I noticed that the men-at-arms at the gatehouse, in addition to axe and javelin, carried steel crossbows, a weapon that had been expressly forbidden by the Lateran Council of ten years before as being too powerful and murderous; in the hands of one who knew how to use it such a bow could kill a man at a distance of four hundred paces. This was the castle of Vincent de Faye, lord of Potenza, who held his fief in vassalage of King Roger – only the strongest barons could so soon flout the interdiction of the Church. But I did not believe that a weapon so effective could be suppressed for long, and thought it likely that another decade would see it in general use.

  At the gatehouse we separated, some going through into the courtyard beyond. I was led away from the others and taken by a little stairway to a room in the wall itself. It was small but I was pleased with it because it had a narrow aperture in the wall on the side that looked over the town and a short bench below this so that one could sit in the light. I have always hated rooms that have no daylight reaching into them; one of the things I had most coveted and most hoped to inherit was Yusuf's window.

  There was a stout oak bar on the door, always a welcome sight to a pursebearer, and this I set in place before turning my attention to anything else. The bed had been made up for me and I saw with approval that side rails were fitted, so that the ends were braced and the covers and mattress prevented from slipping off, no
matter how much I should thresh about in my sleep; in fact on closer inspection the practised eye of Thurstan the Traveller noted that there were several mattresses, not just one, and they were all padded and the top one stuffed with feathers. There was an oil lamp, a bronze candlestick with a good wax candle, a small rug rolled against the wall, a thin plank on trestles with on it a basin and ewer, and a towel hanging from a hook in the wall; the water in the ewer was clean and the ewer was closed at the top so as to keep the water fresh; the towel also was clean, and sweet-smelling.

  Everything was in good order. It was no more than the usual care for a guest but at once I thought of Alicia – perhaps it was her doing. I wondered which room had been set aside for her. As a favoured guest she would be in an upper storey of the tower, some distance away, not easy to reach without being observed. But if it were true that she had sent orders for the preparation of my room, perhaps she had been able to arrange for her own to be nearby, just a few steps away… It was not long to wait, King Roger was expected from day to day. I would take her in my arms, press her to me, feel her warm and breathing presence. It seemed long now since she had walked away from me through the trees at Favara, briefly seen against the firelight then lost among the shadows at the landing stage. I felt the need, not now to revive or restore our love, but to keep it firm in our life of the present, where my hold was precarious and my knowledge of her less. To keep her before me in the times we were apart, I fell back on memories of her when we were children, growing up together and loving as we grew.

  This castle of Potenza was larger than that of Richard of Bernalda, the donjon had three storeys and there were outbuildings. But all was familiar as I stood there, the gleam of light on the worn stone, the smell of the rushes that had been laid on the floor, the sounds that came from outside, clatter of mailed men moving on the battlements above, barnyard sounds from the kitchen courtyard, the distant whinnying of horses from the corral inside the stockade. I was taken back to the years of my childhood, when these sights and sounds had been at first the marks of my loneliness, in the early time, away from home, then the sounds of home itself, deeply familiar, accompanying my first successes with javelin and lance and the light of love I saw in Alicia's eyes.

  Here I had stood, those years ago, with beating heart, listening for her steps. And here it was fitting we should exchange our vows, the verba de praesenti et futuro, that in the eyes of the church would bind us in the sacrament of marriage.

  At the approach of darkness a man servant, elderly and slow in movement, came with supper for me on a tray, grilled fish and boiled vegetables and a pint of new wine. My room was a good distance from the kitchens and my servitor had taken his time, so the food was far from hot, but it was good, or seemed so to me – I had not eaten since the morning. The dining hall was being made ready for the royal visit, he told me – there was word that King Roger and his party would arrive the day after next in the morning. He lit the lamp, asked me if I lacked for anything and slowly retired, with me at his heels as far as the door so I could bar it after him.

  I was not sorry to be left alone. I was not much inclined to go abroad while I still had the money. And I wanted to take the time slowly and keep my hopes for these next days gathered warm around me.

  I was reading the memoirs of Abbot Guibert of Nogent and had come to the events in Laon in 1112, when the merchants of the city were seeking to band themselves together into a commune, and commute the dues they owed to the lords and the clergy. They had bribed the bishop to give them his support and free them from his jurisdiction, but when the time came he went back on his word and decided to keep the money and keep his powers too. However, the people rose against him. Besieged in his palace by the enraged populace, he dressed in the clothes of one of his servants and took refuge in the warehouse of the church, creeping into an empty barrel there. But he was discovered and dragged forth and in spite of all his pleas and promises very barbarously done to death with a sword stroke that opened his skull and spilled out his brains. Guibert describes this fearsome wound very vividly and also the mutilations and indignities inflicted on the body afterwards, but what struck me most in reading were the things not explained in the text. What had betrayed the trembling bishop in his barrel? Who cut off the dead man's finger to take the episcopal ring? Did no one dispute his possession of it? The murderer is named, Bernard de Bruyéres. And strange it seemed to me that a man's name would endure only for one cut with a sword when those whose lives are full of good works lie nameless and forgotten below the ground.

  These questions were absorbing my mind when I thought I heard a tapping or scraping at the door, very light – a sound that might be made by drawing a fingernail across the wooden panel. After some moments it was repeated. All thoughts of the ill-fated bishop left me. That muffling of the sound, so like her secrecy and care. She was resourceful, I knew it of old, she had found an occasion to come early so we could have some time to ourselves.

  In two strides I was at the door, had unbarred it, opened it wide. A man of medium stature, elegantly and expensively dressed in dark red, was standing at the threshold, who now took a quick step back as if put on guard by this alacrity of mine. He made no other movement but I saw how he looked first at my hands before he looked at my face and I knew who it must be and felt a fool for my eagerness. "I had not expected you so soon," I said, a mistaken thing to say but the first that came to mind.

  For several moments we were motionless both. Then he smiled thinly and said in Italian, "Young man, this hasty opening of doors will bring you to grief. Take the advice of one who has lived longer. Always move slowly until you need to move fast. I am from Avellino."

  "My cousin lives there," I said, moving aside for him to enter.

  "That makes us neighbours." He stood in the middle of the floor, glancing round the room, at the walls and ceiling and embrasure of the window, as if to illustrate his own advice regarding slowness. He had eyes of a chestnut colour set close together and a dark colouring of skin, but mainly notable in him was the beautiful moulding of his head, which clearly he was proud of as he wore his hair very short – it was like black mole-fur. "But you were expecting someone," he said.

  "I thought you might be someone else."

  "I am never someone else. I am Spaventa. One who is sent to see Spaventa should not be expecting to see someone else."

  There was a degree of menace in these words of his, and in the way his eyes rested on my face. I cast around in my mind for an explanation.

  "I thought it was someone come to take the dishes away."

  His eyes went to the tray where I had set it rather awkwardly beside my basin and ewer. "Why would he knock so softly? It is too early for sleep. And so much haste for a serving man?" He looked at me for a moment. "Perhaps not a man?"

  I made no reply, judging it safer to let him reach his own conclusions – he would have more faith in those. "You were hoping she would stay a little, eh? Perhaps she had promised it – you are a fine young man. And she would knock lightly, of course. You open the door and before you there is only Spaventa."

  "I have the money for you," I said. "It is in my pannier on the bed." I did not go for it immediately, however, but waited for his nod: with such a man it was advisable to explain the intention before making the movement.

  The bag was heavy, I used both hands to take it to him. He sat on the roll of the rug, with his back to the wall and me well in view, and emptied the coins on the floor, on his left side, keeping them within the circle of his arm. I watched him count the money. His hands were steady and very neat in their movements as he laid one coin on top of another in piles of ten, each pile then returned to the bag and the tally kept with the point of his knife on the stone floor – the knife he kept close by him, on the right side. His fingers were thick and they looked very strong. I was reminded of my days of training for knighthood, when we strengthened the grip of our hands and the muscles of the forearms by squeezing together metal bars on a spri
ng. By the look of his hands and wrists Spaventa had spent much time on this exercise.

  I was not afraid of him exactly, and in any event it was not in his interest to harm me, I had to return to Palermo with his token of payment. But I will confess to a feeling of awe as I watched him put the last coins back into the bag. And it was one I had experienced on occasion before when delivering money to assasins. He would travel to a far city, he would track down a man whose face he had never seen, against whom he had no grudge, and he would take that man's life in whatever manner was required. And he would regard payment for this as no different in kind from that of any other undertaking where the balance of the money depended on a successful conclusion, as with a mason, for example, or a water-diviner, or an advocate.

  He took something small from a fold at the neck of his coat. "Bear this back with you," he said, "in token that I have received the money." He held it out to me from where he sat, obliging me to cover the ground between us. It was of blue enamel, oval-shaped, with a pin at the back and it corresponded to Atenulf's description, having some kind of hawk in red, very small, at the centre.

  The knife was still there beside him, within reach of his right hand.

  Nothing showed in his face but I knew he would trust me less, now that I had his token. I had thought he would leave at once now that the money had been paid, but he showed no disposition to do this. Evidently he was in a mood for talking.

  "Well," he said, "so we try again."

  This I did not altogether understand, though he seemed to think it clear enough. There had been no previous attempts, to my knowledge, to put an end to the former commander of the garrison at Corfu. Perhaps he was referring in general terms to the need for renewed efforts in an enduring battle… "Yes," I said, "determination and tenacity of purpose are much needed in our service to the King."