Barry Unsworth - The Ruby In Her Navel

I was not sure how close it was, nor whether it could truly be called friendship. The fact was that I had recently been able to do a favour for Muhammed. The porters that loaded the grain for North Africa on the docks of Palermo were all Saracens. The occupation was handed down from father to son and it was profitable – a certain amount of the grain never reached the holds of the ships, never left Palermo in fact, but was sold by private contract. There was also a considerable trade in hashish from the ports of Tunis and Susa. All this being so, these porters were greatly envied by others working on the docks, and from time to time attempts were made to break in, especially by the Sicilians, who lived close by, but also sometimes by the Greeks. This resulted in bloodshed and feuds and all manner of evils. Some months previously, after protracted effort and with the support of Yusuf, I had succeeded in obtaining a charter from the Curia Regis granting exclusive right to the Saracens to engage in the loading of grain to North Africa, thus giving the force of law to what had previously been sanctified by custom only. Muhammed, whose people controlled the porters and extracted from each a monthly contribution, had been grateful.

"You did well to come to me," he said now. "However, it is not my people who have done this."

This might have been true or it might not; I had no means of knowing. If true, it meant that there was a band of Arabs in Palermo acting without his authority, a thing that could not have been pleasing to him. "I fully believe you," I said. "You are a man of honour, I know you would not, simply for the sake of a handful of dinars, so deeply wound the religious feelings of another race."

"Thank you, I am honoured by your trust. This is a very serious matter."

"So it is."

"It is not just a handful. Think of the number of Jews living in this city and the number of the dead in their graveyards."

"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".