Barry Unsworth - The Ruby In Her Navel

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 Jerusalem. 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.