Barry Unsworth - The Ruby In Her Navel

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 further 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.

"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."