Barry Unsworth - The Ruby In Her Navel

However, I said the words I had in mind, stressing the need for obedience and good behaviour, adding as further inducement that in addition to the very generous payment they had been promised they would be allowed to keep the fine and costly clothes for which they were about to be measured. Then I gestured to the dressmaker to begin with her measuring rule.

I had intended to quit the scene immediately after making my speech, but now I decided that it might be better to remain for a while so as to assure myself that everything proceeded in a proper fashion. Nesrin was the first to come forward and present herself – in all my experience of her she was always first or last or loudest or quietest. But I was nor prepared for the way she behaved now.

As she turned this way or that, or held still, in accordance with the wishes of the dressmaker, she continued to look at me, sometimes full in the face and boldly, sometimes glancing over her shoulder with a stately movement of the neck. Sometimes she presented her back, turning her head from side to side with a luxurious, shrugging movement of the shoulders, as if, though for the moment she could not see me, she was well aware that I was seeing her. This taking of the measurements she turned into a sort of dance, not for my entertainment but for the entertainment of the others, a mockery of my solemn words of earlier: she had smiled, now she danced, and both meant the same thing.

And the dance was protracted, for she sometimes went contrary to the wishes of the dressmaker, though without once stepping beyond the reach of the woman's arm. Sometimes, as I watched, she performed movements in that stained and tawdry dress of hers that no dressmaker would ever dream of requiring, a subtle sway of the hips, an eel-like wriggling motion, a proud pressing back of the shoulders that brought into prominence the shape of her breasts, other, slighter motions, a slightness almost miraculous in view of the charge of suggestion they carried, at least to the sinful soul of the Thurstan who watched them, who knew full well by this time that he should not be lingering there.

No, I should not have stayed to give countenance to this insolence of hers, but I was captivated, enthralled. There was defiance and self-love and comedy and provocation in this dancing, and it held the attention of all: even the kneeling dressmaker, though impatient at first, was smiling now. The two men made low-pitched exclamations and laughed together. Some laughter came also from the women, but for all that they were both watching me closely, and under this combined regard of theirs I knew myself suddenly for the victim of a conspiracy. The women were leagued against me and the men enlisted as spectators. I was being mocked for the secret desires of my heart and the pompous words of my mouth. And even as I felt this mockery and saw the way she swayed her body and glanced down at herself, clear as it was that she sought to tease me and ensnare my eyes and make naught of the words I had spoken, even so I could not prevent a heat spreading through me, seeing her suppleness, thinking what it might be like to lie between her thighs. I felt the heat in my face also, and was put in a sudden fear that it might betray me, so without more ado I left, taking care to keep a grave face and avoid all appearance of discomfiture or haste. In spite of this, I thought I heard laughter continuing behind me.

Yes, to my shame I will confess to this consuming carnality and at such a time – it was the untimeliness that made it shameful. I was young, venery was often in my mind, my member was unruly, I would not have taken myself to task for any casual rearing-up. But this had come so soon after my high resolve to be worthy of Alicia, to be her knight, with the knighthood she had conferred on me through that lingering touch on my head. Twice already that day I had failed her and it was only mid-afternoon. There and then, as I started back to my room, I resolved to visit the Tiraz that evening and spend some time with Sara, thereby achieving peace of the senses, for a while at least. Fornication was a sin but it was also a practical solution, and I was inclined to regard it as true of ethics what Cicero said of mathematics when he praised his fellow-Romans, as opposed to the philosophising Greeks, for confining themselves to the domain of useful application. Though this of course dismisses Greek philosophy almost in its entirety, which could hardly have been Cicero's intention. Besides, though I had found no doctrine to support me, I felt in my heart that, knowing how strong was the element of fire in me, God would be less offended by my sin than by that of one who sins coldly. He would know that I aspired to the good, that my true nature was worshipful. He would not want me to be tormented by unchaste thoughts about a little wildcat from Ararat who did nothing but make game of me.

As it happened, I did not return to my desk that day after all. The afternoon was well advanced, and I felt a certain reluctance to face the questions Stefanos would be likely to ask about the way the measuring had gone. I decided on another visit to the Royal Chapel. The mosaics always drew me, and I had not seen Demetrius since leaving for Calabria; we had parted on strained terms, I wanted to mend the friendship between us. Next day was the fourtieth after Easter, the day of our Lord's Ascension. There had been word that the King himself would be attending the liturgy, which he was accustomed to do on that day, to mark his own ascension to the throne and give thanks for the divine grace and favour by which he had been appointed God's deputy on earth. It would be his first appearance in public since the death of his son and would come after four weeks of mourning, during which no one outside of the royal apartments had looked on his face. He would come early, as was his habit, with the rising of the sun to dress him in splendour, and the chapel would be made ready for him.

It was an afternoon of bright sunshine, cloudless, with none of the haze yet that would come with summer. The sun was low in the sky and its rays shone directly into my eyes as I approached the chapel; I could hardly make out the guard at the entrance but he knew me and let me pass.

Inside, at first, I could see nothing. Sight was restored in glimmers and flashes: the glint of gold in the mosaics of the apse, the light that gleamed on the tresses of the Magdalene and made a glory around her head. As I drew nearer to the sanctuary, an errant ray ran down one column of the Virgin's throne and a shaft like a spear pierced the palm of Christ's hand. The Magdalene's head was joined in glory by this radiance to the hand of the Pantocrator, and I took this as a message to me, because she was redeemed from her sinful life by the compassion of Christ and in this I saw a promise that I would be given the grace to transcend such unbridled thoughts as those of earlier that day during the dance of the measurements.

My sight was fully restored now, and this I felt to be owing as much to my hope of salvation as to the habituation of my eyes. I could feel the gaze on me of other eyes, eyes from the dome where Christ looked down on me, the eyes of the angels and archangels that encircled him, set in their disc of gold with the words of abiding power wreathed among them: The sky is my throne, the earth my footstool.

I heard a series of light, tapping sounds from somewhere ahead of me, which I supposed were caused by someone at work there, though they ceased suddenly and were not resumed. There was no sign of Demetrius, but two of his people were working together on the arcade of the nave on the north side; they were on a platform slung from the ceiling, and they had a lamp on either side and mirrors arranged to give them a stronger light. They were working on the lowermost coil of the Serpent and the base of the Tree where it widens. In the lamplight the Fruit glittered red and gold and it was easy to see why God's wrath was risked for it.