Barry Unsworth: The Ruby In Her Navel

I stopped and stood still there before the opening, as I had sometimes done before; it was scarcely two spans across at the broadest point, but I could see a section of sky through it. Yusuf would have needed time to summon his servant to bring water for the ritual ablution of his face and hands… I had been encouraged by him to use a faculty of picturing, of turning imagination like a directed light, a ray, on to the movements, thoughts, habits of others, to keep their continuing existence in my mind, see them in their times of vacancy or solitude, when they were unguarded. Where would such a person go, what might he do next? Even in the intimate details of his bodily life I would follow him. It was Yusuf, as I say, who had fostered this in me; now I turned the ray on him. He would shake his narrow feet loose from the slippers, he would clap his hands for his servant, a Berber boy slave he had named Matthew, who had a mat on the floor in the adjoining room. Matthew would know what to do without needing to be told. He would bring the ewer of water and the towel; he would pour the water very slowly into the basin that was always there; as the water flowed from the neck of the ewer, Yusuf would catch it in his hands and bring it to his face and wet his ears and nostrils and eyes and mouth, so that the organs of sense could be cleansed before he turned towards Mecca and intoned the intention to pray.

All this takes long to write, not long to see in the mind. The call was still continuing, rising from all directions, far and near, testifying to the greatness of God, calling upon the faithful to come to salvation, a clamorous melodious hubbub that fell on the city five times a day, confused by varying distance and the overlapping of sound, since those chanting did not all begin at the same moment, one voice fell away as another was raised, like veils of sound laid one across the borders of another, veils that were then torn again by the movements of the muezzins themselves, since each had to address all quarters of the world and so pronounce his summons four times, each time facing in a different way. It was a ragged music, deeply familiar to all who had their lives in the city, and moving in its confusion, to me at least, though a Christian – like the loud plaints that lambs make, lost on the hillsides, one answering another near and far, which I remember from the dales of my childhood in England, a chorus that always seemed to me like sorrow and joy at the same time.

Now, as I still stood there in the thin shaft of sunlight, in response as it seemed to the human voices, but not in rivalry, there rose the brazen voices of bells from monasteries and churches all over the city announcing the noon hour and the office of sext. And now again there was a confusion of sound, the clear silver bells that hang inside the cloisters, the deeper ones above convent gates, the clanging, deep-throated ones mounted in the towers of churches. For some moments more the throats of men and bells made that medley of loss and celebration, and as I glanced upwards at the section of sky that was visible through the window I saw the swift-winged birds that live in the sky above the city and never alight on the ground, saw them flock together in the bright air, rising above the sound, not as in fear but as in joy.

With this I was swept by a familiar love for this city of Palermo, where I had spent most of my years, for the diversity these sounds expressed, the different faiths that lived together here, the different races that jostled in the markets and laboured on the buildings that were rising everywhere, praying apart and having their cases tried in their own tongues, but all held together in unity by our great King. I thought of him now, the times on state occasions I had seen him, always at a distance. He rode with a canopy of pale-coloured silk stretched above his head, and the light that fell through it seemed to obscure his face, a radiance that obscured. I had no picture in my mind of the King's face.

From here I could not see the Pisan Tower, where the Royal apartments were, but I knew he spent his morning hours there, in the audience chamber on the second storey. He would be there now, hearing ambassadors or studying documents that touched the lives of us all, or perhaps scanning details of the revenues from his estates – in that case, his eye might fall, just for the merest moment, on an entry I myself had made, some item of expenditure. He would see the marks I had traced! A sense of wonder descended on me with this thought, wonder at his nearness and farness. I tried to picture him, as I had just pictured Yusuf, but I could not, he was beyond my imagining, divinely appointed as he was, by God's grace invested with the sceptre and the orb. I was eight years old that Christmas Day when he was crowned in the cathedral of Palermo. I saw him then for the first time, standing with my father in the ranks of the nobility. My father lifted me up and I saw him pass in sunlight and he was in a mantle of gold and the bridle of his horse was gold and its hooves made no sound because of the carpets they had laid over the pavement.

I had lived ever since in the protective shadow of his power. I felt ashamed now that I had been so grudging and reluctant in the way I had received the news of my mission to Bari, when it was in his service that I was sent. My life up till that time had contained disappointments. In fact it had sometimes seemed to me that it was my fate never to arrive at a promised end. I had wanted with all my soul to fight in the King's cause as a knight and it had not been granted to me for reasons I will give more fully later. I had sought a command in his Household Guard and this too had come to nothing because Yusuf had taken me from it. He had noticed me and greeted me in Arabic and I had answered him in the same language, which I knew, though at that time imperfectly, from the Arab nurse my parents had given me. With these few words I gave him in answer my life was changed. I was to learn that he had wanted more Christians in the Diwan, to broaden the base of his power. One like myself, of the Latin faith and of Norman descent, had been particularly suitable for this purpose of his. He had other reasons also, which I only learned later.

He had sent me to study Roman Law at Bologna, so as to argue cases affecting the King's temporal power against ecclesiastical claims where property or revenue were involved. I studied but I felt no vocation for the law and I was not among the most brilliant there. I had more success in the taverns, where I added to my stock of songs, both those in Latin that the students sang and the new ones in French that were coming from Poitou and Aquitaine. Somehow, returning to Palermo and the palace service, I had become purveyor of pleasures and pursebearer. Service in the sun, in the open, with no handling of coin, this is what I would have wanted. But I could still be of use to him in the shadows. And was I not going openly to Cosenza to buy for him the white marsh birds that he so loved to serve to his falcons?

Set aglow by these thoughts, I turned from the window to continue my way down. As I did so by chance or by some instinct, I glanced behind me at the way I had come. There was a man at the head of the stairway, standing quite still, watching me. After a moment I knew him for Maurice Béroul, an ordained priest, employed now in the legal department of the Vice-Chancery as an advisor in matters touching canon law. He had been present at the majlis but had not spoken. He did not speak now, though he seemed for a moment to hesitate as if he might come towards me. Then he turned, took some steps back along the passage and disappeared from view.

The stairs ended on the landward side of the palace, opening into a walled courtyard with a narrow portico and a fountain. Here I came upon Mark Glycas, who was taking the air in the shade of the arches, walking slowly, with his gait of an old man, unsteady and dragging. He had his back to me and did not hear my step. He did not see me until he came to the end of his paces and turned about, which he did by slow degrees – all his movements were slow except those of his head, which had an upwards motion, rather frequent, as if he were following some faint sound in the air above. He was bare-headed, by which I knew he had come only for this brief respite from his writing-table.