Barry Unsworth - The Ruby In Her Navel

He waited before replying, his eyes still upon me. "That is what makes it even more unusual. It seems that this was arranged in advance, before the King left. The hunting party is headed by Bertrand of Bonneval."

This was a nephew of the Count of Conversano. I knew his name and parentage but little more, beyond the fact that the family had ties with Robert of Selby, the King's Chancellor.

"Do you have any acquaintance with this Bertrand?"

"No, none at all."

"We have no list as yet of those who will be making up the party, but we will have one soon. I have set Nicholas to find out."

I nodded. Whenever there was anything of this sort to unearth, Nicholas Langen was assigned to the task. He was adept in it. He lingered in chanceries on feigned errands, he gossiped with grooms and porters and serving-women. He was open-faced and friendly in his ways. He never failed.

Yusuf permitted himself a slight smile. "So far, we have two names only, Bertrand of Bonneval and Thurstan Beauchamp."

"I have not exchanged one word with him in the whole of my life," I said, and I knew these words of mine came with too much emphasis, as I had already denied the acquaintance, but the knowledge that I was concealing something from him made me unsure of being believed even when I spoke the truth, and this unsureness was made worse by my feeling that he sensed it and perhaps misunderstood it. It was not that I thought he disbelieved me; he trusted me to the limits of his capacity for trust.

But suspicion was never entirely disarmed in him. And there was something here he did not understand.

"Can you think of any reason why you might have been included in this Norman hunting party?" he said.

I took care to avoid any appearance of haste in my denial, shaking my head and meeting his eyes firmly. I had never spoken to him of the Lady Alicia, not of our meeting in Bari and the time we had spent together there, not of the passion there had once been between us. I could have spoken of her now, so much would have been spared us had I done so. But I did not. To protect her name from any loose association, my first duty as her knight? To protect her from Yusuf's investigations? She was not his to enquire into. She was not there for his knowledge. She was mine, she belonged to my life of before the Diwan, when the air was pure and the ground clear before me. She could help me to recover such a life. In protecting her, I protected myself also. Was that the true reason? How can such questions ever find answers? It was the first time that I had lied to him, and it was like a stone dislodged from a bankside, there was to be a heavy fall after it.

"Well," he said, "if that is so, there can only be one reason, or at least the reasons must all be of one general character. They will want to find out some weakness, they will want to learn something from you that can be used to damage our Diwan and turn the King's favour from us."

"They will not succeed through me."

He was looking at me more kindly now. "Not by your intention, I know that well. But you will need to be vigilant, because you are not made of one piece. If we think of a man as a wall with joints that make cracks for a bar to be inserted and so bring it down, my wall has no cracks in it. I am an Arab of Sicily, born of parents who were Arabs of Sicily. I can trace my family in a continuous line to the Fatimid Caliphs who ruled here two hundred years ago. We have always held public office. One of my ancestors was vizir to the Emir Jafar, he who built the palace of Favara, which was a resort of pleasure long before the time of the Normans. When I entered the King's service I was following in the path of my forbears and I have followed in that path ever since. Such facts tell us nothing about a man's true nature or his innermost desires, but they make a singleness that is difficult to attack. Your wall has joints in it and these have made cracks where the bar could be put in. You are of mixed birth, you come from another land, you have gone from squire to guardsman-in-training to pursebearer and purveyor in the diwan al-tahqiq. These are momentous changes. An enemy could seek to use them against you, by dividing you against yourself."

"None of these changes was by my choice, you know that well." I raised my head and straightened my back to say this. His words had wounded me, seeming to suggest I was inconstant of purpose and uncertain in my loyalties. Nor had I liked being compared to a cracked wall, though I could tell Yusuf was pleased with the figure: the lines of his mouth were normally straight and thin, but a slight curve of relish visited them when he had made a comparison he felt to be felicitous. "You know why I had to give up my hopes of knighthood," I said. "And as for the Household Guard, it was you yourself that took me from it." For your own sake you took me, not for mine, I could not help saying within me, and I felt the return of resentment, thinking how he had employed me for his own advancement.

"That is true," he said. "I was taken with you, I was struck by your abilities. In the midst of learning to kill or maim your fellow-man, which for the Norman is the only essential training, you had learned to read and speak Greek, and even some Latin. You were destined for better things than the Guards, Thurstan. I have never regretted bringing you here. What I said was not meant as a reproach to you, but as a warning, so that you will be on your guard when you go there."

At these words my resentment was forgotten and my heart expanded with joy: after his questioning of me and his close looks I had began to fear that he would forbid me to go, which it was in his power to do. "Lord,"

I said, "I promise that I will be careful."

"These are difficult times. The King has enemies on all hands, both at home and abroad. Your co-religionists will try to make you believe that the threat to his life and throne comes from his Moslem subjects, this so as to have no one close to the King but themselves. But their words are not true. There are those of the King's own faith who hate him – who hate him in secret, you understand? – because he took no part in this crusade, because he resists the Pope's claims to overlordship. They would like a king of Sicily more friendly to these claims. Now, of five princes, there is only William left. Before the year is out the King will marry again, but until his new Queen gives him male children, all who love him should be concerned for his safety and that of the realm.

We must be on our guard. While you are at Favara, keep your eyes and ears open."

"I will do so."

"In particular, you will report to me on what is said directly to you, or deliberately in your hearing, anything you think is designed to sway you. I want the words said and the names of those who say them."

I earnestly undertook to do this, and only then did Yusuf's sternness abate altogether. He smiled and said it would after all be useful that I should go, it was unaccustomed company and there was much that we might learn. He even joked a little, his usual joke, about my clothes, about the sorcot and the chainse and the chauces I would need to wear to make a good figure among these Norman nobles, giving the French words an exaggerated inflexion. He had himself been to the palace of Favara several times, he told me, together with other high officials of the Royal Diwan, to sit in council with the King. "I was never invited to a hunting party, however," he said, still smiling. "Once, I remember, there was some hawking. You will like Favara, they have enlarged the gardens since I first went there and extended the lake, the water encircles the palace now. There are strange devices in the grounds but I will not spoil the surprise by speaking of them now. I am sure you will enjoy your time there."

I felt sure of this too, if what I suspected proved to be true. And what other explanation could there be? Only when I got back to my desk and made pretence of continuing work on the land registers was I fully able to savour my good fortune. There would be a list of course, the tireless Nicholas would furnish one; until I had scanned that I could not be certain. This I tried to keep in mind, so as to guard against disappointment. But my hopes ran ahead of me. I remembered the words we had said, the looks she had given me, the touch of her hand. I knew her name would be there.