Barry Unsworth: The Ruby In Her Navel

He gave me good-day and would have resumed his walk, but before he could do so I asked him the usual question, the same that he had been asked for twenty years: "And the studies, how are they proceeding?"

"We are building up a case," he said, his usual answer. "Yes, slowly and surely we are building up a case."

No one knew how old Glycas was. He had grown grey and his eyes had dimmed in the King's service, saddled always with the one task: to find convincing evidence, evidence that could be published, that Sicily had once, however long ago, been ruled by kings. If this could be done, it would make clear that our good Roger, in taking the crown, had not invented the monarchy or imposed it on the people, but had merely resumed the royal line. Glycas was versed in the history of antiquity, conversant with legends and myths, adept at following up threads and finding links. He could read with equal ease the Greek of Hesiod and of Byzantium, the Latin of Ovid and of the Christian Fathers. He had brought all his enormous erudition to this task. No definite proof had so far been discovered; not many believed now that any would; some thought, and I was among this number, that Glycas was simply spinning out his time – he was comfortable there, the stipend was enough for his needs.

"Yes, yes," he said, cocking his head to catch that fugitive sound. "I am following a new line."

"What is that?"

I did not expect much response to this; he had already said more than was customary with him. But I had come upon him at a propitious moment, he was in garrulous vein. "Yes," he said, "I have long believed that the answer lies with the Siculi, and lately I have become more convinced of it than ever. No doubt you are familiar with the customs of this tribe?"

"Of course."

"I see that you are not," he said, after a sly pause. "A very ancient tribe, they once occupied parts of this island. Their presence in Sicily and the Italian peninsula is well attested. Thucydides speaks of them, as does also Polybius. We even have some words of their language, which in my opinion has an affinity with Latin."

"How does this touch upon the issue of kingship?"

"I am coming to that. You are too much in haste, like all the young.

Haste is a very bad thing. The Siculi had gods, like all others – there has never been a people without gods. The most important were the Polici, protectors of farmers and sailors. These Polici had a father-god named Adranus. Now it is this Adranus who has been rousing my interest of late."

He might have meant lately, or in the course of the last five years or so, it was impossible to tell with him. "Well," I said, "I hope your labours bear fruit."

I was beginning to move away but he clutched at my sleeve to stop me.

"Always this haste," he said. "I am coming round to the belief that Adranus was not a god at all, but a king. That is to say, he was a mortal, but because of his kingship he was revered as a god."

He smiled and raised his chin, as if that rustling had grown louder.

There were more gaps than teeth in his mouth. "It fits together perfectly. Adranus was king, the Polici were his ministers and the farmers and sailors formed the people. I am rereading the works of Polybius in search of a reference that will clinch the matter. But for this time is needed, the writings of Polybius run to many volumes."

He released his febrile clutch on my sleeve and I congratulated him on these discoveries and was finally able to move on. It did not seem to me at all likely that Glycas would live long enough to get through all the works of Polybius, that most long-winded of authors. But no doubt someone else would be appointed to continue. As I made my way across the courtyard I was filled yet again with wonder at the might of the King, how it infused all our lives. His title was not in dispute within the realm, it was recognised by all. True, he had potent enemies: the King of the Germans and the Emperor of the Byzantines both regarded him as usurper, and Pope Eugenius had not yet formally recognised his rule. But it was hard to believe that any of these would be brought to a new state of mind by learning that the ancient tribe of the Siculi had kings. Yet the labours of Glycas continued, they would be continued by others when Glycas was no more. Perhaps King Roger himself was no longer aware of the scholar's existence. At some time in the past he had taken a mortal life between finger and thumb and set it down in a room among books and left it there, warm enough, ignored, like an insect in a sunny corner.

How many there were in forgotten corners, kept alive by the warmth of his power! I too, I thought, as I saddled my horse in its stable near the gate, and led it past the uniformed guards and so out into the street. When the heron took flight and the blindfold was removed from the hawk's eyes, how much space would Thurstan the Purveyor occupy in the King's mind?

That sun of April was hot when it was trapped between walls. It was the hour when people were closing their shutters for the afternoon rest.

Those in the streets were making for home or for a place in the shade.

The water-sellers were calling with their high-pitched cries, their pails and dippers swinging from the yoke and scattering drops that flashed as they fell and dried before the marks could show. I passed a group of the King's Saracen footguards returning to their barracks after some display – they were in dress uniform of green kaftan and white turban, with the short, curved swords at their belts. Two Norman serjeants in chain mail rode by, and I saw the hostile looks they exchanged with the Saracens, who were the King's favourite troops.

I arrived at my house to find the shutters already closed against the sun. The gatekeeper, Pietro, was in his shed at the side, half asleep on his cot, and he was slow to open to me. It was his wife, Caterina, a woman from Amalfi, who took care of my two rooms and kept my water jug full and cooked for me, as she cooked for others in the house, wheezing slowly up the stairs with food she had prepared in the kitchen below – I call it a kitchen but it was no more than an angle in the wall with a fireplace. Today she came with wheat cakes made with a filling of chives and melted goat cheese. With this I drank a little of the good Sicilian wine from the royal vineyards in the Conca d'Oro, to which the first three degrees of palace officials are entitled by contract.

Afterwards I slept a little and woke to feelings of unease, something like foreboding, remembering, as I still lay reclined on my couch, the marks of division so evident at the majlis that morning, the antagonisms that stirred among us. I wondered why Maurice Béroul had watched me so, what had been in his mind when he had seemed to hesitate. And I wondered who our King listened to, Norman or Lombard, Arab or Greek or Jew. Then I remembered I was to go all the way to Bari on a mission I did not believe in, simply for Yusuf to maintain the prerogatives of his Diwan.

Mainly to expel these gloomy thoughts, but also because I would be away from Palermo for some time, I decided to go that evening to the Royal Chapel to see the progress of the mosaics. I felt the need for movement, I would go on foot, there had been no rain to muddy the streets. Also, I wanted to visit a goldsmith's shop near the Buscemi Gate, because I had it in mind, after seeing the mosaics, to spend some time with the women of the Tiraz, the silk workshop in the precincts of the palace, and in particular with a woman called Sara, who was my favourite among them.

These women were from Thebes, of Jewish race, experts in the cultivation of the silkworm and the manufacture of robes and vestments for court occasions, who had been carried off from their homes and brought as a gift to the city of Palermo by the Admiral of the Fleet, the Emir of Emirs, George of Antioch, on a raid he had made into Greece two years before. Usually I gave Sara coin – it was what she preferred. But I handled money so much in my work that I liked sometimes to make her a present, some small trinket. Along with my clothes and the rent for my lodgings and the care of my horse, my visits to the Tiraz were a main part of my monthly expenditure.