Barry Unsworth - The Ruby In Her Navel

Then I turned from them and began to make my way to my place of work in the Diwan, where more renewals of the royal privilege were waiting for me to scan.

Before I could reach my room, while I was still in the passage that led to it, Yusuf's secretary, the eunuch Ibrahim, came quickly towards me from the head of the stairway. "I have been looking everywhere for you," he said, making it sound like an accusation. He was always hostile to me, as many of the palace Saracens were, though they dared not show it openly, because I was not of their race, they saw me as a friend to the Norman interlopers who threatened to usurp their place in the royal favour. "The Lord Yusuf wishes your immediate presence," he said.

"Already he has been made to wait."

I was in the passage that led beyond my door to Yusuf's. Because of the impression of urgency, of being impatiently awaited, that Ibrahim had given me, I hurried past my own door, went quickly through the long room where the scribes were working and entered Yusuf's cabinet without more than a light tap at the door. Entering thus abruptly, I had the sense of being somehow mistaken, of being in the wrong room. The figure before me, in these first moments, seemed like a stranger: no immaculate white robe, but silks of blue and scarlet and gold, a sheathed scimitar thrust through the broad sash. And he was standing close to the wall, and seemed to have been leaning down at the moment of my entrance, or just before that moment, as if to gather something he had let fall at the foot of the wooden panelling. But he had straightened and moved away before I was well into the room, leaving me to doubt the evidence of my senses.

For a moment he stood there, regarding me quite impassively. There was no displeasure in his face but I had the impression that I had interrupted him in something. His eyes had their usual hooded look, and once again I thought how like a hawk's his face was, with the curved beak of the nose, eyes that blinked rarely but could easily hood themselves or widen as if adjusting to stronger or weaker light.

"Lord, please forgive that I entered with so little ceremony," I said, "but I knew from Ibrahim that you had already waited some time for me and I felt to blame because I was not there at my desk to obey your call at once."

"Where were you?"

"I was sharing the King's gift among the Anatolians, those whom I found in Calabria and brought here, as my lord will remember. And I was making my farewells to them."

Yusuf nodded, and the movement brought glints from the diamond he wore where the folds of the turban crossed at the centre of his forehead.

There was a sapphire on a thin band at his throat and the handle of the scimitar was set with sapphires and opals. "One in particular you were sorry to lose," he said, with the slightest of smiles.

I felt a leap of surprise at this. I had never spoken of her to him, never mentioned her name. I know now that he intended me to feel the shock of it, he wanted me to know that he had sources of information other than myself, and this not because he thought Nesrin important – he cared nothing about her – but because he wanted to warn me. This I realised later; at the time I was concerned only to deny him the sight of surprise on a face which he had often told me showed too much, to deny also the suggestion of his smile and defend Nesrin from it. I have not much to be proud of in regard to Yusuf, but I am proud that I succeeded in this small rebellion.

"Yes," I said, "I was sorry indeed to part from her. The man who wins her for his wife may count himself lucky." How had he known? Had he set someone to watch? Had someone followed us that night, stood below, heard the sounds we made? I thought it probable enough. Trust between us was much impaired, both of us knew it. I had kept too much from him, and this mainly because of Alicia. In relating my time at Favara, I had not spoken to him of Bertrand and the favour shown to me, or of my talk with Alboino, or the vows Alicia and I had exchanged. And now, in the considered manner that was characteristic of him, he had just given me proof that he did not depend on me for his knowledge of my doings, that he had other sources. He was so much more powerful than I, so much richer; the jewels and silks he was wearing I could not have bought for a year's stipend. I knew from them that he had been riding in cavalcade through the city, as he regularly did, in company with his fellow-Saracens of high office, to show through their splendour that greater splendour of the King, a splendour veiled these days – he was rarely seen now in public.

"Well," he said, "you will be wondering why I have sent for you."

"Yes, lord."

He began, as was always the cautious way with him, by telling me what I – and most of Palermo – already knew. After the failure of the crusade and the headlong retreat from Damascus, Louis, the King of the Franks, had stayed on in Palestine, remaining there through the winter and visiting the shrines of the Holy Land.

"Those with him there say he prostrated himself at each shrine," Yusuf said. "He does not touch the ground only with knees and forehead, as do we, but with his whole body. He is very pious, but the god of the Christians did not come to his aid in Syria."

"He does not blame God for the failure, he blames the Byzantines."

This made Yusuf laugh, a thing not at all common with him, though I did not see why, I had not intended it as a joke. "Well," he said, "blame must be laid somewhere. King Louis set off for home last April and after many mishaps he is expected to land on the Calabrian coast in these next days. He will wait there for Queen Eleanor to join him, then the royal pair will make their way to Potenza, where our King Roger will be waiting to greet them. They will be the King's guests there for some days, before resuming their journey to Paris." He paused for a moment, smiling. "A fruitful meeting on both sides, as all are hoping. Every effort will be made to encourage Louis in his belief that it is the Byzantines who are to blame. Rather than God, eh? Byzantium is our enemy too. Those who join us in enmity are our friends. An alliance with the kingdom of the Franks would be of great value to Sicily in these troubled times."

He looked at me for some moments, and the smile faded. "So much is general knowledge. Now we come to a thing that is not. A request has reached us from the Curia Regis, under the seal of the Lord Chancellor's Office, that Thurstan Beauchamp, our purveyor, should be sent to Potenza in advance of the royal party, in order to help in the preparing of entertainments for their majesties. First Favara and now this. You are in great demand, so much is clear. What is less clear is who is demanding you."

"But it is for the lord of Potenza to arrange the entertainments. He must already have done so. How can I be of any help in it, going there so shortly before the royal arrival?"

"You are right, you cannot be of help."

"And so?" I was bewildered. "There must be some mistake."

"No, there is no mistake. Under cover of this you are to carry money to someone there. A sum of five hundred tari. It will not come from the Royal Exchequer even though the request for your services has come through the Curia Regis. The money is to be issued by our Diwan and entered in the usual way, though without any words as to purposes – there will be no declared destination for it. I am being asked to grant permission without knowing for what purpose the money will be spent, without knowing who it is destined for. All this is highly irregular, Thurstan Beauchamp, would you not agree?"

"They are seeking to divide us, they are seeking to destroy the trust between us." In this they were succeeding, I knew it as I spoke, knew it from the look in his eyes, the tones he used, above all from this ironic use of my full name, which once he had used like a father when he wished to cajole or persuade me, but was now a cold reminder of my Norman blood.