Barry Unsworth - The Ruby In Her Navel

For several moments we were motionless both. Then he smiled thinly and said in Italian, "Young man, this hasty opening of doors will bring you to grief. Take the advice of one who has lived longer. Always move slowly until you need to move fast. I am from Avellino."

"My cousin lives there," I said, moving aside for him to enter.

"That makes us neighbours." He stood in the middle of the floor, glancing round the room, at the walls and ceiling and embrasure of the window, as if to illustrate his own advice regarding slowness. He had eyes of a chestnut colour set close together and a dark colouring of skin, but mainly notable in him was the beautiful moulding of his head, which clearly he was proud of as he wore his hair very short – it was like black mole-fur. "But you were expecting someone," he said.

"I thought you might be someone else."

"I am never someone else. I am Spaventa. One who is sent to see Spaventa should not be expecting to see someone else."

There was a degree of menace in these words of his, and in the way his eyes rested on my face. I cast around in my mind for an explanation.

"I thought it was someone come to take the dishes away."

His eyes went to the tray where I had set it rather awkwardly beside my basin and ewer. "Why would he knock so softly? It is too early for sleep. And so much haste for a serving man?" He looked at me for a moment. "Perhaps not a man?"

I made no reply, judging it safer to let him reach his own conclusions – he would have more faith in those. "You were hoping she would stay a little, eh? Perhaps she had promised it – you are a fine young man. And she would knock lightly, of course. You open the door and before you there is only Spaventa."

"I have the money for you," I said. "It is in my pannier on the bed." I did not go for it immediately, however, but waited for his nod: with such a man it was advisable to explain the intention before making the movement.

The bag was heavy, I used both hands to take it to him. He sat on the roll of the rug, with his back to the wall and me well in view, and emptied the coins on the floor, on his left side, keeping them within the circle of his arm. I watched him count the money. His hands were steady and very neat in their movements as he laid one coin on top of another in piles of ten, each pile then returned to the bag and the tally kept with the point of his knife on the stone floor – the knife he kept close by him, on the right side. His fingers were thick and they looked very strong. I was reminded of my days of training for knighthood, when we strengthened the grip of our hands and the muscles of the forearms by squeezing together metal bars on a spring. By the look of his hands and wrists Spaventa had spent much time on this exercise.

I was not afraid of him exactly, and in any event it was not in his interest to harm me, I had to return to Palermo with his token of payment. But I will confess to a feeling of awe as I watched him put the last coins back into the bag. And it was one I had experienced on occasion before when delivering money to assasins. He would travel to a far city, he would track down a man whose face he had never seen, against whom he had no grudge, and he would take that man's life in whatever manner was required. And he would regard payment for this as no different in kind from that of any other undertaking where the balance of the money depended on a successful conclusion, as with a mason, for example, or a water-diviner, or an advocate.

He took something small from a fold at the neck of his coat. "Bear this back with you," he said, "in token that I have received the money." He held it out to me from where he sat, obliging me to cover the ground between us. It was of blue enamel, oval-shaped, with a pin at the back and it corresponded to Atenulf's description, having some kind of hawk in red, very small, at the centre.

The knife was still there beside him, within reach of his right hand.

Nothing showed in his face but I knew he would trust me less, now that I had his token. I had thought he would leave at once now that the money had been paid, but he showed no disposition to do this. Evidently he was in a mood for talking.

"Well," he said, "so we try again."

This I did not altogether understand, though he seemed to think it clear enough. There had been no previous attempts, to my knowledge, to put an end to the former commander of the garrison at Corfu. Perhaps he was referring in general terms to the need for renewed efforts in an enduring battle… "Yes," I said, "determination and tenacity of purpose are much needed in our service to the King."

He gave a short laugh. "I see you are a joker," he said. "We will serve him well on Mount Tabor."

At this I passed from uncertainty to bewilderment. It seemed that he was responding to what he thought was my joke with a joke of his own. But there was no laughter in his face. Yusuf's counsels, and my years at the Diwan, now came to my aid. Seem to know, nod the head, wait to learn more. This I did, but he added nothing, though looking still at me. The silence lengthened and I deemed it wiser now to find some new topic of talk between us. "It is a lot of money," I said – and indeed this was true, it was far more than I had ever known paid for a killing. "Tell me, what would there be to stop you walking away with the money and going no further in this thing you are charged with?"

He gave the same narrow smile as before. "Walk away? That would be very dangerous, my friend. Those I had betrayed would seek for me. They would set people on who are clever at such seeking, well-versed in it. I would outwit them, naturally. I am Spaventa. But after these many years as the hunter, I would not take well to being hunted. Besides, there is the second half of the money. We must honour our agreements, what kind of world would it be otherwise? " He smiled again. "Why do you ask me questions, master purse-bearer?"

There was that about him that drove one to speak in haste. I answered with the first words that came to me. "It is enjoined on us. The Gospel tells us we must love our neighbour. Obviously implied in this is that we must seek first to understand him, since love cannot be exercised in ignorance and still keep the name."

"You are wrong, my young friend. It is only in ignorance of our fellow-man that we can love him. The words of our Lord contain no previous conditions, no injunction that we should seek to know a person before loving him, I mean in the sense of knowing or understanding him in the workings of his soul. And there is a good reason for that. The more knowledge we have of him, the less possible it becomes to love him.

For Spaventa it is only necessary to know which way the duck will fly."

I saw some refuge in this argument from the oppression of his presence, and I went on with it. "I cannot agree. In his Sermon on the Mount, in the Gospel according to St Matthew, Christ tells us that we must love not only our friends but our enemies too. Clearly, in order even to make this distinction, in order to know who our enemies are and what makes them enemies, we have to see our fellows in their difference, not in their sameness. In sameness there are neither friends nor enemies."

For the first time since he had entered the room his face lost its half-smiling expression. His mouth tightened and his eyes narrowed in obvious displeasure. "Young man," he said, "be warned, I do not like contradiction. Friends, enemies, it is all one, it is like the ocean, all one salt. Do you search for sweet water among the billows? You are young, take the advice of Spaventa. Do not trouble yourself with such useless distinctions. They weaken your eyes and spoil your aim. Know the flight of the duck and where to wait for its passing."

I could well understand why he did not want to trouble himself with differences. All men were strangers to him. A stranger might or might not be easier to love, but he would be easier to kill. However, the spirit of dispute worked within me, I would not give ground. "It belongs to our dignity to make distinctions," I said. "As it also does to argue against a man if we cannot accord with him, and more particularly so if he warns us against it."