Barry Unsworth - The Ruby In Her Navel

"She learns quickly," Maria said. "Stefanos has taught her the alphabet, already she can recognise some words when she sees them on the page.

Sometimes she stays here after he has gone, she helps me in what I am doing and we talk together. She has had a hard life, her parents also were wandering people, they died when she was still young. She is a beautiful girl, do you not think so?"

"Yes," I said. "Yes, I do." I felt the eyes of both upon me and a spirit of rebellion rose in my breast. "A beautiful dancing girl," I said.

"When we practise the forming of questions, she asks many questions about you," Stefanos said. "Also when we are not practising anything she does the same. Your habits, your work at the Douana, your life in the past. She takes great interest in all this."

These were not words that a man finds it easy to reply to. In fact I did not attempt any reply but after a moment reverted to the subject of the King's forthcoming nuptials. After fourteen years as a widower it was clear to all that he was driven by the need for legitimate heirs, there being only William now left alive of all his sons. It was felt generally that Sibylla, a sister of Otto of Burgundy, was a wise choice: she was young and the stock was good.

From this we went to other things and the evening passed without further mention of Nesrin, for which I was thankful. I had noticed the care Stefanos took to tell me exactly where she was living, but even before I rose from the table, I had resolved to avoid seeing her. I had betrayed Alicia once with her, but that had been an accident of proximity and circumstance – or so I told myself. I had been flushed with wine, with the success of the dancing and my singing, we had found ourselves alone together, she had shared in it. But now to go and seek her out, saying nothing of my betrothal, that would be a wrong indeed, out of keeping with my fealty to Alicia and the knightly Thurstan I wanted to be – wanted still to be.

I do not know if this resolve of mine would have held. I like to think that it would; it was truly felt and there was respect for Nesrin in it, as well as for myself. In the event it was not put to the test – or at least only very briefly, for the next eight or nine hours of my existence in fact. The following morning, as I issued into the street on my way to the Diwan, I found Caspar waiting for me at the corner holding his horse by the bridle. His face was more sombre than I had ever seen it. "You must come with me at once," he said. "My mistress is in sore distress."

I needed no more than this to accompany him. Ever since Potenza the shadow of some disaster had lain on my spirit and it had grown darker through the hours of hearing no word from her. I tried to elicit something from Caspar as we rode together, but he would not speak, other than to tell me our destination, which was the Monastery of the Crocefisso, three miles or so outside the city walls in the foothills of Mount Pellegrino.

Here we were met by a monk in the dark habit of the Benedictines and I was led through the cloister to a narrow chamber adjoining the chapel.

Caspar did not accompany us. From that moment I never saw Caspar again.

I waited a little while, then the same monk came for me and brought me down a short passage to a stout oak door. He knocked and opened and bowed me in, closing the door soundlessly behind me. This was a much larger room, high-ceilinged, with frescoes going round the walls. Before me stood two men that I knew: Abbot Alboino and Bertrand of Bonneval.

Even in this moment of uncertainty and apprehension I was struck by the contrast they made, the sad-faced abbot in his monastic habit, the huge Norman in a long white surcoat, with his blue-eyed stare and bushy eyebrows. Of Alicia there was no sign.

"How good of you to come with such promptness," Alboino said. "Please sit. May I offer you a cup of wine? It is excellent, I can recommend it, they make it here in the monastery. Many things are said these days against the Benedictines, but no one questions their skill in the making of wine."

Whatever I had expected, it was not this. He spoke as if I had not been brought here, as if I had decided from courtesy to make this morning visit. I sat in the chair he indicated and waited while he poured the wine and brought it. Bertrand also seated himself, though without speaking. His broad and ruddy face wore an expression of deepest seriousness reminding me strangely of his look when engaged in the delicate task of cutting out the hart's tongue. Alboino too remained silent for a while, and this silence made a tightness in my chest after I had been led here on such an urgent summons.

"The Lady Alicia sends you her greetings," Alboino said at last.

"She is well then? I was hoping to find her here. Her man gave me to understand -"

"Unfortunately she cannot be here." He paused and hesitated, as if about to say something more in explanation, then glanced towards Bertrand, who said, "We would be happy indeed to have her here with us."

"Has some ill befallen her?"

"Not exactly that. Not yet at least." Alboino sighed, a strangely heavy sound in that silent room. "I find myself in a position of great difficulty," he said. "Perhaps more so than ever in my life before. How much easier it would be if our temporal rulers followed the example of this great man depicted here." He made a gesture almost of benediction towards the fresco on the wall to his right, where a man richly attired and wearing a gold coronet was presenting a scroll to another, who was dressed in episcopal robe and mitre. "That is Constantinus, donating the Roman Empire, in perpetuity, to the Vicar of Rome, subordinating the temporal power to the spiritual. If only that legacy had been honoured!

There would now be one supreme and unquestioned authority, the Holy Father, heir to St. Peter. Instead Christendom is divided, princes professing the same faith war among themselves, this our well-loved King Roger disputes the Pope's right to appoint bishops and surrounds himself with Saracens, people of a false and corrupt religion."

"Not only that," Bertrand said. "He gives them positions of influence and power in the land, to the detriment and loss of his Norman peers."

It seemed to me that there was some quality, not of reproof exactly, but at least of admonition, in the glance Alboino gave him. But I was too concerned for Alicia to think much about this. "I beg you to give me news of your niece," I said. "You must have remarked the closeness of the attachment between us."

"Certainly, yes, but others have remarked it as well as I. Alicia is so guileless, so open and frank in her nature, it is not in her to practise deception or concealment. Reports of this feeling between you have come to the ears of the Roman Curia. Even your childhood love is known to them."

"How can that be? I have spoken of it to no one, and I am sure that Alicia would not. Why should she? It concerns no one else."

"I cannot say how they came by this knowledge. Perhaps someone there at the time, someone who watched you and remembered."

Hugo, he of the honey cakes: perhaps before illness compelled him to leave he had boasted of his knowledge…

"There is always someone," Alboino said, as if reading my thoughts. "You were watched at the hospice, it was seen that you talked together alone through the hours of the night. This was made known to them by one of the hospitallers, as was the manner of your parting in the morning. The time you spent alone together at Favara was noted, your meeting in the pavilion, and then later, in your boat on the lake. All this was observed and word sent to Rome."

"Who it was that played the spy I do not know," Bertrand said. "Someone among the guests or perhaps a gardener or a servant of the house. I wish I had the dog between my hands, he would rue the day."