Barry Unsworth - The Ruby In Her Navel

They came with me, one on either side, in a ceremony of escort that belonged also to nightmare, back down the passage to the room where I had first waited. Someone had been busy: there were quills and an inkstand on the small table against the window. Here I seated myself, while they withdrew. Here I unfurled and read the document they had given me. It was a declaration that Yusuf Ibn Mansur, Lord of the Douana of Control, taking advantage of his position of authority, had on various occasions and over a course of several months, dates and times being specified, sought by bribes and promises of advancement to convert me to Islam, assuring me that this my conversion would be kept secret until the day that accounts were settled and the wrongs of the Moslems avenged in blood.

The silence I experienced in that room was the most terrible of my life.

At first my mind was muffled by it, as by some soft wadding, keeping me from clear consideration of the words before me. But as the moments passed and the starkness of the choice became clearer, the oppression of the silence grew upon me, the wadding was stretched into strands of a web, and I was caught in it, a traitor already: for remaining there, for considering.

Every moment made the wrong more grievous. And yet I could not rise from the table. To do so was to abandon her to the jailor and the executioner. Perhaps it was not true that her life was in danger, or her father's life either, perhaps it was merely a subterfuge, to dupe me into betraying my benefactor. But if so, why had she not come to Potenza, why had she sent me no word since? No, she was being kept confined somewhere. Perhaps they had lied, perhaps Alboino knew where she was. As her uncle, he would have been able to use her trust in him, to lure her away to where she could be kept under guard, at least long enough for me to be persuaded to sign the document. In that case, she was in no danger, there was no treason, it was all a tissue of invention designed to frighten and coerce me. But how could I tell, how could I be sure? My mind crawled around like a fly inside a jar, seeking an exit. I had no one to turn to. And there was no time, I had to emerge from this place with the document signed or not, I had to abide by the consequences. How could I take the chance of it? How could I play at hazard with Alicia's life, when she had given me her love, promised to share that life with mine?

Her image came before my eyes, memories of our childhood meetings, snatched with such joy from the supervision of our elders and all the duties that beset us. I remembered her steadfastness and her trust in me and her loyalty – she had risked disgrace for my sake. The mind in travail will select one single image among many to cling to. There was a gown she wore that I remembered, very simple, a linen gown, pale blue in colour, gathered at the waist, with a high neck and a collar of white lace. The colour brought out the blue of her eyes… Then came the face and form of the woman she was now, who had returned to my life and filled it with promise, the marvellous moments of our meeting at Bari, her look of delighted recognition on that charmed ground, as she came riding towards me, as it seemed from the spaces of the sea that lay beyond. Had that encounter too been observed, reported back to the Roman Curia, as had her voice and laughter in the dimness of the courtyard, the touch of her hand on my head as I knelt before her, the kisses we had exchanged in the pavilion of Favara? If by signing I would save her, by signing I would also stand before her on equal terms: did I not have Bertrand's promise of knighthood, and a grant of land, and gold for my horses and my armour? It struck me now, with a bitterness that twisted my mouth like a physical taste, that all the honour I had striven for and despaired of, the fidelity I would have vowed my life to, could be purchased now by the slightest movement of my right hand in an act of betrayal. I know this has been your dearest wish. By what means had he discovered this? They must have found out and questioned the companions of my boyhood; one talked freely then of hopes and dreams.

As I look back on it now, the matter was foregone. It is true that I suffered. But the arguments I conducted with myself were not real arguments, they were only the motions of the fly in the jar, which cannot accept that there is no escape and will not keep still and die, but dies while still searching. One attempt I made to save myself, at least from falsehood. I left the room, went back along the passage, tapped at the door and entered. I found Alboino and Bertrand sitting silently together in the same positions in which I had left them, as if only by my consent could they be set again in life and motion.

"I have heard Yusuf complaining of the treatment given to Moslems," I said. "I have heard him denounce the increasing influence of the Latin clergy and the Norman nobility. I have heard him say that civil war will be the result if the Arabs are denied ownership of land. To save Alicia and her family I am ready to sign to that effect, if the document could be written in a new form."

Thus basely did I try to save an appearance of virtue, even as I offered to play the part of traitor. I knew it for ignominy even as I spoke, knew at the same time that it would not suffice for them. Whether they possessed the power to change the document I had no means of knowing.

But even if so they would never have agreed to such terms. Yusuf had been incautious – he had trusted me – but there was no real disloyalty to the crown in his words, and the words themselves were too common among Arabs, and too general, to make a strong case against him.

"No, no," Alboino said. "What are you thinking of?"

"It would be enough to remove him from office."

"No, you are wrong, it would not be enough for that. Yusuf is quick-witted and agile of tongue, he would find a way of twisting the words and cheating the King's justice. No, it must stay as it is worded in the document."

"Cheating the King's justice? There is no question of justice here, the document contains nothing but lies."

Neither made any reply and in this silence of theirs a terrible suspicion came to my mind, one which I immediately struggled to suppress. "It is a capital charge," I said. "The new law that has been introduced by the Council of Justiciars defines attempts at conversion to Islam as tantamount to high treason."

They were the words I had used with Béroul as he sat opposite me in the reeking tavern. But Stefanos had added his own to them since then. They will deliver the judgement that their royal master desires.

Bertrand was smiling. "Is it only this that gives you pause? Do you think that the King, whom Yusuf has served so long, would exact the extreme penalty? Come, come, use your knowledge of the world, use your knowledge of our great King and his gratitude and his gracious favour.

Yusuf will be stripped of his powers, his career in the palace service will be over, but that will not be such a tragedy in his case. He is no mere palace Saracen, he has lands in his own right, he comes from an ancient family."

It was my only attempt at bargaining, if such I may call this shameful offer. I returned to my table, to the silence and the knowledge of defeat. Still I delayed. Why now, after twenty years of his rule, should the King cause such a law to be made? Was there greater danger now from the encroachments of Islam in Sicily? How could that be when it was the religion of the conquered and subjected? What Christian could desire, in Sicily now, to abjure a religion that was growing daily in influence and power?

I will not deny the truth, or try to give myself the cloak of good reason. At the time I did so, but I will not do so now. I wanted to believe Bertrand's words, and for the few minutes that were necessary I succeeded in this – at least in holding off the doubt. But I knew in my heart that Yusuf stood to lose his life. And with this knowledge of my own heart there came a sense of what knowledge there might be in the King's, and I trembled at what I might have been serving.