Barry Unsworth - The Ruby In Her Navel

I tried to concentrate my mind on the recollection of those few moments.

The sunlight had entered from somewhere high up on the south side. I had been standing in the centre of the Sanctuary looking up at the mosaics, those the King would see from his loge opposite, the images to which his destiny was linked: the scene of the Ascension, with Christ borne aloft, prefiguring his own apotheosis as earthly ruler; the standing figure of Virgin and Child, guarding and protecting. Then there had been these flitting shadows. Gerbert and his companions could not have made them, the shaft of light had passed over their heads, it had come from higher up, from a window or aperture on that side. Someone had been moving up there, though very briefly. Someone had passed across the light. Next day had been the Day of Christ's Ascension, a very important day for King Roger and the Norman kingdom he had founded. It was known that he planned to attend the liturgy. His plans had changed, almost at the last moment, the following day he had left for Salerno. Gerbert it was who told me of this change of plan. Gerbert, whom I had seen the day before in the cloister of San Giovanni degli Eremiti in close talk with Atenulf the Lombard. Atenulf, the student of dates and times and symbols, server of the royal power, faithful builder of the King's fame.

All this while I had been crouching at the side of the pool. These thoughts passed over my mind as quickly almost as the shadows over the water that had given rise to them, moments only – my arm was still wet from its immersion in the water. The reflections of the clouds on the surface had formed again, the shallow pool looked deeper than dreams could fathom. I rose to my feet, glanced up to the sky – the clouds looked less real than their reflections. The impulse was renewed in me to leave this place of cheating images, and I turned my back on the pool and began to make my way towards my room.

This wish of hasty retreat was still with me on arriving there and I began immediately to put my few things together in preparation for leaving. As I did so I remembered the hopes with which I had come and I could not prevent thoughts of Alicia returning to my mind, how she had duped me and made a mock of me and the terrible treachery there had been in her heart as she raised her hands in that gesture that had seemed like prayer and slipped the ring from her finger and uttered the words of promise to me. From the beginning it had been there, through all her smiles and glances, this deep well of her cruelty in which she dipped secretly, Satan at her side to hold the ladle, as he had been there with the saw at the side of the traitor Atenulf had spoken of, he who had cut through the chains of the drawbridge in the darkness of night and was soon now to die at Spaventa's hands.

These thoughts brought back the feeling of nausea, which was never far away during these days, and I paused in my movements about the room and stood still, taking deep breaths. And in this moment of enforced stillness it came to me that I had been in a certain way mistaken: the well of ill was deep indeed, deep beyond knowing, but the power of ill was limited, and this was true also of Alboino and Bernard. In my misery I had seen conspiracy everywhere, but it seemed certain to me now that neither the one nor the other had played any part in sending me to Potenza – the time they disposed of had been too short.

It was Atenulf who had planned my going, and Atenulf was in no way connected with these two, or in any plot against Yusuf, whose words I remembered now as I stood motionless there. There is the form of a triangle.

Half-mechanically, still with my mind on this, I began again to gather together my belongings. The line joining Wilfred and Gerbert was plain enough: they had been in the same community of monks. And that joining Gerbert and Atenulf? Could he have been associated with Atenulf in arranging my mission to Potenza? What had a prelate such as he to do with the King's fame? But supposing the reason for the mission had been other? The afternoon we had met in the chapel, he had come with his companions from the south side of the crossing, the side where the light was obstructed higher up, the side where the shadows came from. Next day the King was planning to attend the liturgy. It was the Day of Christ's Ascension…

A feeling of wondering surprise came to me. Why had Gerbert come there at that time? Certainly not to tell me of the change in the King's plans, and not to tell Demetrius – he already knew it. Somebody else then, somebody waiting there? But I had scanned the wall, I had noticed nothing. Some scaffolding, a curtain? I could not remember. It was possible, work was being carried out here and there inside the chapel, such a thing might well go unnoticed. Easy enough to leave a narrow platform there, screened from view so as not to offend the King's sight when he came next day to hear the liturgy.

Atenulf had sent me to Spaventa. Why should they wish to conceal the source of his payment if his mission were only to kill a traitor to the King? There could be no risk to paymaster or pursebearer in this. It was a question that had always puzzled me. Yusuf too had been suspicious of it, sufficiently to take pains to disguise the provenance of the money.

But if Atenulf were serving some other master, if the quarry were another, if the consequences of failure were perilous to the sender…

It came to me now that I still had Spaventa's token – there had been no time to deliver it to Atenulf, and he had not sent for it, I suppose not expecting me to return so soon, and afterwards not finding me at the Diwan. It was where I had put it when Spaventa gave it to me, in the cloth pouch I wore at my waist; it had been reposing there disregarded, through all the time since. I took it out now and peered at it, but the light was not enough inside the room, I could not make it out. A sense of urgency was growing in me, I was unwilling to pause and fumble to light the lamp. I went out of the room and down the staircase and passed outside on to a narrow terrace that looked towards the lake. Here in the daylight I held the token up to my eyes and looked closely at it. The bird was a hawk, just as Atenulf had described to me. The head only was shown, in profile; it was very small, but there was no mistaking the rapacious curve of the beak, the fierce eye, the flat head: it was the imperial eagle of the Roman standards, symbol of dominion. What had Speventa said? Render unto Caesar. Who was Caesar now? Spaventa had thought I knew. He would have not lingered and boasted otherwise, not a man like that. Some message regarding my role had gone astray or been garbled.

The day darkened suddenly and I looked up to see banks of cloud, silver at the edges, drawing over the face of the sun. A rustling wind stirred the trees by the lake and there was a coolness in the air, a breath of relief, presage of rain. This long trance of summer was ending at last.

What else had Spaventa said? Something about trying again. He had laughed at my reply, as if I had made a joke, he had not been suspicious then. What had been the first attempt? Once more I thought of those flitting, evanescent shadows, some movement unaccounted for, my vague sense that the light was broken higher up. There could only be one reason why a man should wait there, on the eve of the day of Christ's apotheosis and the King's, in the one place in all the chapel which afforded a clear view of the royal person.

I had not made the right response to the toast; he had understood his mistake, in circumstances more favourable he might have killed me for it. He had said something before this, before his suspicions were roused, something I had not understood. We will meet him on Mount Tabor, no, not meet, serve. We will serve him well on Mount Tabor. Stefanos too had said something that puzzled me, the evening we had supped together.