Страница 47 из 85
With this thought in mind, I did not paddle my boat directly to the mooring posts on the opposite shore, but tied it to a waterside tree at some distance away, then scrambled ashore and made my way on foot through the trees to where the fires were burning and the people were gathering. Tables had been set up and there was a smell of roasting meat. I took a place, and bread was brought to me, and soon after a cut from the breast of a duck was brought on a dish, and this was very tender and good, the bird had been well chosen and turned long on the spit. The wine-cup came round to me, made of silver and very deep in the bowl so that it was heavy and had to be raised with both hands. I drank and passed the cup to my neighbour, a knight I had met that morning and who had been at the Assembly. We spoke together for a while about the clearness of the night weather, the promising starlight, and the prospects for the hunt next day. As we were speaking a minstrel came forward and sat facing us with the firelight on his face. He struck some notes on his viele and began with a song of King Arthur, singing in French, a good strong voice and perfect in the words. My neighbour told me that this was Renart the Jongleur, the famous singer who travelled and performed in many places and was welcomed in the houses of the great, and could sing in Breton and Provencal and Latin with equal ease.
He had been brought here by our host for this occasion. Now I too knew many songs and could accompany myself on the viele; I listened carefully to this singer and it seemed to me – nay, I knew it – that my own voice was the equal of his in its range and tone. "He has a good horse and a full purse," my neighbour said. "He goes from one court to another. If he complains of mean treatment he brings shame to the one he complains of, and so he is always treated well."
"Well," I said, "generosity is a virtue, however it comes about."
I was constantly looking around for a sight of Alicia but did not see her. This distraction made me a little inattentive to the young knight's words – he was younger than I, he looked no more than twenty. He was speaking of Bertrand's patronage of him and how this had advanced him and how Bertrand believed that those of Norman blood should be united, since only if they spoke with one voice would the King see their loyalty and devotion, and bring them closer to him, and send away the false counsellors that surrounded him.
I answered him as best I could – these were views I had heard before.
After a while longer, with some friendly words about our riding together next day, he quitted the table. I was rising to do the same when Abbot Alboino came and took a place on my other side, obliging me to resume my seat.
He asked about my activities of the day and listened and nodded with head inclined, in the same kindly but very serious ma
He was looking closely at me as he spoke. Once again I was struck by the sorrowing expression of his eyes. I could not tell if this was feeling in them or an accident of their setting. It was as if they testified to a life quite different from the one that was lived by his body – he had twice my years but he was robust and confident in his bearing. It came to me that he was inviting my confidence, while at the same time knowing more than his words suggested. "I was heartbroken when she left to be married," I said. "I was sixteen, no longer such a child." I took care to smile and say these words lightly, so that it could still seem an extravagance of childhood.
"Well," he said, "you are a fine upstanding fellow now, and so you must have been at sixteen. But the dangers that beset the soul are greater now."
He was still regarding me with the same attention. I saw his mouth draw together as at some sharp taste. Perhaps it was this impression of bitterness in him that made me think by contrast of Hugo the Spy and his taste for honey cakes. "Children know wickedness too," I said. "But I suppose the temptations are fewer and more simple."
"That was not my meaning. I was speaking of you, your situation."
For a moment I thought he might be referring to the attraction that Alicia had shown for me. He could not but know that she had exerted herself to have me invited here. He had eyes in his head, he had watched, he must have seen the glances we exchanged. And in any case he must have wanted to take a look at me. It might have been for this that he had come to Favara – he had not been at the Assembly, so did not intend to take part in the hunt. There was power in him, both when he spoke and when he was silent; it came from him like an emanation. Alicia too must feel this power… "Lord Abbot," I said, "I have no ill intentions in regard to your niece, I beg you will believe this." A lump had formed in my throat, and I paused before speaking again to swallow it down. "If it rested with me, she would be kept safe for ever."
"I have no doubts of that," he said. "Though it is true that Alicia causes me concern, as she does also to her brother. She is self-willed, but she lacks guile or even great caution in bringing her ends about.
This could be used to her harm."
It seemed to me he judged her wrongly; guile and caution she had possessed in large measure already at fourteen, who should know that better than I? "Used to her harm? You mean by others?"
Darkness had fallen as we talked. Behind us men came with armfuls of dry tinder and heaped the fires so that they blazed up, and in this stronger light I saw the Abbot's face half turned away, the high brow and firm mouth and strong chin. Despite the sad look of the eyes, it was the face of one who knew his way through the thickets and marshes of this world.
He had left my last question unanswered. After a short silence, during which the voice of the jongleur still sounded, though now from farther away, he said, "No, I meant your situation at the Douana, the fact that you are at the orders of a Moslem, you rub shoulders with Moslems, day by day you are subject to the influence of their religion."
For some moments it seemed to me that he might almost be joking, so very gentle and equable was the voice he used. But the face he turned to me now had no joking in it. "No one of good Christian family can find that acceptable," he said.
"But I am not subject to the influence of their religion. I do not discuss religion in my work at the… Diwan."
"Does not Yusuf Ibn Mansur quote passages from the Koran? Does he not use the name of his god in your hearing? Do you think a human soul is lost at one stroke? Day by day, the touch of wrong, so you become habituated, you grow callous. That is what destroys the soul."
"But he does not quote from his book more than we are accustomed to quote from ours, or name his god more than we."
"Young man, what are you saying? I see that already there has been a deadening of the soul. Do you put them on a level, his blasphemies and our Holy Writ? So one doctrine is as good as another, so long as there is faith? Any noxious plant can grow so long as those who tend it are devout? Do you not know that devotion can pervert the soul if the object of it is mistaken?" He turned his face from me and remained for a while in silence, shaking his head slowly. "The weeds spread and choke our garden," he said, in a voice hardly louder than a murmur, as if speaking only to himself. "We ca
He turned to look at me and said in a stronger voice, "Our garden is Christendom, Thurstan, this great movement of our Latin Church that has grown in power for a century now, to bring salvation and peace and order under the spiritual authority of the Pope, who unites us in bonds of faith. That movement, that authority, knows only one truth, not several living side by side. In our garden of Christendom all compromise is corruption."