Страница 57 из 85
He greeted me cordially enough, as cordially as his looks and ma
He began by telling me what Yusuf had told me already. I was to go in advance to Potenza, where the meeting between the two monarchs would take place. My reason for going – the reason that would be given out – was to assist in preparing the entertainments.
"It is reasonable," he said. "It carries belief. After all, you are the King's purveyor and have good fame as such. My congratulations, by the way, on the success of the Anatolian dancers – I was there and I saw them. Also you are trained in arms, and so would strengthen the guard on the King's person."
"Our Diwan has no duty in the protection of the King's person, we deal only with the dues from his demesne."
"But were you not trained for knighthood till the age of sixteen? Were you not soon to be admitted to the Household Guard when Yusuf Ibn Mansur took you into his douana and had you sent to Bologna to study Roman Law and the keeping of account-books?"
It was as I had surmised; they had studied the course of my life. I had sensed some intention of belittlement in his last words, something almost involuntary, as it seemed to me, habitual to him when addressing those he thought inferior.
"You know so much," I said, "yet you do not know that there are no courses in the keeping of account-books at the School of Law of Bologna."
An ugly expression flickered over his face but he sought to disguise it with a smile. "No man can know everything," he said.
"It is enough that a man should know where to look," Wilfred said, a view natural enough in a keeper of archives. He got up from the table as he spoke and went to the door and opened it and gave a quick glance this way and that, down the passages between the shelves.
"You will be expected," Atenulf said. "You will be received and shown to your quarters. You will wait until a certain person makes himself known to you. He will tell you that he comes from Avellino, so you will know he is the one. You will answer that you have a cousin there. To that he will say it makes you a neighbour. Not much more is required of you. You will hand over the money, the sum has been agreed. He will give you something from his person, a badge with a bird on it, in token that he has received the money. You will bear this back to me. You need know nothing more about it. It will be in your usual line of duty after all, nothing out of the ordinary, that is why you are sent. You are the pursebearer, is it not so? When you are not the purveyor of spectacles and shows."
The sneer was back in his voice but it was not this that swayed me. Even without Yusuf's orders I was not disposed to be treated thus lightly and kept in ignorance. It was a question of dignity – once again I felt the eye of Alicia on me and remembered my vow to be worthy of her. She would not want me to be ingratiating towards this arrogant interloper. He was of higher rank than I, but he was acting under instructions, I felt sure of that, though why I was so sure I could not have said. Because of this he would not want anything that might appear as a mistake on his part, anything that might make him open to question.
"You speak as if I had no choice but immediate acceptance of this mission," I said. "But that is not so, it is not a mission that comes within the tasks and duties of my Diwan, otherwise we would have had the notice ourselves and arranged the matter in the usual way without this naming of me from outside. I will need to know more before I can agree to go."
"Agree to go?" he said. "Harken to this young cockerel, Wilfred. Your Office has agreed to this interview and that is tantamount to acceptance of the mission."
"Animus promptus consensum valet," Wilfred said.
"That may sound like wisdom but it is not, in Latin or in any other language," I said. "Willingness to consider does not imply readiness to agree, either in law or religion. One need not be versed in logic to understand so much. The greatly revered Peter Abelard, in a letter of reply to Bernard of Clairvaux, draws attention to these quite separate states, the one exemplifying the separateness and even loneliness of each individual soul, the other leading to the unity of all souls in Christ. No doubt you are familiar with this text?" I was by no means certain that the source was to be found in Abelard, and was relieved to find that neither of them knew enough of the matter to dissent. Taking advantage of the silence that followed, I said, "Who is this man that I must meet? What is the money for? How can I return and present a report to the lord of my Diwan with this information lacking, particularly as the money is to be accounted through us? He would never accede to it, he would protest to the Curia. With all respect, Excellency, if it is the case that you are not authorised to answer these questions, you must seek the authority."
"It is permitted to me to say more, at discretion," he said coldly. "But this obduracy of yours will be made known. The man is a Neapolitan, his name is Spaventa. He has a mark in Constantinople."
"A mark? You mean a quarry? He is an assassin then."
"He is presently under our orders."
"I see. I suppose he is one who will be under orders to any, if the pay is enough. And who is marked out for him?"
"I will explain it to you. Corfu has fallen to the Byzantines, as all of us know to our cost. Only by treachery could this have happened. They had provisions for a year and fresh water in plenty. It is a well-known fact that the citadel is impregnable. For the Greeks it was like shooting up to the sky, they could never have taken it. Someone opened the gates to the enemy. In the dead of night, someone lowered the drawbridge, pulled the bolts from the gates, leaned over the battlement above the gateway and sawed through the chains."
I was discovering in Atenulf an accomplished storyteller. His eyes held mine, he had lowered his voice for greater effect. I could begin to see now the reason for his success: building the King's fame was also a kind of storytelling. His recounting of such sustained and deliberate treachery had brought horror to my mind. I saw the Evil One crouched at the side of the traitor while he filed and sawed at the chains. "He must have had accomplices," I said.
"That ca
"How should I know?"
"I will tell you. He is in Constantinople, enjoying the protection of Manuel Comnenus, who has granted him the post of Commander of the Imperial Guard. No need to look further, would you not agree?"
"So this Spaventa…"
"He will be the executioner of this foul traitor. It will be known to all that no one betrays our King and lives to profit from it."
"And he can be trusted not to talk?"
"A man who has made killing his trade does not talk, either about his failures or his successes. He would not last long if he did. You must know this yourself – you have carried money to assassins before, have you not? This Spaventa is very experienced and very careful. It is because of this he is so expensive – the money you are taking is only the first half of his hire, the second will come when the work is done.
He is gifted, very gifted. He can make death look like an accident or a suicide, he can make it a public spectacle or a private disgrace. He is an artist, a shaper of circumstance, he is one who understands the importance of the symbol."
His harshness of demeanour had quite gone, melted away in the warmth of his praise. He had spoken as one master commending another, a man after his own heart.