Страница 59 из 85
Silence is golden, as the proverb says. In this case not even the clink of the gold will be heard."
He smiled, as if pleased, but his eyes rested on mine, and I felt he was watching for the effect of his words. My faculty of suspicion, woefully inadequate as he had deemed it, was well roused now. Not Atenulf's powers of narration had lulled my mind: it was he, Yusuf, who had done it, by appearing to take seriously – even to be angered by – their withholding of the information, only to tell me on my return that he had not believed in it from the first. Why had he disarmed me thus in advance? To make some use of my ignorance that I was still too stupid to see? Once again I felt used by him, tricked by him. Why was he telling me what he proposed to do with the money? It was rare with him to confide his intentions in this way. He ran no risk – the accounting would be skilfully done as he knew well how. If he thought I had new masters, would he so confide in me? Perhaps he was testing me, perhaps he wanted me, for reasons I could not fathom, to make known to others these intentions of his.
Even as I smiled and nodded with a full air of comprehension, playing the part still that I had always played, of favoured pupil, the questions twisted through my mind. Amidst all perplexities, however, one thing had become very clear to me: I, Thurstan Beauchamp, was the one who would bear the purse and run the risk; there would be no record of the money anywhere, no one would admit to any knowledge of it; if anything miscarried while it was in my possession I would be in serious trouble. There and then, still meeting Yusuf's gaze with what firmness I could, I resolved that if I succeeded in delivering this money, from the moment of handing it over I would deny all knowledge of it in my turn, I would lend my name to no statement made by anyone about it, including Yusuf. I would be in Potenza as the King's purveyor, and for no other reason in the world.
Thus I denied my loyal support to Yusuf even before he claimed it. And when I remember that denial now, I ca
"And the sorcot," he said. "Another new one? And the chainse?"
Later, when I drew the money, we spoke together again and he wished me god-speed, but I have no recollection of his face on that occasion, or of what we said. What I remember now is the refuge we both took in this habitual topic of my clothes, the look of amusement and guile he wore when he teased me about them, and underlying this the unspoken knowledge of the hurt we had suffered, not something gone, but something spawned by the air we breathed every day, the air that nurtured the shade-loving plant he had spoken of.
These are memories that return now. In the days that followed, while I waited for the order to leave, there was one event only and it filled my mind, eclipsing all else. It was Caspar who brought the message and he came to my lodgings to deliver it, led upstairs by Signora Caterina, who always made her wheezing more audible when there was a visitor, in the hope of a gift either from him or from me. It was a note written on parchment, secured by two strands of cord with a seal of red wax to join them, and on the wax the imprint of the ring I had given her, a circle with a tiny scarab in the centre. Rarely can so few words have given such delight to any mortal man. She would come to Potenza in the King's following, accompanied by some members of her family. We would a
Caspar had waited there while I read it. He was only a servant, however elevated, and I strove to remain impassive under his gaze, with what success I know not. My joy was almost equalled by my wonder. To contrive to be included in the King's retinue at such short notice, and on a visit of state! It was barely three days since I had learned that I myself would be going. Once again it came to me how great must be her family's influence at court, though it could not be her father to exercise this in person, lost as he was in the darkness of his mind…
"Tell your mistress I shall not fail," I said.
He bowed and would have retired, but at the last moment it occurred to me to ask him how he had found me, how he had known it was here that I lived. He looked at me without expression for a moment or two, as if slightly at a loss, taken aback by my simplicity in asking such a question. Then he said, "We made enquiries. My lady thought it better her note should be delivered in private." With this, he bowed again and withdrew, leaving me, as always in my dealings with him, a prey to some wonder as to the nature of his duties and his standing in Alicia's household.
We went by ship from Palermo to Salerno and thence overland to Potenza.
There were eight of us in this advance party, the others all being members of the King's household sent ahead to help in the preparations for the royal arrival: a wardrobe mistress, two serving-women who kept very closely together at all times, two Norman serjeants-at-arms, made attempts to separate them, a Sicilian stable-master and a cellarman of Stephen Fitzherbert's, whom I knew slightly, a Greek named Cristodoulos, rather womanlike in his ways and modes of speech but very strong in the arms and chest from hefting barrels.
A mixed company – in normal circumstances we would not have had much to say to one another. But the arrival of King Louis on our shores had released a flood of gossip in Palermo and it formed the topic of our talk through much of the journey, though I said little myself, content for the most part to listen.
I learned nothing that was new to me, but I was made aware, yet again, how ready the humble are to rejoice at the mischance of the great, and how easily one kind of error is confused with another, as if they all belonged in the same box. Errors of one sort or another there had been in plenty in the calamitous two years that had elapsed since King Louis set out at the head of his Frankish army through Bavaria on the second crusade. He was twenty-six at that time, famous for his piety but not for much else – certainly not for strength of character or military capacity. Travelling with him was his wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine, the niece of Raymond, Prince of Antioch, the greatest heiress in France and as resolute – some would say wilful and some among the present company did – as her husband was hesitant. Already, according to some in their following, there was strain and ill-humour between these two.
The miserable story of the French king's vacillations and failures of judgement, culminating in the disastrous decision to commit his force to an attack on Damascus, were known to all, as were the terrible losses suffered in the retreat. What interested my travelling companions more were the months prior to this fiasco, in particular the time that the high-spirited and beautiful Eleanor and the devout and lugubrious Louis had spent in Antioch.
"We have to remember the troubles she had been through," the wardrobe mistress said. "We must not judge her too harshly." She was of those who, under the appearance of understanding and pardoning, insinuated strong disapproval for the queen's behaviour. "She had nearly been killed by those heathen Turks," she said. "She had nearly been wrecked at sea. It is no wonder that she was glad to reach Antioch and fall into the arms of her uncle, Prince Raymond."
"It was not only his arms she fell into," the stable master said. "She fell into his bed."
On this issue the company was divided, there being no evidence that Eleonor had slept with her uncle, but the majority thought it probable on the grounds that she had sought his company and made no secret of the fact that she preferred it to her husband's. "