The Ruby In Her Navel

"Incest is incest," one of the serving-women said, "but as men there is no comparison. Prince Raymond is a proper man, he is handsome of face and well made and brave in battle and he knows how to talk to a woman. I like that same type of man myself."

There was general agreement as to these advantages of Raymond's, though none of us had ever set eyes on the prince. "And a great commander in the field," one of the serjeants said, "Which no one can say for King Louis."

"In my opinion, it was his endless praying and prostrating himself that set her against him," the stable master said. "It wore her down."

"She would have stayed there, she would have stayed in Antioch with her uncle," Christodoulos said. "She didn't want to go any farther. Louis had her dragged to the ship by force. She won't forgive him that. I wouldn't, if it was me. Well, would you?"

As I say, I took little part in these discussions, except to put in a few words now and again, so as not to seem to be assuming airs of superiority – otherwise, they would not have talked before me. By virtue of my office I knew some things they did not yet know. I knew that Eleonor was seeking a divorce. I knew that her beloved uncle, abandoned by Louis, had been killed some three weeks before in what many regarded as a suicidal assault on the Turkish host – he had attacked Nureddin's army with four hundred knights and less than a thousand footsoldiers. I knew that his skull had been sent in a silver box to the caliph of Baghdad as a proof that this great enemy of Islam was truly dead. And I knew that Eleanor had recently learned these things and been grief-stricken, and that she laid the blame on her husband, who in his jealousy had denied to her uncle the support of the Franks in defending Antioch.

None of this presaged well for the marriage, and I was privately convinced that the two would not remain much longer together, though it was rumoured that one last bid was to be made: after leaving Potenza they were to journey to Tusculanum, where Pope Eugenius was currently residing, and ask for spiritual guidance. The outcome of the Holy Father's advice was of concern to me insofar as it might affect the prospects of an alliance between France and Sicily, but I did not think it could touch on my personal fortunes, not then.

By the end I was weary of the journey and of the company and of the incessant howling of wolves in the hills around Potenza, and I was relieved to see the donjon of the castle before me on its rise of ground. It was early evening, still light. The watchman on the wall saw us as we came up to the stockade, the bars of the gate were unfastened and we passed over the drawbridge and into the gatehouse, where the iron door had been raised for us – it was a sliding door of very new invention, that could be raised or lowered by a winch above. I noticed that the men-at-arms at the gatehouse, in addition to axe and javelin, carried steel crossbows, a weapon that had been expressly forbidden by the Lateran Council of ten years before as being too powerful and murderous; in the hands of one who knew how to use it such a bow could kill a man at a distance of four hundred paces. This was the castle of Vincent de Faye, lord of Potenza, who held his fief in vassalage of King Roger – only the strongest barons could so soon flout the interdiction of the Church. But I did not believe that a weapon so effective could be suppressed for long, and thought it likely that another decade would see it in general use.

At the gatehouse we separated, some going through into the courtyard beyond. I was led away from the others and taken by a little stairway to a room in the wall itself. It was small but I was pleased with it because it had a narrow aperture in the wall on the side that looked over the town and a short bench below this so that one could sit in the light. I have always hated rooms that have no daylight reaching into them; one of the things I had most coveted and most hoped to inherit was Yusuf's window.

There was a stout oak bar on the door, always a welcome sight to a pursebearer, and this I set in place before turning my attention to anything else. The bed had been made up for me and I saw with approval that side rails were fitted, so that the ends were braced and the covers and mattress prevented from slipping off, no matter how much I should thresh about in my sleep; in fact on closer inspection the practised eye of Thurstan the Traveller noted that there were several mattresses, not just one, and they were all padded and the top one stuffed with feathers. There was an oil lamp, a bronze candlestick with a good wax candle, a small rug rolled against the wall, a thin plank on trestles with on it a basin and ewer, and a towel hanging from a hook in the wall; the water in the ewer was clean and the ewer was closed at the top so as to keep the water fresh; the towel also was clean, and sweet-smelling.

Everything was in good order. It was no more than the usual care for a guest but at once I thought of Alicia – perhaps it was her doing. I wondered which room had been set aside for her. As a favoured guest she would be in an upper storey of the tower, some distance away, not easy to reach without being observed. But if it were true that she had sent orders for the preparation of my room, perhaps she had been able to arrange for her own to be nearby, just a few steps away… It was not long to wait, King Roger was expected from day to day. I would take her in my arms, press her to me, feel her warm and breathing presence. It seemed long now since she had walked away from me through the trees at Favara, briefly seen against the firelight then lost among the shadows at the landing stage. I felt the need, not now to revive or restore our love, but to keep it firm in our life of the present, where my hold was precarious and my knowledge of her less. To keep her before me in the times we were apart, I fell back on memories of her when we were children, growing up together and loving as we grew.

This castle of Potenza was larger than that of Richard of Bernalda, the donjon had three storeys and there were outbuildings. But all was familiar as I stood there, the gleam of light on the worn stone, the smell of the rushes that had been laid on the floor, the sounds that came from outside, clatter of mailed men moving on the battlements above, barnyard sounds from the kitchen courtyard, the distant whi

Here I had stood, those years ago, with beating heart, listening for her steps. And here it was fitting we should exchange our vows, the verba de praesenti et futuro, that in the eyes of the church would bind us in the sacrament of marriage.

At the approach of darkness a man servant, elderly and slow in movement, came with supper for me on a tray, grilled fish and boiled vegetables and a pint of new wine. My room was a good distance from the kitchens and my servitor had taken his time, so the food was far from hot, but it was good, or seemed so to me – I had not eaten since the morning. The dining hall was being made ready for the royal visit, he told me – there was word that King Roger and his party would arrive the day after next in the morning. He lit the lamp, asked me if I lacked for anything and slowly retired, with me at his heels as far as the door so I could bar it after him.

I was not sorry to be left alone. I was not much inclined to go abroad while I still had the money. And I wanted to take the time slowly and keep my hopes for these next days gathered warm around me.

I was reading the memoirs of Abbot Guibert of Nogent and had come to the events in Laon in 1112, when the merchants of the city were seeking to band themselves together into a commune, and commute the dues they owed to the lords and the clergy. They had bribed the bishop to give them his support and free them from his jurisdiction, but when the time came he went back on his word and decided to keep the money and keep his powers too. However, the people rose against him. Besieged in his palace by the enraged populace, he dressed in the clothes of one of his servants and took refuge in the warehouse of the church, creeping into an empty barrel there. But he was discovered and dragged forth and in spite of all his pleas and promises very barbarously done to death with a sword stroke that opened his skull and spilled out his brains. Guibert describes this fearsome wound very vividly and also the mutilations and indignities inflicted on the body afterwards, but what struck me most in reading were the things not explained in the text. What had betrayed the trembling bishop in his barrel? Who cut off the dead man's finger to take the episcopal ring? Did no one dispute his possession of it? The murderer is named, Bernard de Bruyéres. And strange it seemed to me that a man's name would endure only for one cut with a sword when those whose lives are full of good works lie nameless and forgotten below the ground.