The Ruby In Her Navel

With the news of the royal party's approach, the gates were opened, the portcullis was raised – the creak and grind of the chains as they drew it up was to my excited senses the music of Alicia's arrival. As I stood there – joined now by others who had mounted the walls – I felt a need for the sight of her that was almost painful. To see her was to believe again in my own life. She would come and she would redeem my life and join the past together, broken as it was, like a fractured limb that she would bind up and make whole, bone and blood and tissue. Only later was it to come to me how grossly, in my concern to mend my own life, I had failed to take into account that hers too might be damaged, broken. That day, as I stood waiting there, such thoughts were far from my mind. In the time of our first love I had thought of my life and hers as pure, unmixed. There was one aim, one course of action, everything was in keeping: a knight's son, a knight's daughter, the same class, the same thoughts for the future…

There was a light breeze, the pe

Glancing up, I saw a pair of hawks, high in the sky, in lazy flight.

Something must have alarmed or enraged the fowl in the kitchen garden because there was a sudden outcry from there. When this died down I heard the hooves of the horses on the road and saw the dust from the mailed men that were riding ahead of the King. I saw them pass through the stockade gate and heard the clatter they made on the lowered bridge.

The King came next behind, mounted on a white horse with a silver harness, as on the day of his coronation twenty years ago, when my father had lifted me up to see him. But I had not seen his face then, and I did not now, he rode beneath a canopy of scarlet silk – Atenulf's invention, as it was said. I saw nothing of him but the grip of his legs on the horse's flanks as he covered the space from the stockade wall and disappeared in his turn below the overhang of the gatehouse. My eyes went eagerly to those following. I saw them enter in twos and threes, saw them reach the bridge, heard them pass into the gatehouse. They rode in order of rank, the Cardinal Bishop of Santa Rafina, Gilbert of Bolvaso, Master Constable Designate, with his lady, behind these the King's notary, Giova

XXI

The disappointment was too keen to be borne in its fullness. I snatched at hopes: she had been delayed, she would arrive later. But the hours passed and she did not come. In the afternoon the French King arrived, his wife at his side, escorted by Saracen troops from the garrison at Brindisi. I saw the Queen's face as she passed below me, and she was beautiful and held her head very proudly, but the sight of this much celebrated Eleanora of Aquitaine meant little to me at that moment, my heart was heavy, my last hopes of Alicia's coming were ebbing away. No one in King Roger's following had sought me out with a message from her, there was no one I could ask. Something had happened to prevent her, something sudden and unforeseen – if she had known of it in time she would have sent word. I thought of her brother Adhemar and what she had said about his hostility to our marriage. Perhaps there were others, acting in concert with him…

My misery increased as the day wore on, and to darken my mood even further was the fact that I was not among those invited to the royal banquet in the Great Hall that evening, but had to be content to sup in a much smaller room, ill-lighted and further from the kitchens with for company the serjeants-at-arms I had taken ship with from Palermo, a number of lesser palace officials who had come in the King's party and some Pisan merchants who had nothing whatever to do with this meeting of monarchs but were seeking trade concessions from the lord of Potenza. I tried to keep myself apart as much as I could, eating little, not sharing in the talk. I knew with bitterness that if Alicia had come and our intention to marry been declared I would not have been treated thus; at that very moment I would have been sitting in the light, among the nobility, with my betrothed by my side.

Of the talk among us at table I can remember almost nothing. As I say, I took small part in it. One of the Pisans, too coarse-grained to notice my dejection, spoke to me about the great benefits to commerce brought about by the crusades, benefits to which the recent defeat, he said, made no smallest difference, rather the contrary, creating a market in Europe for luxury goods from the east, bringing closer the trade links with Constantinople and the Byzantine Empire. "And those that are settled there," he said, "the Frankish states in the Holy Land, they are in need of weapons and supplies. Constant need, you understand me? And what is the best way to transport them, these weapons and supplies? I will tell you, my friend. The best and safest way is by sea. We of Pisa are well placed."

As I was about to rise from the table, the knight who had saved the peace among us the previous day entered the room and came to me. Seeing that I had finished eating and was ready to leave, he asked if he might have some words of talk with me. I had no desire for this, I wanted only to retire to my chamber and nurse my unhappiness there: I was too cast down even to feel much curiosity as to his purposes. But it would have been churlish to refuse, especially after all his courtesy towards me.

We walked for a little while together on the cobbled stretch of ground between the i

The night was dark, there was only the lantern set in the postern gate to see by, and this gave hardly light enough for us to make out each other's faces. From somewhere close by, up towards the battlements, there came the hooting of an owl, a sound that seemed, in my present wretchedness, to pour mockery on me and my singing both. "I did not think King Louis had a taste for songs," I said.

"Nor does he, unless they are sacred in character and preferably sung in church. To say truth, he does not have a taste for anything that lifts the heart or raises the spirits. No, it is she that is the lover of music."

The darkness seemed to press upon me. The desire of solitude grew stronger. I said, "Sir, I am not in the best of spirits tonight, and my understanding is slow. I ca

"Bear with me a while longer and I will make all clear to you. I am speaking now in confidence, which I know you will respect. I am Robert of Talmont and I am the Queen's man, not the King's – I have spent most of my life at the court of Aquitaine. I was present when they married in the Cathedral of Bordeaux, and I was in her following when she accompanied Louis to Paris to reign as queen. You will know that things are not well between them – there has even been talk of a divorce. There are those who would wish this, for the sake of a some private advantage.

But any who have the peace and safety of France at heart will want this marriage to endure. I have thought that in a small way – but small things can lead to great ones – you might help in this."

This seemed such an extraordinary idea that it distracted me for a moment from my gloom. "Help in it? How in the world could I help in it?"