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"So the work will be abandoned. If such a scholar as he, after so many years…"
"Abandoned?" He surveyed me across the table, the usual gleam of irony in his brown eyes. "There is another already appointed to continue the work. It is just this continuing that matters most to our King Roger. So long as the search continues, the thing sought for can be said to exist.
If it did not exist, it would not be sought for."
I had my doubts of this on the plane of logic, except in the negative formulation that it could not be said not to exist. But I knew better than to take him up on it; he was subtle and quick-witted in argument like many Greeks, and very tenacious for so mild a man; an issue of this sort could occupy the rest of the evening, and I was likely to have the worst of it. "Well," I said, "however that may be, to abandon the quest is to admit defeat and so our good King is right to continue in it."
"There is something else you may not have heard, good news this time, a reprieve. That evening of the day you left Potenza word was brought to the King that the Serbs have risen in revolt against the Byzantine yoke.
They are supported by Hungarian mounted archers, who have crossed the border in what is said to be large numbers. Whatever the numbers, Manuel Comnenus will be forced to take action to quell the uprising, and by the time he restores order – if indeed he succeeds in doing so – winter will be upon us, the seas will be rough, all thoughts of invading Sicily will have to be abandoned, for this year at least."
"That is good news indeed." I thought of Lazar's face as I had last seen it, in the tavern at Bari, full of rage at being refused the expected payment. I remembered my self-contempt as I sat on there, after he had left. Whether this rebellion was his doing could not be known for certain. But he would claim the credit, there was little doubt of that.
And with the credit, the reward. Another journey for Thurstan the Pursebearer, more clinking of coin. But of course, if my hopes were realised I would be Thurstan the Pursebearer no longer… "Our work has borne fruit at last," I said.
There was a pause while I resisted Maria's urging to eat more of the pastries, her third or fourth attempt at this; I wanted to please her but had no space left in me even for a crumb.
Stefanos passed the wine. "There is not much else to hearten us in recent events," he said. "This failure of the crusade has brought much harm in its wake. Conrad Hohenstaufen, who calls himself the Emperor of the Romans and claims title to Italy, cut an execrable figure, having lost his entire army and only saved his own skin by fleeing the field.
This has called into question his God-given right, as he sees it, to be the sword and shield of Christendom in the west. And now here is our King Roger, who took no part in the crusade whatsoever, putting himself forward as the champion of Christianity, in alliance with Louis of France. Conrad has always hated our King as a usurper of his ancestral lands. He will hate him all the more now as a usurper of his imperial prerogatives. Such hatred ca
I thought for some moments. Yusuf had spoken of this, with a passion unusual in him, but he had been speaking of a gradual process of loss and subjection. Other than this, what was there? I had been so much concerned with myself of late, first there had been Favara and the exchange of promises, then the presenting of the dancers and the turmoil of my feelings for Nesrin, then Potenza and the waiting and the disappointment… "No," I said. "As you know, I have been away a good deal lately."
"Perhaps it is also because you live in a better neighbourhood." He smiled, saying this, to take any suspicion of grievance out of the words. "I mean less mixed," he said. "Here we live cheek by jowl with Arabs, we see them at the markets, we chat together sitting outside our houses in the warm evenings, we use the language of the Cala, which is also mixed – like the people. We bought this house with Maria's dowry and we have lived here for thirty years, since before King Roger was king at all. But now friendship is more difficult for all of us. "
"Why is that?"
"The failure of the crusade, the ma
"But that is unjust. Any cases of insult or violence should be reported to the officers of the Royal Diwan and brought before the King's Justiciars."
Stefanos smiled, and there was much affection for me in this smile. He shook his head. "Thurstan, I will say this to you, and it is something I have often thought before and not permitted myself to say because you are in greater authority at the Diwan, but you are young enough to be my son and I wish nothing but your good, so you will not take it amiss. You are too straight a man for the crooked ways they make you walk. It is not that your mind is simple, but you are not pliable, you are too frank in your feelings and open-hearted, you have too much need for belief in those you serve. The need for belief is a mark of i
It would not be different if you stayed another twenty years in the palace service, except that you would grow always more unhappy as belief became more difficult to maintain. "
"And you?"
"I have never had this need, not since the days of my childhood." A trace of the smile still remained on his face, but his eyes were serious as he regarded me. "The King does not see what happens in the streets of the Cala, should I decline to serve him on that account? Should I lose my stipend and be reduced to beggary because the King closes his eyes?
Even if he saw he would take no heed. Why should he? Does it threaten the peace of the realm or the safety of the throne?"
He paused for a moment and lowered his head, as if taking counsel with himself. When he looked up the accustomed light of irony had returned to his face. He said, "The world is changing, and the King's justice must keep pace. He is always just, naturally, but his justice is exercised on varying objects. Just now it is directed to appearing as the champion of Christendom at home and abroad, strengthening the ties with France and gaining the good will of Pope Eugenius so that his rule may be recognised in Rome. It does not consort with the King's justice at this present time to show clemency towards the Moslems or defend their rights. Rather he will wish to show himself severe towards them."
I was taken aback by these words of his, coming as they did from one who had spent his life in faithful service to the King. He had never spoken in such a way before, some recklessness had come to him, perhaps, I thought, released by his frankness about my qualities of character. I took no exception to this last, because I knew he was swayed by affection for me, though I privately thought myself more sinuous of mind and more versed in the ways of the world than he gave me credit for. But he had spoken of the King as one might speak of any mortal, his tone had verged on disrespect, almost he had impugned the King's constancy…
And now, as I hesitated over my reply, he went even further. "As for these reverend Justiciars," he said, "they will look grave and purse up their lips and put their finger-tips together and then proceed to deliver the judgement that their royal master desires."
"We have known some like that," I said, speaking in haste to forestall more words from him, "but I believe them to be a small number. I have been wondering about the Anatolians. I suppose by now they will be well on the way towards home."