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"It is here that the King has erred, and we thank God he is coming now to a better state of mind." For the first time there was harshness in Alboino's voice. "We have no need of balance," he said. "Balance is anathema. There can be no counter-weights, no scales. This Sicily is a Christian kingdom, it belongs in the universal congregation which we call Christendom. Do you know what Christendom is? Do you know what it means?"
My mind went back to the darkness at the foot of the steps below the Chapel, the hooded figure that waited me there. "That same question was asked me by Maurice Béroul when he was sent to bribe me."
"Was it so? And who is this Maurice Béroul?"
It seemed to me that the second question came a fraction too late after the first. I looked at the two as they sat there before me. They had seemed so different in my first impression, one from another. But it was a difference of the surface only. The Roman prelate and the Norman noble. One serving his Church, one serving his class, both bent on ousting the Saracen, both eager for the power and privilege that emanated from the throne. Perhaps something showed on my face – it was always a weakness of mine to show feeling too openly. I saw Alboino's nostrils draw down a little and his mouth tighten with arrogance or disdain. It was only a moment, like the briefest twitch of a mask. But in that moment I knew he felt himself above any judgement that one such as I might make of him. "Alicia's life is in your hands," he said. "It is only you that can save her." He drew from the folds of his habit a scroll tied with a thin cord. "They have appointed me to be the bearer of this."
Bertrand cleared his throat, a sound of startling loudness. He said, "My part is to guarantee your safety and the protection of your peers, as they will be – I will myself confer knighthood on you, and you will take your place in the rank you were born to. I know this has been your dearest wish. It is also within my power to grant you a fief, which you will hold in vassalage to me. Naturally also there will be a sum in gold, sufficient for the furnishings you will need. If you want to try your fortunes in the Holy Land, I will see that you are recommended. The Lord of Tripoli is my half-cousin. Once we have your signature on the document we can obtain the lady Alicia's release. You will wait for her at the palace of Favara. You will have my seal for your admittance. She will join you there. I give you my knightly word that no harm will come to her or to you. Now you will need time alone to consider."
They came with me, one on either side, in a ceremony of escort that belonged also to nightmare, back down the passage to the room where I had first waited. Someone had been busy: there were quills and an inkstand on the small table against the window. Here I seated myself, while they withdrew. Here I unfurled and read the document they had given me. It was a declaration that Yusuf Ibn Mansur, Lord of the Douana of Control, taking advantage of his position of authority, had on various occasions and over a course of several months, dates and times being specified, sought by bribes and promises of advancement to convert me to Islam, assuring me that this my conversion would be kept secret until the day that accounts were settled and the wrongs of the Moslems avenged in blood.
XXIII
The silence I experienced in that room was the most terrible of my life.
At first my mind was muffled by it, as by some soft wadding, keeping me from clear consideration of the words before me. But as the moments passed and the starkness of the choice became clearer, the oppression of the silence grew upon me, the wadding was stretched into strands of a web, and I was caught in it, a traitor already: for remaining there, for considering.
Every moment made the wrong more grievous. And yet I could not rise from the table. To do so was to abandon her to the jailor and the executioner. Perhaps it was not true that her life was in danger, or her father's life either, perhaps it was merely a subterfuge, to dupe me into betraying my benefactor. But if so, why had she not come to Potenza, why had she sent me no word since? No, she was being kept confined somewhere. Perhaps they had lied, perhaps Alboino knew where she was. As her uncle, he would have been able to use her trust in him, to lure her away to where she could be kept under guard, at least long enough for me to be persuaded to sign the document. In that case, she was in no danger, there was no treason, it was all a tissue of invention designed to frighten and coerce me. But how could I tell, how could I be sure? My mind crawled around like a fly inside a jar, seeking an exit. I had no one to turn to. And there was no time, I had to emerge from this place with the document signed or not, I had to abide by the consequences. How could I take the chance of it? How could I play at hazard with Alicia's life, when she had given me her love, promised to share that life with mine?
Her image came before my eyes, memories of our childhood meetings, snatched with such joy from the supervision of our elders and all the duties that beset us. I remembered her steadfastness and her trust in me and her loyalty – she had risked disgrace for my sake. The mind in travail will select one single image among many to cling to. There was a gown she wore that I remembered, very simple, a linen gown, pale blue in colour, gathered at the waist, with a high neck and a collar of white lace. The colour brought out the blue of her eyes… Then came the face and form of the woman she was now, who had returned to my life and filled it with promise, the marvellous moments of our meeting at Bari, her look of delighted recognition on that charmed ground, as she came riding towards me, as it seemed from the spaces of the sea that lay beyond. Had that encounter too been observed, reported back to the Roman Curia, as had her voice and laughter in the dimness of the courtyard, the touch of her hand on my head as I knelt before her, the kisses we had exchanged in the pavilion of Favara? If by signing I would save her, by signing I would also stand before her on equal terms: did I not have Bertrand's promise of knighthood, and a grant of land, and gold for my horses and my armour? It struck me now, with a bitterness that twisted my mouth like a physical taste, that all the honour I had striven for and despaired of, the fidelity I would have vowed my life to, could be purchased now by the slightest movement of my right hand in an act of betrayal. I know this has been your dearest wish. By what means had he discovered this? They must have found out and questioned the companions of my boyhood; one talked freely then of hopes and dreams.
As I look back on it now, the matter was foregone. It is true that I suffered. But the arguments I conducted with myself were not real arguments, they were only the motions of the fly in the jar, which ca
"I have heard Yusuf complaining of the treatment given to Moslems," I said. "I have heard him denounce the increasing influence of the Latin clergy and the Norman nobility. I have heard him say that civil war will be the result if the Arabs are denied ownership of land. To save Alicia and her family I am ready to sign to that effect, if the document could be written in a new form."
Thus basely did I try to save an appearance of virtue, even as I offered to play the part of traitor. I knew it for ignominy even as I spoke, knew at the same time that it would not suffice for them. Whether they possessed the power to change the document I had no means of knowing.