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Alboino had said that Guy of Morcone, Alicia's father, had also taken part in this rebellion, but there was no mention of his name here. It was this Stephen Gallicanus who had been singled out by the King and ordered to remove with his own hands his lord's putrefying body from the tomb where it was laid and to tie the rope round the neck of the corpse so that it could be dragged through the streets.
The feeling of horror returned to me, together with the nausea that always accompanied it. This desecration had been at the command of the King. And what of that done to Yusuf? It could not be more than a few weeks since he had compiled the information contained here. His own death had been designed already, by Bertrand and his fellow-Normans, by Alboino and those in the Curia who had sent him, by Alicia and probably her brothers. This dragging of Rainulf in his grave shroud was a fearsome prefiguring of the end that was so shortly to be his.
Rinaldo Gallicanus was not much older than myself. He would have been barely twenty at the time of Rainulf's rebellion. Yusuf had inserted a question: Did he witness the public outrage done to his father? It was not known, but there was likelihood of it in the light of the young man's subsequent course of life. He had left his home in Apulia and travelled to Germany, where after some passage of time he had entered the monastery of Groze on the Mosel, taking the name of Wilfred. Among this community was Gerbert, who subsequently served at the Papal Court and was soon to be appointed Rector of the Enclave of Benevento. These two had travelled to Sicily at an interval of some months, Gerbert to work for an extension of the Pope's prerogatives in the appointment of bishops, Wilfred to take employment as keeper of the palace archives.
The report on Wilfred ended here but there was a note in another hand stating that the post of archivist had been obtained on the recommendation of Atenulf the Lombard, Lord of the Office of the King's Fame, who considered the compiling and preserving of archives to fall within the province of this Office. Yusuf had appended a comment here: As also no doubt the altering or destroying of them.
Further notes followed, also written by Yusuf, based on the material in the report, speculating in particular on the fact that all three of these men had come from Germany. There was the sketch of an equilateral triangle, with the three names at the angles and words of co
As I say, this writing was small, and I postponed the reading of it for a little while, turning to the sheets that followed. All the time I was looking for Alicia's name, feeling sure that Yusuf, once knowing that the meeting in Bari had been deliberately contrived, would have set people on to watch her and find out what they could about her past. But she was not here among these names, Yusuf had not made the same mistake as I – there was nothing to co
I found her in the entry concerning Bertrand of Bo
My last defence was stripped away by this reading, my last attempt to attenuate her treachery. There had been no threat to her life or to any member of her family, there had been no forcing of her. My bitterness returned, the sense of having been treated cruelly, like some tender-ski
To escape from these thoughts I turned back among the sheets until I found again the sketch of the triangle. Yusuf had drawn lines which went out at right angles from the exact centre of each side. I saw that these lines were designed to show co
Below the line was a briefer note: Tostheim-Augsburg 6 leagues. Tostheim was Atenulf's birthplace, his father's lands were there – this much I knew. No date was given, but it was natural that a son should sometimes return to the home of his parents. A simple matter, in the course of one such visit, to travel those leagues. Departure and return would be scarcely noticed. Natural also that a prelate of high degree like Gerbert, with his knowledge of the language and his experience of the country, should be chosen to bear missives from Rome to the King of the Germans…
I sat back, staring straight before me. These two events might have coincided – that must be what Yusuf had meant by drawing only the single line. That would mean that on a certain day in the early summer of this present year Atenulf and Gerbert had been at Augsburg together in the royal presence. Render unto Caesar. Who was Caesar now, I had asked myself. There was an answer here. He who hated King Roger with a mortal hatred as usurper of his lands and powers. He who had himself crowned King of Italy at Monza at a time when he still possessed no more than a German Dukedom. He was Caesar and heir to all the Caesars, in his own eyes at least, grandson and nephew of Emperors, bent on the Roman Imperial title and the lands of Italy conquered and held in subjection by Charlemagne. Conrad of Hohenstaufen. Was it for him I had carried the purse?
XXVII
There was still nothing to do but wait. I could not go with such a story to the Justiciars or the Curia Regis. There was no definite evidence of a plot, no evidence that Atenulf had made the journey from Tostheim to Augsburg or that Gerbert had sought an audience with Conrad or that the times had coincided. If I made accusations now, my own part in carrying the money would come into question. Moreover, the plan – if indeed there was one – would be abandoned; some other means, some other time, would be found.
It was still no more than suspicion but it was with me while I measured out the time of waiting. It was a prospect of action, it helped to save me from the misery of dwelling on the past – by day at least. At night it was otherwise; I was sleeping badly and would wake sweating from dreams of gleaming water and looming, distorted shapes, and the nausea would return to me. Caterina brought me food but I had no appetite for it. As the day approached a passion of desire grew in me that I should be proved right, that I might recover a particle of self-regard as one who was not always duped, might even win some small degree of pardon from Yusuf, since these had been his suspicions too. It came to me in the fevers of my sleep that he and I were joined again, together again in understanding, and I had brief happiness in this, though we were united not in friendship but in suspicion, the common sentiment of the Diwan.