The Ruby In Her Navel

Some moments more I hesitated. Then I continued along the wall, moving quickly now. I rounded the apse and came to the workshop adjoining the Chapel where I had found Demetrius on the last occasion I had seen him.

By great good fortune the door was unbarred. Inside there was a man who I afterwards learned was in attendance on Lupinus. I saw two ladders, one lying flat, the other, longer one, propped against the wall. Whether the man was daunted by my sudde

Great care was needed now by the stranger inside my skin. I set the ladder against the wall, alongside the window, striving to make no sound as I lowered it into place. Then, step by step, I mounted. The sill was easily deep enough, as I had thought, for me to leave the ladder and lodge there on my knees, still without making any sound. But this same depth of sill prevented me from seeing immediately into the enclosure of the curtain, which was not set exactly before the window as I had supposed, but a little to one side of it. I had to edge forward and insert my head and shoulders through the aperture before I could see inside.

He was sitting with his back to the window and there was a crossbow on the planks beside him. I think he had been peering through the join in the curtain, but he heard me now or sensed me there or perhaps it was that my body blocked the light because he was turning already and his hand was at his belt. Even before I saw his face I knew him, that exquisite moulding of the head, the short black hair like the fur of some mammal. He gave me now a fearsome demonstration of his promptness; the dagger was in his hand without my seeing the movement that brought it there. He turned as he drew it, still crouching, and the movement, the shifting of his weight, caused the platform to rock a little, he had to pause, to steady himself, before he could lunge at me.

This pause it was that saved my life, or so I think now. I was half-in and half-out of the window. My arms were confined – I could not get at my knife. If I tried to withdraw he would cut my throat before I could get back to the ladder. There was only one thing to do and the terror I was in made me do it quickly. I shouted with all the force of my lungs and I launched myself forward head first, arms flailing, hoping to get to grips with him before he could use the dagger, a forlorn hope, I knew it, he was poised to strike as I came. But this heavy fall of my body slipped the rope that was holding the nearer corner of the platform, it swung free, the platform tilted sharply. Spaventa, still in his crouch, dagger still in hand, was precipitated backward through the parting in the curtain and disappeared from view. I felt myself sliding after him and grabbed at a fold in the silk. It held, I was left dangling there, half enveloped in the curtain, a ridiculous sight, I have no doubt of it – though at that moment I was very far from considering the effect on the spectators.

Lupinus was there below me. His eyes were starting out of his head as he looked up: he had heard my bellowing, seen one man come flying out of the curtain, another left hanging there. A man was sent for the ladder I had left outside, and I descended, much shaken. Spaventa had landed on lilies but they had not sufficed to break his fall. He was on his back, looking up to the ceiling. His right foot was turned outwards at an u

I came to stand near him, not too near, and he transferred his gaze from the ceiling to my face. "The pursebearer," he said. "You bore me ill fortune. I should have killed you at Potenza, when it came into my mind to do it."

"Your days of killing are over," I said. Even now, in the way his eyes fastened on me and his grip tightened on the knife, there was something in him that daunted me and overbore my spirit, and I turned away from him without speaking more.

What followed is soon told. Others had gathered, as happens strangely quickly when there is accident or injury. I recounted the part I had played, though briefly: my suspicions of the shrouded platform, placed as it was to overlook the King's viewing place, my decision to investigate, my discovery of the assassin. Lupinus bore me out in much of this and I was thankful now that I had spoken to him.

Since it touched on the safety of the King's person, word was sent to the palace guard and four came, with a captain in charge of them. The crossbow, and a single bolt – all Spaventa had deemed necessary – were recovered from the folds of the silk where they had rested. Spaventa himself, white to the lips but completely silent, was lifted on to a litter and we all, including Lupinus and the man who had seen me take the ladder and the three women who had been bringing in the flowers, were escorted, first to the Precentor of the Chapel, then afterwards, and with him also now part of the company, before the Magister Justiciar at the Vice-Chancery, Robert of Cellaro.

Here the story was repeated, once again I was supported in my account by the witnesses. Afterwards I asked for a private audience, and this was accorded me. It was the Magister himself who heard me and my words were taken down by his notary. I told of my earlier suspicions, the request that had come from the Curia Regis to our Diwan to furnish the purse, the false story I had been told by Atenulf and Wilfred, my meeting with Spaventa at Potenza and the delivery of the money, his unguarded words which I had afterwards construed into an intention to murder the King on this Sunday, the day of Transfiguration.

I did not speak of Yusuf Ibn Mansur and our talks together concerning this mission of mine to Potenza. I did not utter his name at all. Nor did I speak of my discovery of the secret compartment and my reading of the documents kept there, with their strong suggestion that Conrad Hohenstaufen was the inspirer of this plot and perhaps also the paymaster. Even if it were true that my betrayal of Yusuf was not common knowledge, it was beyond all doubt that this corpulent and pale-faced man who was the King's Chief Justiciar, who listened so impassively to my words, knew the traitor's part I had played. He would have been there with those who tried Yusuf, if trial it could be called; it would have been he who delivered the judgement, appointed the punishment, saw it carried out. But there was an authority greater than his in the Kingdom of Sicily, one that made use of his voice and his eyes, one who would require to be told that all had gone well…

For the rest, I was as full and frank as I knew how to be, judging it the safer course. Spaventa would be put to the question and he would give names, mine among others. Attempting to conceal that I had carried the purse to him would have been far more dangerous than admitting it. I had acted in good faith, I laid emphasis on that. And it was I, after all, who had frustrated this malignant design.

I was kept under guard for a good while afterwards, though why so long I do not know – perhaps they had found others to question. During the time I was held there King Roger, from his viewing place in the north transept, celebrated the Day of Christ's Transfiguration, and there was no trace on the wall opposite of anything that might offend his sight.