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XXVIII
I never saw Spaventa again. He died in the hands of his questioners, but not before yielding names. Atenulf and Wilfred were arrested and racked in their turn, as also was the Lombard mosaic-worker who had set the scaffolding in place. Gerbert succeeded in escaping to Swabia, where he was well-received and later became Father Confessor to Prince Otto.
These things I learned only later. I was still keeping to my rooms. I wanted no company, the feelings of weakness and illness were increasing on me.
Two days later the royal summons came, brought to me in person by Stephen Fitzherbert, Steward of the King's Household, which was already a sign that I was well-viewed, as was also Fitzherbert's extreme affability towards me. He was a weather-vane of a man, always turning in the breeze of the King's favour. Had the occasion been different he would no doubt have sneered at the poverty of my dwelling.
He waited below while I made ready. I had neglected to shave for a good many days now and had a short beard, which I decided to keep as not unbecoming – vanity persisted in me despite my wretchedness. Now it was only a question of choosing clothes that were not presumptuous in finery, but sober and of good quality, not such a difficult choice but one that seemed heavy to me that day. The uncertainty of balance I had felt on learning the ma
There was more to my reluctance than this. There were clothes in my chest that I could hardly bear to look at, let alone put on, those I had worn on my first visit to Favara, for example. And anything in which I had once taken pride bore in its folds the sound of Yusuf's voice and the look of his face when he complimented me on my appearance. Finally I chose a suit of dark brown velvet, unadorned with tassels or brocade, one I had possessed for a good while and was gone a little out of fashion, with pads on the shoulders and a waist that was gathered in.
Fitzherbert rode with me, talking all the while in his high voice, interspersing Sicilian phrases with his French – it was the practice now at court to use Sicilian in this way, for a colloquial effect. He was full of compliments for me. It seemed that my disabling of Spaventa had not been the fear-stricken blundering that I remembered, but intrepid and heroic and extraordinarily quick-witted and prompt. "To see the threat that no other saw, to make that leap of mind, it was brilliant, everybody says so," he gushed. "And then to confront him in that ma
By everybody he meant those at court who had learned of it. But I was glad for his talking in this strain, it kept him from reference to Yusuf. I said little in reply, but he did not mind this, being highly content with the sound of his own voice. When we reached the palace I was delivered to the care of the Household Guard, who escorted me to an anteroom in the royal apartments, and here I waited some while. It was Giova
I stopped in the doorway and made a reverence that brought my forehead not far above the marble of the floor. And I heard the King's voice, loud, with some hoarseness in it: "Let him come forward alone."
He spoke in French but it was not the language of my fathers, it had the accents of the south. The guards fell back from me, but still for some moments I remained where I was, body inclined and eyes cast down.
"Come forward, Thurstan Beauchamp." The voice was softer now. "Come forward here to me."
I walked forward and rarely have I felt so alone as on that walk, as if I were in some desert place, under a vast and empty sky. I stood at the foot of the steps and still I did not look at him, but glanced beyond to the figures behind him and saw Gilbert of Bolsavo there, Master Constable Designate, whom I had last seen riding behind the King into the castle of Potenza. There were two with him, very splendid in the livery of his retainers, and one of these bore a sheathed sword laid flat in his gloved hands.
"Closer yet," the voice said.
It was not awe that kept my gaze from his face, though he would have taken it for such. I think it was a kind of fear, not of his person or his power, but of finding confirmed the misgivings I harboured in my heart. The plans that had been laid for my entrapment and my coercion into treachery, these he would not know – they were the devices of the spiders. But Yusuf's death, the ma
"My beloved subject, up here to me," he said, and he raised a hand and beckoned.
I mounted the steps until I was immediately below him. Here I knelt – it was too close for standing. How often I had dreamed of kneeling thus before him, to hear at last his praise for my devotion and feel my soul absolved by this praise for all the things I had said and done in his service.
"We thank you from a full heart," the voice said above me. "We have been told of your courage and your quickness of mind. If all his subjects were of your temper, the King would need have no fear of foes." His voice had broken slightly on these last words and when he spoke again it was more quickly and warmly. "Thou hast earned the King's gratitude and he will not forget."
I had not raised my eyes again to his face after that slipping and distortion. I was looking at his hands, which were broad in the palm and had black hair on the knuckles. I saw them make a very quick and sudden movement upwards, saw them go behind his neck to the silver chain that held the ruby. He leaned forward and placed the pendant round my neck and I felt the touch of his hands as he fastened it. His face was close to my own and there was a sweetness to his breath like that which comes from keeping sugared comfits in the mouth.
"You will learn what it means, the King's gratitude," he said, in tones more sonorous and measured now. "This that I place round your neck is but a token."