The Ruby In Her Navel

XIX

That same day I went to Yusuf and gave him a full account.

"So Wilfred sought to settle the matter with four words of Latin," he said. "That is very typical of the Roman clergy. For them, Latin is the magic formula. No matter what the problem, by expressing it in Latin you have solved it before you reach the verb. And this faith is founded on the very thing that should give them pause, the fact that so few words are needed. Latin is excellent for inscriptions on tombstones, where space is lacking. But no one should dream that such conciseness serves the interests of truth, rather the opposite is the case, truth is obscured because no room is left for doubt. The Arabic language is far superior, it is looser and more ample. We do not see truth as a dead butterfly to pin down, we follow the path of its flight through the fields and forests where it lives. "

He was silent for some moments while the pleasure these comparisons had caused him faded from his face. "Wilfred of Aachen," he said. "Wilfred of Aachen was for some years a monk at the monastery of Groze on the Moselle. Among the community there was Gerbert, who has had great advancement since and is soon to become the Pope's Rector at Benevento, a very important post, which is in the grant of the Roman Curia, but usually given to an Italian, not a German."

"Perhaps in his native place there are those to recommend him."

"Yes, perhaps so."

I had not told Yusuf of my meeting with Gerbert and his companions in the Royal Chapel, not thinking it of any importance, but I had told him of seeing Gerbert and Atenulf in close conversation together in the courtyard of the church of San Giovanni, and I think this was in his mind now, though he made no direct mention of it. "Perhaps it is so," he said again. "We will try to learn more of this prelate, I have the feeling that he will repay our scrutiny, also the archivist. It may be no more than chance, but there is the form of a triangle in it, and I have found that rarely comes by chance."

"A triangle?"

"Gerbert and Atenulf, Atenulf and Wilfred, Wilfred and Gerbert."

It seemed to me more in the nature of a circle, but I did not say so. "I see, yes. Well, as I have told you, lord, they were very unwilling to explain their purposes."

"Of course, you made it a matter of your own dignity, you did not declare you were acting on my orders."

"How did you know this, lord?"

"I did not exactly know it, but I know you, my fine fellow. Well, it makes no difference. They were expecting you to insist, whatever the reason. They would have been disappointed if you had not."

I stared at him. "Disappointed?"

"They knew well that Yusuf Ibn Mansur would require to know these things before releasing money through his own chancery."

"But if they knew it, why play these games?"

"It was not exactly a game, or at least not one that is played for amusement only. Think, Thurstan, my young man. Must I be for ever giving you lessons? These years with me and still lacking in suspicion? Or is it that your mind was on other things?"

As I looked at him now in silence, at a loss as to how to reply, it came to me that my mind had indeed been on other things and that this was something useless to speak of to Yusuf, he would never understand because he would never be seduced by his imagination. Perhaps Atenulf was cleverer than I had thought, cleverer than he wanted known. The gifted and versatile Spaventa, the demon-led traitor sawing at the chains, the King in his silver barge…

"You are full of duty," Yusuf said, "and you are careful to fulfil orders, and you are brave, but you are too open, too sunny, you must cultivate the flower of suspicion, which is a shade-loving plant. Many qualities serve us who serve the King, intelligence of deduction, instinct of the creature, wisdom of experience. But two things are essential above all others, and they are faithfulness and suspicion, and no amount of the one can make up for a lack in the other. Why the delay, why the reluctance? Come out of the sun and think."

"Yes, of course. By their seeming unwilling I would be the more likely to believe."

"Exactly. In this our world a readiness to speak is taken for the mark of the liar. You had paid a price, you see. You had asserted yourself against Atenulf's greater authority, you had insisted in face of his displeasure. We always value more what we have paid for, is it not so?

And the conclusion of all this?"

"If they wanted me so much to believe it…"

"It is the less likely to be true, yes. Good, we are coming closer. But we must not fall into the opposite error of supposing it to be false. It is in accord with Atenulf's care for the King's fame. We must simply keep in mind that the reason they have given may not be the true one."

"Then the money may be intended for some other purpose?"

"It is possible, yes. And since the payment is to be made through the accounts of our Office… you see?"

"Yes, I see well. We may be held to account for the use to which it is put."

"There were two of them. Why was Wilfred needed? As I understand from you, he did not take much part in it. But the oaths of two weigh against the oath of one, if it comes to swearing. We can be sure no one else has made public mention of this money or this mission. So it might in the end be made to seem that the purposes were ours from the beginning. And since we cannot know for certain what these purposes are…"

He paused at this and narrowed his eyes and thrust out his hands with the palms upwards, as if to receive some blessing or guidance from above. "Only God sees equally the hidden and the revealed. There are those who work against us, who would wish to see me discredited. We are watched by famished eyes, Thurstan, the eyes of wolves. They want me dead, but it is not only that: they want this Diwan. They would fall on it, dismember it, tear it limb from limb, sharing out the powers and prerogatives that belong to us and gorging on them. The Royal Diwan is not a monument, it is not like a castle with strong walls, it has no defence but the King's favour. Chanceries are born and die, they unite and divide, they come into being or cease to be at the will of the King – and those close to him. If our enemies succeed, the diwan al-tahqiq al-ma'mur will exist no more, not even as a memory. We must judge it safer now to break this money into smaller sums and find entries of an innocuous nature for them. Then silence will wrap round the money.

Silence is golden, as the proverb says. In this case not even the clink of the gold will be heard."

He smiled, as if pleased, but his eyes rested on mine, and I felt he was watching for the effect of his words. My faculty of suspicion, woefully inadequate as he had deemed it, was well roused now. Not Atenulf's powers of narration had lulled my mind: it was he, Yusuf, who had done it, by appearing to take seriously – even to be angered by – their withholding of the information, only to tell me on my return that he had not believed in it from the first. Why had he disarmed me thus in advance? To make some use of my ignorance that I was still too stupid to see? Once again I felt used by him, tricked by him. Why was he telling me what he proposed to do with the money? It was rare with him to confide his intentions in this way. He ran no risk – the accounting would be skilfully done as he knew well how. If he thought I had new masters, would he so confide in me? Perhaps he was testing me, perhaps he wanted me, for reasons I could not fathom, to make known to others these intentions of his.

Even as I smiled and nodded with a full air of comprehension, playing the part still that I had always played, of favoured pupil, the questions twisted through my mind. Amidst all perplexities, however, one thing had become very clear to me: I, Thurstan Beauchamp, was the one who would bear the purse and run the risk; there would be no record of the money anywhere, no one would admit to any knowledge of it; if anything miscarried while it was in my possession I would be in serious trouble. There and then, still meeting Yusuf's gaze with what firmness I could, I resolved that if I succeeded in delivering this money, from the moment of handing it over I would deny all knowledge of it in my turn, I would lend my name to no statement made by anyone about it, including Yusuf. I would be in Potenza as the King's purveyor, and for no other reason in the world.

Thus I denied my loyal support to Yusuf even before he claimed it. And when I remember that denial now, I cannot but think that it played its part in what came after. Not much more was said between us. As was his way, he warmed to me at parting, said he had heard of the great success of my singing coming after the great success of the dancers. "A night of successes," he said, and there was slyness in this, but no ill-nature.

"And the sorcot," he said. "Another new one? And the chainse?"

Later, when I drew the money, we spoke together again and he wished me god-speed, but I have no recollection of his face on that occasion, or of what we said. What I remember now is the refuge we both took in this habitual topic of my clothes, the look of amusement and guile he wore when he teased me about them, and underlying this the unspoken knowledge of the hurt we had suffered, not something gone, but something spawned by the air we breathed every day, the air that nurtured the shade-loving plant he had spoken of.

These are memories that return now. In the days that followed, while I waited for the order to leave, there was one event only and it filled my mind, eclipsing all else. It was Caspar who brought the message and he came to my lodgings to deliver it, led upstairs by Signora Caterina, who always made her wheezing more audible when there was a visitor, in the hope of a gift either from him or from me. It was a note written on parchment, secured by two strands of cord with a seal of red wax to join them, and on the wax the imprint of the ring I had given her, a circle with a tiny scarab in the centre. Rarely can so few words have given such delight to any mortal man. She would come to Potenza in the King's following, accompanied by some members of her family. We would announce our betrothal before them and before the King himself, and by this act our vows would be made binding. My beloved, I count the hours.

Caspar had waited there while I read it. He was only a servant, however elevated, and I strove to remain impassive under his gaze, with what success I know not. My joy was almost equalled by my wonder. To contrive to be included in the King's retinue at such short notice, and on a visit of state! It was barely three days since I had learned that I myself would be going. Once again it came to me how great must be her family's influence at court, though it could not be her father to exercise this in person, lost as he was in the darkness of his mind…

"Tell your mistress I shall not fail," I said.

He bowed and would have retired, but at the last moment it occurred to me to ask him how he had found me, how he had known it was here that I lived. He looked at me without expression for a moment or two, as if slightly at a loss, taken aback by my simplicity in asking such a question. Then he said, "We made enquiries. My lady thought it better her note should be delivered in private." With this, he bowed again and withdrew, leaving me, as always in my dealings with him, a prey to some wonder as to the nature of his duties and his standing in Alicia's household.

We went by ship from Palermo to Salerno and thence overland to Potenza.

There were eight of us in this advance party, the others all being members of the King's household sent ahead to help in the preparations for the royal arrival: a wardrobe mistress, two serving-women who kept very closely together at all times, two Norman serjeants-at-arms, made attempts to separate them, a Sicilian stable-master and a cellarman of Stephen Fitzherbert's, whom I knew slightly, a Greek named Cristodoulos, rather womanlike in his ways and modes of speech but very strong in the arms and chest from hefting barrels.

A mixed company – in normal circumstances we would not have had much to say to one another. But the arrival of King Louis on our shores had released a flood of gossip in Palermo and it formed the topic of our talk through much of the journey, though I said little myself, content for the most part to listen.

I learned nothing that was new to me, but I was made aware, yet again, how ready the humble are to rejoice at the mischance of the great, and how easily one kind of error is confused with another, as if they all belonged in the same box. Errors of one sort or another there had been in plenty in the calamitous two years that had elapsed since King Louis set out at the head of his Frankish army through Bavaria on the second crusade. He was twenty-six at that time, famous for his piety but not for much else – certainly not for strength of character or military capacity. Travelling with him was his wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine, the niece of Raymond, Prince of Antioch, the greatest heiress in France and as resolute – some would say wilful and some among the present company did – as her husband was hesitant. Already, according to some in their following, there was strain and ill-humour between these two.

The miserable story of the French king's vacillations and failures of judgement, culminating in the disastrous decision to commit his force to an attack on Damascus, were known to all, as were the terrible losses suffered in the retreat. What interested my travelling companions more were the months prior to this fiasco, in particular the time that the high-spirited and beautiful Eleanor and the devout and lugubrious Louis had spent in Antioch.

"We have to remember the troubles she had been through," the wardrobe mistress said. "We must not judge her too harshly." She was of those who, under the appearance of understanding and pardoning, insinuated strong disapproval for the queen's behaviour. "She had nearly been killed by those heathen Turks," she said. "She had nearly been wrecked at sea. It is no wonder that she was glad to reach Antioch and fall into the arms of her uncle, Prince Raymond."

"It was not only his arms she fell into," the stable master said. "She fell into his bed."

On this issue the company was divided, there being no evidence that Eleonor had slept with her uncle, but the majority thought it probable on the grounds that she had sought his company and made no secret of the fact that she preferred it to her husband's. "

"Incest is incest," one of the serving-women said, "but as men there is no comparison. Prince Raymond is a proper man, he is handsome of face and well made and brave in battle and he knows how to talk to a woman. I like that same type of man myself."

There was general agreement as to these advantages of Raymond's, though none of us had ever set eyes on the prince. "And a great commander in the field," one of the serjeants said, "Which no one can say for King Louis."

"In my opinion, it was his endless praying and prostrating himself that set her against him," the stable master said. "It wore her down."

"She would have stayed there, she would have stayed in Antioch with her uncle," Christodoulos said. "She didn't want to go any farther. Louis had her dragged to the ship by force. She won't forgive him that. I wouldn't, if it was me. Well, would you?"

As I say, I took little part in these discussions, except to put in a few words now and again, so as not to seem to be assuming airs of superiority – otherwise, they would not have talked before me. By virtue of my office I knew some things they did not yet know. I knew that Eleonor was seeking a divorce. I knew that her beloved uncle, abandoned by Louis, had been killed some three weeks before in what many regarded as a suicidal assault on the Turkish host – he had attacked Nureddin's army with four hundred knights and less than a thousand footsoldiers. I knew that his skull had been sent in a silver box to the caliph of Baghdad as a proof that this great enemy of Islam was truly dead. And I knew that Eleanor had recently learned these things and been grief-stricken, and that she laid the blame on her husband, who in his jealousy had denied to her uncle the support of the Franks in defending Antioch.

None of this presaged well for the marriage, and I was privately convinced that the two would not remain much longer together, though it was rumoured that one last bid was to be made: after leaving Potenza they were to journey to Tusculanum, where Pope Eugenius was currently residing, and ask for spiritual guidance. The outcome of the Holy Father's advice was of concern to me insofar as it might affect the prospects of an alliance between France and Sicily, but I did not think it could touch on my personal fortunes, not then.

By the end I was weary of the journey and of the company and of the incessant howling of wolves in the hills around Potenza, and I was relieved to see the donjon of the castle before me on its rise of ground. It was early evening, still light. The watchman on the wall saw us as we came up to the stockade, the bars of the gate were unfastened and we passed over the drawbridge and into the gatehouse, where the iron door had been raised for us – it was a sliding door of very new invention, that could be raised or lowered by a winch above. I noticed that the men-at-arms at the gatehouse, in addition to axe and javelin, carried steel crossbows, a weapon that had been expressly forbidden by the Lateran Council of ten years before as being too powerful and murderous; in the hands of one who knew how to use it such a bow could kill a man at a distance of four hundred paces. This was the castle of Vincent de Faye, lord of Potenza, who held his fief in vassalage of King Roger – only the strongest barons could so soon flout the interdiction of the Church. But I did not believe that a weapon so effective could be suppressed for long, and thought it likely that another decade would see it in general use.

At the gatehouse we separated, some going through into the courtyard beyond. I was led away from the others and taken by a little stairway to a room in the wall itself. It was small but I was pleased with it because it had a narrow aperture in the wall on the side that looked over the town and a short bench below this so that one could sit in the light. I have always hated rooms that have no daylight reaching into them; one of the things I had most coveted and most hoped to inherit was Yusuf's window.

There was a stout oak bar on the door, always a welcome sight to a pursebearer, and this I set in place before turning my attention to anything else. The bed had been made up for me and I saw with approval that side rails were fitted, so that the ends were braced and the covers and mattress prevented from slipping off, no matter how much I should thresh about in my sleep; in fact on closer inspection the practised eye of Thurstan the Traveller noted that there were several mattresses, not just one, and they were all padded and the top one stuffed with feathers. There was an oil lamp, a bronze candlestick with a good wax candle, a small rug rolled against the wall, a thin plank on trestles with on it a basin and ewer, and a towel hanging from a hook in the wall; the water in the ewer was clean and the ewer was closed at the top so as to keep the water fresh; the towel also was clean, and sweet-smelling.

Everything was in good order. It was no more than the usual care for a guest but at once I thought of Alicia – perhaps it was her doing. I wondered which room had been set aside for her. As a favoured guest she would be in an upper storey of the tower, some distance away, not easy to reach without being observed. But if it were true that she had sent orders for the preparation of my room, perhaps she had been able to arrange for her own to be nearby, just a few steps away… It was not long to wait, King Roger was expected from day to day. I would take her in my arms, press her to me, feel her warm and breathing presence. It seemed long now since she had walked away from me through the trees at Favara, briefly seen against the firelight then lost among the shadows at the landing stage. I felt the need, not now to revive or restore our love, but to keep it firm in our life of the present, where my hold was precarious and my knowledge of her less. To keep her before me in the times we were apart, I fell back on memories of her when we were children, growing up together and loving as we grew.

This castle of Potenza was larger than that of Richard of Bernalda, the donjon had three storeys and there were outbuildings. But all was familiar as I stood there, the gleam of light on the worn stone, the smell of the rushes that had been laid on the floor, the sounds that came from outside, clatter of mailed men moving on the battlements above, barnyard sounds from the kitchen courtyard, the distant whinnying of horses from the corral inside the stockade. I was taken back to the years of my childhood, when these sights and sounds had been at first the marks of my loneliness, in the early time, away from home, then the sounds of home itself, deeply familiar, accompanying my first successes with javelin and lance and the light of love I saw in Alicia's eyes.

Here I had stood, those years ago, with beating heart, listening for her steps. And here it was fitting we should exchange our vows, the verba de praesenti et futuro, that in the eyes of the church would bind us in the sacrament of marriage.

At the approach of darkness a man servant, elderly and slow in movement, came with supper for me on a tray, grilled fish and boiled vegetables and a pint of new wine. My room was a good distance from the kitchens and my servitor had taken his time, so the food was far from hot, but it was good, or seemed so to me – I had not eaten since the morning. The dining hall was being made ready for the royal visit, he told me – there was word that King Roger and his party would arrive the day after next in the morning. He lit the lamp, asked me if I lacked for anything and slowly retired, with me at his heels as far as the door so I could bar it after him.

I was not sorry to be left alone. I was not much inclined to go abroad while I still had the money. And I wanted to take the time slowly and keep my hopes for these next days gathered warm around me.

I was reading the memoirs of Abbot Guibert of Nogent and had come to the events in Laon in 1112, when the merchants of the city were seeking to band themselves together into a commune, and commute the dues they owed to the lords and the clergy. They had bribed the bishop to give them his support and free them from his jurisdiction, but when the time came he went back on his word and decided to keep the money and keep his powers too. However, the people rose against him. Besieged in his palace by the enraged populace, he dressed in the clothes of one of his servants and took refuge in the warehouse of the church, creeping into an empty barrel there. But he was discovered and dragged forth and in spite of all his pleas and promises very barbarously done to death with a sword stroke that opened his skull and spilled out his brains. Guibert describes this fearsome wound very vividly and also the mutilations and indignities inflicted on the body afterwards, but what struck me most in reading were the things not explained in the text. What had betrayed the trembling bishop in his barrel? Who cut off the dead man's finger to take the episcopal ring? Did no one dispute his possession of it? The murderer is named, Bernard de Bruyéres. And strange it seemed to me that a man's name would endure only for one cut with a sword when those whose lives are full of good works lie nameless and forgotten below the ground.

These questions were absorbing my mind when I thought I heard a tapping or scraping at the door, very light – a sound that might be made by drawing a fingernail across the wooden panel. After some moments it was repeated. All thoughts of the ill-fated bishop left me. That muffling of the sound, so like her secrecy and care. She was resourceful, I knew it of old, she had found an occasion to come early so we could have some time to ourselves.

In two strides I was at the door, had unbarred it, opened it wide. A man of medium stature, elegantly and expensively dressed in dark red, was standing at the threshold, who now took a quick step back as if put on guard by this alacrity of mine. He made no other movement but I saw how he looked first at my hands before he looked at my face and I knew who it must be and felt a fool for my eagerness. "I had not expected you so soon," I said, a mistaken thing to say but the first that came to mind.

For several moments we were motionless both. Then he smiled thinly and said in Italian, "Young man, this hasty opening of doors will bring you to grief. Take the advice of one who has lived longer. Always move slowly until you need to move fast. I am from Avellino."

"My cousin lives there," I said, moving aside for him to enter.

"That makes us neighbours." He stood in the middle of the floor, glancing round the room, at the walls and ceiling and embrasure of the window, as if to illustrate his own advice regarding slowness. He had eyes of a chestnut colour set close together and a dark colouring of skin, but mainly notable in him was the beautiful moulding of his head, which clearly he was proud of as he wore his hair very short – it was like black mole-fur. "But you were expecting someone," he said.

"I thought you might be someone else."

"I am never someone else. I am Spaventa. One who is sent to see Spaventa should not be expecting to see someone else."

There was a degree of menace in these words of his, and in the way his eyes rested on my face. I cast around in my mind for an explanation.

"I thought it was someone come to take the dishes away."

His eyes went to the tray where I had set it rather awkwardly beside my basin and ewer. "Why would he knock so softly? It is too early for sleep. And so much haste for a serving man?" He looked at me for a moment. "Perhaps not a man?"

I made no reply, judging it safer to let him reach his own conclusions – he would have more faith in those. "You were hoping she would stay a little, eh? Perhaps she had promised it – you are a fine young man. And she would knock lightly, of course. You open the door and before you there is only Spaventa."

"I have the money for you," I said. "It is in my pannier on the bed." I did not go for it immediately, however, but waited for his nod: with such a man it was advisable to explain the intention before making the movement.

The bag was heavy, I used both hands to take it to him. He sat on the roll of the rug, with his back to the wall and me well in view, and emptied the coins on the floor, on his left side, keeping them within the circle of his arm. I watched him count the money. His hands were steady and very neat in their movements as he laid one coin on top of another in piles of ten, each pile then returned to the bag and the tally kept with the point of his knife on the stone floor – the knife he kept close by him, on the right side. His fingers were thick and they looked very strong. I was reminded of my days of training for knighthood, when we strengthened the grip of our hands and the muscles of the forearms by squeezing together metal bars on a spring. By the look of his hands and wrists Spaventa had spent much time on this exercise.

I was not afraid of him exactly, and in any event it was not in his interest to harm me, I had to return to Palermo with his token of payment. But I will confess to a feeling of awe as I watched him put the last coins back into the bag. And it was one I had experienced on occasion before when delivering money to assasins. He would travel to a far city, he would track down a man whose face he had never seen, against whom he had no grudge, and he would take that man's life in whatever manner was required. And he would regard payment for this as no different in kind from that of any other undertaking where the balance of the money depended on a successful conclusion, as with a mason, for example, or a water-diviner, or an advocate.

He took something small from a fold at the neck of his coat. "Bear this back with you," he said, "in token that I have received the money." He held it out to me from where he sat, obliging me to cover the ground between us. It was of blue enamel, oval-shaped, with a pin at the back and it corresponded to Atenulf's description, having some kind of hawk in red, very small, at the centre.

The knife was still there beside him, within reach of his right hand.

Nothing showed in his face but I knew he would trust me less, now that I had his token. I had thought he would leave at once now that the money had been paid, but he showed no disposition to do this. Evidently he was in a mood for talking.

"Well," he said, "so we try again."

This I did not altogether understand, though he seemed to think it clear enough. There had been no previous attempts, to my knowledge, to put an end to the former commander of the garrison at Corfu. Perhaps he was referring in general terms to the need for renewed efforts in an enduring battle… "Yes," I said, "determination and tenacity of purpose are much needed in our service to the King."

He gave a short laugh. "I see you are a joker," he said. "We will serve him well on Mount Tabor."

At this I passed from uncertainty to bewilderment. It seemed that he was responding to what he thought was my joke with a joke of his own. But there was no laughter in his face. Yusuf's counsels, and my years at the Diwan, now came to my aid. Seem to know, nod the head, wait to learn more. This I did, but he added nothing, though looking still at me. The silence lengthened and I deemed it wiser now to find some new topic of talk between us. "It is a lot of money," I said – and indeed this was true, it was far more than I had ever known paid for a killing. "Tell me, what would there be to stop you walking away with the money and going no further in this thing you are charged with?"

He gave the same narrow smile as before. "Walk away? That would be very dangerous, my friend. Those I had betrayed would seek for me. They would set people on who are clever at such seeking, well-versed in it. I would outwit them, naturally. I am Spaventa. But after these many years as the hunter, I would not take well to being hunted. Besides, there is the second half of the money. We must honour our agreements, what kind of world would it be otherwise? " He smiled again. "Why do you ask me questions, master purse-bearer?"

There was that about him that drove one to speak in haste. I answered with the first words that came to me. "It is enjoined on us. The Gospel tells us we must love our neighbour. Obviously implied in this is that we must seek first to understand him, since love cannot be exercised in ignorance and still keep the name."

"You are wrong, my young friend. It is only in ignorance of our fellow-man that we can love him. The words of our Lord contain no previous conditions, no injunction that we should seek to know a person before loving him, I mean in the sense of knowing or understanding him in the workings of his soul. And there is a good reason for that. The more knowledge we have of him, the less possible it becomes to love him.

For Spaventa it is only necessary to know which way the duck will fly."

I saw some refuge in this argument from the oppression of his presence, and I went on with it. "I cannot agree. In his Sermon on the Mount, in the Gospel according to St Matthew, Christ tells us that we must love not only our friends but our enemies too. Clearly, in order even to make this distinction, in order to know who our enemies are and what makes them enemies, we have to see our fellows in their difference, not in their sameness. In sameness there are neither friends nor enemies."

For the first time since he had entered the room his face lost its half-smiling expression. His mouth tightened and his eyes narrowed in obvious displeasure. "Young man," he said, "be warned, I do not like contradiction. Friends, enemies, it is all one, it is like the ocean, all one salt. Do you search for sweet water among the billows? You are young, take the advice of Spaventa. Do not trouble yourself with such useless distinctions. They weaken your eyes and spoil your aim. Know the flight of the duck and where to wait for its passing."

I could well understand why he did not want to trouble himself with differences. All men were strangers to him. A stranger might or might not be easier to love, but he would be easier to kill. However, the spirit of dispute worked within me, I would not give ground. "It belongs to our dignity to make distinctions," I said. "As it also does to argue against a man if we cannot accord with him, and more particularly so if he warns us against it."

"You talk like a lawyer."

"I was a student of Roman law at the School of Law of Bologna."

"Were you so? Well, I will tell you something now about Spaventa, and why he does not like to be contradicted in matters of theology. Listen now and mark me well. I have taken to you and for this reason I confide in you. Before I found my true path in life, I was intended for the priesthood. My sainted mother wanted this for me, may she rest in peace.

But it was seen otherwise by our Father in Heaven. One evening at suppertime I fell into dispute with a fellow-student at the seminary in Viterbo where we were preparing to take holy orders. The subject of our talk was Saint Anselm's proof for the existence of God, that which they call the ontological proof. I was pointing out to my friend, who was sitting opposite to me, that it is possible to conceive of a being which cannot be conceived not to exist and that this is greater than one which can be conceived not to exist and hence, if that than which nothing greater can be conceived can be conceived not to exist, it is not that than which nothing greater can be conceived. And he, instead of recognising the truth of this and complimenting me on the coherence of my argument, contradicted me and derided my logic. He laughed in my face. The blood rose to my head, there was a carving-knife on the table, in one motion I had seized it and in one stroke severed his jugular."

He paused on this. A glisten had come to his eyes. "That was the end of my hopes of ordination, it was almost the end of me all together – I was forced to flee. But the talent was there already, sleeping within me till it woke that day. In that fraction of time, of all the blows he could have struck, Spaventa chose the fatal one. And it turned out for the best. As a priest, I would not have made a great figure in the world. Is there by chance some wine remaining? If so, we could drink a cup together and toast this great enterprise of ours."

"Yes, there is some." I went to the jug and poured wine for him into my water cup. The cup I had used already I filled again for myself. He took the cup and waited and watched me and I understood he was waiting for me to drink first in sign of good faith. When I had done so, he raised his cup.

"Render unto Caesar."

It seemed a strange toast to me, but I thought his mind was still running on the Gospels. "And to God what is His," I said.

The movement he made on hearing this was of the slightest: he leaned back against the wall and raised his head to look more fully at me as I stood there before him. But with that small movement the whole posture of his body had changed, become tense and gathered. His eyes were bright and without expression, or none that I could read. There had been something, in the first moment, before that involuntary gathering of the body, some leap of surprise masked immediately. My reply to the toast had been the wrong one, not the one expected.

"But of course," he said softly. He set his cup, still with most of the wine left in it, carefully down beside him, restored the knife to his belt, took up the bag of money in his left hand, bearing the weight of it quite effortlessly, and rose to his feet. While I still had not moved, he took three quick steps to the door, unbarred it and was gone.