Part One
- Introduction -
I am an old man—older than any man I have ever met. It makes me laugh, because when I was a boy my teacher Father Michel told me that Moses lived to 119. I thought this was mere myth, and yet here I am, more than seventy years old, and I still feel as though I have many years left in me yet.
My body is weak, for my joints are sore and stiff, and I can no longer move like I used to, so I have become lazy and my body has slackened. But by the grace of some miracle my mind is sharper than ever, while I know men ten years younger who are given to forgetfulness and moments of incoherence.
Indeed there are many things about my current situation that make me laugh! This place is completely unlike any other place I have ever seen. It is closer to paradise than anything I ever could have imagined. I am an honoured guest in a great city of over 40,000 people surrounded by sprawling bountiful farmlands and great lush forests that spread for miles in every direction. Everything seems new and young, and remarkably clean compared to the cities of my old land.
But the people themselves are the most remarkable. The men are tall and strong; none are weak or sickly as were so many in my old land. The women are healthy and confident, and they are assertive and bold in a way that is rare among the women in my old land. The women here are strong and are rarely idle. These people do not always take care to cover their bodies—which I could not comprehend at first, for to be naked in the eyes of strangers is unthinkable in my old land—but I have since become accustomed to it. Here they spend their days working in the sun like peasants, but they eat and laugh and play like nobility. But describing them thus does not convey the most remarkable thing about them: their aura of freedom, of unencumbered wellbeing, a kind of innocence which I had only seen before in the happiest and most carefree children of the nobility.
What I have begun calling my “old land” is my old world, my old home, across the great sea to the east, far, far away. Many people there believe the sea has no end, or that it eventually flows over the edge of the world like a waterfall, an idea which strikes them with terror. It is considered folly to attempt to cross that sea, for none who have attempted to cross it have ever returned. Having myself crossed it in desperate circumstances which I will describe later, I can say that I barely survived, and now, upon safely arriving, I have no desire whatsoever to attempt to return to the old land. Thatwould be true folly of which even I am not capable, and I can say that I have undertaken some unbelievable acts of folly in my life, folly which at the time was taken for bravery. The people here say that the current makes it impossible to sail to the east, but they already knew before my arrival that there are lands there for I am not the first to have survived the crossing.
But I have many other reasons for not wanting to return. This place is a paradise; I often fancy that I died on my voyage across the sea and am now in heaven. I am treated even better than the best I ever experienced at home, for these people demand nothing from me. They feed me my fill, let me do as I please (which is not much, in truth), and leave me alone, unless I seek company, in which case they are welcoming and generous. Most remarkable of all, I have not yet seen any man raise his hand against another; it is as if violence is unknown to them. I am learning slowly, their language, their ways, even their religion, and they patiently teach me all I can absorb. I have always been a linguist, since childhood, and I impress them with my ability even though I am a mere ghost of the learner I once was.
I will tell you more of my past. My homeland is a beautiful island which I call by the name Siqilliya, a name that is so very close to my heart. Before I crossed the sea to this marvelous place, I believed that Siqilliya was the greatest place on earth, the closest to paradise. We used to say that Siqilliya was God’s favoured realm: the realm that is closest to the sun, Mamlakat al-Shams. Since it is my home I will always love Siqilliya, although I know that Siqilliya, while better than other places on that side of the sea, is nonetheless beset by sadness, suffering, poverty, and disease, and greedy men benefit unfairly at the expense of the weak.
Perhaps everyone feels the same way about their home, but for me Siqilliya is like an old lover: she haunts me, and her memory will strike me at different times, brought on by a sight, a smell, a word, or an expression I see on someone’s face, a certain angle of a brow or a curve in a lip, sometimes filling me with sorrow, other times with joy, or longing, or deep nostalgia. This is because all events, from the most insignificant bodily function to the deepest, most engrossing and significant experience, are ambiguous, in which are manifested that eternal struggle between the opposing forces of the universe: day and night; fire and cold; life and death; being and emptiness.
Like an old lover, or a great friend.
✵I ✵
- Castel d’Akis -
I spent my childhood on the eastern coast of Siqilliya, in the place which the Greeks call Akis. It had been a centuries-old fortress, but by the time of the Normaund invasion it was but a tiny fishing village, one of many along the coast, nothing left of the fortress but a platform of ruins atop a peninsula of ancient basalt jutting out of the ground above the coast. Count Roger gave the land of Akis to a knight called Audemar Coutances as reward for his help in the campaigns in Siqilliya, and Audemar and his brother Gautzelin built a castle.
This Normaund baron, Audemar Coutances, was the man I once called my father. However, as he was a distant father, and I was never one of his favourite sons, most of what I know about him I learned from his brother, Gautzelin, who was always good to me. Without Gautzelin’s tales, told to me and my elder brother Ferand by the fireplace in the castle hall in the evenings, I might never have learned much at all about this unusual family.
Audemar and Gautzelin were born in the town of Coutances, in the northern land of Normaundie, a land far colder and greyer than fair Siqilliya, as Gautzelin told us. They were among several sons of a lord, Richard le Fier. As it is the custom of the Normaund lords not to split their land among their sons, but rather to bestow its entirety upon the eldest, Richard’s eldest son Hugh inherited the land of Coutances and the rest of the brothers were given nothing. As you might imagine, this tradition of inheritance left an abundance of young, ambitious noblemen eagerly seeking to make their own fortunes. Thus Audemar, Gautzelin, and their younger brother Allard left their homeland to win their own land with their swords, as their ancestors, who had come from even colder and greyer lands further north, had done, in the time when Rollo the Dane and his followers won the land of Normaundie from the Frankish lords.
At that time everyone was speaking of Robert Hauteville, called Viscart, or “the Fox,” and his campaigns in Apulia against the Byzantines. Robert Viscart was a man with an appetite for glory surely as great as Caesar’s or Alexander’s. He was systematically and relentlessly wresting the cities of southern Italy from the Byzantines, and with each new success more knights flooded south to join him. The brothers—the eldest of which, Audemar, was but twenty—joined him outside the city of Bari, the last Byzantine-held stronghold in Apulia. A week later the city fell and the prosperous land of Apulia was completely under the control of Robert Viscart and his Normaund followers. Robert Viscart, his thirst for conquest unquenchable, then focussed his efforts on Siqilliya. This island had for a long time been Greek island, but it had been under the rule ofMuslims for some 200 years. The Normaunds call the island Sikiley.
Robert Viscart knew that the island was riven by civil war and would thus be easily conquered. Indeed, they were invited by a defeated emir, Ibn at-Thumna. They first laid siege to the great city of Panormus, or Bal’harm as it was called in Arabic, in the northwest of the island. After a cunning surprise attack, the city surrendered and Robert Viscart was given the keys to the city. However, Allard, the youngest Coutances brother—who was described by Audemar as a huge man who could fight five Saracens at once and who would often break ranks and run amok into battle—had died in the assault, and many on both sides had died during the course of the long siege.
Roger decreed that every person, whether Latin, Greek, Jew, or Muslim, would henceforth be judged by the law courts of their own religion. The Muslims and Jews were simply expected to pay a jizya—a tax—which was in fact a reversal of the jizya which the Muslim emirs had previously imposed upon the Christians in Siqilliya. The Hautevilles had been known in Italy as cruel barbarians, called nullimani, or non-men, by the Italians for their willingness to slaughter and inflict brutal punishments upon their defeated enemies. They were known for gouging out the eyes, or cutting off the noses, ears, hands, or feet of people who defied them. Now they showed mercy, in the expectation that this approach would facilitate their invasion of the rest of the island.
Panormus had been a great victory, and the Hautevilles temporarily put aside the invasion to organize themselves and distribute their new possessions. Robert Viscart returned to fight on the mainland and left the conquering of Sikiley to his brother Roger, who would later be called Count of Sikiley. Roger thereafter devoted the remainder of his life to the conquest of the island, which took thirty years in all.
Thus was Audemar made the baron of Akis. The brothers put their Normaund architects to work, and with the help of Muslim villeinsfrom the area they constructed their castle on the site of the ancient Greek fortress in five years, a striking structure with a tall tower which was built into the basalt and which could hardly be distinguished from it in some parts, standing a hundred feet above the water overlooking the sea and the environs.With the construction of the castle, named Castel d’Akis, Italians from Apulia and Calabria began to arrive, and Greeks from around the Plain of Katane settled around the castle, creating a modest trading centre and fishing village, with separate churches for the Greeks and the Latins and a mosque for the Muslims. The Italians began to call the region “Aci,”as they were wont to rename the towns in their language.
My mother, Klarissa, was Greek, the daughter of a farmer who lived just outside the city of Katane, south of Akis. One day, when Klarissa was sixteen, Audemar and some of his knights rode by a well in the meadows north of Katane where Klarissa and some friends were taking water, and as soon as he saw her, he decided that he would take her as his mistress. Audemar offered Klarissa’s father gold, and her father knew better than to refuse, as it was well known in and around Akis that cruelty was a thing that came naturally to Audemar. A few years later Audemar’s first wife Amélie died giving birth to Audemar’s fifth child, Adelard, and Klarissa became Audemar’s second wife.
It was always clear to everyone that Klarissa hated Audemar. No doubt her hatred of him stained the demeanour of her first son, Ferand, who was by far the cruelest of my Christian brothers.
Gautzelin was a good friend, and always treated me well. Gautzelin also disliked his brother: when speaking of him, a shadow would cross his face. It was clear—indeed he often stated—that he had been disturbed by his brother for as long as he could remember. When growing up in Coutances, Audemar had a reputation for being cruel to other children in the town. As their father, Richard, paid little attention to them, Audemar’s cruelties usually went unchecked, save by the mostly ineffectual reproaches of his brothers.
When the brothers came to Sikiley to help the Hautevilles in their campaigns, Audemar’s cruelty found a more satisfying outlet. Gautzelin told me a number of stories of needless cruelties and humiliations inflicted by Audemar upon the Muslims during the storming of al-Khalisa in Palermo, allegedly done as revenge for the death of their brother Allard, who had undoubtedly died nobly in battle, but as a result of his own vainglory and recklessness. But I need tell none of these stories, for my own tale will in time amply demonstrate the appalling cruelty of Audemar.
✵
Shortly after Klarissa’s second child, my sister Aspasie, was born, Audemar and Gautzelin, as well as every Normaund baron in Sikiley, were summoned to join Roger Bosso for a campaign in the south, to take Syracusa and the remaining Muslim strongholds which had not yet been brought under Normaund rule. Audemar and Gautzelin assembled their knights and employed about a hundred Greek and Italian infantry from the area of Akis. Gautzelin led the infantry southwards to meet Roger’s son Jourdain north of Syracusa, and Audemar and the knights took three ships and followed Roger, who stopped with his fleet at Castel d’Akis on his way from his headquarters in Messana to Syracusa.*
After Audemar left to fight in the south, Klarissa took advantage of his absence by frequently exploring the town of Akis and the surrounding countryside with a group of her friends and with her two maidservants, sometimes bringing along any number of her children, Aspasie, Ferand and myself, or Amélie’s children, Faramond, Jeanne, Charle, Sara, and Adelard. She suddenly found herself in a more pleasant position, as the young wife of an absent baron, and she greatly relished her freedom, and quickly began spending most of her time, day and night, outside of Castel d’Akis, in the town and in the country, with her many Greek friends. She visited her parents often, taking a troupe of her friends to Katane to enjoy the luxuries of that city, along with her servants and a retinue of five eunuchs led by a man called Jawad, a tall, sour-faced Berber from the mountains of Ifriqiya who rarely spoke, and when he did it was never more than a few words at a time.
Yet this complete freedom from her bane, Audemar, did not last long, for during the fight for Syracusa Audemar suffered a bad wound in his leg and returned home to recover. He had challenged aMuslim chief to single combat, and his opponent had managed to swing his scimitar into Audemar’s thigh, forcing him to surrender and plead for his life. The chief had let him go, but thereafter Audemar was nearly a cripple, the blade having sliced deep into the muscle of his thigh, and he needed a cane to walk and was reluctant to ride a horse. He sat out the rest of the siege in his tent. His humiliation was further increased when, after the city surrendered to Roger Bosso, Roger denied Audemar revenge upon the man who had maimed him, but rather reproached him for his lack of honour. Audemar returned to Castel d’Akis shortly after, cursing the Count, his army, and the Saracens, while Count Roger moved on to conquer the remaining Muslim fortresses in the south.
Audemar’s disability caused him great pain and frustration, and greatly increased his bitterness, and even more his hatred of Muslims. The servants of the house—mostly Berbers from Ifriqiya, and some from the lands farther to the south where the people’s skin is black—hated and dreaded him, particularly the women. Klarissa continued to spend most of her time in the town and countryside with her friends, often bringing some of her children with her. Some months after Audemar’s return, Klarissa became pregnant with her third child, myself. Audemar named me Gilberd.
✵II ✵
- Enfaunce -
I was born in the year 1087, a little after the Feast of the Nativity of Jesus Christ, in the wet season, a year after Audemar’s return from Syracusa. My earliest memories are of my mother, in the castle and in the town of Akis. I remember the stream which ran through the fields just to the north of the village, where my mother used to bathe with her friends. I also remember going to her parents’ farm just outside of Katane.*
My mother was a small, pretty woman with long, straight black hair and an expressive face, with a sharp nose, piercing eyes, and a quick smile. Anyone who ever knew her remarked upon her beauty. She was energetic and restive, and ever courageous in the face of misfortune. Even though she hated her husband and wanted nothing to do with him, she tried hard to make the best of her situation and strove to bring happiness to those whom she loved. There was a certain determination in her character. I know not why, but for as long as I can remember, I always had the feeling that I was her favourite child, and unconsciously took it for granted.
My mother’s maidservants, Samiya and Ijja, were Mazmuda Berbers who were born in the mountains far to the west of Ifriqiya. They laughed often and were healthy, and they were lucky to be my mother’s maidservants, for she treated them well, and often did the three laugh together.
I remember my teacher Father Michel, the chaplain of the castle, who taught me to read the Bible, Saint Hieronymus, Saint Augustine, and others. He taught me to write in Franceis and Latin, the languages of rulers. He was a funny man, joyful by nature and a little overfed, and he was passionate about his teaching and his eyes would light up often during his lessons. He would get easily carried away and digress into other subjects and abandon his original lesson. Thanks to his enthusiasm his lessons impressed me and his stories had a certain drama and life to them, lively associations created early in my consciousness. I took a greater interest in Michel’s lessons than my brothers, and Michel liked me for it. I was the only one of my brothers that he brought with him on his walks into the fields and forests outside of the village to collect various herbs for his cooking and his medicine. We searched for bilberries, mistletoe, nettle, and other plants, and Michel told me which mushrooms were safe, which ones would make me ill, and which ones would kill me. His people, the Bretons, had certain unusual practices which were not common to the Franks, and sometimes I heard him praying in the Gallic language that his people spoke. He also sometimes told me stories of Ankou, the Collector of Souls, and Karnunnos, the Horned One, and other ancient spirits which his ancestors had worshipped centuries ago, before the word of Christ was brought to his people.
I have a clear memory of one time when we were in the forest and Michel told me, “God is the supreme architect; He built everything that you see. The very beauty of the world is proof of His greatness.” He picked a large five-petaled leaf from a great chestnut tree and pointed out its design. “You see: the perfection, the unsurpassable elegance of His design—it permeates everything! The blood which flows from your heart through your veins to your fingers; the path of the eagle through the sky; the wave on the water: all follow the Word of God.” He gave me the leaf and I studied it closely, and ever since then whenever I see leaves I think of Michel. Michel was very fond of plants and trees, and sometimes he spent the whole day wandering in the woods and the fields.
I remember my weekly visits to my mother’s parents and her brothers and sisters. My mother’s parents were Nikolaos and Agape, and they had many children of whom Klarissa was the eldest. Thus I had several aunts and uncles who were still quite young, as well as cousins who were my age, and we sometimes all went walking together in Katane and in the surrounding countryside. Like most Greeks on the island, they followed the Byzantine Christian religion. However, they too told me all kinds of stories of the older pagan religion of their ancestors, and these I always found to be fascinating. Many of these stories I remember very clearly: the stories of the siege of Troy, of Achilles, Hektor, and Agamemnon; the stories of the voyage of Odysseus on his way back to Ithaka; older stories of the Olympians and the Titans. These tales created a somewhat sinister, fantastical contrast to Michel’s lessons: they conjured up a realm without justice, where people could be condemned to terrible punishments with no chance of redemption; a universe controlled by jealousy, rage, and spiteful whim, with no moral logic.*
My grandfather Nikolaos was a small, bald man with a white beard, dark weatherbeaten skin, and rough hands. He was a kind man, and although he despised Audemar he loved me and treated me kindly. I remember well how we used to sit outside in the sun during the summer and listen to him sing old Sikelian poems, in both Greek and Arabic, the latter of which I did not yet understand, while playing the lyre in accompaniment. He played the lyre beautifully, and although his voice was scratchy in speech it could give a clear and piercing song.
One of my oldest memories is of being held in my mother’s arms, seeing the pristine white clouds pass by above us through the sky like gods’ ships over an imperturbable blue sea. Rocking back and forth in my mother’s arms while Nikolaos played his wonderful, mysterious, and often unpredictable melody, I felt like I was on one of those heavenly ships. This was one of his favourite songs and he played it often to us. I do not think I ever heard that melody again since my grandfather played it, even after insistently probing the repertoire of every harpist I ever met in my life. I met many harpists in my life, mostly when I was in the service of King Roger II, the son of Count Roger the Great, of whom I will speak much more, later. I tried myself many times to reproduce my grandfather’s song, but sadly I will never hear the true notes of that melody again, save in the deep recesses of my dream memories, whose tapestries lie intact beneath the thick fog of time.
My grandmother Agape was also small. She seemed young for her age. She looked very much like her daughter, with the same nose, mouth, and eyes, except her hair was grey, and curly. Her mother was of Kutama Berber descent, and her family had settled in those parts in the tenth century. She laughed often, and her eyes were always squinted in mirth, and when not laughing a clever smile lingered perpetually in the corners of her lips. I remember her as a woman filled with joy and love for all of us.*
And my earliest memory of Audemar is on the tower of Castel d’Akis. The two of us were standing there next to each other behind a crenellation, staring out at the eastern sea. Far away across the sea I knew lay the ancient sacred city of Jerusalem. I remember that he always looked at me disapprovingly, and even in this earliest memory of him he was scowling at me, seeming not to look at me in my eyes as my mother and grandparents did, but scowling rather at my face, even at my hair. I remember him speaking:his Franceis was so much harsher than Michel’s; it was a crude, wicked sounding Franceis, which he rasped and hissed, always scowling and with his brow wrinkled in disapproval. I remember him saying, “We are God’s chosen people, sent to civilize the barbarians: it is our sacred mission, my son.” I know that he said this to all of his sons, but when he said it to me then it seemed empty, as though he was thinking of something else while he said it—something to do with me.