They give lift and enchantment to the novel's vortex of betrayals within betrayals, and conspiracies within conspiracies. They toss and swirl around the hero, a lethally naive and only part-innocent young striver, whose moral code is a smudge of honor, passionate ambition, and ambitious passion.
"The Ruby In Her Navel" takes place in one of the Middle Ages' many short-lived arrangements: the Normans' rule of Sicily after they seized it from the Saracen Arabs. Roger, the visionary Norman king, has established a court that cultivates learning, patronizes the arts, and endeavors to impose harmony among the island's disparate peoples: the Muslims; the Christian communities of Normans, Lombards, and Greeks; and the Jews.
Harmony is under perilous strain. The Norman knights who brought Roger's father to power resent the high places in government and the military which the son has given the Arabs. Graver threats from the outside play upon these divisions.
The Byzantine and Holy Roman emperors both regard Sicily as rightfully theirs, and fair prey to expansionist compulsions bearing no small resemblance to the takeover impulses of today's late-stage capitalism. The papacy, with a hardening conviction of its universality, growing intolerance of tolerance, and secular might of its own, withholds full recognition of Roger's multicultural kingship. Sicily has become a tumbling piece in the bloody kaleidoscope of medieval history.
So have the two central figures in "Ruby." Yusuf, a powerful Muslim courtier, runs the Diwan of Control, a combination of royal budget office and espionage service. Thurstan Beauchamp, son of a Norman knight and brought up to hope for knighthood himself, has been chosen by Yusuf for a different ascent: through the tortuous inner workings of the court bureaucracy. He is Yusuf's protégé, and possible successor should the older man rise to become court chamberlain.
