The Road to Damietta

by Scott O'Dell

  The Road to Damietta

  Scott O'Dell

  * * *

  AN IMPRINT OF HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY

  BOSTON

  * * *

  Copyright © 1985 by Scott O'Dell

  All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted

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  or retrieval system, except as may be expressly permitted by

  the 1976 Copyright Act or in writing from the publisher.

  Requests for permission should be addressed in writing to

  Houghton Mifflin Company,

  215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003.

  www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com

  The text of this book is set in Centaur MT.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  O'Dell, Scott.

  The road to Damietta.

  Summary: Deeply attached to the charming and

  carefree Francis Bernardone, Cecilia, a young

  noblewoman of Assisi, watches as he turns from his

  life of wealth and privilege, takes vows of poverty,

  and devotes himself to serving God by helping all

  those around him.

  1. Francis, of Assisi, Saint, 1182–1226—Juvenile

  fiction. [1. Francis, of Assisi, Saint, 1182–1226—

  Fiction. 2. Religious life—Fiction. 3. Italy—

  History—476–1268—Fiction] I. Title.

  PZ7.O237Ro 1985 [Fic] 85-11720

  RNF ISBN 0-395-38923-2

  PAP ISBN 0-618-49493-6

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  HAD 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  * * *

  To Elizabeth

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  Author's Note

  Of the thousands upon thousands of books about Saint Francis, perhaps the best is Francis of Assisi by Arnaldo Fortini. A lawyer and native of Assisi, Fortini spent thirty years on this biography. It first appeared in four volumes. It is now in one volume, brilliantly translated by Helen Moak, with valuable notes of her own and a bibliography of some seven hundred and fifty items. My book leans heavily upon their portrait of the many-sided saint and his times.

  For the Sufi anecdotes and parables, I have relied upon collections by Idries Shah from the Persian, Afghan, Turkish, and Arabic cultures. The scenes between Saint Francis and the Sultan of Egypt are taken from the chronicles of the Moslem mystic Fakr-al-Farasi and the Arab chroniclers Al-Zaiyat and Al-Sakhari.

  The story was suggested by the life of Angelica di Rimini, a distant cousin of Perugino, the Italian painter.

  * * *

  1

  We heard the leper's bell long, before we saw the leper.

  The sun was up, yet frost still clung to the trees by the river. Behind us the castles of Monte Rosso, their battlements and enclosures, caught the sun. The towers rose like spears from the dark ravines and every hilltop.

  The lords were at breakfast, planning their next swoop into the lowlands or against each other, which would not occur on the morrow because it was the Wednesday before Easter and all hostilities—whether close or far, whether of repayment for a death or a slight, fancied or real—were forbidden by law. By the Treuga Dei, the "truce of God," fighting was forbidden until dawn of the next Sunday morning, from the Passion to the Resurrection. Only a few days to plan how they would burn and destroy, maim and kill, during the next year. Yet in that brief time what these rapacious men could do!

  We were moving along the road from our farm at the foot of Monte Rosso to our home in Assisi. Usually we spent part of the winter and the whole spring in the country, but my father was the podestà, the leader, and a member of the commune that governed Assisi, and lately, within the past month, he had been harshly criticized for living outside the city more than he lived in it, which had disturbed his sleep and didn't please him at all.

  There were only four in our family now that my brother Lorenzo had been slain in the battle with Perugia—my father, Davino di Montanaro; my mother, Giacoma; my brother, Rinaldo; and myself, Cecilia Graziella Beatrice Angelica Rosanna, called Ricca, a contraction of some sort.

  It was a small family, yet our caravan stretched out for nearly a league on the winding lane by the river. My father rode in front with Rinaldo. My mother sat uncomfortably in a dainty, high-wheeled wagon, sheltered from the sun by a canopy painted with scrolls and fat cupids. I came next on my white Arabian, and Raul de los Santos, the librarian and master of our scriptorium, who also tutored me in astronomy, numbers, and languages of the world, rode beside me on another Arabian.

  The rest of the caravan, mostly on foot, followed after—tillers of the earth, herders of pigs, goats, and cattle, the vintner, the miller and his two assistants, the notary, a squadron of servants. Bringing up the rear were Ruffo, captain of the guards, and his men, all in full armor, riding white horses, and displaying the Montanaro pennon of crossed swords on a background of stars.

  The leper's bell drew closer. When first I heard it the sound seemed to come from the far side of the river. Now it was right in front of us, on the road we were traveling, between us and the city.

  My father pulled up his mount and called to one of the oxboys. "Run down until you find the creature," he said. "Get him off the road and into the bushes, where we'll not have to look at him. Do not dally with him. Use your goad freely."

  My father had a great distaste for leprosy, that dread disease where noses rotted away, eyes melted in their sockets, and fingers sloughed off, one by one. As a member of the commune, it was he who had strengthened the laws against lepers.

  Each new podestà, a month before taking office in Assisi, must now make a scrupulous search for these people. If any is living in the city or the region around, he is to be hunted out. Syndics of all villages and lords of all the castles must take care to see to this. No leper dare enter the city or walk about in it. If any does so, citizens may strike him down with impunity. No leper might eat from anything except the leper's bowl, or drink from springs, wells, or rivers, or touch the young, or go without gloves on his bare hands. In the old days they were given wooden clappers to ■ announce their presence. My father had changed this. Now they carried bells, which could be heard for the better part of a league.

  As we waited, the oxboy ran forward, brandishing his goad. After a short time he returned to announce that the leper had been driven into the bushes. My father raised his hand and motioned the caravan to continue.

  The road was deserted but the bell still rang. I then saw the leper standing a short way off, warily peering out at us from a hedge. At the distance, I couldn't tell whether he was tall or short, young or old. My father let down the visor of his helmet and I turned my head away, for the sight of people falling apart truly made me ill.

  At this time a lone horseman appeared in the distance. He had heard the bell and was riding cautiously. As we came upon him he stopped and greeted us with a wave of a jeweled hand. His name was Francis Bernardone and he was the son of Pietro Bernardone, the second richest merchant in the city of Assisi, my father being the first.

  "Have you seen the leper?" he asked my father. "I smell him but I do not see him anywhere."

  "There he is," my father said, pointing. "We chased him off the road. Proceed in safety; he'll not disturb you."

  "Thank you, sir," Francis Bernardone said, speaking through a lace handkerchief he held to his mouth. "Thank you most kindly, but I think I'll take the long road. The odor burrows into my skin and stays with me for days. Nothing washes it away."

  A bridge spanned the river a short distance in front of us.
Touching his feathered cap to my father but smiling at me, he spurred his horse across the bridge and rode away at a fast canter.

  "Poor boy," my mother said. To her any man younger than twenty years was a boy. "He's so sensitive."

  "Yes, brought up by a doting mother," my father said. "She clothed him in dresses until he was five, I hear."

  "True," said Rinaldo, who disliked Francis Bernardone intensely. "Sensitivity has come into fashion, so he's become quite sensitive these days."

  "A result of the foolish war," Raul observed as he looked up from the scroll he was reading and turned his long, bony face in the direction of the fleeing horseman. "It was the fashion during the war to be brutal, to talk through the front teeth. Of late, like Bernardone, the young talk little, never to their elders, and when they talk to each other, they must be what we from Granada call sensitivo, which is the opposite of macho, which was stylish during the war, and which means he-goat or a spur, a square anvil, a hammer, and also, quite often, a very ignorant fellow. It's one of the small horrors of the war."

  Raul was referring to the bloody struggle between the town of Perugia and the city of Assisi. It was a terrible war; we pridefully had started it over nothing much, thinking that Perugia was weak and ripe for the gathering. The war had lasted for two years and Assisi had lost its pride and thousands of its young men.

  "He has a fly in his head," Rinaldo said, loath to relinquish the subject of Francis Bernardone.

  "Many," my father said.

  "He's a very sensitive boy," my mother called out from the carriage.

  He's not a boy, I wanted to say—but I didn't. I glanced across the river and saw him raise his hand and wave. He was waving to me but I didn't dare wave back.

  "Also he's very brave," Mother added, for she, like most of the Assisi women—but none of the men—adored Francis Bernardone. "He's truly the bravest of all!"

  I silently agreed with her, remembering when the bulls ran on the feast day of Saint Luke the Evangelist. One of the beasts had found refuge in our courtyard, and I watched from the balcony as Francis pursued it. The problem was not simple. With his wooden sword he had to goad the bull out of the courtyard and into the street where the other bulls were running, and meanwhile he had to keep himself from getting gored.

  Though the sword was made of wood, he didn't pretend that it was steel. He waved it gaily like a flag. He invited the bull to leave the courtyard, saying in a firm voice, "This is a festive game, sir, in which you play the villain. Yet we play without anger, in fun, with respect for each other, because we are friends."

  The bull pawed the stones, but in a moment, to my surprise, it began to walk toward the open gate. As it passed him, Francis reached out and gave it a friendly prod with his sword. The bull paused at the gate and glanced back at him, then, as if it were glad to be under his spell no longer, lifted its tail and leaped off into the street.

  That was the day I fell in love with Francis Bernardone. The very day and hour. And not because he was braver than the rest or more handsome. It was the way he spoke to the bull that pierced my heart.

  We came to the river without further incident, but there we had to stop for toll. On this morning, however, Count Giuseppe di Luzzaro, having heard that we were moving from our farm in the country to our palace in the city, was at the crossing to welcome us and let us pass without paying the toll his varlets usually demanded.

  The dashing count of Monte Verde was there for a reason. It was more than a rumor that he was deciding whether to marry me or not, once I had reached a reasonable age, which would be, since I was barely thirteen, at least one year from the moment. He had talked to my father on two occasions I knew about.

  I had already made a quiet decision about the count and his square beard and his small, pouting ruby-red lips. I had decided that I would get myself to a nunnery rather than be his bride.

  "It's been scarcely a year since I've seen you," he said, running his eyes over me. "It was on this road, I remember. You were riding on a pallet then. Now you ride like a lady. My, how you've grown! And how in the mode you are, with the little peregrine perched on your wrist. The bird is called...?"

  "Simonetta."

  "A lithesome name, but can she fly the heavens?" he asked. "She looks somewhat fragile and small of wing, but free her and lets see."

  "She's not yet trained to hunt, sir."

  "An apt time to train her. The skies are clear and larks are flying."

  "As you can observe, we are hastening to the city," I said, determined not to unloose Simonetta and risk never seeing her again. "Besides, Father is in a hurry. He's been hurrying for a week."

  The count of Monte Verde glanced at my father, who was prompt to say that he was not in a hurry and that his time belonged to the count. Like all the rich merchants in the province of Umbria, Father had set his mind upon working his way out of the merchant class and into the nobility.

  The count glanced at Simonetta, alert now that she had heard her name spoken, then at me, his black beard set and challenging. I, as well as the hawk, needed training, a firm but gentle hand.

  He smiled; his lips glistened. "Someday soon," he said, "I'll show you how best to handle her. We'll bring Simonetta here to the river and unloose her."

  He came close and examined the hawk, running a hand over her sleek feathers and at the same time over my gloved wrist. "She has good talons, sharp and well shaped, if a trifle long, and an excellent beak. I can't see her eyes, hidden as they are by the pretty hood. What color might they be—golden?"

  "Gold and black."

  "Sharp, like yours?"

  "Sharp," I said, "as bodkins. She can see in all directions."

  "At once?"

  "If she chooses."

  "What a truly marvelous bird. I am anxious to train her," he said with a smile, turning his horse in a circle and making a bow.

  The river ran low, so we lost nothing in the crossing and began the long climb to Assisi. I thought about Francis Bernardone. I wondered about him and the leper. Why had he covered his face and fled in terror? He had fought in the war, been wounded and imprisoned. He had run with the bulls. Yet the mere sight of the leper had made him tremble.

  Our musicians struck up a marching tune as we passed through the Roman gate. Windows opened. People stared out at us. We made a good show with our league-long caravan and it served my father well. Now everyone would know that, forsaking the country, he had returned to live in Assisi.

  It didn't matter that at dawn, before anyone was around, half of our retinue—the vintner and his assistant, the goatherds, half of our guards, and all of our farmers—would return to the country.

  2

  Weeks went by before I saw Francis Bernardone again. It was on the night Raul and I stood on the balcony above San Rufino Square, watching the skies for the serpent star.

  Raul had brought a chart of the heavens when he came from Granada. Father had engaged him to teach me the history of the world and some of its languages, but Raul had a liking for astronomy, and although my father thought it pointless for females of my age or of any age, he didn't object to my spending an hour now and again gazing at the stars.

  The Arabian seer who made the chart had noted that for the past three centuries a fiery apparition had appeared at regular intervals of one hundred and seven years. Raul unrolled the chart, laid it out on the balcony rail, and set a lantern beside it, and I read the Arab's notes describing the apparition as a "glowing serpent with a fiery tail, which flees across the western sky at dusk."

  "We should go and tell everyone," I said, "so they can come and watch."

  "Assisi, my friend, is a nervous place. If the serpent does not appear, they'll laugh at us. If it does appear then there'll be an awful scene—the populace running this way and that. Hiding under beds, in the cathedral, in the forest, in caves. As it is, if the serpent does come, few will know because few ever raise their eyes to look at the heavens. But I wish that Marsilio was with us. I sent him a
letter weeks ago and invited him here to witness the event, but he wrote back and called me a fool for believing in such maunderings."

  The two men had exchanged letters for a long time, mostly about the shape of the earth. Marsilio, who lived in Perugia where they believed many strange things, thought that it was shaped like a pear, and Raul thought that it was more like a wheel, the various countries, islands, and oceans being the spokes in the wheel. Everyone knew the earth never moved, but both men were wrong about its shape. It was the heart of the universe, and everything else—the sun and moon and stars—moved around it in an obedient procession, like slaves. Besides, the earth was most certainly flat and hung suspended from a golden cord, like a feast-day platter, only larger.

  We stood on the balcony with the map spread before us, and the serpent came soon after vespers. But somehow it lacked the tail the seer had described. In truth, it wasn't much of a serpent.

  "It looks like somebody's footprint," I said.

  "The street lanterns and the bonfire burning there below us hinder our view," Raul said. "On a better night, it would look much different."

  "Like two footprints."

  "Remember, that seer Yakub made his prediction more than a hundred years ago."

  "Perhaps the serpent is worn down from all its travels. But Yakub says here in his notes that it is a good omen to wish upon."

  "A voice," Raul said, "whispered to me just now, saying, 'There is no such thing as an omen for lovers to be found in the sky. Nor a voice whispering in the night.'"

  From below us in San Rufino Square came a clash of cymbals and the braying of horns. A band of musicians surrounded by a motley crowd had gathered at a bonfire. One of the musicians, a youth dressed in an embroidered tunic, wearing a velvet cap with a cock's feather and a broad belt set with shimmering studs and clasps, I recognized at once.

  It was impossible to hear me above the clamor, but I took a long breath and shouted down to him, inviting him to watch the fiery serpent.