The Road to Damietta

by Scott O'Dell

  "We'll wear our best," I said. "There's no reason for us to look like peasants fresh from slopping the pigs."

  As we rode down the mountain, I repeated to myself what had by now become a litany. Francis had once aspired to be a knight. He had attired himself in the costliest of armor and ridden off to Perugia to make his name as a warrior. Failing in that, he had become a poet, a troubadour, and on many occasions a resplendent rakehell. He had changed again. Now he was following Christ's thorny path. Failing in this, he would surely change again. He was a human weather vane. When he did change, I would be there, as I was at this moment, riding to hear him preach, as I had been on the cathedral steps, on the nights he had sung in San Rufino Square, and countless times before, in my dreams as well. It was more than a litany—it was a prayer.

  Rising out of a briar patch, gray and moss-grown, San Damiano looked like something left over from the Roman days. Only a few carts and horses stood outside, but within the narrow aisles were crowded. Light from a small, bleak window fell upon a young man—he turned out to be a Brother Giles—speaking in a barely audible voice.

  Nicola and I found a place to stand against the wall in the back of the church.

  Giles was saying, "Blessed is he who loves and does not therefore desire to be loved. Blessed is he who fears and does not therefore desire to be feared. Blessed is he who serves and does not therefore desire to be served. Blessed is he who treats others well and does not desire that others treat him well."

  Francis Bernardone stood behind him, to one side of the altar. His head was bowed and I could not see his face. But when Giles finished his homily and Francis came forward to take his place, a shaft of sun fell upon him. My heart leaped with joy.

  I hadn't heard Francis speak at church. His voice was different from the voice he had when we conversed. It was livelier and more tuneful, more like the voice he used when he sang ballads in the square.

  "No one of us can be deemed truly gallant unless light-hearted," he said. "And humility is happiness, for the injuries that hurt us the most, that we keep most secret, are those that injure our pride."

  He glanced over the heads of the people, in my direction—at me, or so it seemed.

  "As Brother Giles has told you, 'If a man were to live a thousand years and not have anything to do outside himself, still he would have enough to do within, in his own heart.'"

  Barely had he spoken than a crested bird flew into the church, down the aisle, and fluttered at the bleak window, seeking a way to escape. Then it circled the altar and at last came to rest upon his shoulder.

  Taking the bird in his hand, he said, "My little friend, you owe much to God your Creator because He has given you freedom to fly anywhere. Also He has given you colorful and pretty clothing. He preserved your race in Noah's Ark so that it did not disappear from the earth. And you are also indebted to Him for the realm of the air, which He assigned to you. Therefore you should praise your Creator."

  Nicola whispered in my ear that distinctly she had heard the creature answer him, saying, "Praise be to the Lord." Whether it did say these words or not, Francis opened his hands and the bird took flight. No longer lost, it flew past me and out the portal.

  He began a sermon on the true meaning of happiness, which lasted for a long time and had nothing to do, as far as I could tell, with the kind of happiness that was written out in the letter hidden in my cloak.

  While I stood half listening to the sermon, I searched the crowd for Clare. I was certain that she was in the church, though I had seen no sign of her escort when we arrived. It was always a large one—four or five grizzled men in red and gold livery, carrying pennons that displayed the crouching lion of the Scifis.

  After the sermon was over and most of the people had left, I ran down the aisle, clutching my letter. Between me and the altar, the women of the Scifi family were gathered—Clare, her sisters. Agnes, Beatrice, and Caterina, and their mother, Ortolana—dressed in their fine jewels and furs, chattering away. I hurried around them without pausing to speak and handed the letter to Francis.

  "How beautiful!" he said, turning it over to look at both sides of the vellum. "The ribbon and the wax and the scholarly script. It is too beautiful to open. I will take it home and observe it during gloomy moments."

  "Open it now," I said, foreseeing that he would put it away on a shelf and forget it.

  He untied the ribbon and slipped it inside his ragged gown. Then he broke the seal. He read quickly, skimming the words, but he saw enough.

  "In praise," he said. "Verses written by a great poet."

  "In praise of the man she loved?" I asked him.

  He tightened the rope around his waist. Did I see a flush of color beneath his dark skin?

  "Oh, no. In praise of the Church."

  "How," I said, though my knees threatened to fail me, "how can the Church have locks as 'bushy and black as a raven'? It could have legs that are 'pillars of marble,' I can see this. But not a navel that resembles a 'round goblet.' The Song may be an allegory about the Church, as you say, but even so Solomon uses physical love as a metaphor. So it can't be all that bad!"

  Francis touched his forehead as if he were about to make the sign of the cross, then paused. "You're the daughter of Davino di Montanaro, are you not? Yes, I recognize you. You're the giver of stones."

  "Yes, and my name is Cecilia Graziella Beatrice Angelica Rosanna. My friends call me Ricca."

  "Ricca," he said, testing the name on his tongue. "The name Angelica suits you better."

  Angelica? Was he having fun with me?

  He finished making the sign of the cross. Again he tightened the rope around his waist. He was dismissing the Old Testament poem and Rose, the Shulamite. I made no effort to stop him. Enthralled, speechless at the sound of my name on his lips, I sought desperately for something else I could ask.

  A question about his advice to the bird occurred to me, but at the moment Brother Giles came sidling up, his toenails scratching on the floor. He was followed by the Scifi family, all except Clare, who stood off by herself, wrapped in a dream. I spoke to her as I went up the aisle. She didn't hear me.

  14

  The homeward ride was a joy. High above, the icy ridges of Monte Subasio glittered; the houses that clustered at its feet, the smoke rising lazily from the chimneys—all glittered. The streets that had seemed ominous hours before, the city itself, glittered and glowed like a jewel. Everything was changed. I was breathless with love.

  Nicola mistook my silence. "You were disappointed with our Francis?"

  "No," I said, "oh, no!" I restrained myself and added in a churchlike voice, "He was quite sympathetic, though he spoke but little."

  "No wonder. He preaches so hard he hasn't many words left over when he stops. Did you see as he held the bird in his hands that a light shone around him, a wonderful shining halo?"

  Nicola was like my mother—she saw halos everywhere. I believe that they both really saw halos. Yet did it make any difference whether the halos were there or not, so long as they saw them? For myself, I had come to believe that the power Francis had with birds was the same power he had over me.

  Nicola was riding astride, showing her trim ankles and pretty shoes. A man called down from a window, remarking on their beauty, and she called back in the rough language of her mountain home, complimenting him on his vision.

  "What was the letter about?" she asked.

  "Love poems."

  "Love? Poems? From where? I would like to hear them."

  "They're in the Bible."

  "I can't read."

  "I forgot. I'll read them to you."

  "Tonight?"

  "Soon."

  "After supper?"

  "The bishop is coming for supper, remember? You were planning to make tarts for him. The pink ones shaped like a bishop's hat."

  "When he leaves?"

  "He never leaves before midnight."

  "After midnight, then?"

  "Perhaps. If I'm awake
. Sometimes he puts me to sleep with his talk."

  The bishop left early, however, soon after he had eaten sparingly, which was unusual, prayed hastily, and heard my brief confession, which I mostly made up since I had nothing interesting to confess. Father and I saw him to the door and we both kissed the handsome amethyst ring on his finger. I went back to the scriptorium while the men stayed talking at the door.

  They were there only a short time when I heard Francis Bernardone's name mentioned and the bishop raise his voice. I left my bench and ran through a back passageway and into a room near the door where the men were standing.

  They had lowered their voices, but I clearly heard the bishop say, "A list of his heresies has been assembled. It's a matter now of putting them in a letter. They will surprise the pope. He doesn't realize how cunning these heretics are. How they flourish in our midst, right here under our noses."

  "When does the letter go?"

  "As soon as it is written. At the moment my scrivener is ill and I write a wretched hand."

  "Ricca will be pleased to write it for you," my father said. "Thus we'll catch two birds in a single trap. She writes an elegant hand, which should please the pope. And while writing the letter she may ponder the sins she herself has committed."

  "And is committing," the bishop added.

  "How close she's been to the sin of heresy."

  "And how close she is. For I see no sign that she has changed toward him," the bishop said.

  There was a short silence. I heard nothing but the sound of the wind gusting through the open door. If I were given the letter, I would carefully write down the list, all the facts the bishop had gathered, one after the other, but at the end I would say, "All these charges, your honor, I am pleased to report, are only rumors hatched by troublemakers."

  I was shaking my head, doubting that such a wild scheme would ever work, when the bishop said, "With respect to your daughter, I am reluctant to burden her with the letter."

  "It is not a burden," Father said. "She will be glad to write it."

  They were parting as I left the room and hurried back to the scriptorium. I was busy with my brushes when Father walked down the hall and bade me goodnight.

  On Friday the bishop came at midday and during dinner informed my father that the scrivener, having regained his health, would have the letter ready by Sunday morning.

  "I'll read it carefully and be ready to send it to Rome on Monday," he said. "When I was here on Monday last you promised me horses."

  "As many as you wish," Father said.

  "A dozen," the bishop suggested. "And I'll see that they're equipped in the brightest of bishopric colors. I have found that guards and clerks and the pope himself are impressed by numbers and pennons. And he must be impressed, because the matter is urgent. Even urgent matters lie around in Rome, sometimes for a year."

  Bishop Pelagius lived in a grand palace attached to the far end of the south transept in the old cathedral of Santa Maria Maggiore. After vespers every Sunday and sometimes on feast days, he gave a reception for prominent citizens of Assisi. I had been there and liked them because of the multitude of pretty confections served on gold salvers by an army of handsome knights. There was always music, too, by the communes orchestra of seven pieces—three viols, three lutes, and a drum.

  Sunday came slowly. Long before vespers, Nicola and I were in the cathedral, down in front on the left side, where we would be seen by the bishop as he stood at the lectern. And we were the first at his door afterward.

  While Nicola admired the confections, I joined those who were wandering through the palace, gazing at the bishop's fine tapestries, and sitting in the priceless chairs that had come from Egypt and Constantinople. When I had been there before, I hadn't strayed farther than the salon where food was being served.

  There were six rooms downstairs. I went through each of them and saw nothing that looked like a desk. A winding stair led to a landing, then to a second floor of two big rooms that contained nothing of interest. On the third floor I went through two smaller rooms, and off a third one I found what looked as if it was the bishop's study. In the middle of the room sat a writing desk, an immense one with brass scrolls around the edges and, for feet, colored glass balls shaped like lion's claws.

  The desk was cluttered with quills, sharpened and unsharpened, inkwells, stacks of vellum, and a half-eaten pear turning brown, which showed marks like those the bishop might make with his big, broad teeth. There was no sign of a letter anywhere in the rubble.

  I sat down at the desk and went through the drawers, four of them on each side of me, but found nothing. Then as I stood up I noticed a small desk in a far corner of the room. On it, in clear sight, was a scroll addressed to Pope Innocent III, sealed with a blob of purple wax which was stamped with the bishop's ring. I put the letter inside my dress and strolled down the stairs. The salon teemed with guests, including my family. I slipped away, not speaking to anyone, took a short cut through the cathedral, and ran down the winding street to our house. There was time to rewrite the letter—not a lot, but enough if I hurried.

  Standing at my bench in the scriptorium, I carefully lifted the bishop's seal with a sharp knife used in the making of vellum. The letter, longer than I expected it to be and written in the diminutive Gothic so popular in the province of Granada, was in reply to a letter from the pope in which His Eminence had asked Bishop Pelagius to examine rumors that had reached him, rumors that pictured Assisi as a hatchery for heretics and Francis Bernardone as its leader.

  Hurriedly I wrote a new letter, shorter than the bishop's, copying the Granadian Gothic as best I Could. I said that the rumors had been duly investigated and found to be false, especially the rumor that Bernardone was posing as a priest, hearing confessions and conducting rites over the dead. While he was a little off in the head, I wrote, he was not a heretic.

  I placed the bishops seal on the new letter, attaching it with hot wax so that no one could tell it had been tampered with. The only suspicious thing was the paper, which was not of as good a quality as the bishop's and lacked its faint purplish tinge.

  When I got back to the palace, the salon was so crowded that it was impossible to tell one person from another. I glided through the room quietly, an eel through the grass, and had one slippered foot on the stairs when from nowhere the bishop reached out, took my hand in his, and gave it a lingering squeeze.

  "We have missed you," he said. "I saw you leave. You looked pale. You look pale now. I hope nothing is amiss."

  "Nothing," I said, "except a small pain, which I have attended to."

  The bishop hesitated a moment before saying, "What a handsome girl you are!"

  "Woman," I corrected him.

  "I envision glorious days for you, now that again you have your pretty head on straight."

  Then Nicola appeared and saved me from what could have been a lecture. She stood on tiptoe in her pink boots and stuffed a tart into the bishop's mouth. While this took place, I wandered away and up the stairs. As I reached the second floor I tucked up my skirts and ran.

  The passage on the next landing was deserted, but as I approached the door to the bishop's stud}' I heard voices at the end of the passage, men quietly discussing church affairs. I turned about and went down to the second landing and seated myself on a bench, placed there no doubt for those who grew faint on the endless stairs.

  I sat for a short time, then climbed the stairs once more. The door to the bishop's study was closed. I put an ear against the door and listened but heard no sound. I took hold of the brass knob, which felt stiff and cold in my hand and would not move. I used both my hands and wrenched at it. With a startling noise it flew open.

  I was about to put the letter on the table in the same place I had found the bishop's letter when I heard steps in the passageway. There was no reason for me to be in the bishop's study. The only place to hide was behind a tapestry that covered all of one wall. I slipped behind it as someone, a light-footed girl, cam
e in sneezing and, between sneezes, humming to herself.

  The girl swept the fringes of the tapestry, went out, and brought back something that made a noise as she placed it on the table; then she left.

  I put the letter on the desk, beside the bowl of fruit the girl had placed there, closed the door quietly, and fled down the stairs. As I reached the second landing, my sleeve swept a bust of Pope Innocent from its niche. It did not break but it tumbled along the marble floor, making a loud racket, which fortunately the din from below drowned out.

  My father and Bishop Pelagius stood at the bottom of the stairs, Father's hand placed deferentially upon the bishops arm. They were deciding on the number of horses required to carry the bishop's letter to Rome, what color the beasts should be, what the riders should wear, and whether or not drums and a flute were adequate for the occasion.

  While I listened and said nothing, a robed man came down the stairs, holding the letter I had just left on the bishop's desk. The blob of wax that sealed it sparkled in the candlelight. Since it was well known in Assisi that the bishop had made a list of heretics and was sending it to Rome, the eyes of everyone present were fixed upon it.

  I turned away, expecting that the letter would be given to Pelagius. I tried to think of something to say if I were accused, but the man went on, sauntering through the room, stopping here and there to talk, and finally disappeared.

  I lived in dread for two days, until the third day in midmorning, at the hour when the streets were crowded, the caravan left the palace, resplendent with the bishop's flags, led by twelve men in scarlet dress on proud white horses, to the sound of lutes and drums.

  Somewhere in their midst was the letter I had written to Pope Innocent III.

  15

  The letter I had given to Francis, so carefully written on fine vellum, illuminated by small birds and beasts (I knew that he loved them all dearly), had caught his eye. The poem itself had aroused his interest and brought a flush to his cheeks, and words, though they were not what I wished, to his lips.