by Scott O'Dell
On the whole, deeming the letter a success, and more than a success, somewhat of a triumph, I sought another subject for a letter, one not based on the Bible. At last I settled upon the lives of Abelard and Heloise and that night read copies of the letters they had written to each other.
The circumstances of their lives were wholly different from those of mine and Francis's. And they themselves were wholly different. Abelard was a brilliant philosopher and Heloise his brightest student. Francis now was unlike Abelard in every way, modest and self-effacing where Abelard arrogantly courted fame. But there was a tie between Heloise and me. I had a warm feeling for her and suffered deeply at her misfortunes.
In the morning I sat down an hour before I was to start work on the Bible and wrote the letter. What I was to say was vague in my mind, but my purpose was very clear. If Abelard, the most famous philosopher in all of the countries of Europe, could break his priestly vows, then Francis Bernardone, a lowly preacher, could break his.
Francis was not a scholar. I had even heard him say that he read the Bible and nothing else. He had never read the story of the two lovers, therefore, and if he had heard the story he would not know the details to be found only in their letters.
At first there were nine questions I wished to ask him. These I reduced to eight, to six, and finally the six to four, the four designed to show Francis how Abelard had erred in his treatment of Heloise and, as I have said, to encourage him to ponder his own life and his friendship with me.
The four questions read in this order and these words:
You will remember, sir, that Abelard was master of the Cloister School at Notre-Dame in Paris, nearly a hundred years ago. He met and fell in love with Heloise and persuaded her uncle to accept him as a boarder. In return for his board, he took on the duties of tutoring Heloise in philosophy.
My questions, sir, are these:
In view of the fact that Abelard arranged the bargain with her uncle, Canon Fulbert, with the hope of seducing Heloise, as he later admitted, and since he did indeed seduce her, does the fault for the tragic events that followed lie with him alone? Or does it lie with Canon Fulhertfor bringing the two together under one roof especially since he resolutely thought that by currying favor with Abelard he would further his own churchly ambitions?
There are other questions that I wish you to answer, sir, and may I be so bold as to refresh your memory, for what is a living story to me can only be, considering all your holy concerns, vague shadows of a worldly past.
When Canon Fulbert, you will recall, discovered that the two were lovers, he at once and in a towering rage banished Abelard from the house. Soon afterward, Heloise became heavy with child. One night when Fulbert was away, Abelard secretly had her taken, disguised as a nun, to her sister's home in Brittany, where she gave birth to a son.
Abelard, as time passed, grew ashamed of the treacherous way he had treated Canon Fulbert. In the end he went to see the canon and excused his treachery by saying that great men, like himself, and since the days of Adam, had suffered the fatal wiles of women. Further, he promised the canon that he would marry Heloise, provided the marriage was kept secret. Canon Fulbert, as you will further recall, was JO elated that he embraced Abelard and sealed the promise with a kiss.
My question is this, sir: Was it wrong for Abelard to insist that his plan be kept secret, based as it was upon the fear that marriage might hinder his future with the Church?
But the uncle, against his promise, disclosed the marriage. Feeling hound by love to protect Abelard, Heloise denied on oath that they were married. The denial enraged Canon Fulbert and he fell upon her with sticks and curses. He felt that Abelard had broken their pledge. In revenge he thought up an inhuman plan and brutally carried it out.
"Violently angry "Abelard reports in one of his works, "Fulbert and his kinsmen ... One night when I was fast asleep in an inner room of my lodgings, they bribed a servant and punished me by means of a most barbarous and shameful revenge—one that was heard of by all with utter amazement—namely they deprived me of that part of my body with which I had committed the deeds of which they complained."
At this place in their tragic lives, I begin to wonder, sir, about many things, especially if Cod did not act in the guise of Canon Fulbert. And I wonder also if at the end when, it is said, the body of Heloise was laid at her husband's side and he reached out his arms to her, it was not to ask forgiveness.
I copied the story and the questions that I hoped would catch his attention, all in a fine Gothic script. I showed them to Raul, for he was the one who had told me their tragic story when he first feared that I was possessed. And later he had sent to Paris, to the cloister of Notre-Dame, and purchased a copy of the letters, using money from the library funds to meet the cost, which was the price of a good parcel of land and tight dwellings.
Work in the scriptorium was finished for the week. The copyists had gone and I had put away my pens and brushes. It was a warm day with a wind from Subasio gusting across the rooftops. But Raul was wrapped in a mantle, his fur cap pulled down; only his black eyes showed. He glanced down at the letter and shook his head.
"You're aware that I give advice sparingly," he said, "and that I often call upon history, believing that what has happened in the past may happen again. For this reason I told you about Abelard and Heloise and suggested you read their letters. However, you continue to tread the same steps as Heloise. You're stumbling like a sleepwalker toward an abyss, the same abyss that she stumbled into."
Raul had been talking through the folds of his mantle. He now freed his mouth.
"I have watched this affair with dread. Still I refrain from giving you advice, other than to beg you to read her letters again—not with the idea of propounding questions for Bernardone to answer, but for you yourself to answer. The letter you sent and this one that you plan to send are only a ruse to gain favor with a man whose life is as devoted to himself as was Abelard's."
"Francis Bernardone is not Abelard," I said, keeping anger from my voice. "Abelard was ambitious, aspired to be the very best, the best lecturer at Notre-Dame, the best philosopher in the world, the best everything. Francis is different. He doesn't wish to be the best, to be rich or famous, an abbot or a cardinal. He only wishes to be the humblest, to serve the poor, those that are dispossessed and those that sorrow."
"Your Francis Bernardone and all his perfections remind me of a story they tell in Seville. In the Street of the Serpents there was a beautiful black, silky Nubian goat, famous in the city and the countryside for the prodigious amounts of milk she gave. The curious came for miles to pat her velvety sides. Buyers flocked there with fabulous offers. The city council passed resolutions in her honor. But the owner was very quiet, silent about the beast's one bad habit, which he had never been able to cure. Once the milk jug was full, the goat kicked it over."
"Another of your Sufis," I said. "What does it mean?"
"I quote parables to you on the theory that what we can't see in bright sunlight, we can see in the shadows. If you wish to see an object clearly—for instance, a man standing under a tree on a distant hill—you don't widen your eyes; you narrow them, you squint."
"I am squinting and still I don't see."
"Keep squinting," Raul said.
He had not come to quote parables—that I saw by the tight line around his lips and the jut of his beard.
In a moment he said, "I bring news that may interest you. Bernardone, as you know, has been traveling about Assisi, acting like an ordained priest, and preaching, collecting money, which he uses as he sees fit. His antics displeased Bishop Pelagius, so the bishop wrote a fiery letter to the pope, accusing him of heresy."
I listened as though I were hearing about the letter for the very first time.
"Well, Bernardone got wind of the letter somehow and hied himself off to Rome, where the pope greeted him civilly, but, shocked by his rags and bare feet, politely dismissed him. That evening—and mind you, I am repeating
rumors that strike me as somewhat ridiculous—the pope repaired to the altar of the great church, the altar beneath which lay the most sacred relics of Israel: the rod of Moses, given him by God, the Tables of the Law, the Ark of the Covenant. He knelt and prayed, then out of the sky, out of nowhere, there suddenly came a shattering sound. The roof pitched. Candelabra swung in violent arcs. The alabaster columns cracked and swayed. A terrible wind howled through the resplendent aisles.
"For an awful instant the pope thought that the church would be swept away. Then he opened his eyes and saw that the structure was whole once again, supported upon the broad shoulders of the ragged beggar of Assisi.
"Innocent awoke from his dream and called his cardinals together and said to them, 'This is truly the man who, by example, will uphold the Church of Christ.'"
Raul picked up the letter I had written and handed it to me.
"I impart this news as a final admonition," he said. "The pope has blessed Bernardone and given him the authority to preach churchly doctrines. He is lost to you at this hour and forever."
Not forever, I said to myself.
Raul turned to the bench where a candelabrum stood and selected the largest of the candles. "Destroy the letter," he said, "lest it add fuel to this awful fire."
I shook my head and, thinking that he would burn the letter himself, hid it away.
16
I waited for Palm Sunday to give Francis the letter, knowing that on that day he would be at San Rufino. I carefully rewrote it. The Gothic script I changed to Carolingian, it being more feminine and easier to read. The capitals I re-painted in blue and gold, and instead of mere decorations I showed Christ entering the city of Jerusalem in a bower of olive branches.
I counted the hours, the days, the long nights, until that holy celebration. They moved maddeningly slowly. I could have gone looking for Francis in the countryside, but Palm Sunday seemed the best time to see him again, less bold than if I went to search him out.
There was conflict in Assisi, as usual, between the rich and the poor, merchants and nobles. Rumors spread that there would be strife on the holy Sunday. Our enemies in Perugia even threatened to disrupt the day. I lived in fear that warfare would break out and close the cathedral.
My fears proved groundless, but something I had not foreseen did upset me greatly.
The day dawned peaceful and clear. By midmorning the streets were crowded with worshipers, bright in velvet mantles and silver corselets, on foot and on horseback, on their way to the cathedral of San Rufino, the poor and the noble. Hidden beneath my mantle I carried the letter to Francis Bernardone.
The portals were decked with olive branches, pine boughs, and sheaves of early flowers, so thick that it was difficult to pass through them.
Nicola said, "It's like walking through a forest."
And so it was, but inside the cathedral clouds of incense obscured the nave and the kneeling worshipers. Far off through the clouds there was a glimmer of candles. Bishop Pelagius was praying in his golden voice: "Oh God, who by an olive branch commanded the dove to proclaim peace to the world, sanctify, we beseech Thee, by Thy heavenly benediction, these olive branches, that they may be serviceable to all Thy people unto salvation."
I stood on tiptoe while the bishop prayed, craning my neck to find some sign of Francis amidst the restless crowd. I searched until my eyes stung, but to no avail.
Echoes of the bishop's elegant voice were dying away when Clare appeared out of the clouds of incense and clasped me in her arms. She was all in white. She wore a diadem in her coiled hair and gleaming pearls at her throat.
"You look like a bride-to-be," I said. "But where is the shining knight who will take your hand in his?"
She raised a jeweled finger and pointed toward the window at the far end of the cathedral, where a patch of blue sky showed. "There," she said. "There! Don't you see?"
Clare's mother and her three sisters, a gathering of aunts, uncles, and cousins, and the seven knights of the family, resplendent in their shining breastplates, stood nearby.
"But when do you wed?" I asked, thinking she was making a joke.
"Soon," she said.
"Will I be your closest friend and stand beside you, my arms full of pretty flowers, and support you if your legs grow weak? And how, please tell me, does he look? Is he tall? Is he knightly? Is he—"
Clare frowned and interrupted me, saying a word that I lost in the triumphal chorus of "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts" that went roaring through the church. Her frown passed quickly, but it proved to be the foreshadowing of events to come, events that between dusk and dawn were to shake Assisi.
The first sign came when everyone, including myself and Nicola and all the Scifis and their cousins the Favarones, went to the altar and received the blessed branches from the hands of the bishop. Clare stayed behind. When I returned she was still standing at the portal, but now her eyes were downcast and a trance had come upon her.
A strange thing then took place. Quiet fell upon the kneeling crowd as Bishop Pelagius walked down the altar steps, carrying a sacred olive branch. The crowd started. What was this powerful, arrogant, short-tempered bishop about to do? He might do anything. The hush deepened. All eyes were upon him as he stopped in front of Clare and handed her the sacred branch.
I was startled. What did the gift of the sacred symbol mean? Surely it marked the sealing of a pact. But what pact could it be? There was no sign from Clare as she accepted the gift. Curtsying to the bishop, she waited calmly until he had turned and started down the aisle. Then she grasped my arm.
"Come," she whispered and dragged me through the portal and down the long flight of steps, Nicola running along behind us.
"Let's go before the family comes," she said. Her face was drained of color.
"Go where?"
"Anywhere."
"Why, for heaven's sake?"
The first of a long procession began to file down the steps and into the square.
"I must hide," Clare said. "Now, somewhere."
"Hide from what?" I asked, annoyed with her.
She didn't answer. In the procession filing out of the church I caught a glimpse of her mother and her two sisters and behind them the seven knights of the family, towering over all in their feathered caps and shining armor.
I shook her by the arms, not gently. "You're acting like a child. Whatever is wrong? What are you hiding from?"
She seemed puzzled that I didn't know. "From my family, of course," she said. "They've been suspicious for weeks that something is about to happen. The bishop's gift only increases their suspicions. If I go home now, they'll gather round and question me. There'll be a terrible fight. The fight will end with the doors closed and bolted and me a prisoner. There's nothing I can do except hide until the vows are taken."
"What vows?" I stammered. My head reeled at the sound of the word, although from the day we had stood together beside the palace steps and watched Francis renounce his father, from that day to this moment, I should have known. I raised my voice. "Vows, what vows?"
"The vows of the Friars Minor."
"You're taking vows? Where?"
"At Porziuncola. In the chapel."
"When?"
"The day after tomorrow, at vespers."
The bells of San Rufino, high against the heavens, began to toll the hour. The procession had broken up and the crowd milled around us.
"Hide me," Clare said. "Please, until the morning comes."
Clare, the beautiful Clare di Scifi, was taking the vows, thinking to run errands for Francis Bernardone, to collect stones for him and beg for bread, to be close to him, to breathe the same air he breathed. What a little hypocrite!
The gaze of Manaldo Scifi, the tallest of the seven knights, was moving back and forth over the silent crowd. I was tempted to shout, "Lord Manaldo, your sister Clare is here. Look, she is here!"
"If you hide in our home," I said to her, "and they come for you, what does my father say? Does
he lie? The Scifis are vengeful men. You do not lie to them or to their cousins, the Favarones, who are with them."
Clare made a sound. It was like the noise a stricken animal makes when caught in a trap. Turning away from me, she fled through the square. She was fleeing toward the poorest part of the city, where she could find someone willing to hide her. I ran wildly through the crowd. When I caught her, there were tears in her eyes.
"Hurry!" I said, taking her hand.
A crossbowman was on guard at the Door of the Dead, astride his bench. He opened the door, and the three of us, Nicola and Clare and I, slipped in and took the steep stairs to my tower.
The letter I had written to Francis was still hidden in my cloak. Tomorrow he would be at Porziuncola, waiting for Clare. I would deliver it, place it in his hand with a curtsy and a discreet smile.
Meanwhile, as Clare watched San Rufino Square from the balcony, I wrote another missive, a short one, to Ortolana di Scifi, informing her that her daughter was on the way to Porziuncola, there to take the Franciscan vows. I signed it "Pacifica Primavera, a friend," and gave it to a servant to deliver the next day as the San Rufino bells rang out for tierce.
Barely an hour after I had given these instructions, Nicola reported that horsemen were on the street. I hurried to the balcony. The big, tuneful bells of San Rufino rang, followed by the booming bells of Santa Maria Maggiore. Watchmen's lanterns showed in the square. People were scurrying home, for the law prohibited loitering in the streets after dark, even on Palm Sunday.
The horsemen stopped at our gate and I heard them arguing with the guards.
"I'll send them away," Nicola said. She ran to the balcony and shouted down to them, "Varlets, be off!"
Shouts came back, a torrent of them. As I left the room and hastened down the stairs, I heard the rasping voice of Manaldo. I opened the door in his face. Taken aback, he bowed and muttered an apology.
He loomed in the doorway, a tall man, his corselets worn tight to reveal bands of bulging muscle. He moved his mouth in an unfriendly smile to let me know that he knew that I would answer him with a lie.
