The Road to Damietta (20 page)

"You just said that my thoughts were too heathenish for me to join the crusade, yet now you ask me to join the Poor Clares. I am to take the oath of poverty. Beg for my bread. And so forth. And please don't tell me that all the thousands of crusaders milling around in Venice have Christian thoughts. Perhaps you are the only one."

"There's danger in Egypt," he said. "If you are captured, you'll be sold as a slave, or more likely given to the sultan as an ornament. If you are wounded, you may die for lack of care. If you die, and many have died, you'll not be buried in Christian ground."

I doubted that his concern was for my life or my soul. He was afraid that I planned to chase after him, afraid that I would hound his footsteps into Egypt.

"Why do you, this saint who goes around preaching the Lord's commandment about loving your neighbor, hurry off to fight people whom you don't know and who haven't harmed you?" I asked.

"I am not going to Damietta to fight. I go there to talk to the sultan of Egypt. If he will listen to me and become a Christian, the fighting that has lasted for more than a hundred years will come to an end."

"Being a Moslem, the sultan will never listen to you."

"We shall see."

He was ready to say more when shouts came from the square, followed by another rout, this one in pursuit of an unshorn
lamb. The animal fled past me and up the steps to the altar. Instead of hastening away as the pig had done, it came up and stood beside Francis. He took the panting animal in his arms.

Quietly he calmed its fears and gave it back to the anxious owner who had appeared on the scene. Then he turned his thoughts elsewhere, upon me as I stood below him at the rail, trembling and fearful that by the power of his will I would be forced to stay in Venice.

I returned his gaze. I put on my cloak, pulled up the collar to hide all but my eyes, and fled. I ran the short distance to the Grand Canal, to where the doge's fleet lay moored.

Ships of all descriptions lay side by side along the canal,
farther than my eye could reach, bows and bowsprits hanging over the street so that I had to duck my head at every step. Among all these hundreds I surely could find passage, but my search lasted until dark and ended only by a chance encounter with a black-hulled ship decorated at stern and bow by red unicorns.

In the light of a ships lantern I noticed a man standing on deck, counting wine casks as they came aboard. I recognized him at once as Leonardo di Gislerio, the well-known, bad-tempered lord of Monte Sasso, a Perugian lately turned monk.

I informed him that I was seeking passage to Egypt and that I had been sent to him by Francis Bernardone—a lie, of course. He smiled and told me that this was the ship Bernardone was sailing on, but that I had come too late.

"Alas, we're filled. Passengers are sleeping in the bilge, on the deck, but you'll find a barque called the
Mermaid
farther along,
past a dozen ships or so. Painted white, her name on the bow in gold letters. She's only for women."

He leaned over the rail and added, "You haven't had your supper, young lady. You're hungry. Come, I'll see that you're properly fed. You can't start out for Egypt on an empty stomach. A cup of wine first."

He pointed to the boarding plank, but as he held out his bony hand I moved away. Despite the glow of lanterns now that it was night, all the ships looked the same. I moved from one to the other and at last I heard a burst of a woman's laughter and made out the name
Mermaid
on the bow.

A young woman sat astride the rail. A giant of a man with rings in his ears held a lantern and a mirror while she braided her hair and tied it with ribbons. Without taking his eyes from her, he asked me why I was standing there agape. When I told him, he waited until the woman had piled her hair on her head, then disappeared.

The woman—from what I could see of her in the dim light she was no older than I—introduced herself as Rosanna. She asked my name and wanted to know where I had come from and how I had learned about the
Mermaid.
She spoke curtly in an unfriendly voice, as though I were an interloper.

"Who sent you here?" she said.

"Signor Gislerio."

"Who's Gislerio? What's he look like?"

"He's very tall, has a black beard, goes about in a black and white robe and bare feet."

"Bare feet?"

"He poses as a monk."

"How would a barefooted monk know about the
Mermaid?
"

I shrugged.

"He hasn't been here," she said. "And if he did come, Captain Vitale would never allow him and his bare feet on the ship. The captain is very particular. A nobleman from Paris came last night dressed in a monkey suit with a long green tail and a pink behind—the kind you wear at masquerades—and the captain refused him."

The laughter I heard when I was searching for the ship burst forth again. Two men came from below and disappeared in the night. It was then, as I listened to the laughter and the sound of men's footsteps moving away on the esplanade, that I realized the
Mermaid
was a brothel and Rosanna a harlot. I should have known this long before. At the moment Gislerio said that there were only women on the ship, I should have sensed it.

The laughter ceased. The giant came on deck, followed by a man with a pale, bald head who looked like a clerk but was Emilio Vitale, captain of the
Mermaid.

He held the lantern high so he could see me better and said, "You have a serious mien, an air about you that I find depressing—due to what, I don't know. But step aboard, we'll see where to put you. Rosanna, you do have an extra bed."

Rosanna gave him a sullen nod. Apparently she thought of me as a rival for the captain's favors.

"Take her below. Freshen her up a bit," Vitale said. "She looks frowzy. Escort her to the cabin. And do not dally."

I held my tongue. For hours I had traveled the esplanade and found nothing. It had taken the doge a year to assemble his ships. Months would likely pass before more ships were assembled for the perilous journey. From what I had heard, ships moved across the Mediterranean only in flocks like the swallows, twice each year, for protection from sea pirates.

I followed Rosanna through a tortuous passageway, past a large salon cut up into cubicles furnished with red drapes and couches, down a plunging stair into the ship's deep hold.

Rosanna's cabin was not much larger than a broom closet, with three narrow bunks, one above the other, and no window. It smelled of stale perfume and seawater that had been standing too long in the bowels of the ship. A flame in a pink bowl was smoking.

In the light she was a little older than I had taken her for, yet her voice was young and she was quite pretty. I shed my cloak, washed my forehead, and used some of her powder.

"Don't hurry," she said. "The captain's been drinking. When he drinks he forgets. He may even forget that he hired you."

She seemed less sullen now. I had the feeling that she was lonely and wanted someone to talk to.

"It would be a good thing if he does forget you're on the
ship," she said. "In the morning we sail for Damietta. At least that's what I hear. Tonight will be hell. Having eaten their large suppers and swilled goblets of wine, the crusaders will descend upon us. This night until dawn, when the
Mermaid
sets to sea, the Devil himself will be loose on the ship."

She got up and emptied the bowl of water I had used into a hole in the floor.

"You're just starting out, I gather from your innocent looks," she said gaily. "You're far too young for tonight's frolic. Stay in the cabin. Should the captain ask, I'll tell him you're ill. Bar the door and don't open it to anyone except me. Do you understand?"

Before I could answer, again her mood changed and a cold light glinted in her eyes.

"Unless, of course, you wish to meet the Devil himself. Many of the women enjoy his company. Do you? Your innocent ways and demure looks may be deceiving. It would surprise me not at all to find you're a hellcat. We have a few of them on the ship. They're the most demure of the lot. A snowflake wouldn't melt on their lips. It's possible..."

I raised my hand to stop her, but she went on in this vein until breath failed her. I said, "Listen for a second. Say nothing and listen. All afternoon I spent searching for a ship. I didn't know that this one is a brothel. All I wanted was a ship."

Rosanna gasped. She hid her face and sobbed, then dried her eyes on her sleeve.

"I've been here hardly a week," she said. "I came from Lucca, near where you live."

"I know the town."

"I came because I had a vision in the night. There was lightning in the sky. The whole sky was lit up as when dawn is breaking. I saw Christ standing there. The tomb was behind Him and He was stretching out His arms, beckoning me to the Hill of the Sepulcher. My family was terribly angry. They did everything they possibly could to make me change my mind, but I ran off in the middle of the night and came here. Passage to the Holy Land costs more than my father made in a whole year. And I was without a
soldo.
That's why I'm here on this ship of harlots."

Her eyes blazed, daring me to condemn her. "I can tell what you're thinking."

"No," I said, "I am not condemning you. I am thinking about someone else, a girl who was born in Egypt, in Damietta where we're going. Her name was Mary and she had a vision like the one you had. She was poor also and the only way she could get to the Holy Land was by giving herself to the sailors on a ship bound for Jerusalem."

Rosanna was beside me on the bunk. She grasped my arm. "Did the people condemn her?"

"She was stoned."

"But did Christ condemn her?"

"No, He forgave her."

"Truly?"

"Truly. Christ told her to go and sin no more and she didn't. In time she became a saint, Saint Mary of Egypt."

The candle in the pink bowl was guttering. Rosanna reached over and trimmed the wick and we sat for a while in silence.

"You haven't told me where you are going," she said.

"To Damietta, in Egypt."

"Not to the Holy Land?"

"No."

"You seem determined to get to Damietta."

"I am."

"You have a purse. But tell me, if you were poor, like me, and the only way you could ever reach Damietta was by being a..." She searched for a word.

"I would do the same thing that you're doing," I said.

"Because you believe that Christ would forgive you, as He forgave Saint Mary of Egypt?"

"No—because I have to go."

"You would go, anyway?"

"Yes. Anyway!"

The ship rocked with the tide. The flame in the pink bowl swayed back and forth with the ship, yet the flame itself did not move. It remained upright and burned steadily.

The night was a hell of shrieks and drunkenness as God
turned His face while the Devil frolicked.

Well before the night began, Rosanna hid me away in a hole next to our cabin, a storage place stuffed with coils of frayed rope and tattered sails, lit by a slit of a window. She supplied me with a jug of water and a parcel of food she had stolen, and went off to tell the captain that I had fled the ship. For that reason, neither he nor the tattooed giant came looking.

I slept little, awakening fitfully to bedlam sounds. By dawn we were already in midstream, moving slowly seaward under oars and small sail. A body hurtled past my window, then a second body, then a third. They were crusaders, Rosanna told me later, thrown overboard by the giant, who was rounding up all those who had refused to leave the ship.

I was seasick for three days and during this time went undiscovered. Then, in a storm off the coast of Cyprus, sailors ran
down to get sails, found me lying in the cubbyhole, and reported me to the captain, who threatened to have me tossed overboard but relented when I emptied my purse on the table and begged him to take all my money. Instead, he generously took only half, felt less angry, and left me alone.

The storm at Cyprus scattered the fleet. Eleven ships of the hundreds bound for Damietta were sunk in heavy seas or driven ashore. The
Mermaid
lost her rudder, but the captain managed to sail her safely to shore. We were on the island for more than a month while the ship was being repaired. There was a church nearby and twice each day I went there and prayed to the Virgin of the Sea.

She heard my prayers, for the first thing I saw when we sailed into Damietta, among all the dozens of ships, was Francis's black-hulled ship lying safely at anchor.

It was a sweltering noon. A coppery haze blown by a hot wind moved across the sea and the wide mouth of the Nile. We anchored close to the bank among other ships in a cove protected from the current.

None of the women went ashore except Rosanna and me. After I had helped her find a ship that was sailing to the Holy Land and given her money for her passage—Captain Vitale had cheated her out of what she had made—I trotted off toward the tents that stretched along the river between the cove and the city.

As I hurried along the path through the fields of towering grass and stunted palm trees, the sun beating down, wherever I
looked—at the Nile shimmering like golden glass, so wide its farthest bank was hidden, at the colored pavilions and the white tents billowing in the wind—there was nothing that I knew.

Beyond the crusaders' encampment rose the high gray walls and the lofty minarets of Damietta. Not a sound came from the besieged city, though the war was now in its second year. Crescent flags flew from the parapets but I saw no signs of fighting.

Bewildered, I stopped at the first tent I came to. Smoke and the smell of food came through the flaps. Inside, tending an enormous iron pot, I found by chance a woman whose husband, Alberto, baked bread and sold it from house to house in Assisi.

"You are acquainted with Francis Bernardone, of course," I said to her. "Do you know where he is?"

"He comes once a day," she said. "In the morning or at night for supper."

"Where is he between times? Where might I find him?"