The Road to Damietta (7 page)

The bishop wiped his brow and took a second helping of quail and three ladles of rich brown gravy. The anger Francis Bernardone had aroused in him was still there in his sharp eyes.

Rinaldo was off in the city somewhere. Mother was in bed suffering from a cold that had come upon her while kneeling on the chill stones of San Rufino. But my father was at table and had given the bishop his close attention.

He now cleared his throat and said to the bishop, "There are hundreds, yes, thousands, who have fewer flies in their heads than this Bernardone. It's not bad for a man to talk to the sparrows. It can't harm anyone. And it's better than talking to oneself."

"Not harmless," the bishop said. "Far from harmless. It's a symptom of a most distressing malady. It can lead him to the brink of excommunication and over the brink, shunned by the Church and all its faithful."

I sat with downcast eyes, wishing terribly to say: I have seen him talk to a bull here in our courtyard. He spoke softly to the enraged beast and it grew gentle. It must have understood what he said. It must have talked back to him, if not in words, then in some wordless way that together they had discovered.

When we left the table, the bishop and I went again to the Great Hall and prayed. After prayers, he sat in silence, thinking, no doubt, of how best to curb Francis Bernardone, to put a chain around the neck of the man he felt certain was possessed by the Devil. It was a moody silence and to me fraught with danger.

The bishop was in a better mood when he again appeared for dinner. With him he brought a stranger. Her name was Nicola Ascoli, and she was my age, a bedraggled little thing, all eyes, with a shy smile that showed two rows of pointed teeth.

The bishop had found her on his doorstep that morning. "She was there," he told us, "but fled when I approached. I sent one of my acolytes to bring her back and here she is, what's left of her."

Nicola's home, we learned, was a village in a northern province. Her mother and father, inspired by the village priest, had set off with her for Jerusalem. Across the mountain from Assisi in Ancona, which was a port on the Adriatic Sea, they found a ship bound for the Holy City. Only a day from land, the ship was driven ashore and everyone was drowned except the captain and Nicola, who found her way back to Assisi, taking months to make the journey.

Introducing Nicola into our family, I later discovered, was a plot hatched by Bishop Pelagius and my father. She was to be both an admonition and a model. Nicola had experienced weeks of the direst hardships—cold and hunger, even fears for her life—while during this time I, Ricca di Montanaro, had lived a pampered life, loved by doting parents, my smallest wish attended to. A spoiled child, in other words—selfish, indifferent to the thoughts of others, and, above all, careless of the family name.

The next day Nicola moved to the castle in her tattered dress and broken shoes, her few belongings wrapped in a soiled scarf. I welcomed her with a reserved kiss and half a smile, as the family looked on, yet I was overjoyed because she would lighten my burden. Now they would have two girls to watch in place of one.

Her father, we learned, was a baker and she had helped him bake bread. For a week or two she helped me in the scriptorium, mixing paint and cleaning brushes, but she disliked this task and asked if she might work in the kitchen.

At home her father had never allowed her to make pastries but she had watched and learned. So this is what she did in our bakery, making confections in all shapes and colors and tastes, especially those that sparkled like diamonds and tasted of cinnamon—which was rare and cost as much for a handful as a plot of good farm land.

Father liked her pastries. And Mother, adoring Nicola as a tragic young thing, was determined to make her forget. She encouraged her to become a girl with no past, only a bright future. To that end she had me copy on parchment a set of rules of etiquette compiled by the fashionable poet Robert of Blois, and read them aloud to Nicola, who could not read.

My mother tried to guide Nicola in other ways. She thought of her as a doll and dressed her in that fashion, in the finest of beribboned underclothes, shoes of the softest leather and thinnest soles, and velvet tunics with fluffy sleeves laced to the elbows.

Nicola liked her clothes, but when my mother suggested that she learn to play the lute and when Rinaldo requested the pleasure of guiding her through the labyrinths of chess, she smiled her diffident smile and refused them both.

She was excited, however, by the two mammoth ovens, so huge you could walk into them without ducking your head. The ovens baked ten dozen loaves of bread every day, sometimes more, and could roast a whole cow and two pigs at the same time. She was fascinated by the three leather tanks where long-legged frogs and squirming eels and various kinds of fish were kept ready for the frying pot, and by the sides of beef and pork stacked in huge pickling tanks to keep them from spoiling. The row of condiments above the working table interested her, too: sage and parsley, marjoram and mint, and strange spices—peppercorns, saffron, nutmeg, the priceless cinnamon.

Nicola was just as excited about the cathedral and its glittering angels. She went there every day, often at matins and vespers both. Sometimes she listened to Francis Bernardone give one of his speeches on the street. I always knew when she had listened to him, for her eyes would be shining with tears.

One day as the bells of the cathedral rang for vespers, she came running to the scriptorium. She stood, covered with flour, in the doorway and shouted, "He's here. He's here!"

I was at my bench, printing an initial for the twenty-third chapter of Exodus. It's a delicate task that takes a steady hand. I put down my brush.

"Who's here?" I asked, though I knew.

"Francis Bernardone. And he needs stones. He's gathering stones to build a church."

I took my time with the brushes. I cleaned them and put them carefully side by side in their enameled box.

There were reasons why I should not let Francis Bernardone gather stones in the courtyard. Rinaldo and my father were away, but they would learn about it when they returned. I would be blamed for giving away things that didn't belong to me. There were stronger reasons, too. I was struck by the awful thought that he had seen me standing beside the palace steps, my clothes in a heap. If not, he would certainly have heard, for, if my brother was truthful, it was talked about not only in Assisi but also among thousands in the smug city of Perugia.

My heart beat wildly; then it seemed not to beat at all. "Tell the guards," I said, "to tell Francis Bernardone that my father is away and he's to come back another time and ask for permission to gather stones."

Nicola grumbled something that sounded rude, then said, "But he's here. And there are dozens of stones lying in the courtyard. Against the wall, back where an old pillar has fallen down. They're covered with moss and of no use." Tossing her blond curls, she grumbled again.

"Apparently," I said, "you have forgotten the 'Rules for Girls of Gentle Breeding' my mother lovingly had me prepare for you."

"I haven't. I know them by heart. Sometimes they seem silly. As they do now."

"You've forgotten the very first one."

Nicola smiled. "The one that says that a girl of the gentle class should not raise her voice in anger or act impatiently. But I am not angry or impatient. I am only saying that a young man who wishes a few stones for a ruined church is out there waiting in the cold."

A chill thought seized me. The man waiting in the cold was the one who had turned his back upon me, who had deserted Ricca di Montanaro for the life of a barefooted mendicant.

"Go," I said, "and deliver a message to the beggar. Say that I have no authority to give him stones for a church."

Nicola wheeled about and ran down the hall, sniffling, but before she ever reached the courtyard I overtook her.

The last of the sun lay on the summit of Mount Subasio
in the distance. The gate to our courtyard was open, and just inside it stood a hooded man.

"There he is," Nicola said. "Francis Bernardone."

"It's not Francis Bernardone," I said.

"I've seen him before. I saw him begging in the street. It was yesterday, when I went to pray in the cathedral."

"It can't be!"

Yet the moment I spoke these words I realized that it
was
Francis, the new Francis, barefooted, wrapped in a tattered robe held together by a rope like those used to tether oxen. My heart sank.

Skipping along like a dancer, he came toward me and stopped but a stride from me. "Praise the Lord for this beautiful day," he said. "Praise Brother Sun for the task he has just completed. Praise Sister Night who is about to visit us again. And praise the
stars also, the first of which I see there beyond the mountaintop and shy as a maiden rising from sleep."

His words issued from the hood that nearly hid his face, words from the depths of a cavern.

"Lest I frighten you," he said, "I am the Francis Bernardone who, you may remember, has been in this courtyard before, on the day of the bulls. Who has sung beneath your window. Who has sold you cloth. A length of sendal, or was it samite? I can't recall."

"Sendal," I said.

"Yes, sendal becomes you more than samite."

"The cloth faded the first time it was cleaned," I said.

"Then please return it to Signor Bernardone. He has a good name, which he wishes to keep, I am certain."

"The cloth was given to a servant," I said, angered at the pain that had pierced my heart. "You also persuaded me to free my hunting bird, who is dead by now, an act for which my father has severely punished me."

"Your bird is in God's care. It is safer than on your wrist."

The bird story that Bishop Pelagius had told me quickly came to mind. "You seem to know all about God and what He does. Does He speak to you as you speak to the sparrows?"

"Yes, and how fortunate for me, humble sparrow that I am."

In the failing light I couldn't see his face, hidden as it was by the heavy folds of his hood, yet I felt that he was serious. Yes,
Francis Bernardone spoke directly to God in the voice of a sparrow. Perhaps he talked to God in the voice of the poor little donkey that was now waiting beside the gate.

Impatient with talk, he began to dance quite gracefully—a joyous little dance, one foot to the side, then the other foot forward. "We are gathering stones," he said, pointing to the donkey, including the beast in the task. "We gather them for the church of San Damiano, which is in a perilous state, weed-grown and close to falling down."

"I've seen it. It has already fallen down. Why waste time with it? There are many beautiful churches in Assisi, and a new cathedral and an old one, too."

"I've had a shining vision. In the night the Lord appeared and asked me to put back the stones of San Damiano that people have taken away to build houses and barns for themselves." He gestured toward the far wall of the courtyard. "I see a pile of stones over there."

"They weren't stolen from San Damiano, not a single one of them," I said. "They all came from a small temple that stood there once. It was dedicated to Venus. As you may know, Venus was the goddess of love."

A muffled sound came from the cavern of his hood. The word Venus seemed to have disturbed him.

"Since Venus was a pagan," I continued, "the stones are not suitable for a Christian church."

"God created the stones, as He created you. They are His, as everything is His. Stones, like people, can be put to many uses, and like people they may be redeemed, though with people redemption is far more difficult than with stones."

Dusk changed to night and the guardians of the gate lit torches. From San Rufino Square came the sound of watchmen setting off on their rounds of the dangerous streets.

"One stone," Francis said, "will bring one blessing. Two stones and the giver is doubly blessed. Three and he's—"

"My father has built two churches in his lifetime," I said. "Both of them bigger than San Damiano. By now he must be blessed a thousand times over. He's in no need of further blessing."

"There are never enough blessings," Francis said. "A thousand are not enough. And those who give, though rich, are not called upon to pass through the eye of the needle."

"Come when my father is home," I said. "Let him decide about the stones and if he is in need of more blessings."

"When is he home? He travels much."

"Perhaps tonight. Perhaps tomorrow."

A chill wind had come up. Francis wrapped the tattered robe around himself and tightened the rope around his waist. In the darkness he seemed to change. He loomed larger against the dark walls. His dark robe turned black. The heavy folds that hid his face took on a forbidding shape. A cold finger ran down my back. I was seized by an impulse to flee. But as I turned away from the silent figure, Nicola came running with a torch.

Francis took the beast's tether and for a moment I thought that he meant to leave and not come back.

"Your friend Clare di Scifi," he said, "sent word that she has a stone for me, a small one she's been using for a doorstop, which she wishes to give to our little church. I'll go to get it tomorrow; then I'll come here and talk to your father."

Clare offering her doorstop to Francis Bernardone? He must be lying. It wasn't just an ordinary stone. I had often noticed it, a piece of precious jade, sea-green and shaped like a monkey's head, which her mother had brought from the Holy Land. She would never give it up. Or would she? Painfully, I remembered how she had defended Francis against my father. Was it true? Was she secretly in love with him?

"Signor Montanaro is a very Christian man. He will surely forgive us," Nicola said, grabbing Francis by the arm and leading him across the courtyard.

I watched the torchlight flickering among the temple stones, hoping that my father would return at that moment and find the two pilferers in his courtyard.

They were not gone long. They came back, Nicola carrying a piece that looked like the hand of a goddess, Francis Bernardone with a heavy square stone from a fluted pedestal.