The Road to Damietta Read online

  "Who is it you shout at?" Raul asked.

  "The one in the velvet cap and the cock's feather—Francis Bernardone."

  Raul said nothing, groaning instead.

  The sound of lutes and violins drifted up on the windless air. A hush fell upon the crowd. Then Francis Bernardone was singing, softly and clearly:

  "Put out my searching eyes!

  Blind me!

  Let me never again see thy beauty,

  For my heart it crucifies."

  The fire shone on his upturned face. I wondered if he saw me in my white gown with the ribbons and rosebuds, leaning above him on the balcony.

  A sigh must have escaped my lips, for Raul said: "You are very prideful. He's not singing to you. Other girls also inhabit Piazza San Rufino. There's the pretty Fabrissa Filippi directly across the square. Next to her are the Barbarossas, Beatrice and Aspasia, equally favored. And let's not forget Clare di Scifi, of the noblest of all Assisi families, a girl famed for her beauty and winning disposition. If you believe that Francis Bernardone sings only to you, then, my dear, you are the possessor of an immense conceit."

  Francis was singing another ballad; his words drifted up, soft as rose petals:

  "You are mine.

  I am thine.

  In my heart

  You are locked forever

  And the golden key is lost."

  The song faded away. Silent and breathless, I leaned over the balcony.

  Raul said, "You may be surprised by the question and you may not wish to answer. But if you do, answer me with the truth."

  I knew the question before he had a chance to ask it. Calmly I said, as though I had said it many times before, "Francis Bernardone is my dearest love."

  Raul's face was hidden, but silence betrayed his concern.

  "I've loved him always," I said. "And I love him now and will forever."

  "I understand, oh, how I understand," he said. "Bernardone is a charming minstrel, a singer of tender songs, a teller of fantastic tales, an acrobat whose feet never touch the ground, with whom every girl in Assisi thinks she's in love. And now it's you that joins the many. You've never met Bernardone. Never so much as spoken a word to him and yet you claim to be in love. What nonsense!"

  "Must I speak to him? Isn't it enough that I have seen him in the streets, on the roads, here in our courtyard, and now below us singing in Piazza San Rufino? I have two eyes and two ears. I can see and hear."

  Yet as I spoke these bold words, I was aware that eyes and ears had little to do with my love for Francis Bernardone. If I were without sight and hearing, still would I love him.

  The bonfire blazed high and in the light I caught a glimpse of Raul's face. He was deciding that such an impossible thing was possible.

  "Feeling as you do," he said, "I must bring you twain together. We can't invite him here because your father, to state it modestly, would not approve. But an idea hovers in my head. Bernardone is a clerk at his father's cloth shop, not far from here. I require a length of wool for a cloak and serge for a pair of breeches. So we'll visit the shop one of these days, and while I make a purchase you can observe him close at hand."

  "I don't wish to observe him," I said testily. "I've observed him many times before and I have observed him tonight."

  "Yes, but you haven't met him. He isn't what you judge him to be from the glimpses. A plain countenance, somewhat severe, for one thing. An unusual pair of ears—not ugly, mind you, not big, very small in fact, yet they do stand out. Not up like a rabbit's ears but straight out like those of some woodland creature. Quite charming!"

  "It isn't necessary that I meet him at all. Tomorrow or ever."

  "Now Princess Ricca is being wildly romantic. To her this Bernardone is a gallant knight astride a snow-white horse cantering through fields of asphodel on an April morn. Princess Ricca is afraid to meet him. She would rather dream. Which is very wise of Ricca."

  Worn out with talking, we were silent for a while. Then in the silence the apparition appeared. It was a burst of blue and silver light that lasted only a breath, so brief that Raul didn't see it and no one opened a window on San Rufino Square.

  "An omen," prayerfully I said to myself. "An omen of wonderful luck to come."

  But nine days later the fiery omen brought heartbreak instead.

  In June every year Assisi celebrated the feast of Saint Victorinus. From balconies and windows hung tapestries and pennons. Laurel wreaths adorned the doors, and everyone, save children and young girls, watched the solemn festivities and afterward frolicked through the streets to the songs and antics of the tripudianti, a company of dancers.

  This year the leader of the tripudianti, as for two years past, was Francis Bernardone. The day came misty and cold, but when the church bells rang for midday he was in Piazza San Rufino with his companions, rousing the city with the call of trumpets, summoning all those who were not too old or too young to come and join him at the feast.

  From my balcony, scarcely breathing, I saw him stride forth with a jaunty swing, dressed in a tunic of the finest silk and a yellow-feathered cap, holding the hand of the youth who had been chosen to play the part of Saint Victorinus. I watched as he led Victorinus to the center of the square and then disappeared in the crowd. I looked everywhere through the chanting throng for the red tunic and yellow-feathered cap.

  I had seen the miracle of Saint Viotorinus four times before, since I was nine years old, so I kept looking for Francis all during the play, which was no different from the other times. First, the bishop by reason of his miraculous powers causes a mute boy to speak and also brings sight to a man who is blind. Then he is brought before a magistrate, just as in the days of ancient Rome, and asked to make a sacrifice to Vulcan, the pagan god, which he calmly refuses to do.

  The mob—played by those now assembled in the square—turns violently against him and demands his death, whereupon the angry magistrate commands him to place his head upon a block. The executioner wields a sword and blood gushes out—the red, red wine from Santa Lucia. Women wrap him in winding cloths and bear him away while the throng laments.

  Only then did Francis Bernardone appear, striding forth in shiny black boots that reached above his knees and a sendal cloak of many colors. He cleared a place to dance and dancers formed circles, held hands, and went round and round singing, my father and brother Rinaldo among them. (Mother, who thought that dancing was a pagan sin, had left the square.)

  As I watched Francis Bernardone flashing around, the wind whipping his cloak, revealing stripes of green and yellow, as I sulkily counted the days and weeks, realizing that another year would pass, another June would come, before 1 could dance in Piazza San Rufino, I was shocked to see him dancing in the same small circle with my closest friend, Clare di Scifi. Clare was only two years older than I, scarcely that, and yet there she was below me in her white dress trimmed with lace, floating about like a snowflake.

  I fled the balcony. I closed the door tight and flung myself on the bed and stopped my ears with pillows against the sound of the brazen drums and the wild songs of the tripudianti.

  3

  For weeks for weeks, I closed my mind to every thought of Francis Bernardone.

  Even when Raul brought his name up or his latest escapade was mentioned at table and no one defended him except my mother, I remained silent. If he appeared in my dreams, as he often did, sometimes as a horseman fleeing from me as he had fled from the leper, other times as a troubadour beneath my window, praising the charms of Clare di Scifi, not me, or as a clown in a parti-colored cloak leading a rout of revelers, it was not my fault.

  Like lightning in a cloudless sky, these peaceful days came to an end on the first day of the feast of San Niccolò. On that day the youth of Assisi elected from their ranks a podestà, five judges, five counselors, and a bishop. These mock officials took over the management of Assisi and thus, by raising the lowest to the highest, the powerless to seats of power, they gave the mighty a taste of how it f
elt to serve and not be served and above all to learn the art of humility.

  Francis Bernardone, chosen as the youthful bishop, was to take the place of Bishop Guido. Served by his companions, who were posing as acolytes, he would celebrate the evening Mass.

  I never had gone to the festa, but on this occasion Clare di Scifi and some of the other girls who lived in Piazza San Rufino banded together against our parents and wrung from them permission to attend the Mass, provided we were accompanied by five watchful servants.

  It was a cold night when we hurried through the streets to the cathedral, wrapped in our heavy cloaks, everyone twittering like birds, except me. The thought of Francis clad in a bishop's fine vestments, of possibly touching the hem of his robe, awakened all the old dreams. Most of the girls wished to remain in the back, where small fires in iron buckets fought the cold, but I prevailed upon them to press on until we came to the altar.

  Francis appeared to the sounds of lutes, a wide smile on his face, dressed in a violet-colored robe that didn't fit, since Bishop Guido was much smaller than he was. His hair curled out from under the rim of a purple miter cocked sidewise, and in his pleasant baritone he sang the hymns and antiphons and jauntily celebrated Mass.

  I watched and listened, so enthralled by every word he uttered, every movement he made, that Clare, thinking I was asleep, kept nudging my arm. And after Mass ended and Francis went tripping through the crowd, I followed him.

  Before we reached the door he had disappeared, and when I saw him again, outside on the cathedral steps, he had shed his bishop's garb and was dressed in an outlandish costume, one half of which was red silk from head to toe and the other half a coarse green fabric used in the making of horse blankets.

  The cathedral square was flooded with citizenry. The flood spilled over into courtyards and arcades, ran off toward other piazzas. It seemed that everyone in Assisi and the whole countryside had come to celebrate the feast of San Niccolo. Those who attended Mass were there to watch Bishop Guido squirm in his velvet chair, uncomfortable at the sight of Bishop Bernardone gaily mocking him. The thousands who remained outside were interested not in this topsy-turvy scene, but only in celebrating what was called the December Liberties, a saturnalia that had come down to us over the centuries.

  Our band of five and the five watchful servants were huddled on the cathedral steps, trying to decide how best to find our way back to San Rufino, when Francis with a leap was suddenly in our midst.

  "Come, young ladies," he shouted above the sounds of the swarming crowd, "and let us dance the rites of our wild forefathers—a goaty crew, I must say."

  With that he seized upon fragile Amata di Renaro, flung her into the air, and caught her as she was about to strike her head on the steps. Next came crippled little Benedetta, countess of Spoleto, for whom he did a squatting dance step and whom he kissed upon the brow. Then Damiella di Malispini, whose hair he clasped in both hands and gently shook until it hung to her shoulders. He paused to glance at the crowd that had pressed around to gawk at him. With a cry he grasped Giacoma, one of the servants, and twirled her about. Then he did the same to Leonarda, Consolata, Patrizia, and blind Lucia Barbrero.

  Only Clare and I were left. It was she whom he chose. Taking her hands and gazing mournfully, like a rejected lover, into her beautiful eyes, he moved her about in a circle, muttering words I didn't catch.

  The crowd pressed in, leaving him little room to dance. He was out of breath. He looked at me, the very last, and with outstretched hands he silently begged me to let him rest. I smiled and turned away with a sinking heart, only to feel his hands grasp mine.

  There was no place to dance. He begged the crowd for a yard of room, no more. Laughing, it took no heed. But to my delight I was suddenly moving down the step, dragged by the hand, to be gathered up by a swirl of revelers and swept round and round in dizzy circles, while I clung tight, like someone who, drowning, is about to be saved.

  The piazza was a stormy sea breaking against a rocky shore. Above the roar I thought I heard Francis say words I had heard before. Yes, the ballad he had sung in San Rufino. The last words of the ballad that had drifted up to me in the night.

  "In my heart

  You are locked forever

  And the golden key is lost."

  I tried to think of a word to say in reply. If a word had come to me, I could not have said it, yet I did not faint. I held my breath and clung with both my hands to his, moving lightly in a dream I had dreamed before.

  At last the flood swept us ashore on the cathedral steps, at the feet of my four companions and the five watchful servants. I turned to thank Francis for the dance. He had disappeared, borne away by the tide of revelers.

  Our little band, desperately clinging together, got back to San Rufino before the bells tolled the hour of midnight, but in a frenzy of excitement the revels went on, with only a brief pause at dawn, though the pope had issued an edict against reveling—on and on for days and ending in a pagan rout.

  Drunken men, tipsy priests, women in flimsy dresses, the rich and the poor, artisans and nobles, the curds and the cream, joined hands with disorderly youth and danced in the cathedral, ate food and drank wine from its altar, which served them as a table. To the sound of castanets, horns, and cymbals, carts rumbled about the city streets, filled with half-naked women bound with leather thongs who were sold by an auctioneer.

  Francis's role as the mock bishop lasted for days and ended with his riding on horseback to the bishop's palace. There he summoned Guido to the door and in a leering speech accused him of dancing drunken in the piazza, of joining the crowd eating and guzzling at the altar, and of other outrageous acts. This attended to, Francis raised his hands in a supercilious benediction; everyone had a hearty drink of wine, then all trooped off to pray.

  I saw none of the orgy, it being described by my brother one night at supper, though I did hear the horrendous noise and the bacchic songs. I could easily imagine how Francis looked when he stood at the bishop's door, his black brows drawn down, a clown's smile on his face.

  I didn't see Francis again until a month, a month and three long weeks, had passed. Raul fell ill and forgot about him. The Bernardone shop was not far away. I thought of going there by myself. I thought of going with my mother, but I was sure that she would talk Francis to death while I stood around in silence. I also thought of asking Clare to go with me. This would be quite silly, I decided, since she was the most beautiful girl in the city of Assisi and the province of Umbria as well. Then I decided not to go at all, thinking it much too bold if I went by myself.

  Truthfully, I never decided. The decision was made for me. One night an unheard voice spoke. An unseen hand reached out in the dark and quietly took mine.

  At dawn I sent a servant into the courtyard to sample the day. She came back to report an overcast sky and a north wind, so I dressed to suit the weather in what I thought might catch his eye—a blue surcoat trimmed at the cuffs and hem with gray squirrel.

  The falconer brought Simonetta, my trim saker hawk, hatched in Venice and given to me by my father months ago on my birthday. I wore a blue gauntlet threaded with yellow stones on my left wrist to protect me from her talons. Simonetta wore a golden hood to protect her from the weather and from any temptations to fly away that she might encounter. White hawks were fashionable at the moment, and I had three of them, but Simonetta, jet-black with yellow legs, was my favorite.

  Remembering that Francis was said to sleep late, I started off at noon, but no sooner had I reached the square than Raul, still suffering from a cold and wrapped to the eyes in a woolen surcoat, came riding up.

  "You're quite bold," he croaked.

  "Bold?" I asked innocently.

  "You're on your way to meet Francis Bernardone, alone."

  "How do you know where I am going?"

  "By your favorite hawk and your pearl-encrusted shoes. Also from the look in your eye. By chance, have you told your father about all this?"

&nbs
p; "Yes, I told him that I wished to shop for cloth and he asked where. 'At Bernardone's,' was my reply.

  "'There's no other place to buy cloth in the city of Assisi, except the place owned by the scoundrel Bernardone?' Father asked.

  " Yes,' I told him."

  In all of the provinces of Umbria and Tuscany, there was no place that had finer cloth in the latest weaving and colors than Bernardone's.

  "'Your mother will go with you.'

  "'Mother likes things that I don't like. She's a little backward in her ideas about cloth.'

  '"Then you will go with a maid and a proper number of serving women. Also with guards.'"

  Raul grumbled but fell in beside me. As we crossed San Rufino Square he said, though it seemed very painful for him to talk, "I heard that your idol, Francis Bernardone, stole a length of expensive cloth and some money from his father. The cloth he gave to a beggar, and the money he spent on a drunken party."

  "The city of Assisi hatches rumors like summer flies," I said. "Where did you hear this one?"

  "Yesterday, from your father."

  "I don't believe it."

  "It does sound odd. A son stealing from his own father. But Francis Bernardone is an odd one. You can expect most anything from him. And not only this. His father is angry. He's even threatened to summon Francis before the authorities."

  "I still don't believe it." And I didn't believe so much as a single word of the story.

  Flanked by servants and guards carrying the pennons of the House of Montanaro, we set off at a leisurely canter for the Bernardone establishment on Via Portico, which is reached by a lane lined with unpleasant stalls where animals are slaughtered. As we rode down the lane our horses trod in pools of blood.

  The Via Portico itself is crowded with shops and large signs—the apothecary's cluster of gilded pills, the striped arm of the barber-surgeon, the goldsmith's unicorn. Bernardone's shop was at the far end of the street, an unlikely place for a merchant dealing in expensive cloth.