The Road to Damietta (13 page)

"It's safe to wait until tomorrow," I said. Now that I had begun to lie, lies came easily. "Clare has had a frightful day. She needs to dry her clothes and sleep."

The letter I had written to him was in my cloak, wrapped up and dry, but I decided that this was not the time to deliver it.

"I'll bring her," I said and ran outside.

From the church steps there was a clear view of the field between me and the river. The seven brothers would be traveling with torches. I saw none; the fields lay in half-darkness, wanly lit by a quartering moon. They might not arrive until morning.
During that time, possibly longer, I must do everything in my power to prevent the ceremony.

Nicola and I helped Clare straighten her rumpled dress. She was silent and stiff, like a doll children were fussing over, and her hands were cold when I touched them. It suddenly came to me that she was questioning the fearsome step that loomed before her.

If she changed her mind, I was not to blame. I had harbored her for a night, risking my father's wrath. I had braved a storm and brought her safely to Porziuncola. If she turned back now, if her love for Francis Bernardone was overshadowed by her love for her family and she refused to join his barefooted rabble, she would lose him forever. And Francis could not blame me if this should happen. He would know that I had done my part and more.

I chafed her cold hands. "Dear Clare," I said, secretly crossing myself, "it is not too late to turn back. If you must take the vow, you can join the Benedictines. It's an order that accepts only girls from rich families, those who can furnish handsome dowries. I know this because my mother's aunt is a Benedictine prioress in the city of Venice. Her name is Sister Sofia, and she was a beautiful girl. Not so beautiful as you, Clare—no one is."

Silent and rigid, Clare's gaze was fixed on the open doors of the church, from which the altar's light shone forth.

"Your family is humiliated," I said. "They are stricken. Manaldo, all your brothers, search for you. And they'll find you wherever you hide. They'll harm Francis if he stands in their way. They'll snatch you from the arms of the church itself. They would much rather see you dead than tramping about barefooted with a begging bowl. They are brutal men, your brothers. They live to defy the law. They know nothing else. They will not rest or be appeased until you are back with the family."

Clare trembled as a chant poured forth from the church. A moan came from deep inside her.

"Please," I said, "we'll go home together and wait until things are calm once more." I gripped her arm lest she seek out the chanting voices. "Until we are forgiven."

Nicola spoke up to say that she saw a line of horsemen with torches moving away to the south of us. It was possible that the seven brothers were at the river, trying to force their steeds across the flood. If so, if they succeeded, they would soon reach the church.

The chanting stopped and Francis appeared in the doorway. He ran down the steps. He stood gazing at Clare, at her white face, judging her, her downcast eyes. His own eyes were like caverns where flames leaped. My heart leaped too. Silently I prayed that he would find her wanting.

He looked toward the river. The lights had vanished.

"The horsemen have moved on," I said, to deceive him. At any moment, I thought, the brothers will be riding out of the trees
to take Clare in their arms and bear her off. "They're on their way to the bridge. They can't be here much before dawn."

"It's best that we not wait," Francis said, taking Clares hand. "Come."

I followed them into the church and down the aisle, desperately trying to think of a ruse, some way I could delay the ceremony, give the hurrying brothers more time. I thought of seizing one of the candles and lighting the straw that covered the floor. I could fall where I stood and let out the scream that was choking me.

Before I could do either, Clare had taken off her pearl necklace, the rings on her fingers, the jeweled girdle that bound her waist, and had thrown them into a heap at the foot of the altar. Francis handed her a gray habit and she held it in her arms as she knelt.

A man came forward out of the shadows with a lithe step, carrying something that glittered—a pair of shears. Clare unloosed her hair; it fell to below her waist. The shears were sharp. They made only a small sound in the quiet church. They took no longer at their task than the length of my breath.

Clare rose from her knees and glanced at the coils lying on the stones. To me they looked like the coils of the golden snake that wound itself around the apple tree in the Garden of Eden. Then she turned away and went outside to put on sandals that they had fashioned for her and to change her white jeweled gown for a gray robe.

The moon had set. The night was cloudy with a gray mist hanging over the river. It would be difficult now for Nicola and me to return to Assisi, and dangerous as well, for the country was inhabited at this hour by roving bands who would gladly kill you for the shoes you wore.

There was something else. Though Clare's hair was shorn, I clung to the hope that Manaldo and his knights would descend at any moment, wrest her from the hands of Francis Bernardone and his men. Or, if this did not occur, then God Himself might in some mysterious way interfere in my behalf.

While Clare traded her shimmering dress for a woolen robe, Francis held counsel with his men. They decided to take her to San Paolo, a Benedictine monastery a league distant, where they thought she would be safer than at Porziuncola.

I was disappointed to learn this, but when I was asked to tell the nuns at San Paolo that Clare was coming, I agreed to go, stubbornly clinging to the hope that something would happen on the way, either by chance or by God's intervention.

Nicola and I rode off at once for San Paolo, Francis Bernardone and Clare following us on foot. As we came within sight of the monastery, Nicola, who had not spoken since we left, stirred herself to say that while she was riding along she had given thought to taking the vow herself.

"Do you think your family would be displeased?" she asked.

"I can't answer for my father, but Mother would give her consent. For myself, I wonder that your awful experiences have not soured you on another pilgrimage. And that's exactly what this one is—a pilgrimage in a ragged robe and sandaled feet."

"But, Ricca, a pilgrimage with a man who is like one of the apostles. I often think of him as an apostle and sometimes I even think of him as Christ Himself. Do you have this feeling, too? You must. I saw you watching him tonight when he stood at the altar. You scarcely breathed. Your face glowed with love, heavenly love."

"You were deceived. It was the candles that glowed," I said, "not my face."

Like a fortress, the gray stone walls of San Paolo showed
through the mist.

Two lanterns burned at the gate, above a bell, which I rang and rang and rang until a sleepy nun appeared. I asked for Mother Sibilia in the name of Francis Bernardone, as I had been told to do. The nun led us to a barren room furnished with one chair, a guttering candle in a niche, and above a dusty window a picture of Christ.

We waited for Mother Sibilia a long time, until a streak of light showed in the east. She strode in with a firm step, her thick soles resounding on the stones. A tall, thin-faced woman, immaculate in white coif and robe, she darted a glance at Nicola, who, struck by her regal appearance, was watching with an open mouth.

"What is of such importance that I am called upon at this hour to meet Signor Bernardone?" the abbess said, speaking rapidly, her words tumbling along like pebbles in a stream.

As I started to answer, she interrupted me.

"I've encountered this man before," she said in a frosty voice. "He came to our gate with a begging bowl, the poor asking food from the poor. Excusing himself by pontificating, by saying that he came at the command of Christ our Lord."

I had seen Mother Sibilia at San Rufino and had met her once through Bishop Pelagius. Something about her thin mouth and cold gray eyes had always repelled me.

"I think, however, that he came not for food," she said, "but to accuse us here at San Paolo delle Ancelle di Dio of living in luxury. To shame and admonish us. Such bravado! Such insolence! Such stupidity!"

A cold draft of air snuffed out the candle and she went to the niche, talking to herself, and lit it again.

"What is it now?" she asked. "Has he sent you here to beg? Where is your bowl? Perhaps you're here with a larger request. Perhaps its money you want?"

Before I could answer she started for the door. I thought that she was about to leave, but she turned to fix me again with her cold eyes.

"Who are you, anyway?" she said. "You can't be one of his new recruits, dressed as you are. What's your name, young lady?"

"Ricca di Montanaro," I said, determined not to be cowed. "We met once, last year. I was with Bishop Pelagius. My father is Davino di Montanaro."

The names—my name, my father's name, the bishop's name—seemed not to impress her.

"Ricca di Montanaro," she said, shaking her head at me. "Then you're the one who disrobed in Piazza San Rufino on the occasion of the quarrel between the Bernardones, father and son. How unusual! I've sometimes thought of removing my habit and running wild through the spring grass. But never in Piazza San Rufino. There are many versions of this occasion: You disrobed and looked like a newborn newt. You disrobed only halfway, showing only the nether parts. You disrobed halfway, showing the upper parts. Or, you didn't disrobe at all. What did you do and why? I am curious."

"Next Sunday I'll return to San Paolo and tell you everything. There's a mystery lurking somewhere in all of it which troubles me. I'll treasure your advice."

Wasting not a moment, fearing that Clare would come before I finished, I explained my mission. The abbess walked back and forth, keeping her eyes on me, but when I came to the part about Clare she stopped and called to a nun who was standing outside the door.

"Lock the gate," she said. "And do not open it to anyone who rings between now and dawn, whoever they may be and whatever they want."

The nun scurried off. I heard the gate shut and an iron bolt slide into place.

"Is it possible," the abbess said, "that Clare di Scifi..." She paused. "This is the daughter of Ortolana di Scifi? You're certain?"

"Yes, the daughter."

"I had no idea that she ever thought of taking the veil," the abbess said. "We would have welcomed her here with songs and bells ringing without cease for days and nights. Now, now we have the spectacle of a lovely girl, nobly born, bound in vassalage to a mad schemer and his uncouth band. You were there at Porziuncola. What was the pledge she took?"

"None, so far as I know."

"The Franciscans—they call themselves Friars Minor but I call them Franciscans—take a vow of poverty, I understand. Anyone can join the order just by asking. Was her hair shorn?"

"Yes. But this might be a gesture."

"Not with the Benedictines. With the Franciscans, who knows? They are coming for what reason?"

"For protection."

"Against what?"

"The Scifi family, who are furious. The brothers, whom you must know, are out searching for her now. They were on the river near Porziuncola last night. And others of the family will follow them when she's found. The Scifis will come by the dozens to take her home."

Mother Sibilia went to the window, wiped the dust away with her sleeve, and glanced out. Dawn had broken. Calling for a second nun, a pretty one, she gave instructions to unlock the gate, wake the sisters, see to it that all wore fresh smiles and habiliments. She was unlocking the gate, opening her arms, I gathered, because she hoped to take Clare into the Benedictine fold. I sat quietly and waited, but through my mind raced a prayer that Mother Sibilia would succeed.

With the sun, the sisters in their winged coifs, laundered robes, and shining black shoes were standing at the gate. When Clare and Francis Bernardone came into view they began to sing in their birdlike voices, "Deliver me from my enemies, O Lord; to Thee I have fled."

The Scifis appeared soon after the pilgrims had been welcomed and fed. First came Manaldo, dashing up with his brothers, demanding to be let in, and when the gate was not opened, he gave it a sharp blow with his sword. He then complained in a loud voice and his brothers joined him. The abbess ignored the clamor.

"My advice about this Manaldo di Scifi, who bangs with his sword and shouts," I said, fearful that she might drive him away, "my advice, though you have not asked for it, is to open the gate lest he break it down, which he would much prefer to do."

Fingering her beads, the abbess reflected upon my words, went to the window and glanced out, then motioned me to follow her. At the gate she said in the gentlest of tones, but clenching her hands at the same time, "Who are you that clamors at the walls of San Paolo delle Ancelle di Dio?"

Manaldo gave his name, not humbly, adding names, six of them, none that I had ever heard before.

"I am Abbess Sibilia," she said and added a few names of her own to let him know that she, too, came from noble stock. "May I ask what you so ardently desire that you beat upon the gate and raise your voice like a varlet?"

"I come for Clare di Scifi," he said, "who is now behind your walls."

"For what reason?"

"Because she's a runaway. And I, her brother, am here to take her home. She left her family to follow a ragged group of misfits, led by the wastrel Bernardone. You have heard of him?"

"I have," the abbess said, "and favorably."

To my relief, in answer to my prayers, she then slid the bolt and opened the gate, and Manaldo swaggered in, followed soon by the other Scifis, dozens of them, dressed in fur-trimmed velvet. A baby in its nurse's arms clutched a rattle encrusted with pearls.

It took Manaldo some time to quiet the Scifis, to caution them to obey the rules of the monastery, to curb their tongues, to display none of the fury they so rightfully felt. When at last he herded them to the chapel, they stood silent and tight-lipped but with blazing eyes.