The Road to Damietta (11 page)

Hurriedly I wrote a new letter, shorter than the bishop's, copying the Granadian Gothic as best I Could. I said that the rumors had been duly investigated and found to be false, especially the rumor that Bernardone was posing as a priest, hearing confessions and conducting rites over the dead. While he was a little off in the head, I wrote, he was not a heretic.

I placed the bishops seal on the new letter, attaching it with hot wax so that no one could tell it had been tampered with. The only suspicious thing was the paper, which was not of as good a quality as the bishop's and lacked its faint purplish tinge.

When I got back to the palace, the salon was so crowded that it was impossible to tell one person from another. I glided through the room quietly, an eel through the grass, and had one slippered foot on the stairs when from nowhere the bishop reached out, took my hand in his, and gave it a lingering squeeze.

"We have missed you," he said. "I saw you leave. You looked pale. You look pale now. I hope nothing is amiss."

"Nothing," I said, "except a small pain, which I have attended to."

The bishop hesitated a moment before saying, "What a handsome girl you are!"

"Woman," I corrected him.

"I envision glorious days for you, now that again you have your pretty head on straight."

Then Nicola appeared and saved me from what could have been a lecture. She stood on tiptoe in her pink boots and stuffed a tart into the bishop's mouth. While this took place, I wandered away and up the stairs. As I reached the second floor I tucked up my skirts and ran.

The passage on the next landing was deserted, but as I approached the door to the bishop's stud}' I heard voices at the end of the passage, men quietly discussing church affairs. I turned about and went down to the second landing and seated myself on a bench, placed there no doubt for those who grew faint on the endless stairs.

I sat for a short time, then climbed the stairs once more. The door to the bishop's study was closed. I put an ear against the door and listened but heard no sound. I took hold of the brass knob, which felt stiff and cold in my hand and would not move. I used both my hands and wrenched at it. With a startling noise it flew open.

I was about to put the letter on the table in the same place I had found the bishop's letter when I heard steps in the passageway. There was no reason for me to be in the bishop's study. The only place to hide was behind a tapestry that covered all of one wall. I slipped behind it as someone, a light-footed girl, came in sneezing and, between sneezes, humming to herself.

The girl swept the fringes of the tapestry, went out, and brought back something that made a noise as she placed it on the table; then she left.

I put the letter on the desk, beside the bowl of fruit the girl had placed there, closed the door quietly, and fled down the stairs. As I reached the second landing, my sleeve swept a bust of Pope Innocent from its niche. It did not break but it tumbled along the marble floor, making a loud racket, which fortunately the din from below drowned out.

My father and Bishop Pelagius stood at the bottom of the stairs, Father's hand placed deferentially upon the bishops arm. They were deciding on the number of horses required to carry the bishop's letter to Rome, what color the beasts should be, what the riders should wear, and whether or not drums and a flute were adequate for the occasion.

While I listened and said nothing, a robed man came down the stairs, holding the letter I had just left on the bishop's desk. The blob of wax that sealed it sparkled in the candlelight. Since it was well known in Assisi that the bishop had made a list of heretics and was sending it to Rome, the eyes of everyone present were fixed upon it.

I turned away, expecting that the letter would be given to Pelagius. I tried to think of something to say if I were accused, but the man went on, sauntering through the room, stopping here and there to talk, and finally disappeared.

I lived in dread for two days, until the third day in midmorning, at the hour when the streets were crowded, the caravan left the palace, resplendent with the bishop's flags, led by twelve men in scarlet dress on proud white horses, to the sound of lutes and drums.

Somewhere in their midst was the letter I had written to Pope Innocent III.

The letter I had given to Francis, so carefully written on
fine vellum, illuminated by small birds and beasts (I knew that he loved them all dearly), had caught his eye. The poem itself had aroused his interest and brought a flush to his cheeks, and words, though they were not what I wished, to his lips.

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."