The Road to Damietta Read Online Free PDF Page A

corner of the sendal over his arm, he held it up to catch the sunlight.
    "Notice, if you will," he said, trying hard to be friendly, "the enchanted glow."
    I ran my hand over the silk.
    "Doesn't it remind you of a spring day," he said, "when the meadows are green and the wind blows her sweetest and God's flowers bloom?"
    I nodded and strove to follow his flight of fancy.
    The three bells of San Niccolo broke forth, calling workers to their churchly tasks. The sound of the bells echoed in the narrow street. Raul, who had bought a parcel of serge, stood in the doorway watching. Signor Bernardone was also watching. He darted forth, took up the bolt of sendal, pushed his son aside none too gently, and said how well the silk matched my coloring. Without a word Francis quietly slipped away.
    "I'll take a piece of sendal," I said. "And my father will pay you."
    "That's not necessary," Bernardone explained. "Pay when you visit us again. I'll have Moorish cloth quite soon. This coming week, perhaps, depending upon the thieves that guard the way and the cloth thieves themselves."

4
    The sky had darkened, and as we left the shelter of Via
Portico the wind swooped down upon us. Simonetta ruffled her feathers and took a firmer grip on my wrist.
    "You're very silent," Raul said. "You seem somewhat chastened. What goes on in your head?"
    "Lengths of lovely cloth," I said, "that Signor Bernardone has collected from over the world. The velvets from Paris and the sendal from Venice and—"
    "No," Raul said, "not the cloth, of course not. Something else. What is it?"
    I spurred the horse to a canter and left him behind, but I had not gone far when I felt a sharp tug at the saddle cloth. Francis Bernardone was running along beside me. With all sorts of wild thoughts racing through my head, I reined in and waited for him to speak.
    "What do you call your little hawk?" he asked, out of breath, his face clouded.
    "Simonetta," I said.
    "A very pretty name for a very pretty bird. But tell me, why do you keep her chained on such a wonderful day? The wind blows and there's music in the sky. Please, friend, take off the hood and let her loose to share this wondrous hour."
    I looked down upon him in dismay. His dour expression had not changed. Was he mad? Raul had ridden on and was beckoning to me from the far side of the square. I was tempted to follow him and leave Francis Bernardone standing there in the bitter wind.
    "You carry the falcon on your wrist because all the other rich girls do so," he said. "It's the fashion these days. But the falcon wishes to visit heaven, which is her home."
    "How do you know what she wishes to do?" I asked, turning the horse round him in a circle.
    "I know because I see it in her eyes."
    "How can you see her eyes? You can't, because she's wearing a hood."
    There was a somber tone in his voice that I had never heard before. It made me think he was speaking the truth, that he did see the falcon's eyes beneath the hood.
    "Simonetta," I said, "is young. She hasn't been trained. If I free her, she will never come back. She'll starve or be hunted down."
    "God will care for her, as He cares for all His creatures, even for you and me."
    He looked up from under the peak of his feathered cap, fixing
me with a steady glance. It was meant to make me quaver, lose my senses, free Simonetta—my father's generous gift, bought from the falconry of Filippo dei Casini, doge of Venice.
    I looked at Raul, waiting impatiently on the far side of the square. I thought of a way to break the spell.
    "I've heard an awful tale. It's ... well, people are saying that you stole a piece of cloth that belonged to your father. Such terrible things. They can't possibly be true."
    "But they are," he said eagerly, taking pride in the theft. "A handsome length of damask fit for a cardinal's cape. Also a fat handful of money."
    "You're just dreaming up a wild story," I said, though by now I didn't know what to believe.
    "I'd have taken more, two