The Road to Damietta by Scott O’Dell Read Free Book Online Page A

palace roofs? The varlet who sweeps dung from the streets? For the Devil himself ? For whom does my daughter, my only daughter, Cecilia Graziella Beatrice Angelica Rosanna di Montanaro, stand naked in Piazza Santa Maria Maggiore?"
    How was I to describe the vision that had overcome me at the sight of Francis Bernardone naked on the palace steps? Or ever make my father believe that for a joyful moment I was Eve, standing beside Adam among the trees and flowers of God's heavenly garden?
    "Tell me!" he demanded. "What ... Who is the cause of this?"
    My head began to spin. The room moved. Father seemed to come close to me, very close, then fade away. I sat down on the bed to steady myself.
    "Who?"
    The word came from a far distance. It hovered in the air above me like a dark bird.
    "Who?"
    I lay back on the bed and closed my eyes. The bird still hovered above me, croaking the word over and over again, "Who, who, who?"
    I sat up in bed. The bird had gone. I searched for my father but he was gone too. Then he was there by the window, silently pointing a finger at me, waiting.
    The name came from deep inside me. It was on my lips to say and I must have said it, for my father was no longer by the window, and I heard the door softly close and steps fading away on the stairs.
    I wakened to the sound of a screeching wind. White shadows moved through the room and the sun was up. Beside the bed stood Bishop Guido, in his hand a golden censer that gave off little clouds of smoke and the odor of cinnabar as he swung it to and fro. In a severe voice he was muttering about demons, commanding them to gather themselves forthwith and in the name of the Lord depart my tormented soul.
    Father was standing behind the bishop, beside my mother, who was quietly weeping. There were others in the room, but I couldn't make out their faces among the sun's white shadows.
    Mother quit weeping and announced that the exorcism was a wonderful success. She had seen the demons—there were three of them, two oldsters and a mean young one—leap through the window. To their deaths, she was sure.
    By nightfall, completely recovered, I drank a large mug of broth and would have drunk more had not she said it would be bad for me. But in the morning when I was anxious to be up, she brought in three bearded physicians. They talked for a while, eyeing me from afar, and at last decided that I needed a bloodletting.
    A bevy of serving women, those with fat white legs, were dispatched to the river to gather leeches. I had to wait in bed until noon for them to return. The river was frozen over and the ice had to be broken through. Then the women, who had to stand in the river while the leeches fastened to their bare legs, could only stay in for a short time because the water was ice-cold.
    I felt no pain as the leeches ever so gently burrowed into my chest with their tiny teeth. It was only the sight of them clinging to my flesh and afterward falling off onto the sheet, stuffed red with my blood, that disturbed me.
    I was in bed the rest of the day, but Mother allowed me to go downstairs for supper, which was very quiet, everyone glancing at me when they thought I wasn't looking.

8
    I resumed work on the Old Testament, but Raul was
instructed to see that henceforth I copied only those parts that dealt with godly thoughts and led to proper conduct.
    It was three weeks and one day, exactly, before I saw Francis again.
    Sister Carlota, Mothers cousin who lived in a monastery in the town of Perugia, died of dire pains in her chest, and the family rode down the mountain to her funeral. On the way back, as we neared the abandoned church at San Damiano, we were witness to an odd encounter.
    Francis came out of the church, blinking in the hot sun, and fell in step beside us as we rode along. Dressed in a threadbare gown, he had a pale, half-starved look about him. He gave me a sweet smile and a bright glance, but I was appalled nonetheless.
    "You're a bundle of bones," I