Torello Joins the Crusade and Is Captured

Messer Torello d'Istria’s departure on crusade turns a promised reunion into a test of absence: despite his wife’s tears, he leaves Pavia, is swept into the Christian army’s sickness and capture, and reaches Alexandria as an unnamed prisoner. His captivity does not end the bond he has left behind. Instead, a ring, a carefully measured waiting period, and a letter sent home preserve the possibility of return.

Departure and the Promise of Waiting

When the crusade is prepared, Messer Torello d'Istria resolves to join it, describing the journey as serving both his bodily honor and the health of his soul. His wife weeps and begs him not to go, but he has made his decision and put his affairs in order.

Because he knows that he cannot be sure of returning, he asks her to wait a year, a month, and a day from the date of his departure before marrying again, unless she receives certain news that he is alive. He acknowledges that she is young, beautiful, of high family, and widely esteemed, and that her brothers and kinsfolk might press her to accept another husband if his death were suspected. His request therefore anticipates not only the dangers of the expedition but the social pressure his absence might create.

His wife promises that, if she can, she will remain his wife in life and in memory. She also agrees to obey the specified term should circumstances compel her otherwise. Before he leaves, she gives him a ring from her finger, asking him to remember her by it if she dies before they meet again. The ring makes their separation tangible: it is both a token of intimacy and a reminder that neither can know the other's fate.

The Journey and Capture

Messer Torello d'Istria rides with his company to Genoa, boards a galleon, and reaches Acre, where he joins the Christian forces. Sickness and mortality soon spread among them. Saladin then captures nearly all the Christians who have survived, without a blow being struck, and divides the prisoners among several cities. Messer Torello d'Istria is taken to Alexandria.

The circumstances of his capture make the episode a reversal without a battlefield encounter: the expedition's danger comes through sickness and the capture of its depleted survivors. The man who had prepared to depart in the service of his faith and honor is carried away as a prisoner, while the promise his wife made at their parting becomes the measure against which his uncertain return will be judged.

Captivity and a New Role

In Alexandria, Messer Torello d'Istria is unknown. Fearing to reveal who he is, he takes up the training of hawks, a skill at which he is highly accomplished. His expertise draws Saladin's attention, and the ruler removes him from prison and employs him as a falconer.

The change in his circumstances is significant but incomplete. He is no longer confined in prison, yet he remains away from Pavia and from the wife who has promised to wait for him. Saladin knows him only as a Christian falconer, and Messer Torello d'Istria does not recognize Saladin either. His skill gives him access to the ruler's household without yet restoring his identity or freedom.

News Sent Home

Still thinking of Pavia and having tried unsuccessfully to escape, Messer Torello d'Istria seizes an opportunity when Genoese ambassadors arrive in Alexandria to negotiate the ransom of their townsmen. He writes to his wife to tell her that he is alive, that he will return as soon as he can, and that she should wait for him. He entrusts the letter to an ambassador he knows, asking that it be delivered to his uncle, the Abbot of San Pietro in Ciel d'Oro.

The letter is his first stated means of countering the uncertainty established at his departure. His wife had promised a bounded period of waiting in the absence of certain news; now he sends confirmation that he lives, though captivity prevents him from setting a date for his return. The episode thus ends not with his homecoming but with a message in transit, preserving the marriage's hope across the distance between Alexandria and Pavia.