My name is Ricca di Montanaro, and I am probably the most headstrong, willful thirteen-year-old in all of Assisi. My wealthy family tries to distract me with fine clothes and the teaching of illumination painting, but every time I see the handsome, sophisticated Francis, I forget everything...

But there is talk that he is denying worldly pleasure, that he is embracing poverty and holiness. Yet I cannot but hope that he will be mine. I love him far more now, this man who urges all of Assisi to love one another and all things great and small...

"Where there is darkness, light," he says, and I listen and follow- even if my quest takes me to exotic Egypt, to the dangers of the knights on Crusade....