Joan gradually yielded to Eleonor’s arguments. She used the friar’s weakness to insist over and over again on her precarious situation, the sin that was being committed in her own home ... Joan promised to think it over ... and did so. Eventually, he agreed they should approach Felip de Ponts: with conditions, but he did agree.
“Not always,” Eleonor said again.
Knights were expected to know what was in the Usatges.
“Are you sure the girl would agree to the marriage? Why hasn’t she married already then?”
“Her guardians will give their permission.”
“Why don’t they simply arrange a marriage for her?”
“That is none of our business,” Eleonor cut in. “That,” she thought, “will be for me to sort out... me and the friar.”
“You are asking me to abduct and rape a girl, and yet you tell me the reason behind it is none of my business. You have chosen the wrong man, my lady. I may be a debtor, but I am a knight ...”
“She is my ward.” Felip de Ponts looked surprised. “Yes. I’m talking about my ward, Mar Estanyol.”
Felip de Ponts well remembered the girl Arnau had adopted. He had seen her several times in the countinghouse and had even shared a pleasant conversation with her one day when he had gone to visit Eleonor.
“You want me to abduct and rape your own ward?”
“I think I have been sufficiently clear, Don Felip. I can assure you that there will be no punishment.”
“What reason... ?”
“The reasons are my affair! Well, what do you say?”
“What will I gain by it?”
“Her dowry will be generous enough to cancel all your debts. Believe me, my husband will be exceedingly generous toward his daughter. Besides, you would win my favor, and you know how close I am to the king.”
“What about the baron?”
“I will deal with him.”
“I don’t understand ...”
“There’s nothing more to understand: ruin, disrepute, dishonor ... or my support.” At this, Felip de Ponts sat down. “Ruin or riches, Don Felip. If you reject my offer, tomorrow will see the baron calling in your debt and disposing of your lands, your weapons, and your animals. You can rest assured of that.”
44
TEN DAYS OF anguished uncertainty went by until Arnau received the first news of Mar. Ten days during which he suspended all activity beyond that of trying to find out what had become of the girl, who had disappeared without a trace. He met the city magistrate and councillors to press them to do all they could to discover what had happened. He offered huge rewards for any information about Mar’s fate or whereabouts. He prayed more than he had ever prayed before, until finally Eleonor, who said she had heard something from a passing merchant who had been looking for him, confirmed his worst suspicions. The girl had been kidnapped by a knight by the name of Felip de Ponts who was one of his debtors. The knight was keeping her by force in a fortified farmhouse close to Mataró, which was less than a day on foot north of Barcelona.
Arnau sent the Consulate’s missatges to the farmhouse. He himself returned to Santa Maria to pray to his Virgin of the Sea once more.
Nobody dared interrupt him; out of respect, the workmen took greater care with whatever they were doing. On his knees beneath the small stone figure that had always meant so much to him, Arnau tried to ward off the scenes of horror and panic that had assaulted him over the past ten days and now came flashing into his mind once again, interspersed with images of Felip de Ponts’s face.
Felip de Ponts had seized Mar inside her own house. He had bound and gagged her, and beat her until she was so exhausted she could no longer resist. He bundled her into a sack and sat with it up on the back of a cart loaded with harnesses driven by one of his servants. Then, making as though he had come to buy or repair bridles and saddles, he was able to pass through the city gates without arousing the slightest suspicion. Back in his own farmhouse, he took her into the fortified tower lying alongside it, and there raped her time and again, his violence and passion only increasing as he realized how beautiful his captive was and how obstinately she tried to defend her body even after she had lost her virginity. Felip de Ponts had promised Joan he would rob her of her virtue without even undressing her, without showing her his own body, and using only the minimum force. He kept his promise the first time, which was meant to be the only one he came near her, but soon desire overcame his knight’s sense of honor.
Nothing that Arnau imagined, with tears in his eyes and quaking heart, could compare to what Mar had really suffered.
When the missatges entered Santa Maria, all work on the church stopped. Their captain’s words echoed as loudly as they did in the Consulate courtroom:
“Most honorable consul, it is true. Your daughter has been seized and is being held by the knight Felip de Ponts.”
“Have you spoken to him?”
“No, Your Honor. He has barricaded himself in his tower and refused to accept our authority. He claims that this has nothing to do with commerce or the sea.”
“Do you know how the girl is?”
The captain lowered his gaze.
Arnau clawed at the footstool. “He is challenging my authority? If it’s authority he wants,” he growled between clenched teeth, “I’ll see he gets it.”
THE NEWS OF Mar’s abduction spread rapidly. At dawn the next morning all the bells of Barcelona began to ring. The cry of “Via fora” came from the throats of all the citizens in the streets: a woman from Barcelona had to be rescued.
As so often in the past, Plaza del Blat became the meeting point for the sometent, the army of Barcelona. Soon all the guilds of the city were present in the square. Not one was missing; they all lined up beneath their pennants, fully armed. Instead of wearing his fine merchant’s clothes, Arnau donned the tunic he had worn when he had fought under Eiximèn d’Esparca and later against Pedro the Cruel. He still had his father’s precious crossbow, which he had never wanted to replace and which he now stroked as he had never done before. He tucked into his belt the dagger he had used so skillfully years before to kill his enemies.
When he appeared in the square, more than three thousand men cheered him. The standard-bearers raised their pennants. Swords, spears, and crossbows were waved above the heads of the crowd, as they shouted a deafening “Via fora!” Arnau did not react, but Joan and Eleonor turned pale. Arnau searched beyond the sea of weapons and pennants: the money changers did not belong to any guild.
“Was this part of your plans?” the Dominican asked Eleonor above the hubbub.
Eleonor was staring fearfully at the massed guilds. The whole of Barcelona had come out to support Arnau. They were waving their weapons in the air and howling. All for that wretched young girl!
At last Arnau saw the pennant he was looking for. The crowd opened in front of him to allow him to join the bastaix guild.
“Was this part of your plans?” the friar asked again. Both of them watched Arnau striding away into the crowd. Eleonor made no reply. “They’ll eat your knight alive. They will destroy his lands, raze his farmhouse, and then ...”
“Then what?” grunted Eleonor, still staring straight ahead of her.
“Then I’ll lose my brother. Perhaps we’re still in time to do something. This is going to end badly ...,” thought Joan.
“Speak to him ...,” he insisted.
“Are you mad, Friar?”
“What if he won’t accept the marriage? What if Felip de Ponts tells him everything? Talk to him before the host sets off. For the love of God, do it, Eleonor!”