At least, thought Arnau, he had managed to save Raquel from the terrible fate that seemed to await her. As soon as he had seen Eleonor and Margarida pointing to them, Arnau had made sure Raquel and her family fled the Jewish quarter. Not even he knew where they had gone ...
“I want you to go and look for Mar,” he told Joan on his next visit.
Still two paces away from his brother, the friar tensed.
“Did you hear me, Joan?” Arnau tried to approach him, but the chains cut into his legs. Joan had not moved. “Joan, did you hear me?”
“Yes... yes... I heard you.” Joan went up to his brother and embraced him. “But... ,” he started to say.
“I have to see her, Joan.” He gripped him by the shoulders and gently shook him. “I don’t want to die without speaking to her again...”
“My God! Don’t say that... !”
“Yes, Joan. I might well die in here, all alone, with only a dozen helpless unfortunates as witness. I don’t want to perish without having had the chance to see Mar. It’s something ...”
“What do you want to say to her? What can be that important?”
“Her forgiveness, Joan, I need her forgiveness.” Joan tried to struggle free from his brother’s hands, but Arnau would not let him. “You know me. You are a man of God. You know I’ve never done anyone any harm, apart from that... child.”
Joan succeeded in freeing his shoulders ... and fell on his knees before his brother. “It wasn’t—” he began to say.
“You’re the only one I have, Joan,” Arnau interrupted him. He also sank to his knees. “You have to help me. You’ve never let me down. You can’t do so now. You’re all I have, Joan!”
Joan said nothing.
“What about her husband?” was all he could think of to say. “He might not allow ...”
“He’s dead,” Arnau replied. “I found that out when he ceased making payments on a cheap loan I had offered him. He died fighting for the king, in the defense of Calatayud.”
“But—” Joan tried to say again.
“Joan ... I’m tied to my wife by an oath that prevents me from being with Mar as long as she lives... But I must see her. I have to tell her my feelings, even though we can’t be together ...” Arnau slowly recovered his composure. There was another favor he wanted to ask his brother. “Would you go and see my exchange office... I want to know how things are going.”
Joan gave a sigh. That very morning, when he had gone to his brother’s exchange, Remigi had handed him a bag of money.
“It wasn’t a good deal,” he told Joan.
Nothing was a good deal. When he left Arnau after promising to do his best to find Mar, Joan handed over money to the jailer at the door to the dungeon.
“He asked for a bucket.”
How much was a bucket worth to Arnau...? Joan gave the jailer another coin.
“I want that bucket cleaned constantly.” The jailer stuffed the coins in his purse and set off up the passageway. “One of the prisoners in there is dead,” added Joan.
The jailer merely shrugged.
JOAN DID NOT even go out of the bishop’s palace. After leaving the dungeons, he went in search of Nicolau Eimerich. He knew all the palace corridors. How often in his younger days had he walked down them, proud of his responsibilities? Now other young men hastened along, neat and tidy priests who openly stared at him in astonishment.
“Has he confessed?”
Joan had promised Arnau he would try to find Mar.
“Has he confessed?” repeated the grand inquisitor.
Joan had spent a sleepless night preparing for this conversation, but nothing he had thought of was any use now.
“If he did, what penalty... ?”
“I have already told you it is a very serious matter.”
“My brother is very rich.” Joan met Nicolau Eimerich’s gaze.
“Are you, an inquisitor, trying to buy the Holy Office?”
“Fines are permitted as payment for lesser offenses. I am sure that if you offered Arnau a fine ...”
“As you well know, that depends on how serious the offense is. The accusation against him—”
“Eleonor has no right to accuse him of anything,” Joan interrupted.
The grand inquisitor got up from his seat and confronted Joan, pressing his hands on the table.
“So,” he said, raising his voice, “both of you know it was the king’s ward who made the accusation. His own wife, the king’s ward! How could you imagine she would do such a thing if Arnau had nothing to hide? What man mistrusts his wife? Why not a business rival, or one of his assistants, or even a neighbor? How many people has Arnau sentenced as consul of the sea? Why couldn’t it have been one of them? Answer me, Brother Joan: why the baroness? What sins is your brother hiding for him to be so sure it was her?”
Joan shrank back in his seat. How often had he used the same tactic? Plucking words from the air in order to ... But how did Arnau know it had been Eleonor? Could it be that he had really... ?
“It wasn’t Arnau who put the blame on his wife,” Joan lied. “It was me.”
Nicolau Eimerich raised his hands to the heavens. “And how do you know it was her, Brother Joan?”
“She hates him ... No!” he tried to correct himself, but Nicolau was already pouncing on his words.
“Why would she do that?” cried the inquisitor. “Why would the king’s ward hate her husband? Why would a good, God-fearing Christian wife come to hate her husband? What kind of wrong can her husband have done her to awaken such hatred? Women were born to serve men; that is the law on earth and in heaven. Men beat women, but the women do not hate them for it; men keep women shut up, and are not hated for that either. Women work for their husbands, and fornicate with them when the man so wishes. They have to look after them and submit to them—but none of that creates hatred. So what precisely do you know, Brother Joan?”
Joan clenched his teeth. He should not say anything more. He felt defeated.
“You are an inquisitor. I demand you tell me all you know,” shouted Nicolau.
Joan still said nothing.
“You are forbidden to protect sin. Whoever is silent about a sin is more guilty than a person who commits one.”
In his mind’s eye, Joan saw an endless number of village squares, with the inhabitants shrinking in the face of his diatribes.
“Brother Joan”—Nicolau spat the words as though they were distasteful, pointing to him across the table—“I want his confession by tomorrow. And pray that I don’t decide to judge you as well. Oh, and Brother Joan!” he added as the friar was about to leave the room. “Make sure you change your habit. I have already received complaints. And from what I can see ...”
Nicolau waved disdainfully at Joan’s habit. As he left the chamber, glancing down at the filthy, threadbare folds of his tunic, Joan almost bumped into two men who were waiting in the grand inquisitor’s antechamber. With them were three armed men who stood guard over two women in chains: an old woman and a younger one, whose face ...
“What are you doing still here, Brother Joan?” asked Nicolau Eimerich, coming to the door to receive his visitors.
Joan delayed no longer, but scurried off down the corridor.
JAUME DE BELLERA and Genis Puig went into Nicolau Eimerich’s office. After casting a rapid glance at Francesca and Aledis, Eimerich left them in the antechamber.
“We have heard,” said the lord of Bellera once they had presented themselves and taken seats, “that you have arrested Arnau Estanyol.”
Genis Puig fiddled nervously with his hands in his lap.
“Yes,” said Nicolau curtly, “it’s public knowledge.”
“What is he accused of?” Genis Puig interjected. The nobleman at his side glared at him. “Don’t speak; don’t say a word until the inquisitor asks you to,” he had warned him many times.