Once they had handed over the loaves, Estranya and Arnau would leave the potters’ neighborhood and cross the wall into the center of Barcelona. In this first part of their journey, Arnau had no problem following the slave, and even found time to laugh at her swaying body and rippling dark flesh.
“What are you laughing at?” the mulatto had asked him more than once.
At that, Arnau would look into her round, flat face and stifle his smile.
“You want to laugh? Laugh at this then,” she said in Plaza del Blat as she gave him a sack of wheat to carry. “Where’s your smile now?” she would say on the way down La Llet as she loaded him with the milk his cousins were to drink. She would repeat the taunt in the narrow Plaza del Cols, where she bought cabbages, pulses, or other vegetables, and in Plaza de l’Oli, weighing him down with oil, game, or fowl.
After that, struggling under her purchases, Arnau followed the slave all over Barcelona. On the 160 days of abstinence, the mulatto plodded and swayed down to the shore, near Santa Maria. There she fought with the other customers at one of the city’s two official fishmongers (the old and the new) to buy the best dolphin, tuna, sturgeon, or palomides, neros, reigs, and corballs.
“Now we’ll get your fish,” she said. It was her turn to smile as she went round the back of the stalls to buy the leftovers. There were as many people here as at the front, but Estranya did not fight to get the best.
Even so, Arnau preferred these days of abstinence to those when Estranya had to go and buy meat, because whereas to purchase the leftovers of fish she simply had to walk round the stall, when she bought meat Arnau had to carry all his packages across half the city.
She bought the meat for Grau and his family from one of the butchers situated outside the slaughterhouses. Like everything else sold in the city, this was fresh, first-class meat: no dead animals were allowed inside Barcelona. Everything that was sold was slaughtered on the spot.
That was why, to get the cheap cuts to feed to the servants and slaves in the household, they had to leave the city by Portaferrisa until they reached the market where carcasses were piled alongside meat of unknown origin. Again it was Estranya’s turn to smile as she bought, and loaded the boy with her new purchases. Then it was back to the baker’s to pick up the bread from the oven, and then to Grau’s house, Estranya still swaying and waddling her way along, Arnau dragging his feet.
ONE MORNING, WHEN Estranya and Arnau were buying meat at the main slaughterhouse by Plaza del Blat, they heard the bells of San Jaume church begin to peal. It was not Sunday or a feast day. Estranya came to a halt, legs spread wide. Someone in the square let out a shout. Arnau could not understand what he was saying, but lots of others soon joined in, and people started running about in all directions. He turned toward Estranya, a question on his lips. He dropped the load. The wheat merchants were all scrambling to dismantle their stalls. People were still rushing to and fro, and the bells of San Jaume were still ringing out over the square. Arnau thought of running there, but... weren’t those the bells of Santa Clara he could hear too? He strained to capture the sound, but at that very moment the bells of San Pere, Framenors, and San Just all started up. All the churches in the city were ringing their bells! Arnau stood stock-still, openmouthed and deafened, watching everyone running all round him.
All of a sudden, he saw Joanet’s face in front of him. His friend was hopping about nervously.
“Via fora! Via fora!” he was shouting.
“What’s that?” Arnau asked.
“Via fora!” Joaner bawled in his ear.
“What does that mean?”
Joanet motioned to him to be quiet, and pointed toward the ancient Mayor gate, beneath the magistrate’s palace.
As Arnau watched, one of the magistrate’s stewards came out. He was dressed for battle, in a silver breastplate and with a broadsword at his side. In his right hand he was carrying the banner of Sant Jordi on a gilded pole: a red cross on a white background. Behind him, another steward who was also in battle dress held aloft the city banner. The two men ran to the center of the square and the stone dividing Barcelona into four quarters. When they reached it, waving their banners, the two men cried out as one:
“Via fora! Via fora!”
All the bells were still ringing, and the cry of Via fora was taken up along all the streets around the square. Joanet, who until then had witnessed the spectacle without a word, suddenly began to shout like a madman.
Finally, Estranya reacted. She swatted a hand at Arnau to make him move, but he was still entranced by the sight of the two stewards standing in the center of the square, with their shining armor and swords, waving their colorful banners, and ducked under her fist.
“Come with me, Arnau,” Estranya ordered him.
“No,” he said, egged on by Joanet.
Estranya grabbed him by the shoulder and shook him. “Come on. This is no business of ours.”
“What are you saying, slave?” The words came from a woman who, like them, was caught up in the excitement of what was going on in front of them and had heard the argument between Arnau and the mulatto. “Is the boy a slave?” Estranya shook her head. “Is he a free citizen?” Arnau nodded. “How dare you say then that the ‘Via fora’ is none of the boy’s business?” Estranya hesitated, her feet slipping under her like a duck’s on ice.
“Who are you, slave,” another woman said, “to deny the boy the honor of defending Barcelona’s rights?”
Estranya lowered her head. What would her master say if he heard? After all, he was the first to defend the city’s honor. The bells were still ringing. Joanet had joined the group of women and was signaling to Arnau to come with him.
“Women don’t go with the city host,” the first woman reminded Estranya.
“And slaves still less,” another woman added.
“Who do you think will look after our husbands if not boys like them?”
Estranya did not dare raise her eyes from the ground.
“Who do you think will cook for them or run their errands? Who will take off their boots and clean their crossbows?”
“Go where you need to go,” the women told her. “This is no place for a slave.”
Estranya picked up all the sacks that Arnau had been carrying, and started to waddle off. Smiling contentedly, Joanet looked admiringly at the group of women. Arnau had not moved.
“Come on, boys,” the women encouraged them. “Come and look after our menfolk.”
“Make sure you tell my father!” Arnau shouted to Estranya, who had managed to walk only three or four yards.
Joanet saw that Arnau could not take his eyes off the slave, and understood his doubts.
“Didn’t you hear the women?” he said. “It’s up to us to look after Barcelona’s soldiers. Your father will understand.”
Arnau agreed, hesitantly at first, but then with more conviction. Of course Bernat would understand! Hadn’t he himself fought so that they could become free citizens of the city?
When they looked back at the center of the square, they saw that a third man had joined the two stewards: the standard bearer from the merchants’ guild. He did not wear armor, but had a crossbow strapped across his back and wore a sword at his belt. A short while later, the standard of the silversmiths was fluttering alongside the others; slowly the square filled up with banners displaying all kinds of symbols and figures: the furriers’ banner, the surgeons and barbers’, the ones for the guilds of carpenters, coppersmiths, potters ...