Arnau tried to catch his brother’s features in the darkness, but could see only a shadow.
“His only crime was to be hungry! I don’t know if this is a sin, but I will not let our father’s body rot, dangling from a rope. I’m going to do it. If you want to help, wrap yourself in that blanket and sit still. If you don’t ...”
At that, Arnau headed off down Calle de la Mar, while Joan walked across Plaza del Blat. He wrapped the blanket round himself and stared up at Bernat: one ghost among ten dangling from the carts, dimly lit by the glow from the bonfire the soldiers had made. Joan did not want to see his face. He did not want to have to look at his purple, lolling tongue, but despite himself he found he could not take his eyes off Bernat. The soldiers watched as he approached.
Arnau ran to Pere’s house. He found his waterskin and poured the contents out. Then he filled it with the oil from the lamps. Sitting by the hearth in their kitchen, Pere and his wife looked on.
“I don’t exist,” he told them in a faint voice. He took Mariona’s hand as she gazed affectionately at him. “Joan is to be me. My father had only one son ... Take care of him if anything happens.”
“But, Arnau—” Pere started to say.
“Shhh!” hissed Arnau.
“What are you going to do?” the old man insisted.
“What I have to,” said Arnau, getting up.
“I don’t exist. I am Arnau Estanyol.” The soldiers were still watching him. “Burning a body must be a sin,” thought Joan. Bernat was staring at him! Joan came to a halt a few paces from the hanged man. “Arnau’s given me that idea.”
“You there, is something wrong?” said one of the soldiers, making to stand up.
“No, nothing,” Joan replied, renewing his walk toward the dead eyes that seemed to follow him everywhere.
Arnau picked up the lamp and ran out of the house. He found some mud and smeared it on his face. How often his father had talked to him about this city that now had brought about his death. He went around Plaza del Blat by La Llet and La Corretgeria squares, until he was at the end of Calle Tapineria, right next to the line of carts with the hanged men. Joan was sitting beneath their father’s body, trying to stop shaking so as not to give himself away.
Arnau hid the lantern in the street, slung the waterskin across his back, and started to crawl toward the far side of the carts drawn up against the palace wall. Bernat was in the fourth one. The soldiers were still talking round their fire at the opposite end of the line. Arnau crawled behind the carts. As he reached the second one, a woman saw him; her eyes were puffy from crying. Arnau paused, but the woman looked away and went on weeping. He climbed up on the cart where his father was hanging. Joan heard him, and turned round.
“Don’t look!” His brother lowered his gaze. “And try not to shake so much!”
Arnau stretched up toward his father’s body, but a sudden noise made him crouch down again. He waited a few moments, and stood up once more; again he heard a noise, but this time he remained upright. The soldiers were still talking to one another. Arnau raised the waterskin and began to pour oil over his father’s body. Bernat’s head was too high for him to reach, so he stretched up as far as he could and squeezed the skin hard so that the oil shot out. A greasy patch of oil began to soak Bernat’s hair. When the skin was empty, Arnau headed back to Calle Tapineria.
He would have only one chance. Arnau hid the lamp behind his back to conceal its weak flame. “I have to get it right the first time.” He looked over at the soldiers. Now it was his turn to tremble. He took a deep breath and stepped into the square. Bernat and Joan were ten paces from him. He lifted the lamp, casting light over himself. As he entered the square the lamplight seemed to him as bright as a radiant dawn. The soldiers looked in his direction. Arnau was about to start running when he realized that none of them was stirring. “Why would they? How are they supposed to know I’m going to burn my father? Burn my father!” The lantern shook in his hand. With the soldiers looking on, he reached Joan. Nobody moved. Arnau came to a halt beneath Bernat’s dangling body and looked up at him one last time. Oil glistened on his face, hiding the terror and pain so evident there before.
Arnau threw the lamp at the body. Bernat started to burn. The soldiers leapt up, glancing at the flames as they ran after the fleeing Arnau. The lamp fell onto the floor of the cart, where a pool of oil also caught fire.
“Hey, you!” he heard the soldiers shouting.
Arnau was about to run out of the square when he spied Joan still sitting in front of the cart. He was completely covered by the blanket, and seemed paralyzed with fear. Immersed in their grief, other mourners looked on in silence.
“Stop! Stop in the king’s name!”
“Move, Joan!” Arnau looked back at the soldiers, who were almost upon him. “Move, or you’ll be burned!”
He could not leave Joan where he was. The burning oil was snaking across the ground toward his brother’s trembling figure. Arnau was about to pull him away, when the woman who had seen him earlier stepped in between them.
“Run. Run for it,” she urged him.
Arnau ducked under the first soldier’s hand and sprinted off. He ran down Calle Boria to Nou gate, the soldiers’ shouts echoing in his ears. “The longer they chase me, the longer it will take them to get back to Father and put the fire out,” he thought as he darted along. The soldiers, none of them young and all of them laden with weapons, would never catch a lad like him, running with the speed of fire.
“In the king’s name, halt!” he heard behind him.
Something whistled past his right ear. Arnau heard the spear clatter to the ground in front of him. He sped across Plaza de la Llana as more spears fell around him. He went past the Bernat Marcús Chapel and reached Calle Carders. The soldiers’ cries were fading in the distance. He could not carry on running to the Nou gateway, because there were bound to be more soldiers guarding it. If he headed down toward the sea, he would reach Santa Maria; if instead he went up toward the mountains, he could reach as far as Sant Pere de les Puelles, but then he would come up against the city walls again.
He chose to aim for the sea. He skirted the San Agustin convent, then lost himself in the maze of streets of the Mercadal neighborhood. He climbed walls, ran through gardens, wherever looked darkest. As soon as he was convinced there was no sound behind him apart from the echo of his own footsteps, he slowed to a walk. He followed the Rec Comtal down to Pla de’n Llull, beside the Santa Clara convent. From there it was an easy matter to reach Plaza del Born, then the street of the same name, and finally Santa Maria, his refuge. But just as he was about to squeeze in through the boards of the doorway, something caught his attention: there was a guttering lantern on the floor of the church. He peered into the shadows beyond its feeble light, and soon saw the figure of the watchman stretched out on the ground, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth.
Arnau’s heart started to pound. What was going on? The watchman was meant to look after Santa Maria. Why would anyone ... ? The Virgin! The Jesus chapel! The bastaixos’ collection box!
Arnau did not think twice. His father had been executed; he could not allow anyone to bring dishonor to his mother. He crept into Santa Maria through the boarded-up doorway and headed for the ambulatory. The Jesus chapel was on his left between two buttresses. He walked round the church and hid behind one of the columns near the main altar. He could hear sounds coming from the Jesus chapel, but as yet could not see anything. He slid to the next column. From there he could see into the chapel, which as usual was lit by dozens of candles.
A man was climbing out over the chapel railings. Arnau looked at the Virgin: everything seemed to be all right. What was going on? He scanned the interior of the chapeclass="underline" the collection box had been forced open. As the thief continued to climb over the iron grille, Arnau could almost hear the clink of coins the bastaixos dropped into the box in aid of their orphans and widows.