From that day on, although Bernat continued working with his animals and on the land, his thoughts returned constantly to his son. At night, he wandered around the farmhouse recalling the childish breathing that spoke of life and the future, the creaking of the wooden slats of the cradle whenever Arnau moved, his shrill cry when he was hungry. He tried to discern his son’s innocent smell in every corner of the house. Where might he be sleeping now? His cradle, the one Bernat had made with his own hands, was here. When finally Bernat succeeded in falling asleep, the silence would wake him with a start. He curled up on his pallet, listening hour after hour to the sounds of the animals down below that now were all the company he had.
Bernat went regularly to Llorenç de Bellera’s castle to have his bread baked. He never saw Francesca: she was shut away to attend to Doña Caterina and her son’s unpredictable appetite. The castle, as his father had explained when the two of them had been obliged to come here together, had started out as little more than a watchtower on the summit of a small hill. Llorenç de Bellera’s forebears had taken advantage of the power vacuum following Count Ramon Borrell’s death to build new fortifications, thanks to the forced labor of the serfs who lived on their ever-expanding territories. Around the keep a hodgepodge of buildings soon grew up, including the bakery, the forge, some new, more spacious stables, kitchens, and sleeping quarters.
The castle was more than a league away from the Estanyol farmhouse. On his first visits, Bernat heard no news of his son. Whenever he inquired, he always received the same reply: his wife and boy were in Doña Caterina’s private apartments. The only difference was that, while some of those he asked laughed cynically, others lowered their gaze as though ashamed to look the child’s father in the eye. Bernat put up with their evasive answers for weeks on end, until one day when he was leaving the bakery with two loaves of bean-flour bread, he ran into one of the scrawny blacksmith apprentices whom he had already questioned several times about his son.
“What do you know about my Arnau?” he asked again.
There was no one else around. The lad tried to avoid him, as if he had not heard, but Bernat seized him by the arm.
“I asked you what you know about my son, Arnau.”
“Your wife and son ...” The apprentice started with the usual formula, not lifting his eyes from the ground.
“I know where he is,” Bernat interrupted him. “I’m asking if my Arnau is well and healthy.”
Still not looking at him, the lad started shuffling his feet in the sand. Bernat shook him roughly.
“Is he well?”
When the apprentice still would not look up, Bernat shook him even harder.
“No!” the lad finally admitted. Bernat loosened his grip so that he could look him in the face. “No,” he said again.
“What’s wrong with him?”
“I can’t ... We have orders not to tell you ...” The apprentice’s voice trailed off.
Bernat raised his voice, not caring whether a guard might hear.
“What’s wrong with my boy? What’s wrong? Tell me!”
“I can’t. We cannot ...”
“Would this change your mind?” asked Bernat, offering him one of the loaves.
The lad’s eyes opened wide. Without a word, he snatched the bread from Bernat’s hands and bit into it as if he had not eaten in days. Bernat pulled him to one side, away from any prying eyes.
“What’s happened to my Arnau?” he asked anxiously.
His mouth stuffed with bread, the apprentice glanced at Bernat, then signaled for him to follow. They crept stealthily along the castle walls until they reached the forge. They crossed it and headed for the back, where the lad opened a door leading into a shed where equipment and tools were kept. He went in, and Bernat followed. As soon as he was inside, the boy sat on the floor and started to devour more bread. Bernat peered around the squalid room. It was stiflingly hot, but he could not understand why the apprentice had brought him there: all he could see was piles of tools and old scraps of iron.
Bernat looked inquiringly at the boy. Chewing on the loaf, he pointed to one of the corners of the room and waved Bernat to go and look there.
Abandoned and starved, his son lay on a pile of wooden planks in a broken wicker basket. The strips of white linen bound round him were filthy and in tatters. He was on the verge of death. Bernat could not stop himself uttering a strangled cry that sounded hardly human. He snatched Arnau up and pressed him to his chest. The infant responded only feebly, but he did respond.
“The baron ordered your son be kept here,” Bernat heard the apprentice explain. “At first, your wife came several times a day, and soothed him by breast-feeding him.” Bernat clutched the child to him, as if trying to breathe life into his tiny lungs. “One day, the steward came in after her,” the boy went on. “Your wife fought him off. She shouted as loud as she could ... I saw him. I was in the forge next door.” He pointed to a crack in the wooden planks of the wall. “But the steward is a very strong man ... When he was done with her, the lord and some soldiers came in too. Your wife was lying on the floor; the lord began to laugh at her. All of them did. Since that day, whenever your wife came to feed her child, there would be soldiers waiting at the door. She could not fight them all off. In the past few days, I have hardly seen her here. The soldiers catch her as soon as she leaves Doña Caterina’s apartments. She cannot even reach the forge. Sometimes the lord sees what they are doing, but all he does is laugh.”
Without a moment’s thought, Bernat lifted his shirt and pushed his son’s tiny body inside. He disguised the bulge by holding the other loaf of bread up against his chest. The infant did not even stir. As he made for the door, the apprentice rose to stop him.
“The lord has forbidden it! You cannot—”
“Out of my way, boy!”
The lad stepped in front of Bernat. Once again, he did not hesitate for a second: holding the baby and the loaf of bread in one hand, he snatched an iron bar from the wall and whirled round. Bernat caught the apprentice full on the head. He fell to the ground in the entrance to the storeroom before he had time to utter a sound. Bernat did not even look at him; he went out and shut the door behind him.
He had no problem leaving Llorenç de Bellera’s castle. No one could have suspected that beneath the loaf of bread he was hiding his son’s poor, abused body. It was only after he had emerged through the castle gate that he thought of Francesca and the soldiers. Indignantly, he reproached her for not trying to contact him, to warn him of the danger their son was in, for not fighting for Arnau ... Bernat cradled his son’s body, and thought of his wife being raped by the soldiers while his son was left to die on a pile of rotten planks.
How LONG WOULD it take them to find the lad he had struck? Was he dead? Had he shut the storeroom door properly? As he strode back to his farm, Bernat’s mind was filled with questions. Yes, he dimly remembered he had shut the door.
As soon as he had turned the first bend on the twisting path that rose toward the castle, so that he was now out of sight, Bernat uncovered his son. His eyes were dull and lifeless. He weighed even less than the loaf of bread! His arms and legs were so thin! Bernat’s stomach churned, and a lump came to his throat. Tears began to trickle down his cheeks. He told himself this was no time to cry. He knew they would set out in search of them, that they would set the dogs on them, but ... what was the use of running away if the child did not survive? Bernat left the path and hid in some bushes. He kneeled down, left the loaf of bread on the ground, and lifted Arnau in both hands until he was level with his face. The baby hung there limply, his head lolling to one side. “Arnau!” whispered Bernat. He shook him gently, over and over again. The baby’s eyes seemed finally to be looking straight at him. His face streaked with tears, Bernat realized that the poor thing did not even have the strength to cry. He cradled him in one arm, then tore off a small piece of bread, wet it with his saliva, and brought it close to his son’s mouth. Arnau did not react, but Bernat persisted until he managed to force a tiny piece of bread between his lips. Bernat waited. “Swallow, son, swallow,” he begged him. His lips trembled when he saw Arnau’s throat contract almost imperceptibly. He crumbled some more bread and anxiously repeated the operation. Arnau swallowed seven more fragments.