for ...
“We offer you the hand of our ward Eleonor in marriage. As her dowry, she will be baroness of Granollers, San Vicenc dels Horts, and Caldes de Montbui.”
Everyone on board the galley murmured their approval; some applauded. Marriage! Had he said marriage? Arnau turned to find Guillem, but could not see him. All the nobles and knights were smiling at him. Had the king said marriage?
“Are you not pleased, Lord Baron?” the king asked, seeing Arnau turn his head aside.
Arnau looked back at him. Lord baron? Marriage? What did he want all that for? When he said nothing, the nobles and knights fell silent too. The king’s eyes pierced him. Had he said Eleonor? His ward? He could not... he must not offend the king!
“No ... I mean yes, Your Majesty,” he stammered. “I thank you for your generosity.”
“So be it then.”
At that, Pedro the Third stood up, and his courtiers closed around him. As they passed by Arnau, some of them slapped him on the back, congratulating him with phrases he could not catch. He was soon left standing all on his own. He turned toward Guillem, who was still over by the ship’s side.
Arnau spread his palms in bewilderment, but the Moor gestured toward the king and his retinue, and so he quickly dropped his arms to his side.
ARNAU WAS GREETED back onshore with as much enthusiasm as was the king himself. It seemed as though the entire city wanted to congratulate him: hands stretched out to him; others patted him on the back. Everybody wanted to get near the city’s savior, but Arnau could not hear or recognize any of them. Just when everything was going well and he was happy, the king had decided to arrange a marriage for him. The crowd swarmed round and followed him all the way from the beach to his countinghouse. Even after he had disappeared inside, they stood in the street calling out his name and shouting their joy.
As soon as Arnau stepped into the house, Mar flung herself into his arms. Guillem was already there; he sat in a chair without saying a word. Joan, who had also arrived, was looking on with his usual taciturn expression.
Mar was taken aback when Arnau, perhaps more vigorously than necessary, freed himself from her embrace. Joan came up to congratulate him, but Arnau brushed him off too. He sank into a chair next to Guillem. The others all stared at him, not daring to say anything.
“What’s wrong?” Joan asked at length.
“I’m to be married!” said Arnau, raising his hands above his head. “The king has decided to make me a baron and to marry me to his ward. That’s the favor he is granting me for having saved his capital! He’s marrying me off!”
Joan thought about what he had heard, then smiled and responded: “Why are you complaining?”
Arnau glanced at him out of the corner of his eye. Next to Arnau, Mar’s whole body had begun to shake. Donaha, who was standing in the kitchen doorway, was the only one to notice. She came bustling over and helped her stay on her feet.
“What is so bad about the idea?” Joan insisted. Arnau did not even bother to look at him. As she heard the friar speak, Mar began to retch. “What is wrong with you marrying? And with the king’s ward, no less. You will become a Catalan baron.”
Afraid she was going to be sick, Mar went with Donaha to the kitchen.
“What’s the matter with Mar?” asked Arnau.
The friar took a few moments to answer.
“I’ll tell you what’s the matter,” he said finally. “She should be getting married too! Both of you should be married. It’s a good thing that King Pedro has more sense than you.”
“Leave me, will you, Joan?” said Arnau wearily.
The friar lifted his arms in the air and left the room.
“Go and see what’s wrong with Mar,” Arnau told Guillem.
“I don’t know what’s wrong,” he told Arnau a few minutes later, “but Donaha told me not to worry. It’s a woman’s thing.”
Arnau turned to him. “Don’t talk to me about women,” he moaned.
“We can’t go against the king’s wishes, Arnau. Perhaps ... given a bit of time, we can find a solution.”
But they were not given any time. King Pedro the Third fixed June 23 as the date when he would set off in pursuit of the king of Castille. He ordered his fleet to assemble in the port of Barcelona that day, and let it be known that before leaving he wanted the matter of the marriage of his ward Eleonor to the rich merchant Arnau settled. A court official came one morning to Arnau’s countinghouse to tell him as much.
“That means I have only nine days left!” Arnau complained to Guillem as soon as the official had left. “Less perhaps!”
What could this Eleonor be like? Just thinking about her kept him awake. Old? Beautiful? Friendly, pleasant, or arrogant and cynical like all the other nobles he had known in his life? How could he marry a woman he had never even met? He confided the task of finding out about her to Joan.
“You have to do it for me. Find out what she is like. I can’t stop worrying about what is in store for me.”
“It’s said,” Joan told him the same day that the official had appeared in the countinghouse, “that she is the bastard daughter of one of the Catalan infantes, one of the king’s uncles, although nobody dares say for certain exactly who he is. Her mother died giving birth to her; that’s why she was taken into court—”
“But what is she like, Joan?” Arnau interrupted him.
“She is twenty-three years old and attractive.”
