“Come closer, Alfons. What do you want to tell us?”
“That ... that two months ago I picked some beans from our neighbor’s garden.”
“You picked?” asked Joan.
Alfons lowered his gaze.
“I stole,” he said in a faint voice.
JOAN GOT UP from his pallet and trimmed the lantern. The village had been silent for hours, and he had spent all that time trying to get to sleep. Whenever he shut his eyes and felt drowsy, a teardrop falling down Arnau’s cheek would jerk him back awake. He needed light. He tried many times to sleep, but always found himself sitting up on the pallet, sometimes fearful, at others bathed in sweat, always engulfed by memories that haunted him.
He needed light. He checked that there was still oil in the lamp. Arnau’s sad face peered at him out of the shadows.
He fell back on the pallet. It was cold. It was always cold. For a while he lay and watched the flickering flame and the shadows dancing in its light. The only window in the room had no glass, and the wind was whistling through it. “We are all dancing a dance ... Mine is ...”
He curled up under the blankets and forced himself to close his eyes once more.
Where was the light of day? One more morning, and their three days of grace would be up.
Joan fell into an uneasy sleep, but half an hour later he woke up again, in a sweat.
The lantern was still burning, the shadows still dancing. The village was completely quiet. Why did day not dawn?
He wrapped himself in the blankets and went over to the window.
Another village. Another night waiting for day to dawn.
Waiting for the next day...
THAT MORNING A line of villagers stood outside the house, guarded by the soldiers.
She said her name was Peregrina. Joan pretended not to be paying much attention to the blond woman who was fourth in line. He had got nothing out of the first three. Peregrina stood in front of the table where Joan and the scribe were sitting. The fire crackled in the hearth. Nobody else was inside the house: the soldiers were posted outside the front door. All of a sudden, Joan looked up. The woman began to tremble.
“You know something, don’t you, Peregrina? God sees everything,” Joan told her. Peregrina nodded, but did not raise her eyes from the beaten earth floor. “Look at me. I need you to look at me. Do you want to burn in everlasting flames? Look at me. Do you have children?”
Slowly, the woman looked up.
“Yes, but—” she stammered.
“But they are not the sinful ones, is that it?” Joan interrupted her. “Who is then, Peregrina?” The woman hesitated. “Who is it, Peregrina?”
“Blasphemy,” she said.
“Who is committing blasphemy, Peregrina?”
The scribe was poised to write.
“She is ...” Joan waited without saying anything. There was no going back now. “I’ve heard her blaspheme when she is angry ...” Peregrina’s gaze darted back to the floor. “My husband’s sister, Marta. She says terrible things when she is angry.”
The scratch of the scribe’s quill on the parchment drove out all other noises.
“Is there anything more, Peregrina?”
This time the woman raised her eyes and looked at him calmly. “No, nothing more.”
“Are you sure?”
“I swear it. You have to believe me.”
Joan had been mistaken only about the man with the black belt. The barefoot man had denounced two shepherds who did not follow the rules of abstinence: he swore he had seen them eat meat during Lent. The girl with the baby, a young widow, denounced her neighbor. He was a married man who was continually making advances to her ... and had even stroked her breast.
“What about you? Did you allow him to do that?” Joan asked her. “Did you enjoy it?”
The girl burst into tears.
“Did it give you pleasure?” Joan insisted.
“We were hungry,” she sobbed, holding up her baby.
The scribe wrote down her name. Joan stared at her. “What did he give you?” he thought. “A crust of dry bread? Is that all your honor is worth?”
“Confess!” he shouted, pointing a finger at her.
Two more people denounced their neighbors, claiming they were heretics.
“Some nights I hear strange noises and see lights in their house,” one of them said. “They are Devil worshippers.”
“What could your neighbor have done for you to denounce him like this?” wondered Joan to himself. “You know he will never find out who betrayed him. What do you stand to gain if I condemn him? A strip of land
