own brothers?”
“BECAUSE MY BROTHER is different!” shouted Guiamona so loudly that Grau took a step backward.
It was night by the time her husband returned home. Small, skinny Grau, a bundle of nerves, strode up the staircase, cursing. Guiamona was waiting for him. Jaume had told him what had happened: “Your brother-in-law is sleeping in the hayloft with the apprentices, his boy ... with your children.”
Grau charged up to his wife.
“How dare you!” he shouted at her when she tried to explain. “He’s a fugitive serf! Do you know what it would mean if they found a fugitive in our house? My ruin, that’s what! It would mean my ruin!”
Guiamona let him talk. He whirled round her, flinging his arms theatrically into the air. He was a good head taller than she was.
“You’re mad! I’ve sent my own brothers overseas on ships! I’ve given my sisters dowries so that they would marry outsiders, and all so that nobody could accuse this family of the slightest thing! And now you ... Why should I act any differently for your brother?”
“Because he is different!” she shouted, silencing him.
Grau hesitated. “What? What do you mean?”
“You know very well. I don’t think I need to remind you why.”
Grau avoided meeting her gaze.
“This very day,” he muttered, “I’ve been meeting one of the five city councillors with a view to being elected to the Council of a Hundred as a guild official. I think I’ve won three of the five over: I still need to convince the bailiff and the magistrate. Can you imagine what my enemies would say if they found out I had given shelter to a fugitive serf?”
Guiamona reminded him softly: “We owe him everything.”
“I’m only an artisan, Guiamona. A rich one, but still an artisan. The nobles look down on me, and the merchants despise me, however much they are willing to do business with me. If they found out I had taken in a fugitive ... do you know what the landowning nobles would say?”
“We owe him everything,” Guiamona repeated.
“Well, then, we’ll give him the money and send him on his way.”
“He needs his freedom. A year and a day.”
Grau paced nervously around the room. Then he buried his head in his hands.
“We can’t,” he said. “Guiamona, we can’t do it!” he said, peering through his fingers. “Can you imagine ... ?”
“Can you imagine! Can you imagine!” She butted in, raising her voice at him. “Can you imagine what would happen if we threw him out and he was arrested by Llorenc de Bellera’s men or one of those enemies of yours? What if they found out that you owe everything to him, a fugitive serf who agreed to give you a dowry that was not yours by right?”
“Are you threatening me?”
“No, Grau, no. But that’s how it is. If you won’t do it out of gratitude, do it out of self-interest. It’s better for you to be able to keep an eye on him. Bernat wants his freedom. He won’t leave Barcelona. If you don’t take him in, there will be a fugitive and a little boy, both of them with the same birthmark by their right eye as I have, wandering the streets of Barcelona. Think how useful they could be to those enemies you’re so frightened of.”
Grau stared hard at his wife. He was about to respond, then thought better of it and merely waved his hand. He left the room, and Guiamona could hear him climbing the stairs to the loft.
5
“YOUR SON WILL stay in the main house; Dona Guiamona will take care of him. As soon as he is old enough, he will become an apprentice in the workshop.”
Bernat paid only scant attention to what Grau’s assistant was saying. Jaume had burst into the dormitory at first light. The slaves and apprentices leapt from their pallets as though he were the Devil himself, and rushed pell-mell out of the door. Bernat was satisfied with what he heard: Arnau would be well looked after, and in time would become an apprentice, a freeman with a trade.
“Did you hear me?” Jaume asked.
When Bernat did not reply, he cursed: “Stupid peasants!”
Bernat almost reacted violently, but the smile on the official’s face made him think twice.
“Go ahead,” Jaume taunted him. “Hit me and your sister will be the one who loses. I’ll repeat the important things, peasant: you are to work from dawn to dusk, like all the others. In return you will have bed, food, and clothing ... and Dona Guiamona will take care of your son. You are forbidden to enter the main house: on no account may you do so. You are also forbidden to leave the workshop until after the year and a day necessary to win your freedom. Whenever anyone comes into the workshop, you are to hide. You are not to tell a soul of your situation, not even the apprentices in here, although with that birthmark of yours ...” Jaume shook his head. “That is the bargain the master has struck with Dona Guiamona. Do you agree?”
“When will I be able to see my son?” asked Bernat.
“That’s none of my business.”
Bernat closed his eyes. When they had first set sight on Barcelona, he had promised Arnau he would be a freeman. He would not be any lord’s vassal.
“What are my tasks?” he said at last.
To carry wood. To carry hundreds, thousands, of the heavy branches needed every day for the kilns. To make sure the fires were always lit. To carry clay, and to clean. To clean away the mud, the clay dust, and the ashes from the kilns. Over and over again, hauling the ashes and dust to the back of the house. By the time Bernat
