baroness. It was she who had stood beside him on the platform at Montbui castle when he had renounced all his privileges ...
“Arnau’s trial is to start in a few days’ time ...”
Mar and Aledis came to an abrupt halt. Joan walked on a few paces, until he realized the women were no longer with him. When he turned back toward them, he saw they were looking intently at each other, as though asking, “Who are you?”
“I doubt whether the friar ever had a childhood ... and still less knew anything about girls,” said Mar.
Aledis met her gaze. Mar stood there proudly; her bright young eyes seemed to want to pierce her through. Even the mule appeared to be listening to her every word, its ears pricked.
“You are nothing if not blunt,” Aledis told her.
“That’s what life has taught me.”
“Thirty years ago, if my parents had given their consent, I would have been married to Arnau.”
“And six years ago, if I’d been treated like a human being rather than an animal,” Mar said, glancing at Joan, “I would still be at Arnau’s side.”
The two women fell silent as they again measured each other with their gaze.
“But I haven’t seen Arnau in twenty years,” Aledis finally admitted. “I’m not trying to compete with you,” she was trying to tell her, in a language only two women could understand.
Mar shifted her weight from one leg to the other and relaxed her grip on the mule’s halter. She rolled her eyes, and stopped challenging Aledis.
“I live outside Barcelona. Do you have anywhere to put me up?” she asked after a few moments.
“I live outside the city as well. I am being put up ... with my daughters, in the Estanyer Inn. But we could arrange something,” she added quickly when she saw Mar hesitate. “What about him?” Aledis pointed her chin at Joan.
The two women surveyed him, standing there with his bruised face and his filthy, torn habit hanging down from his stooped shoulders.
“He has a lot to explain,” said Mar, “and we might need him. He can sleep with the mule.”
Joan waited for the two women to set off again, then followed a few steps behind.
“‘WHY ARE you here?’ she will ask me. ‘What were you doing in the bishop’s palace?’” Aledis cast a sideways glance at her new companion; she was walking on serenely, pulling at the mule, and not stepping aside for anyone they came across on the way. What could have happened between Mar and Joan? The friar seemed completely crushed ... How on earth could a Dominican allow a woman to send him to sleep with a mule? They crossed Plaza del Blat. Aledis had admitted she knew Arnau, but had not told them she had seen him in the dungeons, begging for her to come close. “What about Francesca? What should I tell them about her? That she’s my mother? No. Joan knew who she was, and knows she wasn’t called Francesca. My dead husband’s mother? What will they say when she is brought in during Arnau’s trial? I ought to have an answer. And when they find out she is a whore? How could my mother-in-law be a whore? Better to pretend I know nothing: but then what was I doing in the bishop’s palace?”
“OH,” ALEDIS REPLIED when Mar asked her the question, “it was some business related to my deceased husband. Since we were passing through Barcelona ...”
Eulalia and Teresa glanced at her, but carried on eating out of their bowls. The two women had reached the inn and persuaded the innkeeper to place a third straw pallet in the room where Aledis and her daughters were staying. When she told him he had to sleep in the stable with the mule, Joan made no demur.
“Whatever you may hear,” Aledis whispered to the girls, “don’t say a thing. Try to avoid answering any questions, and remember: we don’t know anyone called Francesca.”
The five of them sat down to eat.
“Well, Friar,” Mar began, “why has the inquisitor forbidden all visits to Arnau?”
Joan had not touched his food.
“I needed money for the jailer,” he said wearily, “and since Arnau’s business had no cash, I ordered the sale of some of his commissions. Eimerich thought I was trying to get rid of Arnau’s fortune so that the Inquisition could not get hold of it ...”
At that moment, the lord of Bellera and Genis Puig came in. They both beamed when they saw the girls.
“Joan,” Aledis said quickly, “yesterday those two noblemen were bothering my daughters, and I have the impression that their intentions... Could you help me make sure they don’t trouble my daughters again?”
Joan turned toward the two men while they stood there ogling Teresa and Eulalia, obviously remembering the previous night. When they caught sight of Joan’s black habit, their smiles vanished. The friar looked at them steadily, and the two nobles sat down quietly at their table, then stared down at the food the innkeeper had brought them.
“On what charges are they trying Arnau?” Aledis asked Joan when he turned his attention back to them.
SAHAT WATCHED AS the final preparations were made for the ship bound for Marseilles to leave port. It was a solid, single-masted galley, with a rudder at the stern and two at the sides, and with room for 120 oarsmen.
“It is a very rapid and safe ship,” Filippo told him. “They’ve had several scrapes with pirates and have always managed to escape. You’ll be in Marseilles in three or four days.” Sahat nodded. “From there you’ll have no problem finding a cargo vessel bound for Barcelona.”
As he pointed to the galley with his stick, Filippo clung to Sahat with his other hand. Officials, traders, and workmen alike greeted him as they went past, and then did the same with Sahat, the Moor he was leaning on for support.
“The weather is fine,” Filippo added, this time pointing his cane up at the sky. “You won’t have any problems.”
