Nicolau silenced the scribe. The smile vanished.
“So is the canon lying too?”
“Go with your Jewish lover!” Why had he not let the clerk finish? What was Nicolau up to? “Your Jewish lover, your Jewish lover ...” The flames licking at Hasdai’s body, the silence, the enraged mob baying for justice, shouting words that were never properly spoken, Eleonor pointing at him, the bishop standing next to her, staring ... and Raquel clinging to him.
“Is the canon lying as well?”
“I have not accused anyone of lying,” said Arnau. He needed time to think.
“Do you deny God’s commandments? Do you object to the duties demanded of you as a Christian husband?”
“No ... no ...,” stammered Arnau.
“Well, then?”
“Well, then what?” “Do you deny God’s commandments?” Nicolau repeated, his voice rising.
His words reverberated from the stone walls of the vast chamber. Arnau’s legs felt heavy after all those days in the dungeon ...
“The tribunal could take your silence for a confession,” said the bishop.
“No, I don’t deny them.” His legs began to ache. “Why does the Holy Office take such an interest in my relations with Dona Eleonor? Is it a sin to—”
“Be careful, Estanyol,” the inquisitor cut in. “It is for the tribunal to ask the questions, not you.”
“Ask them, then.”
Nicolau could see Arnau moving unsteadily, shifting his weight from foot to foot.
“He’s beginning to feel pain,” he whispered in Berenguer d’Eril’s ear.
“Leave him to think about it,” replied the bishop.
They began to whisper together again. Arnau could sense the four Dominicans’ eyes fixed on him once more. His legs ached dreadfully, but he had to resist. He could not bow down before Nicolau Eimerich. What would happen if he collapsed to the floor? He needed ... a stone! A stone on his back, a long road to carry a stone for his Virgin. “Where are you now? Can these people really be your representatives? I was little more than a boy, and yet ...” Of course he could resist now. He had walked across all Barcelona with a stone that weighed more than he did, sweating, bleeding, with everyone’s shouts of encouragement ringing in his ears. Was there none of that strength left? Was a fanatic friar going to defeat him? Him? The boy
When they saw Arnau suddenly straighten, Nicolau Eimerich and Berenguer d’Eril exchanged looks. For the first time, one of the Dominicans’ stares wavered, and he looked toward the center of the table.
“He’s not going to fall,” the bishop whispered nervously.
“Where do you satisfy your needs?” Nicolau asked loudly.
That explained why she had known his name. Her voice ... Yes, that was the voice he had heard so often on the slopes of Montjuic hill.
“Arnau Estanyol!” The inquisitor’s cry brought him back to the tribunal. “I asked how you satisfy your needs.”
“I do not understand your question.”
“You are a man. You have had no physical contact with your wife for years. It’s a very simple question: where do you satisfy your needs as a man?”
“For the same number of years, I have had no contact with any woman.”
He had answered without thinking. The jailer had said she was his mother.
“That’s a lie!” Arnau gave a start. “This tribunal has seen you embracing a heretic. Is that not contact with a woman?”
“Not the kind of contact you were referring to.”
“What can drive a man and a woman to embrace in public”—Nicolau waved his hands—“if not lasciviousness?”
“Grief.”
“What grief?” the bishop wanted to know.
“What grief?” Nicolau insisted when Arnau did not reply.
Arnau still said nothing. The flames from the funeral pyre lit the chamber. “Grief because a heretic who had profaned the sacred host had been executed?” the inquisitor insisted, pointing a bejeweled finger at him. “Is that the grief you feel as a true Christian? Because the weight of justice fell on a monster, a profaner, a wretch, a thief... ?”
“He did nothing!” Arnau shouted.
All the members of the tribunal, including the clerk, stirred in their seats.
“Those three men confessed their guilt. Why do you defend heretics? The Jews ...”
