the sky by the time the three of them headed out to the catboat, which the helmsman brought in close to shore at their signal. Arnau and Guillem climbed on board.
“Just one minute,” Mar begged them.
The girl turned toward the cove and looked at the hut for one last time. What would the future hold for her? Arnau and his penitence, Eleonor ...
Mar looked down.
“Don’t worry about her,” Arnau said when she was on board the boat. “She won’t have any money, and won’t bother us. The palace in Calle de Montcada is part of my wealth, so now it belongs to the Inquisition. All that’s left for her is Montbui. She will have to move there.”
“The castle,” murmured Mar. “Will the Inquisition take that too?”
“No. The castle and its lands were given to us by the king on our marriage. The Inquisition has no authority to seize them.”
“I feel sorry for the feudal peasants,” said Mar, remembering the day when Arnau abolished all the ancient privileges.
Neither of them mentioned Mataro and Felip de Ponts’s farmhouse.
“We’ll get by somehow—” Arnau started to say.
“What are you talking about?” Guillem cut in. “You will have all the money you need. If you wish, you could buy the Calle de Montcada palace all over again.”
“But that’s your money,” Arnau protested.
“It’s our money. Look,” said Guillem, addressing them both. “Apart from you two, I have no one. What am I meant to do with the money I have thanks to your generosity? Of course it’s yours.”
“No, no,” Arnau insisted.
“You are my family. My child ... and the man who gave me freedom and riches. Does this mean you do not want me as part of your family?”
Mar stretched out her arm to him. Arnau stuttered: “No ... that wasn’t what I meant at all ... Of course ...”
“Well, if you accept me, you accept my money,” said Guillem. “Or would you rather the Inquisition took it?”
His question forced a smile from Arnau.
“Besides, I have great plans,” said Guillem.
Mar sat looking back at the cove. A tear trickled down her cheek. She did not try to wipe it away, as it ran down and into the corner of her mouth. They were on their way back to Barcelona. To carry out an unjust punishment, to return to the Inquisition, to Joan, the brother who had betrayed Arnau ... and a wife he hated but from whom he could never be free.
59
GUILLEM HAD RENTED a house in La Ribera neighborhood. It was not luxurious, but was spacious enough for the three of them, with a room for Joan as well, Guillem thought when he gave his instructions. When he disembarked from the catboat in the port of Barcelona, Arnau was received with great affection by the workmen on the beach. Some merchants supervising the loading of their goods or coming and going from the warehouses also nodded as he passed by.
“I’m not a rich man anymore,” Arnau said to Guillem as he returned the greetings.
“News spreads quickly,” Guillem replied.
Arnau had said that the first thing he wanted to do when he returned was to visit Santa Maria to thank the Virgin for his freedom. The confused image he had of the tiny statue dancing in the air above the heads of the crowd while he was being carried by the city councillors had become much clearer. But his plan was interrupted when they passed by the corner of Canvis Vells and Canvis Nous: the door and windows of his house—his countinghouse—had been thrown wide open. A group of curious onlookers had gathered outside. They stepped aside when they saw Arnau arrive, but he did not go in. The three of them recognized some of the pieces of furniture and other effects that the soldiers of the Inquisition were carrying out and piling on a cart by the front door: the long table, which hung over the back of the cart and had been tied on with ropes, the red rug, the metal shears to test fake coins, the abacus, the money chests ...
Arnau’s attention was caught by a figure dressed in black who was noting down all the goods seized. The Dominican paused in his work and stared defiantly at him. The onlookers fell silent as Arnau realized where he had seen those eyes before: they belonged to one of the friars who had studied him during the tribunal sessions, behind the bench next to the bishop.
“Vultures,” Arnau muttered.
These were his possessions, his past, his moments of joy and of defeat. He would never have thought that to witness the way they were stripping him ... He had never attached any importance to material things, and yet it was a whole life they were carting away.
Mar could feel Arnau’s palm grow sweaty.
Someone in the small crowd started to jeer the friar. At once, the soldiers left the furniture and drew their weapons. Three other armed men appeared from inside the house.
“They won’t allow the common people to humiliate them again,” warned Guillem, dragging Mar and Arnau away.
The soldiers charged the group of spectators, who scattered in all directions. Arnau let himself be led away by Guillem, although he constantly looked back at the cart.
They forgot about Santa Maria, where the soldiers were still chasing some of the onlookers. Instead, they skirted round the church until they came to Plaza del Born and their new home.
THE NEWS OF Arnau’s return spread quickly
