“Into the sea!” ordered the captain.
The three of them jumped overboard into the shallow water. Margarida and Arnau crouched down; Guiamon stretched out at full length. As the torches approached the skiff, the children moved out farther into the sea. Margarida looked up at the moon, praying silently that the clouds would keep it hidden.
The search seemed to go on forever, but none of the men looked out to sea, and if one of them did ... well, it was Christmas, and they were only three frightened children—frightened, and soaked to the skin by now. It was very cold.
By the time they reached home, Guiamon could hardly stand. His teeth were chattering, his knees trembled, and he was shaking uncontrollably. Margarida and Arnau had to lift him under the arms and carry him the last part of the way.
When they arrived, all the guests had already left. Alerted to the children’s disappearance, Grau and the slaves were on the point of setting out to look for them.
“It was Arnau,” Margarida said accusingly, while Guiamona and the Moorish slave girl plunged the little boy into a bath of hot water. “He talked us into going down to the beach. I didn’t want to ...” The little girl made sure she accompanied her lies with the tears that always worked so well with her father.
The hot bath, blankets, and scalding broth were not enough to revive Guiamon. The fever took hold. Grau sent for the doctor, but his efforts were in vain. The fever grew worse: Guiamon began to cough, and his breathing became shallow and wheezing.
“There’s nothing more I can do,” Dr. Sebastia Font said resignedly on the third night he came to visit.
Pale and drawn, Guiamona raised her hands to her head and burst into tears.
“But that’s impossible!” shouted Grau. “There must be some remedy!”
“There may be, but ...” The doctor was well aware of Grau and his dislikes. But the situation called for desperate measures. “You will have to call on Jafuda Bonsenyor.”
Grau said nothing.
“Call for him!” Guiamona said, between sobs.
“A Jew!” thought Grau. If you deal with a Jew, you deal with the Devil, he had been taught as a child. And as a child, Grau had joined the other apprentices to run after Jewish women and smash their water jars when they came to fill them at the public fountains. He went on doing so until the king bowed to a petition from the Jewry of Barcelona and prohibited all such attacks. Grau hated Jews. All his life he had harassed or spat at anyone wearing a badge. They were heretics; they were the ones who had killed Jesus Christ... how could he allow one of them to cross his threshold?
“Call him!” shouted Guiamona.
Her anguished cry was so loud that everyone in the neighborhood heard. Bernat and the apprentices shrank back on their pallets from the sound. Bernat had not been able to see either Arnau or Habiba for three days, but Jaume kept him up-to-date on what was going on.
“Your son is fine,” he told him when no one was looking.
Jafuda Bonsenyor came as soon as he got the message. He was wearing a plain black hooded djellaba, with the badge round his neck. Grau watched him from a distance as he stood in the dining room, hunched over as he listened to Sebastia’s explanations. Guiamona stood next to them. “Make sure you cure him, Jew!” Grau glared silently when their eyes met. Jafuda Bonsenyor nodded respectfully toward him. Jafuda was a learned man who had devoted his life to studying philosophy and the sacred scriptures. King Jaime the Second had commissioned him to write The Book of Sayings of Wise Men and Philosophers, but he was also a doctor, the most prominent in all the Jewish community. When he saw Guiamon, all he did was shake his head slowly from side to side.
Grau heard his wife’s cries. He ran to the stairs. Guiamona came down from the bedroom on Sebastia’s arm. Jafuda appeared behind them.
“Jew!” hissed Grau, spitting as he passed by.
Guiamon died two days later.
No SOONER HAD they all returned to the house, dressed in mourning, after the burial of the boy’s body, than Grau signaled to Jaume to come over to him and Guiamona.
“I want you to go to Arnau at once and make sure he never sets foot inside this house again.” Guiamona did not say a word.
Grau told him what Margarida had said: that it was Arnau who had led them on. Neither his youngest nor a mere girl could have planned such an escapade. Guiamona listened to his accusations, cursing her for taking in her brother and nephew. And although deep in her heart she knew it was only a childish prank that had led to fatal consequences, the death of her youngest son robbed her of the strength to oppose her husband, while Margarida’s blaming of Arnau made it almost impossible for her to bear the sight of him anymore. He was her brother’s son, and she wished him no harm; but she preferred not to have to see him.
“Tie that Moorish girl to a beam in the workshop,” Grau ordered Jaume before he went off in search of Arnau, “and make sure everyone gathers round, including the boy.”
Grau had been thinking it through during the funeral service. The slave girl was the one to blame: she should have been looking after them. As he heard Guiamona start crying again, and the priest droned on, he wondered what punishment he should give her. According to the law, he could not kill or maim her, but no one could object if she simply died as a result of the punishment he meted out to her. Grau had never had to deal with such a grievous problem. He ran through all the different tortures he had heard of: covering her body in boiling animal fat (would Estranya have enough in her kitchen?); putting her in chains or shutting her up in a dungeon (that would not be punishment enough); beating her, putting her feet in shackles ... or flogging her.
“Be careful if you use it,” the captain of one of his ships had told him once as he offered him the gift. “One lash can take all the skin off a person’s back.” Ever since, Grau had kept the whip hidden away. It was a fine Oriental whip made of plaited leather, thick but lightweight and easy to handle. It ended in several thongs, each of them tipped with jagged pieces of metal.
As the priest fell silent and the altar boys waved the censers round the coffin, Guiamona coughed, but Grau took a deep breath of satisfaction.
