He let the pitchfork fall from his hands. Francesca was silhouetted against the light, dressed in the white linen smock ... Her whole body shone through, just waiting for him!
A shudder ran down Bernat’s spine. Pere Esteve smiled.
Bernat accepted his offer. There and then, in the stable, without even going up to the young girl, but never once taking his eyes off her. He realized it was a hasty decision, but so far he had not regretted it: there Francesca was in front of him now, young, beautiful, strong. His breathing quickened. That very night ... What might she be thinking? Did she feel as he did? Francesca was not sharing in the other women’s animated chatter: she sat quietly beside her mother, answering their jokes and laughter with forced smiles. Their looks met for a moment. She flushed and looked down, but Bernat could tell from the way her breast heaved that she was nervous too. Her white linen smock thrust itself once more into Bernat’s fantasies and desire.
“I congratulate you!” he heard a voice say behind him, and felt a hand clapping him on the shoulder. It was his father-in-law. “Look after her for me,” he added, following Bernat’s gaze and pointing to the girl, who did not know where to put herself. “If the life you have in store for her is as magnificent as this feast ... This is the most marvelous banquet I have ever seen. Not even the lord of Navarcles could lay on such a treat.”
In order to please his guests, Bernat had prepared forty-seven loaves of wheat bread: the peasants’ usual fare of barley, rye, or spelt was not good enough for him. Only the whitest bread, as white as his bride’s smock, was good enough for him! He had carried all the loaves to be baked at the Navarcles castle, calculating that, as usual, two loaves would be enough to pay for the privilege. When he saw this display of wheaten bread, the baker’s eyes opened wide, then narrowed to inscrutable slits. He demanded seven loaves in payment, and Bernat left the castle cursing the laws that prevented peasants like him from having their own bread ovens at home, or forges, or bridle and harness workshops ...
“You’re right there,” he told his father-in-law, banishing the unpleasant memory from his mind.
They both stared down the courtyard. Some of his bread might have been stolen, but there was still the wine his guests were drinking—the best, stored away by his father and left to age for several years—and the salt- roasted pig, the vegetable stew seasoned with chickens, and above all the four lambs, split down the middle and roasting slowly on the embers on their spits, oozing fat and giving off an irresistible smell.
All of a sudden the women started bustling about. The stew was ready, and the bowls the guests had brought were soon filled. Pere and Bernat sat at the only table laid in the courtyard. The women rushed to serve them, ignoring the four empty seats. The rest stood or sat on wooden benches and began to eat, still casting glances at the lambs roasting under the watchful eye of some of the cooks. Everyone was drinking wine, conversing, shouting, and laughing.
“Yes, a real feast,” Pere Esteve concluded, between mouthfuls.
Somebody proposed a toast to the bride and groom. Everybody joined in.
“Francesca!” shouted her father, raising his cup to her as she stood next to the roasting lambs.
Bernat stared hard at her, but again she hid her face.
“She’s feeling nervous,” Pere said in excuse, winking at him. “Francesca, daughter!” he shouted once more. “Come on, drink with us! Make the most of it now, because soon we’ll be leaving—almost all of us, that is.”
The guffaws following this remark only intimidated Francesca still further. She half raised a cup she had been given, but did not drink from it. Then she turned away from the laughter and went on supervising the cooking.
Pere Esteve clinked his cup against Bernat’s, spilling some of his wine. The other guests followed suit.
“I’m sure you’ll see to it she forgets her bashfulness,” Pere Esteve said out loud, for all to hear.
This led to more guffawing, this time accompanied by sly comments that Bernat preferred to ignore.
In this merry way, they set to work on large amounts of wine, pork, and chicken stew. Just as the women were withdrawing the lambs from the fire, a group of the guests suddenly fell silent and began to look over to the outskirts of the woods on the edge of Bernat’s land, beyond the plowed fields and the dip in the land that the Estanyols had used to plant the vines that provided them with such excellent wine.
Within a few seconds, the whole wedding party had fallen silent.
Three men on horseback had appeared among the trees. A larger number of men in uniform were walking behind them.
“What can he want here?” Pere Esteve muttered to himself.
Bernat followed the newcomers with his gaze as they drew closer across the fields. The guests began to whisper among themselves.
“I don’t understand,” Bernat said eventually, also in a low voice. “He never comes here: it is not on his way to the castle.”
“I don’t like the look of this at all,” said Pere Esteve.
The procession drew slowly closer. As the figures approached, the laughter and the remarks the horsemen were making took over from the merriment that had been in evidence in the courtyard; everyone could hear them. Bernat surveyed his guests: some of them could not bear to look, and stood there staring at the ground. He searched for Francesca, who was in the midst of a group of women. The lord of Navarcles’s powerful voice rang out. Bernat could feel anger rising inside him.
“Bernat! Bernat!” Pere Esteve hissed, clutching his arm. “What are you doing here? Run to greet him.”
Bernat leapt up and ran to receive his lord.
“Welcome to this your house,” he panted when he had reached the men on horseback.
Llorenc de Bellera, lord of Navarcles, pulled on his horse’s reins and came to a halt in front of Bernat.
“Are you Estanyol, son of the madman?” he asked disdainfully.
“Yes, my lord.”
“We were out hunting, and were surprised to hear your feast on the way back to our castle. What are you
