had made no mark on her. She was busy with a pot over the fire.
“Tell your masters I’ve come to see them,” he told her when the cook became aware of him.
A blank smile spread across the slave’s face. She went to tell Grau’s steward, who informed his master. Arnau was kept waiting for hours, standing in the kitchen. Everyone in Grau’s service filed past to get a look at him. Most of them smiled, although a few looked sad at his capitulation. Arnau met all their gazes, responding defiantly to those who mocked him, but he was unable to wipe the smiles from their faces.
The only person who did not appear was Bernat, although Tomas the groom had made sure he knew his son had come to apologize. “I’m sorry, Arnau, so sorry,” Bernat muttered over and over to himself as he brushed down one of the horses.
After waiting for hours, with aching legs—Arnau had tried to sit down, but Estranya had prevented him from doing so—he was led into the main room of Grau’s house. He did not even notice how richly it was appointed: his eyes immediately went to the five members of the family waiting for him at the far end of the room. The baron and his wife were seated; his three cousins stood beside them. The men wore brightly colored silk stockings with jerkins and gold belts; the women’s robes were adorned with pearls and precious stones.
The steward led Arnau to the center of the room, a few feet from the family. Then he returned to the doorway, where Grau had told him to wait.
“What brings you here?” Grau asked, stiff and distant as ever.
“I’ve come to ask your forgiveness.”
“Well, do so then,” Grau ordered him.
Arnau was about to speak, but the baroness interrupted him.
“Is that how you propose to ask for forgiveness? Standing up?”
Arnau hesitated for a moment, but finally sank down on one knee. Margarida’s silly giggle echoed, round the room.
“I beg forgiveness from you all,” Arnau intoned, his eyes fixed on the baroness.
She looked straight through him.
“I’m only doing this for my father,” Arnau said, and stared back at her defiantly. “Trollop.”
“Our feet!” the baroness shrieked. “Kiss our feet!” Arnau tried to stand again, but she stopped him. “On your knees!” she crowed.
Arnau obeyed, and shuffled over to them. “Only for my father. Only for my father. Only for my father...” The baroness put forward her silk slippers, and Arnau kissed them, first the left one and then the right. Without looking up, he moved on to Grau. When he saw the boy kneeling at his feet, Grau hesitated, but when he saw his wife staring furiously at him, he raised his feet in turn up to the boy’s mouth. Arnau’s boy cousins did the same as their father. When Arnau tried to kiss Margarida’s silk slipper, she jerked it away and started giggling once more. Arnau tried again, and she did the same. Finally, he waited for her to lift the slippers to his mouth ... first one ... then the other.
15
BERNAT COUNTED THE money Grau had paid him. He growled as he dropped it into his purse. It ought to be enough, but... those cursed Genoese! When would they end their siege against the principality? Barcelona was going hungry.
Bernat tied the bag to his belt and went to find Arnau. The boy was undernourished. Bernat looked at him anxiously. A hard winter. At least they had got through the winter. How many others could say the same? Bernat drew his mouth into a tight line, stroked his son’s hair, then let his hand fall on his shoulder. How many in Barcelona had died from the cold, hunger, or disease? How many fathers could still rest their hands on their sons’ shoulders? “At least you’re alive,” he thought.
That day a grain ship, one of the few that had succeeded in evading the Genoese blockade, arrived in the port of Barcelona. The cereals were bought by the city itself at exorbitant prices, to be resold to the inhabitants for more accessible sums. That Friday there was wheat in the Plaza del Blat, and people had started congregating there since first light. They were already fighting to see how the official measurers were going to divide the stocks.
For a few months now, despite the best efforts of the councillors to silence him, a Carmelite friar had been preaching against the rich and powerful. He blamed them for the food shortages, and accused them of keeping wheat hidden away. The friar’s diatribes had struck a chord among the faithful. The rumors about the hidden wheat spread throughout the city. That was why this particular Friday people were crowding noisily into the Plaza del Blat, arguing and pushing their way forward to the tables where city officials were weighing the grain.
The authorities had calculated how much wheat there was for each inhabitant and put the cloth merchant Pere Juyol, the official inspector for the Plaza del Blat, in charge of supervising its sale.
“Mestre doesn’t have a family,” came the cry a few minutes later as a ragged-looking man with an even more ragged child stepped up to the table. “They all died over the winter.”
The weighers took back the grain from Mestre, but this was just the start: one man had sent his son to another table; another had already had his share; a third had no family; that is not his son, he’s only brought him to get more ...
The square became a hive buzzing with rumors. People abandoned the queues, started to argue, and were soon swapping insults. Someone shouted that the authorities should put the wheat they were hiding on public sale; the crowd backed him. The officials found they could no longer control the swarm of people pushing and shoving round the tables. The king’s stewards began to confront the hungry mob, and it was only a quick decision by Pere Juyol that saved the situation. He ordered that the grain be taken to the magistrate’s palace at the eastern side of the square and suspended all sales that morning.
Frustrated in their attempts to buy the precious grain, Bernat and Arnau went back to work at Grau’s mansion. In the yard outside the stables they told the head stableman and anyone else who cared to listen what had happened in Plaza del Blat. Neither of them was slow to accuse the authorities, or to complain how hungry they were.
The noise brought the baroness to one of the windows overlooking the yard. She was delighted at the
