“That is how wine should be served!” the lord of Navarcles bellowed. Standing next to him, Bernat clenched his fists and teeth.
Llorenc de Bellera and his friends went on drinking: they kept calling out for Francesca to come and refill their cups. The soldiers laughed with their lord and his friends whenever Francesca had to lean over the table to serve them. She tried to choke back her tears, and Bernat could see a trickle of blood on each of her hands where she had been digging in her nails. Each time she had to pour out the wine, the wedding guests fell silent and looked away.
“Estanyol,” Llorenc de Bellera finally shouted, clutching Francesca by the wrist. “In accordance with one of my rights as your lord, I have decided to lie with your wife on her first night of marriage.”
His friends raucously applauded the decision. Bernat leapt toward the table, but before he could do anything, the lord’s two companions, who had seemed hopelessly drunk, sprang up, hands on the pommels of their swords. Bernat stopped in his tracks. Llorenc stared at him, smiled, then laughed out loud. The girl implored Bernat for help with her eyes.
Bernat stepped forward, but felt one of the swords pressed against his stomach. As the lord dragged her to the outside staircase of the farmhouse, Francesca still looked at him beseechingly. When the lord grabbed her round the waist and lifted her over his shoulder, she cried out.
The lord of Navarcles’s friends sat down and took up their drinking again. The soldiers stood guard at the foot of the staircase to prevent Bernat from making any move.
The sky was still a deep, dark blue.
After some minutes that to Bernat seemed endless, Llorenc de Bellera appeared at the top of the staircase. He was sweaty and was trying to fasten his hunting doublet.
“Estanyol,” he shouted in his stentorian tones as he walked past him toward the table, “now it’s your turn. Dona Caterina,” he said, referring to his new young bride for the sake of his companions, “is weary of bastard children of mine turning up all over the place. And I’m weary of her sniveling. So do your duty as a good Christian husband!” he said, turning and addressing Bernat.
Bernat lowered his head, and then walked slowly and reluctantly up the staircase. Everyone was staring at him. He went into the first-floor room, a large area that served as kitchen and dining room, with a big hearth on one wall that was topped by a wrought-iron chimneypiece. As he dragged himself over to the ladder that led to the bedroom and granary on the second floor, he could hear his footsteps echoing on the wooden boards. Unsure what to do, he stuck his head into the gap at the top of the ladder and peered around him.
His chin was level with the boards, and he could see Francesca’s clothing scattered all over the floor. The white linen smock, her family’s pride and joy, was torn to shreds. He climbed to the top of the ladder.
He found Francesca curled up in a ball. She lay completely naked on the new pallet, which was spattered with blood. She was staring blankly into space; covered in sweat, her body was scratched and bruised. She did not move.
“Estanyol!” Bernat heard Llorenc de Bellera shout from down below. “Your lord is waiting.”
Bernat could not stop himself from retching, then vomiting onto the stored grain until he felt as if his whole insides had come up. Francesca still did not move. Bernat ran out of the room. When he reached the bottom of the staircase, his head was filled with the most revolting sensations. He ran blindly into the imposing shape of the lord of Navarcles.
“It would seem that the husband has not consummated his marriage,” Llorenc de Bellera commented to his companions.
Bernat had to raise his head to face him.
“No ... your lordship, I could not do it,” he stammered.
Llorenc de Bellera fell silent.
“Well, if you are not up to the task, I’m sure that one of my friends—or my soldiers—will be more ready for it. I told you, I don’t want any more bastards.”
“You have no right ... !”
The wedding guests looking on shuddered at what the consequences of this outburst might be. With one hand, the lord of Navarcles seized Bernat by the throat. He squeezed, and Bernat was soon gasping for breath.
“How dare you ... ? Are you thinking of using your lord’s legitimate right to lie with the bride to later come and make claims for your bastard child?” Llorenc buffeted Bernat before letting him go. “Is that what you’re after? I’m the one who decides what the rights of vassalage are. And nobody else! Are you forgetting that I can punish you how and when I choose?”
He landed another blow on Bernat’s cheek, sending him crashing to the ground.
“Where’s my whip?” he shouted angrily.
The whip! Bernat had been only a child when, together with a crowd of others, he had been forced to accompany his parents to watch the public flogging that the lord of Navarcles had inflicted on a poor wretch, although nobody knew for certain what he had done wrong. The memory of the sound of the leather whip on that man’s back resounded just as it had on the day and night after night throughout his childhood. No one who had been there that day dared as much as make a move; no one did so now. Bernat got to his knees and looked up at his feudal lord, standing there like a great boulder, his hand held out for someone to pass him his whip. Bernat recalled the raw flesh of the other man’s back: a bleeding mass that not even all the lord’s ferocity had succeeded in tearing any more strips from. Bernat crawled back toward the staircase blindly. He was trembling like a child caught up in a dreadful nightmare. Still no one moved or spoke. Still the sun shone in the clear blue sky.
“I’m so sorry, Francesca,” Bernat whispered after he had struggled back up to the top of the ladder, pushed by one of the soldiers.
He undid his hose and knelt beside her. Glancing down at his limp member, he wondered how on earth he was going to fulfill his lord’s command. With one finger, he began to caress Francesca’s bare ribs.
She did not react.
“I have ... We have to do this,” Bernat urged her, gripping her wrist to turn her toward him.
