“For what reason?” the friar asked.

“Because I think I am going to need your good offices.”

Eleonor and her steward left on horseback. She rode sidesaddle, while a groom walked alongside holding the reins. Her scribe and two maidens rode mules, and a dozen or so slaves pulled as many mules loaded down with all her possessions.

Arnau rented a cart.

When the baroness saw the ramshackle vehicle arrive, drawn by two mules and carrying the scant possessions that Arnau, Joan, and Mar were bringing with them—Guillem and Donaha had stayed in Barcelona—her eyes blazed fiercely enough to light a torch. This was the first time she had really looked at Arnau and her new family; they had been married, they had gone through the ceremony before the bishop and with the king and his wife in attendance, but she had never even deigned to consider them.

They left Barcelona with an escort provided by the king. Arnau and Mar sat up on the cart, while Joan walked alongside. The baroness urged her horse on so that they would arrive at the castle as quickly as possible. It came into sight before sunset.

Perched on the top of a hill, it was a small fortress where until their arrival the local thane had lived. Many peasants and serfs were curious to see their new lords, so that by the time they were close to the castle, more than a hundred people had thronged around them, wondering who this man could be, so richly dressed but traveling in a broken-down cart.

“Why are we stopping now?” asked Mar when the baroness gave the order for everyone to come to a halt.

Arnau shrugged.

“Because they have to hand over the castle to us,” Joan explained.

“Don’t we have to go in for them to do that?” asked Arnau.

“No. The Customs and Practices of Catalonia prescribe something different : the thane, his family, and their retinue have to leave the castle before they hand it over.” As he was saying this, the heavy gates of the fortress swung slowly open, and the thane appeared, followed by the members of his family and all his servants. When he reached the baroness, he gave her something. “You’re the one who should receive those keys,” Joan told Arnau.

“What do I want with a castle?”

As the thane and his party passed by the cart, he could not hide a sly smile. Mar flushed. Even the servants stared openly at them.

“You shouldn’t allow it,” Joan said again. “You are their lord now. They owe you respect and loyalty—”

“Listen, Joan,” said Arnau, interrupting him, “let’s get one thing clear: I don’t want any castle, I am not and have no wish to be anyone’s lord and master, and I have not the slightest intention of staying here any longer than is strictly necessary to sort out whatever needs sorting out. As soon as that’s done, I am going back to Barcelona. If the lady baroness wishes to live here in her castle, so be it. It’s all hers.”

This outburst brought the first smile of the day to Mar’s face.

“You can’t leave,” Joan insisted.

Mar’s face fell. Arnau turned to confront the friar.

“What do you mean, I can’t? I can do as I choose. Am I not the baron? Don’t the barons leave home for months on end to follow the king?”

“Yes, but they are going to war.”

“Thanks to my money, Joan, thanks to my money. It seems to me more important that somebody like me accompanies the king than any of those nobles who are always asking for easy loans. Well,” he added, looking toward the castle, “what are we waiting for now? It’s empty, and I’m tired.”

“By law, there still has to be—” Joan began.

“You and your laws,” Arnau snapped at him. “Why are you Dominicans so concerned about legal matters? What is there still—”

“Arnau and Eleonor, barons of Granollers, San Vicenc, and Caldes de Montbui!” The cry echoed out over the valley that lay beneath the castle hill. Everyone looked up to the tallest tower in the fortress. Eleonor’s steward, his hands cupped to amplify the sound, was shouting at the top of his voice: “Arnau and Eleonor, barons of Granollers, San Vicenc, and Caldes de Montbui! Arnau and Eleonor ... !”

“That was still to come: the official announcement that the castle has changed hands,” Joan concluded.

The baroness moved forward.

“At least he mentioned my name,” Arnau said.

The steward was still shouting with all his might.

“Without that, your possession of the castle would not be legal,” the friar concluded.

Arnau was about to say something, but thought better of it and merely shook his head wearily.

The captain of the guard, a small, broad-beamed man who looked unkempt and filthy, came out to officially greet Eleonor and her party. They all went into the large dining chamber.

“Show me where the thane lived,” Eleonor screamed.

The captain pointed to a stone staircase whose only adornment was a stone balustrade. The baroness started up the steps, followed by her steward, the scribe, and her maidens. She completely ignored Arnau.

The three Estanyols stood in the middle of the hall, watching as the slaves carried in all Eleonor’s possessions.

“Perhaps you should—” Joan started to say.

“Don’t interfere, Joan,” Arnau said curtly.

For some moments, they surveyed the great hall: the high ceiling, huge hearth, armchairs, the candelabra, and the table with room for a dozen guests. Then Eleonor’s steward appeared on the stairs. He came down toward them but stopped three steps before the bottom.

“The lady baroness,” he said in fluted tones, without speaking to anyone in particular, “says she is very tired tonight and does not want to be disturbed.”

The steward was about to turn on his heel when Arnau halted him.

“Hey, you!” he shouted. The steward turned back toward him. “Tell your lady mistress not to worry. No one is going to disturb her ... ever,” he hissed. Mar’s eyes opened wide, and she raised her hands to her mouth. The steward turned to make his way up the stairs once more, but Arnau again called out to him: “Hey! Which are our rooms?” The steward shrugged. “Where’s the captain of the guard?”

“He’s attending my lady.”

“Well, go upstairs and find her, and get the captain to come down. And be quick about it, because if you aren’t I’ll see to it you are castrated, and the next time you announce the handover of a castle you’ll be singing it.”

The steward gripped the balustrade tightly, confused at this violent threat. Could this be the same man who had sat quietly the whole day as his cart bumped and jolted along? Arnau’s eyes narrowed. He strode over to the staircase, pulling out the bastaix dagger he had insisted on wearing to his wedding. The steward did not have time to see that in fact it was completely blunt: before Arnau had taken three steps, he fled upstairs.

Arnau turned back to the others: Mar was laughing, but Joan scowled disapprovingly. Behind them, several of Eleonor’s slaves had seen what had happened and were smiling to themselves as well.

“You over there!” Arnau shouted when he saw them. “Stop laughing and unload the cart. Then take the things up to our rooms.”

It took only a week in Montbui castle for Arnau to long to get back to Barcelona and leave his lands in the hands of a capable administrator. But while he made up his mind, he decided he should get to know them a little better. To do this, he did not turn to the noblemen who were his vassals and who, whenever they came to the castle, completely ignored him but bowed their knee to Eleonor. Instead, he sought out the ordinary people, the peasants, the serfs chained to his vassals.

Taking Mar with him, he toured his lands. He was curious to know if what he had heard in Barcelona was true. The traders there often based their decisions on the news they received from the countryside. Arnau knew, for example, that the 1348 epidemic had depopulated the countryside, and that as recently as the previous year, 1358, a plague of locusts had made the situation even worse by devouring all the crops. The lack of resources was beginning to show even in the city, forcing the traders there to change their way of doing business.

“My God!” muttered Arnau behind the back of the first peasant who had run into his farmhouse to present his family to the new baron.

Mar too found it impossible to take her eyes off the ruin of a house and its outbuildings, all of them as filthy and uncared-for as the man who had come out to greet them, and who now reappeared with a woman and two small children.

The four of them lined up in front of the newcomers and tried awkwardly to bow to them. Their eyes were filled with fear. Their clothes were rags, and the children ... The children could hardly stand up straight. Their legs were spindle-thin.

“Is this all your family?” asked Arnau.

The peasant was about to nod when the sound of a feeble wail came from inside the house. Arnau frowned, and the man shook his head slowly. The look of fear in his eyes changed to one of sadness.

“My wife has no milk, Your Honor.”

Arnau looked at her. How could anyone with a body like that have milk! First she would need to have breasts ...

“Is there no one near here who could... ?”

The peasant anticipated the question. “Everyone is in the same situation, Your Honor. The children are dying.”

Arnau saw Mar raise a hand to her mouth.

“Show me your farm: your granary, the stables, your house and fields.”

“We can’t pay any more, Your Honor!”

The woman had fallen to her knees and was crawling over to where Arnau and Mar stood.

Arnau went over to her and took her by her skinny arms. She shrank beneath his touch.

“What ...”

The children began to cry.

“Don’t hit her, please, Your Honor, I beg you,” pleaded the peasant, coming up to Arnau. “It’s true. We can’t pay any more. Punish me if you must.”

Arnau let go of the woman and withdrew to where Mar was standing, watching in horror what was happening.

“I’m not going to hit her,” Arnau told the man, “or you, or anyone else in your family. Nor am I going to ask you for more money. I just want to see your farm. Tell your wife to stand up, please.”

First their eyes had shown fear, then sadness; now the man’s and woman’s sunken eyes stared at him in bewilderment. “Are we meant to play at being gods?” thought Arnau. What had been done to this family for them to act this way? They were allowing one of the children to die, and yet thought that someone had come to ask them to pay even more.

The granary was empty. So was the stable. The fields were untended, and the plowing gear had fallen into disrepair. As for the house ... if the child did not die of hunger it would die of any disease. Arnau did not dare touch it; it seemed... it seemed as though the infant might snap in two just by moving it.

He took his purse from his belt and pulled out a few coins. He was about to give them to the man, but thought again and got out several more.

“I want this child to live,” he said, leaving the coins on the remains of what must once have been a table. “I want you, your wife, and your two other children to eat. This money is for you, and you alone. Nobody has the right to take it from you. If there are any problems, come to the castle to see me.”

None of the family moved: they were all staring at the coins. They did not even look up when Arnau said farewell and left the house.

Arnau returned to his castle in silence, deep in thought. Mar shared his silence with him.

“That’s not all,” Joan added. “I have heard that the nobles, your vassals, are forcing the remaining peasants to sign capbreus.”

“Capbreus?”

“They’re documents that accept all the feudal rights that had been allowed to lapse during the years of plenty. There are so few men left that the nobles are making more and more demands so that they can get as much out of them as before, when there were far more serfs.”

Arnau had not been sleeping well for some time now. He had night-mares with all the haggard faces he had seen. Now he found he could not get back to sleep. He had visited all his lands and been generous. How could he allow things to stay as they were? All those peasant families depended on him: they were directly responsible to their lords, but the lords in turn owed their allegiance to him. If he, as their feudal baron, demanded the nobles pay their rents and duties, they would in turn force the wretched peasants to meet the new demands that the thane had through his negligence allowed to be reintroduced.

They were slaves. Chained to the land. Slaves on his lands. Arnau turned to and fro on his bed. His slaves! An army of starving men, women, and children whom nobody considered important... except to extort more and more out of until they died. Arnau recalled the nobles who had come to pay homage to Eleonor: they were all healthy, strong, dressed in fine clothes—happy, fortunate people! How could they have turned their backs so completely on the reality their serfs were forced to live? And what could he do about it?

He was generous. He gave money where he could see it was needed: to him it was a pittance, but it brought delight to the children he saw, and a warm smile to the face of Mar, who never left his side. But he could not carry on doing it forever. If he went on handing out money, the nobles would soon find a way to get their hands on it. They would still refuse to pay him, but would exploit the poorest peasants still further. What could he do?

“She has summoned the nobles, peasants, and other inhabitants on Assumption Day,” said Joan, who as a Dominican friar was the only one among them who had any contact with the baroness.

“What for?”

“So that they can pay her ... pay you both homage,” he said. Arnau waved for him to continue. “According to the law ...” Joan spread his palms, as though to say, “It was you who asked,” and went on: “According to the law, any noble may at any time demand of his vassals that they renew their vows of fealty and homage to the noble. It’s logical that, as they have not done so before now, Eleonor wishes them to do so now.”

“Do you mean to say they will come?”

“Nobles and knights are not obliged to attend a commendation ceremony of this kind. They can instead come and swear fealty in private, provided they do so within a year, a month, and a day of being called upon to do so. However, Eleonor has been talking to them, and it appears they will come. After all, she is the king’s ward. Nobody wants to offend her.”

“What about the husband of the king’s ward?”

Joan made no reply. Yes, there was something in his look ... Arnau knew he was keeping something back.

“Do you have anything more to say to me, Joan?”

The friar shook his head.

She grew so nervous that as the day drew closer, she even allowed herself to smile at Arnau. He was some distance from her, and it was only the ghost of a smile, but it was a smile nonetheless.

Arnau hesitated, then forced his own lips into a curling grimace.

“Why did I smile at him?” Eleonor cursed herself, and clenched her fists. “Stupid woman! How could you humiliate yourself like that before a vulgar money changer, a runaway serf?” They had been at Montbui for more than six weeks now, yet Arnau had not once come near her. Wasn’t he a man? When no one was looking, she would glance at his strong, powerful body, and at night all alone in her room she even dreamed of him mounting and fiercely taking possession of her. How long had it been since she felt like this? But he humiliated her with his disdain. How dared he? Eleonor bit her bottom lip savagely. “His time will come,” she told herself.

On the feast day of the Assumption, Eleonor rose at dawn. From the window of her lonely bedroom she could see the plain and the high dais she had ordered built. The peasants were beginning to gather round it; many of them had gone without sleep in order not to be late for their lord’s summons. Not a single nobleman was yet to be seen.