Arnau passed by friars, priests, and scribes, all of them squeezing against the walls to let him and his guard through. Nobody had wanted to answer his question: the jailer had come into the dungeon and undone his chains. “Where are you taking me?” A Dominican in black crossed himself as he went by; another raised a crucifix. The soldiers marched on without paying any attention. For days now, Arnau had heard nothing from Joan or the brown-eyed woman: where had he seen those eyes before? He asked the old crone in the dungeon but got no reply. “Who was that woman?” he had shouted four times at least. Some of the shadows chained to the walls had groaned; others did not stir. Nor did the old woman, and yet, when the jailer pushed him out of the dungeon, Arnau thought he saw her shifting nervously.

Arnau bumped into the back of one of the soldiers in front of him. They had come to a halt outside an imposing double door. The soldier pushed him back, while the captain banged on the wooden panel. The doors opened, and the escort marched into a huge chamber. The walls were hung with rich tapestries. The soldiers accompanied Arnau to the center of the room, then returned to stand guard at the door.

Sitting behind an elaborately carved table, seven men were staring at him. Nicolau Eimerich, the grand inquisitor, sat in the middle, together with Berenguer d’Eril, the bishop of Barcelona. Both of them were wearing fine robes embroidered in gold. To the inquisitor’s left sat the Holy Office clerk; Arnau had seen him on occasion, but had never had any dealings with the man. On either side sat two black-robed Dominican friars, whom Arnau did not know.

Arnau looked steadily at the members of the tribunal until one of the friars turned away in disgust. Arnau raised a hand to his face: it was covered in a greasy beard that had grown during his days in the dungeon. His torn clothes had lost all their original color. He was barefoot, and his feet, hands, and nails were caked with black dirt. He stank. He himself found his smell unbearable.

Eimerich smiled when he saw Arnau reacting to his own sorry state.

“Will there be someone to defend him?” asked Mar.

Joan shook his head wearily. “He will be appointed a lawyer ... but that person is not allowed to defend him.”

“Why not?” the two women asked together.

“It is forbidden for lawyers and notaries,” Joan recited, “to aid heretics, to advise or support them, or to believe their word and defend them.” Mar and Aledis looked nonplussed. “That’s what the bull by Pope Innocent says.”

“What do they do then?” asked Mar.

“The lawyer’s task is to obtain the heretic’s voluntary confession; if he were to defend a heretic, he would be defending heresy.”

“He’s an expert in civil and canon law,” said Nicolau Eimerich, “and also a passionate believer,” he added with a smile.

The priest spread his arms wide in a helpless gesture, in the same way he had done in the dungeon, when he had encouraged Arnau to confess his heresy. “You ought to do so,” he had said, “and put your faith in the tribunal’s mercy.” Now he repeated the same gesture—how often had he done that in the past as a lawyer for heretics?—and then at a sign from Eimerich, he withdrew from the chamber.

“Why is that?”

“If he were to name any of the witnesses accusing him, the tribunal could consider their testimony unsound.”

“But Arnau doesn’t know who denounced him,” Mar said.

“No, not at the moment. He might find out in due course ... if Eimerich concedes him that right. In fact, he is entitled to know,” said Joan, noticing how the two women reacted. “That is what Pope Boniface the Eighth decreed, but the pope is a long way away, and each inquisitor conducts his own trials as he sees fit.”

“Why should Doña Eleonor hate you?” the inquisitor insisted.

“Because we have no children.”

“Have you tried? Have you lain with her?”

Arnau had sworn on the four gospels. “No.”

The clerk’s quill copied all the words onto the pile of parchments in front of him. Nicolau Eimerich turned to the bishop.

“Can you name any other enemy?” asked Berenguer d’Eril.

“The nobles on my lands, in particular the thane of Montbui.” The clerk went on writing. “I have also judged many people as consul of the sea, but I consider I have always been just in my judgments.”

“Do you have any enemies among members of the Church?”

Why were they asking him that? He had always got on well with the Church.

“Apart from some of those here—”

“The members of this tribunal are impartial,” said Eimerich, interrupting him.

“I trust they are.” Arnau looked directly at the inquisitor.

“Anyone else?”

“As you well know, I have been a moneylender for many years, and perhaps—”

“It’s not for you,” Eimerich interrupted him again, “to speculate on who might or might not be your enemy, or for what reason. If you have enemies, you are to name them; if not, say nothing. Do you have enemies?”

“I do not think so.”

“Then the inquisition proper begins.” Joan thought back to all the village squares, the chambers in rich houses, the sleepless nights ... but a heavy blow on the table in front of him brought him back to reality.

“What do you mean, Friar?” Mar shouted at him.

Joan sighed and looked her in the eye.

“The word ‘inquisition’ means a search. The inquisitor has to search out heresy and sin. Even when there have been accusations, the trial is not based on them or restricted to them. If the person on trial refuses to confess, they will search for the hidden truth.”

“How will they do that?” asked Mar.

Before he replied, Joan closed his eyes. “If you’re asking about torture, yes, that is one of the ways.”

“What will they do to him?”

“They might decide torture is not necessary.”

“What will they do to him?” insisted Mar.

“Why do you want to know?” said Aledis, taking her by the hand. “It will only torment you ... still further.”

“The law forbids death or the loss of any limb under torture,” Joan explained, “and suspected heretics may be tortured only once.”

Joan could see how the two women, their faces streaming with tears, sought some comfort in that. Yet he knew that Eimerich had found a way to make a mockery of this legal requirement. “Non ad modum iterationis sed continuationis,” he used to say, with a strange gleam in his eye; “Not repeatedly but continuously,” he translated for the novices who did not yet have a good grasp of Latin.

“What happens if they torture him and he still doesn’t confess?” asked Mar, after taking a deep breath.

“His attitude will be taken into account at the moment of handing down a sentence,” Joan said, without further explanation.

“Will it be Eimerich who sentences him?” asked Aledis.

“Yes, unless the sentence is life imprisonment or burning at the stake; in that case, he will need the bishop’s approval. And yet,” the friar went on, anticipating the women’s next question, “if the Inquisition considers that it is a complex matter, it has been known for them to consult the boni viri, between thirty and eighty people, not members of the Church, so that they can give their opinion as to the guilt of the accused, and the appropriate sentence. That means the trial drags on for months and months.”

“During which time Arnau would remain in jail,” said Aledis.

Joan nodded. The three of them sat in silence. The women were trying to take in everything they had heard; Joan was remembering another of Eimerich’s maxims: “The jail is to be forbidding, placed underground so that no light, and especially no sun or moonlight, may enter. It has to be harsh and tough, in order to shorten the prisoner’s life to the point that he faces death.”

“How are you going to conduct the interrogation?” Berenguer d’Eril asked.

“We’ll start as usual, and as we progress, we’ll inform him what the charges are.”

“You’re going to tell him?”

“Yes. I think he is the sort of person who will react more to dialectic pressure than to a physical threat, although if necessary ...”

Arnau tried to withstand the looks from the black friars. One, two, three, four ... He shifted his weight onto his other foot and glanced again at the inquisitor and the bishop. They were still whispering to each other. The Dominicans, on the other hand, were observing him closely. The chamber was absolutely quiet apart from the inaudible whispering.

“He’s growing nervous,” said the bishop, glancing up at Arnau before turning back to the inquisitor.

“He is someone who is used to giving commands and being obeyed,” said Eimerich. “He needs to understand what the situation is; he has to accept the tribunal and its authority, and submit to it. Only then will he respond to interrogation. Humiliation is the first step.”

Bishop and inquisitor continued their conversation. Throughout the whole time, the Dominicans did not take their eyes off Arnau. Arnau tried to think of other things: of Mar, or Joan, but whenever he did so, he could feel one of the Dominican’s eyes clawing at him as if he had guessed what he was thinking. He shifted his weight time and again, felt his unruly beard and unkempt hair. In their gleaming gold robes, Berenguer d’Eril and Nicolau Eimerich sat comfortably behind the tribunal bench, glancing at him and continuing their discussion at their own leisure.

After a long pause, Nicolau Eimerich addressed him in a loud voice: “Arnau Estanyol, I know you have sinned.”

The trial proper had begun. Arnau took a deep breath.

“I do not know what you mean. I consider I have always been a good Christian. I have tried—”

“You yourself have admitted to this tribunal that you have not lain with your wife. Is that the attitude of a good Christian?”

“I cannot have carnal relations. I do not know if you are aware that I was already married before, and could ... could not have children then either.”

“Are you telling the tribunal you have a physical problem?” said the bishop.

“Yes.”

Eimerich studied Arnau for a few moments. He leaned forward on his elbows and then hid his mouth behind his hands. He turned to the clerk and whispered an order to him.

“Declaration by Juli Andreu, priest at Santa Maria de la Mar,” the clerk read out from one of his pieces of parchment. “‘I, Juli Andreu, priest at Santa Maria de la Mar, questioned by the grand inquisitor of Catalonia, do declare that approximately in the month of March in the year of our Lord 1364, I held a conversation with Arnau Estanyol, baron of Catalonia, at the request of his wife, Doña Eleonor, baroness, ward of King Pedro. She had expressed to me her concern at her husband’s neglect of his conjugal duties. I declare that Arnau Estanyol confided to me that he was not attracted to his wife, and that his body refused to allow him to enjoy relations with her. He said that it was not a physical problem, but that he could not force his body to desire a woman for whom he felt no attraction. He further said that he knew he was in a state of sin’”—Nicolau Eimerich’s eyes narrowed—“ and that for this reason he prayed as often as he could in Santa Maria and made substantial donations toward the construction of the church.”’

The chamber fell silent again. Nicolau stared fixedly on Arnau.

“Do you still affirm that you have a physical problem?” the inquisitor asked finally.

Arnau remembered his conversation with the priest, but could not remember exactly what... “I cannot recall what I said to him.”

“Do you admit that you had this conversation with Father Juli Andreu?”

“Yes.”

Arnau could hear the clerk’s quill scratching across the parchment.

“Yet you are calling into question the declaration by a man of God. What possible interest could the priest have in lying about you?”

“He might be mistaken. I do not remember exactly what was said ...”

“Are you saying that a priest who was not certain what he heard would make a declaration like the one Father Juli Andreu has made?”

“All I am saying is that he might be mistaken.”

“Father Andreu is not an enemy of yours, is he?” intervened the bishop.

“I have never considered him one.”

Nicolau spoke to the clerk again.

“Declaration by Pere Salvete, canon at Santa Maria de la Mar. ‘I, Pere Salvete, canon at Santa Maria de la Mar, questioned by the grand inquisitor of Catalonia, declare that at Easter in the year of our Lord 1367, while I was saying holy mass, the service was interrupted by a number of citizens of Barcelona who alerted us to the theft of a host by heretics. The mass was suspended, and the faithful left the church, with the exception of Arnau Estanyol, consul of the sea.’” “Go with your Jewish lover!” Eleonor’s words rang out in his head once more. Arnau shuddered, exactly as he had when he first heard them. He looked up. Nicolau was staring at him ... and smiling. Had he seen his reaction? The clerk was still reading the declaration: ‘“... and the consul answered that God could not oblige him to lie with her...’”

Nicolau silenced the scribe. The smile vanished.

“So is the canon lying too?”

“Go with your Jewish lover!” Why had he not let the clerk finish? What was Nicolau up to? “Your Jewish lover, your Jewish lover ...” The flames licking at Hasdai’s body, the silence, the enraged mob baying for justice, shouting words that were never properly spoken, Eleonor pointing at him, the bishop standing next to her, staring ... and Raquel clinging to him.

“Is the canon lying as well?”

“I have not accused anyone of lying,” said Arnau. He needed time to think.

“Do you deny God’s commandments? Do you object to the duties demanded of you as a Christian husband?”

“No ... no ...,” stammered Arnau.

“Well, then?”

“Well, then what?” “Do you deny God’s commandments?” Nicolau repeated, his voice rising.

His words reverberated from the stone walls of the vast chamber. Arnau’s legs felt heavy after all those days in the dungeon ...

“The tribunal could take your silence for a confession,” said the bishop.

“No, I don’t deny them.” His legs began to ache. “Why does the Holy Office take such an interest in my relations with Doña Eleonor? Is it a sin to—”

“Be careful, Estanyol,” the inquisitor cut in. “It is for the tribunal to ask the questions, not you.”

“Ask them, then.”

Nicolau could see Arnau moving unsteadily, shifting his weight from foot to foot.

“He’s beginning to feel pain,” he whispered in Berenguer d’Eril’s ear.

“Leave him to think about it,” replied the bishop.

They began to whisper together again. Arnau could sense the four Dominicans’ eyes fixed on him once more. His legs ached dreadfully, but he had to resist. He could not bow down before Nicolau Eimerich. What would happen if he collapsed to the floor? He needed ... a stone! A stone on his back, a long road to carry a stone for his Virgin. “Where are you now? Can these people really be your representatives? I was little more than a boy, and yet ...” Of course he could resist now. He had walked across all Barcelona with a stone that weighed more than he did, sweating, bleeding, with everyone’s shouts of encouragement ringing in his ears. Was there none of that strength left? Was a fanatic friar going to defeat him? Him? The boy bastaix admired by all the other boys in the city? Step by step, fighting his way along the path to Santa Maria, and then returning home to rest until the next day. His home ... those brown eyes, those big brown eyes. Then all at once, with a shudder that almost knocked him off his feet, he realized that the person who had spoken to him in the dungeon was Aledis.

When they saw Arnau suddenly straighten, Nicolau Eimerich and Berenguer d’Eril exchanged looks. For the first time, one of the Dominicans’ stares wavered, and he looked toward the center of the table.

“He’s not going to fall,” the bishop whispered nervously.

“Where do you satisfy your needs?” Nicolau asked loudly.

That explained why she had known his name. Her voice ... Yes, that was the voice he had heard so often on the slopes of Montjuic hill.

“Arnau Estanyol!” The inquisitor’s cry brought him back to the tribunal. “I asked how you satisfy your needs.”

“I do not understand your question.”

“You are a man. You have had no physical contact with your wife for years. It’s a very simple question: where do you satisfy your needs as a man?”

“For the same number of years, I have had no contact with any woman.”

He had answered without thinking. The jailer had said she was his mother.

“That’s a lie!” Arnau gave a start. “This tribunal has seen you embracing a heretic. Is that not contact with a woman?”

“Not the kind of contact you were referring to.”

“What can drive a man and a woman to embrace in public”—Nicolau waved his hands—“if not lasciviousness?”

“Grief.”

“What grief?” the bishop wanted to know.

“What grief?” Nicolau insisted when Arnau did not reply.

Arnau still said nothing. The flames from the funeral pyre lit the chamber. “Grief because a heretic who had profaned the sacred host had been executed?” the inquisitor insisted, pointing a bejeweled finger at him. “Is that the grief you feel as a true Christian? Because the weight of justice fell on a monster, a profaner, a wretch, a thief... ?”

“He did nothing!” Arnau shouted.

All the members of the tribunal, including the clerk, stirred in their seats.

“Those three men confessed their guilt. Why do you defend heretics? The Jews ...”

“Jews! Jews!” Arnau faced them defiantly. “What does the world have against them?”

“Do you not know?” asked the inquisitor, anger in his voice. “They crucified Jesus Christ!”

“Haven’t they paid enough for that?”

Arnau stared at the men ranged in front of him. They were all sitting up attentively.

“Are you saying they should be pardoned?” asked Berenguer d’Eril.

“Isn’t that what our Lord teaches us?”

“Their only salvation is through conversion! There can be no pardon for those who do not repent,” shouted Nicolau.

“You’re talking about something that happened more than thirteen hundred years ago. What do the Jews born in our time have to repent for? They are not to blame for what might have happened all those years ago.”

“Anyone who accepts the Jewish doctrine is making himself responsible for what his forebears did; he is taking on their guilt.”

“They only adopt ideas, beliefs, just like ...” At this, Nicolau and Berenguer gave a start. Why not? Was it not true? Didn’t that poor man who had died under a hail of insults and given his life for his community deserve the truth? “Just like us,” Arnau said in a loud, firm voice.

“You dare equate the Catholic faith with heresy?” roared the bishop.

“It is not for me to compare anything: I leave that to you, the men of God. All I said was—”

“We are well aware of what you said!” Nicolau Eimerich shouted. “You compared the one, true Christian faith with the heretical doctrines of the Jews.”

Arnau faced the tribunal. The clerk was still writing on his papers. Even the soldiers, standing stiffly to attention by the doors behind him, appeared to be listening to the scrape of his quill on the parchment. Nicolau smiled. The scratching pierced Arnau to the backbone, and a shudder ran through his entire body. The inquisitor saw it, and smiled even more broadly. “Yes,” he seemed to be saying, “that is what you said.”

“They are just like us,” Arnau repeated.

Nicolau silenced him with a wave of his hand.

The clerk continued writing for a few more moments. “Everything you said is recorded there,” the inquisitor’s look told Arnau. When the clerk raised his quill, Nicolau gave a satisfied smile.

“The session is suspended until tomorrow,” he cried, getting up from his seat.

“Where are you going?” Aledis asked her. Mar merely looked at her. “There again? You’ve been every day, and you haven’t succeeded ...”

“I’ve succeeded in letting her know I’m here, and that I won’t forget what she did to me.” Joan hid his face. “I succeeded in catching sight of her through the window, and in letting her know that Arnau is mine. I saw it in her eyes, and I intend to remind her of it every day of her life. I intend to succeed by making her think every moment of the day that I was the one who won.”

Aledis watched her leave the inn. Mar took the same route as she had done every day since her arrival in Barcelona, and ended up outside the gates of the palace in Calle de Montcada. She pounded on the door knocker as hard as she could. Eleonor might refuse to see her, but she wanted her to know she was there.

As on every other day, the ancient servant peered at her through the peephole.

“My lady,” he said, “you know that Doña Eleonor ...”

“Open the door. I just want to see her, even if it is only through the window she hides behind.”

“But she does not want that.”

“Does she know who I am?”

Mar saw Pere turn toward the palace windows.

“Yes.”

Mar banged again on the knocker.

“My lady, do not insist, or Doña Eleonor will call the soldiers,” the old man advised her.

“Open up, Pere.”

“She won’t see you, my lady.”

Mar felt a hand on her shoulder, pulling her away from the door.

“Perhaps she will see me,” she heard, before she saw someone stepping in front of her.

“Guillem!” cried Mar, flinging herself on him.

“Do you remember me, Pere?” asked the Moor, with Mar clinging to him.

“How could I not remember?”

“Well, then, tell your mistress I want to see her.”

When the old man shut the peephole, Guillem took Mar by the waist and lifted her into the air. Laughing, Mar let him whirl her round. Then Guillem put her down, took a step back, and lifted her arms so that he could get a good look at her.

“My little girl,” he said, his voice choking with emotion. “How often I’ve dreamed of holding you in my arms again! But now you weigh a lot more. You’ve become a real ...”

Mar broke free, and ran to embrace him. “Why did you abandon me?” she asked, tears in her eyes.

“I was no more than a slave, child. What could a mere slave do?”

“You were like a father to me.”

“Am I not that anymore?”

“You always will be.”

Mar hugged Guillem tight. “You always will be,” thought the Moor. How many years had he wasted so far from here? He turned back to the door.

“Doña Eleonor will not see you either,” he heard from inside.

“Tell her she will be hearing from me.”

“What do you have to do with Aledis?” he shouted at the old woman as soon as the jailer’s footsteps had faded in the distance.

Arnau thought he could make out a slight movement in the shadowy figure, but after that, nothing.

“What do you have to do with Aledis?” he repeated. “What was she doing here? Why does she visit you?”

The silence that was his only reply led him to think again of that pair of huge brown eyes.

“What do Aledis and Mar have to do with each other?” he begged the shadow.

No reply. Arnau tried at least to hear the old woman’s breathing, but the countless groans and snores from the other prisoners prevented him from making out any sound Francesca might be making. Arnau looked desperately along the walls of the dungeon: nobody paid him any heed.

“This is truly an honor,” the innkeeper said, bowing to the ground before them.

Guillem waited for him to finish his exaggerated display. “Do you have rooms?”

“Yes. The slaves can sleep in the—”

“Rooms for three,” Guillem cut in. “One room for me, and another for the two of them.”

The innkeeper glanced at the two youngsters with big dark eyes and curly locks waiting silently behind their master.

“Yes,” he said. “If that is what you require. Follow me.”

“They will see to everything. Bring us some water.”

Guillem went with Mar to one of the tables. Only the two of them were left in the dining room.

“Did you say the trial began today?”

“Yes, although I couldn’t say for sure. I’m not sure about anything. I haven’t even been able to see him.”

Guillem heard the emotion choking Mar. He stretched out his hand to comfort her, but in the end withdrew it without touching her. She was no longer a little girl, and he ... well, he was only a Moor. Nobody ought to think ... It was enough to have whirled her round in the air outside Eleonor’s palace. Mar’s hand reached out and took his.

“I’m still the same. I always will be, for you.”

Guillem smiled. “What about your husband?”

“He died.”

Mar’s face did not show the least sign of distress. Guillem changed topics : “Have you done anything for Arnau?”

Mar half closed her eyes and twisted her lips. “What do you mean? There’s nothing we—”

“What about Joan? Joan is an inquisitor. Have you heard anything from him? Hasn’t he interceded on Arnau’s behalf?”

“That friar?” Mar laughed scornfully and said nothing; what was the point of telling him? Arnau’s situation was bad enough, and that was what had brought Guillem to Barcelona. “No. He hasn’t done anything. Besides, he cannot go against the grand inquisitor. He is at the inn with us ...”

“With us?”

“Yes. I’ve met a widow called Aledis. She’s staying here with her two daughters. She was a friend of Arnau’s when they were young. Apparently she happened to be in Barcelona when he was arrested. I sleep in their room. She’s a good woman. You’ll meet them all when we eat.”

Guillem squeezed her hand.

“Tell me about you,” said Mar.

They had walked all over the city, delighted at the new identity that being dressed as orphans ... and virgins ... had lent them. They had never before enjoyed such freedom, because according to the law, they always had to wear bright silks and colors to show everyone that they were prostitutes. “Shall we go in?” suggested Teresa, surreptitiously pointing to the doorway of San Jaume. She said it in a whisper, as though afraid lest the very idea arouse the ire of the whole of Barcelona. But nothing happened. The faithful inside the church paid them no attention, nor did the priest, whom they avoided looking at, pressing closer to each other as he went by.

Chattering and laughing, they went down Calle Boqueria toward the sea. If they had gone in the opposite direction, up Calle del Bisbe to Plaza Nova, they would have run into Aledis. She was standing outside the bishop’s palace, trying to recognize Arnau or Francesca in the shadows behind the stained-glass windows. She did not even know which one concealed the chamber where Arnau was being tried! Had Francesca been called to testify yet? Joan did not know anything about her. Aledis peered at window after window. She must have been, but what use was it knowing that, if Aledis could not do anything for her? Arnau was strong, and Francesca ... They did not know what she was like.

“What are you doing standing there?” Aledis turned and saw one of the soldiers of the Inquisition next to her. She had not seen him arrive. “What are you looking at so closely?”

Aledis ducked down and fled without a word. “You don’t know Francesca,” she thought as she ran away. “None of your tortures will be able to make her give away the secret she has kept hidden all her life.”

Before Aledis arrived back at the inn, Joan had appeared. He was wearing a clean habit borrowed from the Sant Pere de les Puelles monastery. When he saw Guillem sitting with Mar and Aledis’s two daughters, he came to a halt in the center of the dining room.

Guillem studied him. Was that a smile, or a look of distaste?

Joan himself would not have been able to say. What if Mar had told him about the kidnapping?

The way the friar had treated him when he was with Arnau flashed through Guillem’s mind, but this was no time to relive old quarrels, so he stood up to greet the newcomer. They all needed to unite to come to Arnau’s aid.

“How are you, Joan?” he asked, taking him by the shoulders. “What happened to your face?” he added, when he saw all the bruises.

Joan looked over at Mar, but her face held the same harsh, emotionless expression he had seen on it ever since he had gone in search of her. But no, Guillem could not be so cynical ...

“An unfortunate encounter,” said Joan. “It happens to friars as well.”

“I suppose you will have already excommunicated them,” joked Guillem as he led the friar over to the table. “Isn’t that what the Constitution of Peace and Truce establishes?” Joan and Mar exchanged glances. “Isn’t that what it says: ‘Anyone who disturbs the peace against unarmed priests’ ... You weren’t armed, were you, Joan?”

Guillem did not have the chance to notice how strained the relationship was between Mar and the friar, because at that moment Aledis came in. Guillem greeted her briefly; it was Joan he wanted to talk to.

“You’re an inquisitor,” he said. “What do you make of Arnau’s situation?”

“I think Nicolau wants to find him guilty, but he cannot have much against him. I think it may end with him having to wear the cloak of repentance and paying a hefty fine—that’s what most interests Eimerich. I know Arnau: he has never harmed anyone. Even if Eleonor has denounced him, they won’t be able to find—”

“What if Eleonor’s accusation were backed up by several priests?”

Joan looked startled. Would priests stoop to that kind of thing? “What do you mean?”

“That doesn’t matter,” said Guillem, remembering Jucef’s letter. “Tell me, though: what would happen if priests backed her up?”

Aledis did not hear Joan’s reply. Should she tell them what she knew? Could that Moor possibly help? He was rich ... and he looked ... Eulalia and Teresa were watching her. They had stayed silent as she had instructed them, but it seemed as though they were anxious to say something now. She had no need to ask them; she could see what they wanted. That meant ... Oh, what did it matter? Somebody had to do something, and that Moor ...

“There is quite a lot more,” she said, interrupting Joan’s conjectures as to what might happen.

The two men and Mar all turned their attention to her.

“I have no intention of telling you how I found out, and I have no wish to talk about this again once I have said what I have to say. Do you agree?”

“What do you mean?” asked Joan.

“It’s perfectly clear, Friar,” snapped Mar.

Guillem looked at her with surprise: why did she speak to Joan like that? He turned to the friar, but he was staring at the floor.

“Go on, Aledis. We agree,” said Guillem.

“Do you remember the two noblemen who are staying at the inn?”

When he heard the name Genis Puig, Guillem butted in and stopped her.

“He has a sister called Margarida,” Aledis told him.

Guillem raised his hands to his face. “Are they still here?” he asked.

Aledis nodded, and continued telling them what her girls had discovered ; the favors Eulàlia had granted Genis Puig had not been in vain. Once he had exhausted his drunken passion on her, he had been more than happy to tell her of all the charges Arnau was facing.

“They say Arnau burned his father’s body ... ,” said Aledis, “but I can’t believe ...”

Joan was about to retch. All the others turned toward him. The friar had his hand over his mouth, as though he were choking. The darkness, Bernat’s body hanging from the makeshift scaffold, the flames ...

“What do you have to say now, Joan?” he heard Guillem asking him.

“They will put him to death,” he managed to say before he ran out of the inn, still covering his mouth with his hand.

Joan’s verdict floated in the air around them. None of them dared look at one another.

“What has happened between you and Joan?” Guillem whispered to Mar after a while, when the friar had still not reappeared.

He was only a slave ... What could a mere slave do? Guillem’s words rattled round Mar’s brain. If she told him ... They needed to be united! Arnau needed them all to fight for him ... including Joan.

“Nothing,” she said. “You know we never got on very well.” She avoided looking at him.

“Will you tell me someday?” insisted Guillem.

Mar looked down at the table.