The priest put the money back in the box. He noted what had happened that night in the account book. Day had dawned, and someone had gone to ask a locksmith to come and repair the three clasps. All of them had to wait until the box could be locked again.
Father Albert rested his hand on Arnau’s shoulder. It was only then that he remembered how he had seen him sitting beneath Bernat’s body as it dangled from a rope. He tried not to think about the fire. He was only a boy! He looked up at the Virgin. “He would have been left to rot at the city gate,” he explained to himself silently. “What does it matter? He’s only a boy, and now he has nothing: no father, no job to help feed himself ...”
“I think,” he said all of a sudden, “that you should make Arnau a member of your guild.”
Ramon smiled. He too, once things had calmed down, had been thinking about all Arnau had confessed to them. The others, including Arnau, gave the priest puzzled looks.
“But he’s only a boy,” one of the guild aldermen said.
“He’s not strong enough. How will he be able to carry sacks or stones on his back?” asked another.
“He’s very young,” insisted a third.
Arnau gazed at them all, eyes open wide.
“Everything you say is true,” the priest admitted, “but neither his size, his strength, nor his youth prevented him from defending money that was rightfully yours. But for him, your collection box would be empty.”
The
“I think we could try him out,” Ramon said finally, “and if he is not up to it...”
Someone in the group agreed.
“All right,” one of the aldermen said eventually, looking across at his two companions. Neither of them demurred. “We’ll take him on trial. If he shows his worth over the next three months, we’ll accept him fully into the guild. He will be paid in proportion to the work he does. Here,” he said, handing Arnau the Mallorcan’s dagger, which he was still holding, “this can be your
Arnau could feel the priest’s hand gripping his shoulder. He did not know what to say, but he smiled his thanks to the stone carriers. He was a
18
“WHO WAS IT? Do you know him, lad?”
The noise of the soldiers running and shouting as they chased Arnau still filled the square, but all Joan could hear was the burning crackle of Bernat’s body above him.
The captain of the guard had stayed near the scaffold. He shook Joan and asked again: “Do you know who it was?”
Joan was transfixed by the sight of the man who had been a father to him burning like a torch.
The captain shook Joan until he turned toward him. He was still staring blindly ahead of him, and his teeth were chattering.
“Who was it? Why did he burn your father?”
Joan did not even hear the question. His whole body started to shake.
“He can’t speak,” said the woman who had urged Arnau to run off. It was she who had pulled Joan away from the flames, and had recognized Arnau as the boy who had been sitting guard over the hanged man all that afternoon. “If I only dared do the same,” she thought, “my husband’s body wouldn’t be left to rot on the walls, to be pecked at by the birds.” Yes, that lad had done something all the relatives there wished they had done, and the captain ... he had come on duty only that night, so he could not have recognized Arnau: he thought the man’s son must be this one. The woman put her arms round Joan and hugged him tight.
“I need to know who set fire to him,” the captain insisted.
“What does it matter?” the woman murmured, feeling Joan trembling uncontrollably in her embrace. “This boy is half-dead with fear and hunger.”
The captain rolled his eyes, then slowly nodded. Hunger! He himself had lost an infant child: the boy had grown thinner and thinner until a simple fever had been enough to carry him off. His wife used to hold him just as this woman was doing now. He used to stare at the two of them: his wife in tears, the little boy pressing up against her, desperate for warmth...
“Take him home,” the captain told her.
“Hunger,” he muttered, turning to look at Bernat’s burning corpse, “Those cursed Genoese!”
DAWN HAD BROKEN over the city.
“Joan!” shouted Arnau as soon as he opened the door.
Pere and Mariona, sitting close to the hearth, motioned to him to be quiet.
“He’s asleep,” said Mariona.
The woman in the square had brought him home and told them what had happened. The two old folks cosseted him until he fell asleep, then went to sit by the fireside.
“What will become of them?” Mariona asked her husband. “Without Bernat, the boy will never survive in the stables.”
“And we won’t be able to feed them,” thought Pere. They could not afford to let them keep the room without paying, or to feed them every day. It was then that he noticed how Arnau’s eyes were shining. His father had just been executed! His body had been burned—so why was he looking so excited?
