Bernat followed the newcomers with his gaze as they drew closer across the fields. The guests began to whisper among themselves.
“I don’t understand,” Bernat said eventually, also in a low voice. “He never comes here: it is not on his way to the castle.”
“I don’t like the look of this at all,” said Pere Esteve.
The procession drew slowly closer. As the figures approached, the laughter and the remarks the horsemen were making took over from the merriment that had been in evidence in the courtyard; everyone could hear them. Bernat surveyed his guests: some of them could not bear to look, and stood there staring at the ground. He searched for Francesca, who was in the midst of a group of women. The lord of Navarcles’s powerful voice rang out. Bernat could feel anger rising inside him.
“Bernat! Bernat!” Pere Esteve hissed, clutching his arm. “What are you doing here? Run to greet him.”
Bernat leapt up and ran to receive his lord.
“Welcome to this your house,” he panted when he had reached the men on horseback.
Llorenç de Bellera, lord of Navarcles, pulled on his horse’s reins and came to a halt in front of Bernat.
“Are you Estanyol, son of the madman?” he asked disdainfully.
“Yes, my lord.”
“We were out hunting, and were surprised to hear your feast on the way back to our castle. What are you celebrating?”
Behind the horses, Bernat caught a glimpse of the soldiers, loaded down with their prey: rabbits, hares, some wild cocks. “It’s your visit that demands an explanation,” he would have liked to reply. “Or did the castle baker tell you about the white loaves I had baked?”
Even the horses, with their big round eyes focused on him, seemed to be awaiting his response.
“My marriage, your lordship.”
“And who are you marrying?”
“The daughter of Pere Esteve, my lord.”
Llorenç de Bellera sat silently, looking down at Bernat over his horse’s neck. The other mounts snorted impatiently.
“Well?” barked Llorenç de Bellera.
“My bride and I,” said Bernat, trying to hide his discomfort, “would be very honored if your lordship and his companions would care to join us.”
“We’re thirsty, Estanyol,” was all the lord of Navarcles deigned to reply.
The horses moved on without any need of prodding. Head down, Bernat walked alongside his lord’s horse back to the farmhouse. All the guests had gathered at the entrance to the courtyard to receive him: the women stared down at the ground, and all the men had removed their caps. A low murmur greeted Llorenç de Bellera when he halted before them.
“That’s enough,” he said as he dismounted. “Carry on with your banquet.”
The guests complied, turning round without a word. Several of the soldiers came up and took care of the horses. Bernat went with his new guests to the table where Pere Esteve and he had been seated. Their bowls and cups had disappeared.
The lord of Navarcles and his two companions sat at the table. Bernat withdrew several steps as the newcomers began to talk among themselves. The serving women brought pitchers of wine, loaves of bread, chicken stew, plates of salt pork, and freshly roasted lamb. Bernat looked for Francesca, but she was nowhere to be seen. His gaze met that of his father-in-law, who was standing in a group of the guests. Pere Esteve lifted his chin toward the serving women, shook his head almost imperceptibly, and turned on his heel.
“Go on with your celebration!” Llorenç de Bellera bawled, waving the leg of lamb he was holding. “Come on, enjoy yourselves!”
Silently, the guests began to approach the roasted lambs for their share. Unnoticed by the lord and his friends, one group stood their ground: Pere Esteve and a few others. Bernat caught a glimpse of the white linen smock in the midst of them, and hurried over.
“Get away from here, you idiot,” his father-in-law snapped.
Before Bernat could say a word, Francesca’s mother thrust a platter of lamb in his hands and whispered:
“Wait on the lord, and don’t go anywhere near my daughter.”
The peasants began to devour the lamb, still without saying a word, but from time to time glancing anxiously up at the table where the lord of Navarcles and his two friends were laughing and shouting. The soldiers were resting some way away.
“Before we could hear loud laughter from here,” the lord of Bellera complained. “So loud it drove away all our game. Come on, I want to hear you laugh!”
Nobody obeyed.
“Country bumpkins,” he told his companions, who burst out laughing again.
The three of them sated themselves on lamb and chunks of white bread. The platters of salted pork and chicken stew were pushed to one side of the table. Bernat ate standing up nearby, occasionally glancing anxiously out of the corner of his eye at the gaggle of women surrounding Francesca.
“More wine!” the lord of Bellera demanded, raising his cup. “Estanyol,” he shouted, seeking him out among the guests. “Next time you pay me the taxes on my land, I want you to bring this wine, not the vinegar your father has been fooling me with until now.”
Bernat was facing the other way. Francesca’s mother thrust a pitcher of wine into his hands.
“Estanyol, where are you?” Llorenç de Bellera pounded the table just as a serving woman was about to serve him more wine. A few drops sprinkled his clothes. By now, Bernat was close to him, and his friends were laughing at the accident. Pere Esteve lifted his hands to his face.
“Stupid old crone! How dare you spill the wine?” The woman lowered her head in submission, and when the lord made to buffet her with his hand, she fell to the ground. Llorenç de Bellera turned to his friends, cackling at the way the old woman was crawling away from them. Then he became serious once more, and addressed Bernat. “So there you are, Estanyol. Look what your clumsy old women have done! Are you trying to insult your lord and master? Are you so ignorant you don’t realize that your guests should be served by the lady of the house? Where is the bride?” he asked, looking round at everyone in the courtyard. “Where is the bride?” he repeated, when there was no response.
Pere Esteve took Francesca by the arm and led her to Bernat at the table. She was trembling from head to foot.
“Your lordship,” said Bernat, “I present you my wife, Francesca.”
“That’s better,” said Llorenc, openly staring up and down at her. “Much better. From now on, you are to serve us the wine.”
The lord of Navarcles sat down again, and raised his cup. Searching for a pitcher, Francesca ran to serve him. As she poured out the wine, her hand shook. Llorenç de Bellera grasped her wrist and steadied it. When his cup was full, he pushed her to serve his companions. As she did so, her breasts almost brushed his face.
“That is how wine should be served!” the lord of Navarcles bellowed. Standing next to him, Bernat clenched his fists and teeth.
Llorenç 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,” Llorenç 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. Llorenç 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 drag
ged 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, Llorenç 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. Doña 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 Llorenç 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,” Llorenç 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.
Llorenç 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?” Llorenç 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.
“Don’t touch me!” Francesca cried, coming out of her stupor.
“He’ll flay me alive!” Bernat protested, staring at her naked body.
“Leave me alone!”
They struggled, until finally Bernat had seized both her wrists and forced her upright. Francesca was still fighting him.
“Someone else will come!” he whispered. “Another man will be the one to force you!”
Her eyes opened wide in an accusing glare.
“He’ll have me flayed!” Bernat repeated.
Francesca still struggled to beat him off, but he flung himself on top of her. Her tears were not enough to dampen the sudden rush of desire he felt as he rubbed against her naked body. As he penetrated her, she gave a shriek that reached the highest heaven.
Her cries satisfied the soldier who had followed Bernat and was witnessing the whole scene shamelessly, head and shoulders thrust into the room.
Before Bernat had finished, Francesca gradually stopped resisting, and her howls turned to sobs. Bernat reached his climax to the sound of his wife’s tears.
Lorenç de Bellera also heard the screams from the second-floor window. Once his spy had confirmed that the marriage had been consummated, he called for the horses and he and his sinister troop left the farmhouse. Desolate and terrified, most of the wedding guests did the same.
Calm returned to the courtyard. Bernat was still sprawled across his wife. He had no idea what to do next. He realized he was still gripping her shoulders, and lifted his hands away. As he did so, he collapsed again on top of her. He pushed himself up and stared into Francesca’s eyes. They seemed to be staring straight through him. Any movement he made would press his body against hers once more, and he could not bear the thought of doing her more harm. He wished he could levitate then and there so that he could separate his body from hers without even touching it.
Eventually, after what seemed an eternity, Bernat pushed himself away and kneeled down beside her. He still did not know what to do for the best: to stand up, lie down beside her, get out of the room, or to try to justify himself ... He could not bear to see Francesca’s naked body, cruelly exposed on the pallet. He tried to get her to look at him, but her eyes were blank again. He looked down, and the sight of his own naked sex filled him with shame.
“I’m sorr—”
He was interrupted by a sudden movement from Francesca. Now she was staring straight at him. Bernat looked for some slight glimmer of understanding, but there was none.
“I’m sorry,” he repeated. Francesca was still staring at him without the slightest sign of reacting. “I’m so sorry. He ... he was going to flay me alive,” he stammered.
In his mind’s eye, Bernat saw the lord of Navarcles standing with his arm outstretched, calling for the whip. He searched Francesca’s face: nothing. What he saw in her eyes frightened him still further: they were shouting in silence, as loudly as the screams she had uttered when he had flung himself on her.
Unwittingly, as though trying to make her understand he knew what she was going through, as if she were a little girl, he stretched out his hand toward her chee
k.
“I ... ,” he started to say.
His hand never reached her. As it approached, the muscles of her whole body stiffened. Bernat lifted his hand to his own face, and burst into tears.
Francesca lay there, staring into space.
After a long while, Bernat stopped crying. He got to his feet, put on his hose, and disappeared down the ladder to the floor beneath. As soon as she could no longer hear his footsteps, Francesca got up and went over to the chest that was the only furniture in the room, to find some clothes. When she was dressed, she gently picked up all the things that had been torn from her, including the precious white linen smock. Folding it carefully so that the rips did not show, she stowed it in the chest.
2
FRANCESCA WANDERED ABOUT the farmhouse like a lost soul. She carried out all the domestic chores, but never said a word. The sad atmosphere she created soon spread to the farthest corners of the Estanyol family home.
Bernat had several times tried to apologize for what had happened. Once the terror of his wedding day had receded, he had tried to explain what he had felt more clearly: his fear of the lord’s cruelty, the consequences for both of them of refusing to obey his orders. Bernat repeated “I’m sorry” over and over again to Francesca, but she simply stared at him in silence, as though waiting for the moment when, without fail, Bernat’s argument led him to the same crux as ever: “If I hadn’t done it, another man would have come ...”At that point, he always fell silent; he knew there was no excuse, and his rape of her rose every time like an insurmountable barrier between them. The apologies, excuses, and silences slowly healed the wound in Bernat, if not in his wife, and his feelings of remorse were tempered by the daily round of work. Eventually, Bernat even resigned himself to Francesca’s stubborn refusal to talk.
At daybreak every morning, when he got up to start a hard day’s grind, he would stare out their bedroom window. He had always done this with his father, even in his last illness, the two of them leaning on the thick stone windowsill and peering up at the heavens to see what the day held in store. They would look out over their lands, which were clearly defined by the different crop growing in each field and extended right across the huge valley beyond the farmhouse. They watched the flight of the birds and listened closely to the noises the animals were making in their pens. These were moments of communion between father and son, and between the two of them and their land: the only occasions when Bernat’s father appeared to recover his sanity. Bernat had dreamed of being able to share similar moments with his wife, to be able to tell her all he had heard from his father, and his father from his own father, and so on back through the generations.