And now ... what was this woman staring at? She did nothing but stare ... at Aledis’s stomach! Aledis could see that the robe fit snugly over her flat, smooth stomach, and she squirmed beneath the other woman’s gaze.
The mistress pursed her lips in satisfaction, but Aledis did not see the gesture. How often had she witnessed silent confessions of this sort? Girls who made up stories, but at the slightest pressure were unable to sustain their lies: they always grew nervous and looked down at the ground, just as this one did. How many pregnancies had she seen? Dozens? Hundreds? Never had a girl with such a flat, smooth stomach like hers really been pregnant. Had she missed a month? Possibly—but that was not enough to lead her to undertake such an arduous journey to see her husband before he went off to fight.
“There is no way you can go to the army camp dressed like that.” Aledis looked up when she heard the other woman speak. She glanced down at the robe again. “We are forbidden to go there. If you wish, I could find your husband for you.”
“You? You would help me? Why would you do that?”
“Haven’t I already helped you? I’ve given you food, had you washed and dressed. Nobody else has done as much in this hellish camp, have they?” Aledis nodded, and shuddered as she recalled the way she had been treated. “Why does it seem so odd to you then?” the woman added. Aledis hesitated. “We may be whores, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have feelings. If someone had given me a helping hand some years ago ...” The woman gazed into space, and her words floated up into the roof of the tent. “Well, that doesn’t matter now. If you wish, I can help you. I know many people in the army camp, and it wouldn’t be difficult to locate your husband.”
Aledis thought it over. Why not? The other woman was thinking of her new recruit. It would be easy enough to have the husband disappear ... All it would take was a scuffle in the camp ... Lots of the soldiers owed her favors. And then what would the girl do? Whom could she turn to? She was on her own ... She would be hers. If it was true, the pregnancy was no problem either; she had dealt with many others in the past, for the price of a few coins.
“I thank you,” said Aledis.
That was it. She was hers.
“What’s your husband’s name? Where does he come from?”
“He’s part of the Barcelona host. His name is Arnau, Arnau Estanyol.”
At this, Aledis saw the other woman tremble. “Is there something wrong?” she asked.
The woman fumbled for the stool and sat down. Perspiration beaded her brow.
“No,” she said. “It must be this ghastly hot weather. Pass me that fan, will you?”
It was impossible! she told herself, while Aledis carried out her request. The blood was beating at her temples. Arnau Estanyol! Impossible.
“Describe your husband to me,” she said, fanning herself as she sat.
“Oh, it ought to be very easy to find him. He’s a bastaix from the port of Barcelona. He’s young, strong, tall, and good-looking. He has a birthmark right next to his right eye.”
The mistress went on fanning herself in silence. She was gazing far beyond Aledis, to a village called Navarcles, to a wedding feast, a straw mattress, a castle ... to Llorenç de Bellera, her disgrace, hunger, pain ... How many years had gone by since then? Twenty? Yes, at least that many. And now ...
Aledis interrupted her thoughts: “Do you know him?”
“No ... no.”
Had she ever known him? In fact, she remembered little about him. She had been so young!
“Will you help me find him?” Aledis asked, bringing her back to the present once more.
“Yes, I will,” said the other woman, indicating that Aledis should leave the tent.
Once she had gone, Francesca buried her face in her hands. Arnau! She had managed to forget him, and now, twenty years later ... if this girl were telling the truth, the child she was bearing in her belly would be ... her grandchild! And she had been planning to kill it! Twenty years! What could he be like? Aledis had said he was tall, strong, handsome. Francesca had no image of him, even as a newborn baby. She had succeeded in making sure he had the forge to warm him, but soon it had become impossible for her to go and visit him. “Those wretches! I was only a girl, but they queued up to rape me!” A tear coursed down her cheek. How long had it been since she had cried? She had not done so twenty years earlier. “The boy will be better off with Bernat,” she had thought. When she learned what had happened, Doña Caterina had slapped her and sent her off to be the soldiers’ plaything. When they had finished with her, she had lived off the scraps thrown over the castle wall. She wandered among the heaps of rubbish and waste, fighting with other beggars for whatever moldy, worm-ridden remains they could find. That was how she had met another young girl. She was skinny, but still pretty. Nobody seemed to be looking after her. Perhaps if ... Francesca offered her some scraps she had saved for herself. The girl smiled, and her eyes lit up; she had probably known no other life than this. Francesca washed her in a stream, scrubbing her skin with sand until she cried out with pain and cold. Then all she had to do was present her to one of the captains at Lord Bellera’s castle. That was how it had all started. “I grew hard, my son, so hard that my heart turned to stone inside me. What did your father tell you about me? That I left you to die?”
That same night, when the king’s captains and those soldiers who had been fortunate at dice or cards came to her tent, Francesca asked if any of them knew Arnau.
“The bastaix, you mean?” said one of them. “Of course I do; everyone knows who he is.” Francesca’s head tilted to one side as she listened. “They say he defeated a veteran everybody was afraid of,” the man explained, “and then Eiximèn d’Esparca, the king’s shield bearer, took him on as part of his personal guard. He has a birthmark by his right eye. He’s being trained to fight with a dagger. He’s fought on several more occasions, and always won. He’s well worth betting on.” The officer smiled. “Why are you so interested in him?” he said, his smile broadening still further.
“Why not feed his lascivious imagination?” thought Francesca. Explaining anything different would be complicated. So she winked at the captain.
“You’re too old for a man like him,” the soldier laughed.
Francesca did not give way.
“Bring him to me and you won’t regret it.”
“Where? Here?”
What if Aledis had been lying? But Francesca’s first impressions had never let her down.
“No, not here.”
ALEDIS WALKED A few steps away from the tent. It was a beautiful warm and starry night, with a big yellow moon lighting the darkest corners. She looked up at the sky, and then at the men who went into the tent and emerged soon afterward on the arm of one or another of the girls. They would head for some small huts in the distance, and then a short while later reappear, sometimes laughing, sometimes in silence. The same scene was repeated time and again. Each time, the prostitutes headed for the tub where Aledis had bathed, and washed their private parts in the water, staring at her brazenly as they did so. It reminded Aledis of the woman her mother had once told her she should not step aside for.
“Why don’t they arrest her?” Aledis had asked her mother on that occasion.
Eulàlia had looked down at her daughter, calculating whether she was of an age to receive a proper explanation.
“She can’t be arrested,” she told her. “The king and the Church allow them to ply their trade.”
Aledis looked up at her in disbelief.
“Yes, daughter, that’s right. The Church says that fallen women should not be punished by earthly laws, because divine law will do so.” How was she to explain to a child that the real reason for the Church being so lenient was to prevent adultery or unnatural relationships? Eulàlia observed her daughter again. No, she was not old enough to understand about unnatural relationships.
Antonia, the girl with the golden curls, smiled at her from beside the tub. Aledis pursed her lips in
response, but went no further.
What else had her mother told her? she wondered, trying to take her mind off what she was seeing. That prostitutes could not live in any village, town, or city where honest citizens lived, under threat of being thrown out of their own homes if their neighbors so demanded. That they were obliged to listen to religious sermons aimed at rehabilitating them. That they could visit public baths only on Mondays and Fridays, the days reserved for Jews and Saracens. And that they could use their money for works of charity, but never for any holy oblation.
Standing next to the tub, Antonia was holding her skirt up with one hand while she washed herself with the other. And she was still smiling! Every time she bent to scoop up water, she looked at Aledis and smiled. Aledis did her best to respond, and tried not to let her gaze wander downward toward Antonia’s groin, clearly visible in the moonlight.
Why was the girl smiling at her? She was no more than a girl, but already she was condemned. A few years earlier, just after her father had refused to allow her to be betrothed to Arnau, her mother had taken Aledis and her sister Alesta to the San Pedro convent in Barcelona. “Let them see it,” had been the tanner’s terse command. The convent atrium was full of doors that had been torn off their hinges and left leaning against the convent arches or thrown on the ground. King Pedro had given the abbess of San Pedro the sole authority to order all the prostitutes out of her parish, and then to tear the doors off their dwellings and bring them all to be displayed at the convent. The abbess had been more than happy to oblige!
“Have all these people been forced out of their homes?” Aledis had asked, flapping her hand at the sight and remembering what had happened to her own family before they had rented a room with Pere and Mariona: their front door had also been torn off because they had been unable to pay their taxes.
“No, daughter,” her mother had replied. “This is what happens to women who abandon chastity.”
Aledis could vividly remember that moment, and the way her mother had narrowed her eyes and peered at her.
Aledis shook her head to rid it of that painful memory. She found herself staring once more at Antonia and her exposed pubis, where the hairs were as blond and curly as the hair on her head. What would the abbess of San Pedro do with someone like Antonia?
Francesca came out of her tent, looking for Antonia. “Come here, girl!” she shouted at her. Aledis watched as Antonia skipped away from the tub, pulling up her hose, and ran into the tent. Then her gaze met that of Francesca, before the older woman turned back into the tent. Why was she looking at her like that?
ElXIMÈN D’ESPARCA, KING Pedro the Third’s shield bearer, was an important person. In fact, his position was more impressive than his physique, because the moment he dismounted from his huge warhorse and took off his armor, he was merely a short, skinny-looking fellow. A weak man, thought Arnau, hoping the nobleman could not read his mind.
Eiximèn d’Esparca commanded a company of Almogavars that he paid for out of his own purse. Whenever he surveyed them, he began to worry. Where did those mercenaries’ loyalty really lie? To whoever paid them, that was all. That was why he liked to surround himself with a praetorian guard, and explained why he had been so impressed by Arnau.
“What weapons are you skilled in?” the noble’s captain had asked Arnau. The bastaix showed him his father’s crossbow. “Yes, I thought as much. All you Catalans are good with crossbows. It’s your duty. Any other weapons?”
Arnau shook his head.
“What about that knife?” The officer pointed to the weapon Arnau was wearing tucked into his belt, but when Arnau took it out, the officer burst into laughter. “That blunt thing wouldn’t even be able to tear a virgin’s hymen. I’ll show you how to use a real dagger, in hand-to-hand combat.”
He reached inside a big chest and handed him a hunting knife that was much longer and broader than the bastaix dagger. Arnau drew his finger along its sharp blade. From that moment on, day after day, he joined Eiximèn’s guard to train in hand-to-hand combat with this new knife. He was also given a colored uniform, with a coat of mail, a helm—which he polished until it shone—and strong leather shoes that were tied up round his ankles. The tough training alternated with real hand-to-hand combats, without weapons, that were organized by the nobles in the camp. Arnau soon became the champion of the shield bearer’s guard, and not a day went by without him fighting once or twice in front of a noisy crowd that wagered on the winner.
It took only a few of these fights for Arnau to become famous among all the troops. Whenever he walked around the camp, in the few free moments left to him, he could sense he was being watched and talked about. How strange it felt to have people fall silent when you went by!
Eiximèn d’Esparca’s captain smiled when the soldier told him who was looking for Arnau.
“Do you think I could pay a visit to one of her girls too?” he asked.
“I’m sure you could. The old woman is crazy for your man. You can’t imagine how her eyes shine at the mention of him.”
The two of them laughed out loud.
“Where do I have to take him?”
FRANCESCA CHOSE A small tavern on the outskirts of Figueres for their meeting.
“Don’t ask questions, and do as you’re told,” the captain warned Arnau. “There’s somebody who wants to see you.”
The two soldiers led him to the tavern. When they were there, they showed him up to the wretched little room where Francesca was waiting for him. As soon as Arnau was inside, they shut the door and barred it from the outside. Arnau turned and tried to open it; when he failed, he began banging on it with his fists.
“What’s going on?” he cried. “What is this?”
All he got by way of response was the two men’s cackles.
Arnau listened to them for a few moments. What was happening? Then he suddenly realized he was not alone. He turned round again: Francesca was watching him. She was leaning against the window, her figure dimly lit by a candle on one of the walls. In spite of the gloom, he could see her bright green robe. A prostitute! How many stories about women had he heard in the warmth of the campfires? How many soldiers had boasted of spending all their pay on a girl who was always so much better, more beautiful, and more voluptuous than the one talked about before? Arnau said nothing, and looked down at the floor of the room. He was in the army because he was running away from two women! Perhaps ... perhaps this trick was because he never said anything, because he never showed any interest in women ... He had often been scoffed at for it round the campfire.
“What kind of joke is this?” he asked Francesca. “What do you want from me?”
The candlelight was so dim she still could not make him out properly, but that voice ... His voice was already that of a man, and she could see that he was big and tall, as the girl had said. She could feel her legs trembling and felt weak at the knees. Her son!
Francesca had to clear her throat several times before she could speak.
“Don’t worry. I don’t intend to do anything that could bring you dishonor. Besides,” she went on, “we are on our own. What could a weak old woman like me do to a strong young man like you?”
“So why are those two outside laughing?” asked Arnau, still standing close to the door.
“Let them laugh if they like. Men have twisted minds: they like to think the worst. Perhaps if I had told them the truth, if I had told them why I was so anxious to see you, they wouldn’t have been as keen as they were to bring you when they imagined it was for a baser reason.”
“What were they to think of a prostitute and a man shut in a room in a tavern? What else can one expect from a whore?”
Arnau spoke harshly, woundingly. It took Francesca some time to recover.
“We are people too,” she said, raising her voice. “Saint Augustine wrote that it was for God to judge fallen women.”
“So you brought me here to talk about God?”
“No.” Francesca went over to him;
she had to see his face. “I brought you here to talk about your wife.”
Arnau staggered as though he had been hit. She could see he truly was handsome.
“What’s wrong? How do you ...”
“She is pregnant.”
“Maria?”
“Aledis ... ,” said Francesca without thinking. Had he said Maria?
“Aledis?”
Francesca could see he was dazed. What did that mean?
“What are you two doing talking all the time?” the soldiers shouted outside, and they banged on the door, laughing. “What’s wrong? Is he too much of a man for you?”
Arnau and Francesca looked at each other. She signaled for him to move away from the door, and Arnau followed her. They began to talk in a whisper.
“Did you say Maria?” asked Francesca when they were on the far side of the room by the window.
“Yes. My wife’s name is Maria.”
“Who is Aledis then? She told me that...”
Arnau shook his head. Was that a sad gleam in his eyes? wondered Francesca. Arnau seemed to have crumbled in front of her eyes: his arms hung loosely by his sides, and his head seemed too heavy for his neck. But he said nothing. Francesca felt a stab of pain deep inside. “What is going on, my son?” she thought.
“Who is Aledis?” she insisted.
Arnau simply shook his heavy head. He had abandoned everything: Maria, his work, the Virgin ... and now, she was here! And pregnant! Everybody would find out. How could he ever return to Barcelona, to his work or his home?
Francesca looked out of the window. The night was dark. What was the pain gripping her so tightly? She had seen men crawling through the dirt, women with nowhere to turn; she had been a witness to death and misery, to sickness and torment, but never until this moment had she felt anything like this.