Cathedral of the Sea (46 page)

As she did so, the girl with the golden curls turned to look inside the large tent, where, protected from the July sun that beat down on the camp, four other women, slightly older than the first three, were also staring intently at Aledis. So too did their mistress, who sat in the middle of them on a stool. She had nodded when Aledis appeared, and agreed she should be given food. Since then, she had not taken her eyes off her: she was dressed in filthy rags, but she was beautiful... and young. What could she be doing here? She was not a vagabond: she did not seem to want to beg. Nor was she a prostitute: she had instinctively recoiled when she saw who she was with. She was filthy, wearing a torn smock and with a mass of disheveled, greasy hair. But her teeth were gleaming white. She had obviously never known hunger, or the kinds of disease that left teeth blackened. What was she doing there? She must be running away from something, but what?

The mistress gestured toward one of the women inside the tent with her.

“I want her cleaned and tidied up,” she whispered as the other woman leaned over her.

The woman looked at Aledis, smiled, and nodded.

ALEDIS COULD NOT resist. “You need a bath,” said another of the prostitutes, who had come out of the tent. A bath! How many days had it been since she had even washed? They got ready a tub of fresh water for her inside the tent. Aledis sat in it, her knees drawn up, while the three prostitutes who had watched her eat began to wash her. Why not let them fuss over her? She could not appear before Arnau looking the way she did. The army was camped close by, and he must be with them. She had done it! So why not let them look after her? She also allowed them to dress her. They looked for the least garish robe, but even so ... “Streetwalkers must wear brightly colored clothes,” her mother had once told her as a child, when she had mistaken a prostitute for a noble lady and stepped aside to let her by. “So how do we tell the two apart?” Aledis had asked. “The king obliges them to dress that way, but he prohibits them from wearing any cape or cloak, even in wintertime. That’s how you can tell the prostitutes: they always have bare shoulders.”

Aledis looked down at herself now. Women of her social rank, the wives of artisans, were not allowed to wear bright colors, but how lovely this cloth was! But how could she go and find Arnau dressed like this? The soldiers would take her for ... She raised an arm to see how the sides of the robe looked.

“Do you like it?”

Aledis turned and saw the mistress standing in the entrance to the tent. At a sign from her, Antonia, the young girl with blond curls who had helped her dress, vanished outside.

“Yes ... no ...” Aledis looked at herself once more. The robe was bright green. Perhaps these women had something she could wrap round her shoulders? If she covered them, then nobody would think she was a prostitute.

The mistress looked her up and down. She had been right: the girl had a voluptuous body that would delight any of the army captains. And those eyes! They were huge. Chestnut brown. And yet there was a sad look to them. The two women stared at each other.

“What brought you here, my girl?”

“My husband. He’s in the king’s army, and left before he could learn he’s going to be a father. I want to tell him now, before he goes into combat.”

She said this as quickly as she could, just as she had done to the traders who had rescued her at the River Besós when the ferryman, after he had raped her, was trying to get rid of her by drowning her in the river. They had taken him by surprise, and he had run away as fast as his legs could take him. Aledis had not been able to fight him off forever, and in the end let him have his way with her and then drag her by the hair down to the river. The outside world then no longer existed. The sun ceased to shine, and all she could hear was the boatman’s panting, which echoed inside her and mingled with her memories and sense of helplessness. When the traders arrived and saw how badly she had been treated, they took pity on her.

“You have to tell the magistrate about this,” they said.

But what could she tell the king’s official? What if her husband was looking for her? What if she were found out? There would be a trial, and she could not...

“No. I have to reach the royal camp before the armies leave for Roussillon,” she said, after explaining that she was pregnant and that her husband was unaware of it. “I’ll tell him, and he will decide what we should do.”

The traders went with her as far as Girona. Aledis left them at Sant Feliu church, outside the city walls. The oldest among them shook his head sadly when he saw her so lonely and bedraggled by the church walls. Aledis remembered the old women’s warning-don’t go into any town or city—and so she avoided Girona, where some six thousand people lived. From outside the city, she could see the outline of the cathedral Santa Maria, still under construction, and next to it the bishop’s palace and next to that the tall, imposing Gironella Tower, the city’s main defensive point. She gazed at all these fine buildings for a few moments, then continued on her way to Figueres.

The mistress, who was watching as Aledis remembered her journey, saw that the young girl was trembling.

The presence of the royal army in Figueres attracted hundreds of people. Aledis had joined them, already in the grip of hunger. She could no longer recall what they looked like, but she was given bread and water, and somebody offered her some vegetables. They came to a halt for the night north of the River Fluviá, at the foot of Pontons castle, which guarded the river approach to the town of Bàscara, halfway between Girona and Figueres. It was there that two of the travelers took payment for the food they had offered her: both of them raped her brutally in the night. Aledis was past caring. She sought in her memory for the image of Arnau’s face, and took refuge there. The next day, she followed the group like an animal, walking several paces behind them. But this time they did not give her any food, or even talk to her. At long last, they reached the royal camp.

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.”