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Virgin. Our Lady has nothing to do with friars or priests. We can still believe in her.”
    Yes, Bernat Estanyol would have loved to lean on the windowsill in the morning and talk to his young wife; to tell her all his father had told him, and to stare out over the fields with her.

    THROUGHOUT THE REST of September and all October, Bernat hitched up his oxen and plowed the fields, turning over the thick crust of earth so that the sun, air, and manure could bring fresh life to the soil. After that, with Francesca’s help, he sowed the grain; she scattered the seed from a basket, while he first plowed and then flattened the ground with a heavy metal bar once the seed was planted. They worked without talking, in a silence disturbed only by his shouts to the oxen, which echoed round the whole valley. Bernat thought that working together might bring them closer, but it did not: Francesca was still cold and indifferent, picking up her basket and sowing the seed without so much as looking at him.
    November arrived, with its yearly tasks: fattening the pig for the kill, gathering wood for the fire; to enrich the soil, preparing the vegetable patch and the fields that were to be sown in spring, pruning and grafting the vines. By the time Bernat returned to the farmhouse each day, Francesca had seen to the domestic work, the vegetables, the hens, and the rabbits. Night after night, she served him his meal without a word, then went off to bed. Every morning, she rose before he did, and by the time he came down, breakfast was waiting for him on the table, and his noonday meal was in his satchel. As he ate, he could hear her tending the animals in the stable next door.
    Christmas came and went, and then in January they finished harvesting the olives. Bernat had only enough trees to cover the needs of his house and what he had to give his lord.
    After that, Bernat had to kill the pig. When his father was alive, the neighbors, who rarely visited, were certain never to miss the day the pig was butchered. Bernat remembered those occasions as real celebrations; the pigs were slaughtered and then everyone had plenty to eat and drink, while the women cut up the carcass.
    The Esteve family—father, mother, and two of the brothers—turned up this year. Bernat went out into the courtyard to greet them; his wife hung back.
    “How are you, daughter?” her mother asked.
    Francesca said nothing, but accepted her embrace. Bernat studied the two women: the mother anxiously hugged her daughter, expecting her to put her arms round her too. But Francesca simply stood there stiffly, without responding. Bernat looked anxiously at his father-in-law.
    “Francesca,” was all Pere Esteve said, his eyes still looking beyond her shoulder. Her two brothers raised their hands in greeting.
    Francesca went down to the pigsty to fetch the pig; the others stayed in the courtyard. No one said a word; the only sound to break the silence was a stifled sob from Francesca’s mother. Bernat felt an urge to console her, but when he saw that neither her husband nor her sons made any move, he thought better of it.
    Francesca appeared with the animal, which was struggling as if it knew the fate awaiting it. She brought it up to her husband in her usual silent way. Bernat and the two brothers upended it and sat on its belly. The pig’s squeals could be heard throughout the Estanyol valley. Pere Esteve slit its throat with a sure hand, and the men sat while the women collected the spouting blood in their bowls, changing them as they filled. Nobody looked at one another.
    No one even had a cup of wine while mother and daughter sliced up the meat of the slaughtered animal.
    With their work done and the onset of night, the mother again tried to embrace her daughter. Bernat looked on anxiously, to see if this time there was some kind of reaction from Francesca. There was none. Her father and brothers said farewell without raising their eyes from the ground. Her mother came up