Cathedral of the Sea

by Ildefonso Falcones

  “Once before,” she muttered up toward the windows, while Pere looked on, unable to offer any words of comfort, “I have lived through this scene. Arnau won that battle, Eleonor. I’m warning you: he has paid his debt to you in full.”

  53

  As THE SOLDIERS escorted him along the endless high corridors of the bishop’s palace, the noise of their swords and leather straps echoed all around them. The group marched along, the captain at its head, two soldiers in front of Arnau, and another two behind. When they had reached the top of the passage up from the dungeons, Arnau had halted to get used to the light streaming into the palace, until a sharp blow in the middle of his back forced him to keep pace with the soldiers.

  Arnau passed by friars, priests, and scribes, all of them squeezing against the walls to let him and his guard through. Nobody had wanted to answer his question: the jailer had come into the dungeon and undone his chains. “Where are you taking me?” A Dominican in black crossed himself as he went by; another raised a crucifix. The soldiers marched on without paying any attention. For days now, Arnau had heard nothing from Joan or the brown-eyed woman: where had he seen those eyes before? He asked the old crone in the dungeon but got no reply. “Who was that woman?” he had shouted four times at least. Some of the shadows chained to the walls had groaned; others did not stir. Nor did the old woman, and yet, when the jailer pushed him out of the dungeon, Arnau thought he saw her shifting nervously.

  Arnau bumped into the back of one of the soldiers in front of him. They had come to a halt outside an imposing double door. The soldier pushed him back, while the captain banged on the wooden panel. The doors opened, and the escort marched into a huge chamber. The walls were hung with rich tapestries. The soldiers accompanied Arnau to the center of the room, then returned to stand guard at the door.

  Sitting behind an elaborately carved table, seven men were staring at him. Nicolau Eimerich, the grand inquisitor, sat in the middle, together with Berenguer d’Eril, the bishop of Barcelona. Both of them were wearing fine robes embroidered in gold. To the inquisitor’s left sat the Holy Office clerk; Arnau had seen him on occasion, but had never had any dealings with the man. On either side sat two black-robed Dominican friars, whom Arnau did not know.

  Arnau looked steadily at the members of the tribunal until one of the friars turned away in disgust. Arnau raised a hand to his face: it was covered in a greasy beard that had grown during his days in the dungeon. His torn clothes had lost all their original color. He was barefoot, and his feet, hands, and nails were caked with black dirt. He stank. He himself found his smell unbearable.

  Eimerich smiled when he saw Arnau reacting to his own sorry state.

  “FIRST THEY WILL get him to swear on the four gospels,” Joan explained to Aledis as they sat round a table at the inn. “The trial could last days, or even months,” he had already told them, when they had urged him to go to the bishop’s palace. “It’s better to wait at the inn.”

  “Will there be someone to defend him?” asked Mar.

  Joan shook his head wearily. “He will be appointed a lawyer ... but that person is not allowed to defend him.”

  “Why not?” the two women asked together.

  “It is forbidden for lawyers and notaries,” Joan recited, “to aid heretics, to advise or support them, or to believe their word and defend them.” Mar and Aledis looked nonplussed. “That’s what the bull by Pope Innocent says.”

  “What do they do then?” asked Mar.

  “The lawyer’s task is to obtain the heretic’s voluntary confession; if he were to defend a heretic, he would be defending heresy.”

  “I HAVE NOTHING to confess,” Arnau told the young priest who had been appointed as his lawyer.

  “He’s an expert in civil and canon law,” said Nicolau Eimerich, “and also a passionate believer,” he added with a smile.

  The priest spread his arms wide in a helpless gesture, in the same way he had done in the dungeon, when he had encouraged Arnau to confess his heresy. “You ought to do so,” he had said, “and put your faith in the tribunal’s mercy.” Now he repeated the same gesture—how often had he done that in the past as a lawyer for heretics?—and then at a sign from Eimerich, he withdrew from the chamber.

  “AFTER THAT,” JOAN continued at Aledis’s prompting, “they will ask him to name his enemies.”

  “Why is that?”

  “If he were to name any of the witnesses accusing him, the tribunal could consider their testimony unsound.”

  “But Arnau doesn’t know who denounced him,” Mar said.

  “No, not at the moment. He might find out in due course ... if Eimerich concedes him that right. In fact, he is entitled to know,” said Joan, noticing how the two women reacted. “That is what Pope Boniface the Eighth decreed, but the pope is a long way away, and each inquisitor conducts his own trials as he sees fit.”

  “I THINK MY wife hates me,” Arnau replied in answer to Eimerich’s question.

  “Why should Doña Eleonor hate you?” the inquisitor insisted.

  “Because we have no children.”

  “Have you tried? Have you lain with her?”

  Arnau had sworn on the four gospels. “No.”

  The clerk’s quill copied all the words onto the pile of parchments in front of him. Nicolau Eimerich turned to the bishop.

  “Can you name any other enemy?” asked Berenguer d’Eril.

  “The nobles on my lands, in particular the thane of Montbui.” The clerk went on writing. “I have also judged many people as consul of the sea, but I consider I have always been just in my judgments.”

  “Do you have any enemies among members of the Church?”

  Why were they asking him that? He had always got on well with the Church.

  “Apart from some of those here—”

  “The members of this tribunal are impartial,” said Eimerich, interrupting him.

  “I trust they are.” Arnau looked directly at the inquisitor.

  “Anyone else?”

  “As you well know, I have been a moneylender for many years, and perhaps—”

  “It’s not for you,” Eimerich interrupted him again, “to speculate on who might or might not be your enemy, or for what reason. If you have enemies, you are to name them; if not, say nothing. Do you have enemies?”

  “I do not think so.”

  “WHAT THEN?” ALEDlS wanted to know.

  “Then the inquisition proper begins.” Joan thought back to all the village squares, the chambers in rich houses, the sleepless nights ... but a heavy blow on the table in front of him brought him back to reality.

  “What do you mean, Friar?” Mar shouted at him.

  Joan sighed and looked her in the eye.

  “The word ‘inquisition’ means a search. The inquisitor has to search out heresy and sin. Even when there have been accusations, the trial is not based on them or restricted to them. If the person on trial refuses to confess, they will search for the hidden truth.”

  “How will they do that?” asked Mar.

  Before he replied, Joan closed his eyes. “If you’re asking about torture, yes, that is one of the ways.”

  “What will they do to him?”

  “They might decide torture is not necessary.”

  “What will they do to him?” insisted Mar.

  “Why do you want to know?” said Aledis, taking her by the hand. “It will only torment you ... still further.”

  “The law forbids death or the loss of any limb under torture,” Joan explained, “and suspected heretics may be tortured only once.”

  Joan could see how the two women, their faces streaming with tears, sought some comfort in that. Yet he knew that Eimerich had found a way to make a mockery of this legal requirement. “Non ad modum iterationis sed continuationis,” he used to say, with a strange gleam in his eye; “Not repeatedly but continuously,” he translated for the novices who did not yet have a good grasp of Latin.

  “What happens if they tort
ure him and he still doesn’t confess?” asked Mar, after taking a deep breath.

  “His attitude will be taken into account at the moment of handing down a sentence,” Joan said, without further explanation.

  “Will it be Eimerich who sentences him?” asked Aledis.

  “Yes, unless the sentence is life imprisonment or burning at the stake; in that case, he will need the bishop’s approval. And yet,” the friar went on, anticipating the women’s next question, “if the Inquisition considers that it is a complex matter, it has been known for them to consult the boni viri, between thirty and eighty people, not members of the Church, so that they can give their opinion as to the guilt of the accused, and the appropriate sentence. That means the trial drags on for months and months.”

  “During which time Arnau would remain in jail,” said Aledis.

  Joan nodded. The three of them sat in silence. The women were trying to take in everything they had heard; Joan was remembering another of Eimerich’s maxims: “The jail is to be forbidding, placed underground so that no light, and especially no sun or moonlight, may enter. It has to be harsh and tough, in order to shorten the prisoner’s life to the point that he faces death.”

  FILTHY, IN RAGS, Arnau stood in the center of the chamber while the inquisitor and the bishop put their heads together and started whispering. The clerk took advantage of the interruption to tidy his papers. The four Dominicans continued to stare at the prisoner.

  “How are you going to conduct the interrogation?” Berenguer d’Eril asked.

  “We’ll start as usual, and as we progress, we’ll inform him what the charges are.”

  “You’re going to tell him?”

  “Yes. I think he is the sort of person who will react more to dialectic pressure than to a physical threat, although if necessary ...”

  Arnau tried to withstand the looks from the black friars. One, two, three, four ... He shifted his weight onto his other foot and glanced again at the inquisitor and the bishop. They were still whispering to each other. The Dominicans, on the other hand, were observing him closely. The chamber was absolutely quiet apart from the inaudible whispering.

  “He’s growing nervous,” said the bishop, glancing up at Arnau before turning back to the inquisitor.

  “He is someone who is used to giving commands and being obeyed,” said Eimerich. “He needs to understand what the situation is; he has to accept the tribunal and its authority, and submit to it. Only then will he respond to interrogation. Humiliation is the first step.”

  Bishop and inquisitor continued their conversation. Throughout the whole time, the Dominicans did not take their eyes off Arnau. Arnau tried to think of other things: of Mar, or Joan, but whenever he did so, he could feel one of the Dominican’s eyes clawing at him as if he had guessed what he was thinking. He shifted his weight time and again, felt his unruly beard and unkempt hair. In their gleaming gold robes, Berenguer d’Eril and Nicolau Eimerich sat comfortably behind the tribunal bench, glancing at him and continuing their discussion at their own leisure.

  After a long pause, Nicolau Eimerich addressed him in a loud voice: “Arnau Estanyol, I know you have sinned.”

  The trial proper had begun. Arnau took a deep breath.

  “I do not know what you mean. I consider I have always been a good Christian. I have tried—”

  “You yourself have admitted to this tribunal that you have not lain with your wife. Is that the attitude of a good Christian?”

  “I cannot have carnal relations. I do not know if you are aware that I was already married before, and could ... could not have children then either.”

  “Are you telling the tribunal you have a physical problem?” said the bishop.

  “Yes.”

  Eimerich studied Arnau for a few moments. He leaned forward on his elbows and then hid his mouth behind his hands. He turned to the clerk and whispered an order to him.

  “Declaration by Juli Andreu, priest at Santa Maria de la Mar,” the clerk read out from one of his pieces of parchment. “‘I, Juli Andreu, priest at Santa Maria de la Mar, questioned by the grand inquisitor of Catalonia, do declare that approximately in the month of March in the year of our Lord 1364, I held a conversation with Arnau Estanyol, baron of Catalonia, at the request of his wife, Doña Eleonor, baroness, ward of King Pedro. She had expressed to me her concern at her husband’s neglect of his conjugal duties. I declare that Arnau Estanyol confided to me that he was not attracted to his wife, and that his body refused to allow him to enjoy relations with her. He said that it was not a physical problem, but that he could not force his body to desire a woman for whom he felt no attraction. He further said that he knew he was in a state of sin’”—Nicolau Eimerich’s eyes narrowed—“ and that for this reason he prayed as often as he could in Santa Maria and made substantial donations toward the construction of the church.”’

  The chamber fell silent again. Nicolau stared fixedly on Arnau.

  “Do you still affirm that you have a physical problem?” the inquisitor asked finally.

  Arnau remembered his conversation with the priest, but could not remember exactly what... “I cannot recall what I said to him.”

  “Do you admit that you had this conversation with Father Juli Andreu?”

  “Yes.”

  Arnau could hear the clerk’s quill scratching across the parchment.

  “Yet you are calling into question the declaration by a man of God. What possible interest could the priest have in lying about you?”

  “He might be mistaken. I do not remember exactly what was said ...”

  “Are you saying that a priest who was not certain what he heard would make a declaration like the one Father Juli Andreu has made?”

  “All I am saying is that he might be mistaken.”

  “Father Andreu is not an enemy of yours, is he?” intervened the bishop.

  “I have never considered him one.”

  Nicolau spoke to the clerk again.

  “Declaration by Pere Salvete, canon at Santa Maria de la Mar. ‘I, Pere Salvete, canon at Santa Maria de la Mar, questioned by the grand inquisitor of Catalonia, declare that at Easter in the year of our Lord 1367, while I was saying holy mass, the service was interrupted by a number of citizens of Barcelona who alerted us to the theft of a host by heretics. The mass was suspended, and the faithful left the church, with the exception of Arnau Estanyol, consul of the sea.’” “Go with your Jewish lover!” Eleonor’s words rang out in his head once more. Arnau shuddered, exactly as he had when he first heard them. He looked up. Nicolau was staring at him ... and smiling. Had he seen his reaction? The clerk was still reading the declaration: ‘“... and the consul answered that God could not oblige him to lie with her...’”

  Nicolau silenced the scribe. The smile vanished.

  “So is the canon lying too?”

  “Go with your Jewish lover!” Why had he not let the clerk finish? What was Nicolau up to? “Your Jewish lover, your Jewish lover ...” The flames licking at Hasdai’s body, the silence, the enraged mob baying for justice, shouting words that were never properly spoken, Eleonor pointing at him, the bishop standing next to her, staring ... and Raquel clinging to him.

  “Is the canon lying as well?”

  “I have not accused anyone of lying,” said Arnau. He needed time to think.

  “Do you deny God’s commandments? Do you object to the duties demanded of you as a Christian husband?”

  “No ... no ...,” stammered Arnau.

  “Well, then?”

  “Well, then what?” “Do you deny God’s commandments?” Nicolau repeated, his voice rising.

  His words reverberated from the stone walls of the vast chamber. Arnau’s legs felt heavy after all those days in the dungeon ...

  “The tribunal could take your silence for a confession,” said the bishop.

  “No, I don’t deny them.” His legs began to ache. “Why does the Holy Office take such an interest in my relations with Doña Eleonor? Is it
a sin to—”

  “Be careful, Estanyol,” the inquisitor cut in. “It is for the tribunal to ask the questions, not you.”

  “Ask them, then.”

  Nicolau could see Arnau moving unsteadily, shifting his weight from foot to foot.

  “He’s beginning to feel pain,” he whispered in Berenguer d’Eril’s ear.

  “Leave him to think about it,” replied the bishop.

  They began to whisper together again. Arnau could sense the four Dominicans’ eyes fixed on him once more. His legs ached dreadfully, but he had to resist. He could not bow down before Nicolau Eimerich. What would happen if he collapsed to the floor? He needed ... a stone! A stone on his back, a long road to carry a stone for his Virgin. “Where are you now? Can these people really be your representatives? I was little more than a boy, and yet ...” Of course he could resist now. He had walked across all Barcelona with a stone that weighed more than he did, sweating, bleeding, with everyone’s shouts of encouragement ringing in his ears. Was there none of that strength left? Was a fanatic friar going to defeat him? Him? The boy bastaix admired by all the other boys in the city? Step by step, fighting his way along the path to Santa Maria, and then returning home to rest until the next day. His home ... those brown eyes, those big brown eyes. Then all at once, with a shudder that almost knocked him off his feet, he realized that the person who had spoken to him in the dungeon was Aledis.

  When they saw Arnau suddenly straighten, Nicolau Eimerich and Berenguer d’Eril exchanged looks. For the first time, one of the Dominicans’ stares wavered, and he looked toward the center of the table.

  “He’s not going to fall,” the bishop whispered nervously.

  “Where do you satisfy your needs?” Nicolau asked loudly.

  That explained why she had known his name. Her voice ... Yes, that was the voice he had heard so often on the slopes of Montjuic hill.