Cathedral of the Sea

by Ildefonso Falcones

  He opened the window wider and slipped inside. Abraham Levi’s fictitious deposit had allowed Arnau to put the money to good use and earn healthy profits, but each time he did so, he made sure that a quarter of the earnings were noted down in Levi’s name. Guillem waited until his eyes grew used to the darkness and the moonlight could guide him.

  Guillem knelt by the wall. It was the second stone from the right. He began to pull at it. He had never confessed to Arnau about that first operation he had done behind his back, but in his name. The stone would not budge. “Don’t worry,” he remembered Hasdai telling Arnau once when he had mentioned the Jew, “I have instructions for the deposit to remain as it is. Don’t worry about it.” When Arnau turned to look at them, Hasdai stared at Guillem, who limited himself to shrugging and sighing. The stone began to move. No. Arnau would never have used money that came from the sale of slaves. The stone came away, and behind it Guillem soon found the document, carefully wrapped in a cloth. He did not bother reading it, because he remembered exactly what it said. He pushed the stone back and went back to the window. He could hear nothing unusual outside, so he slipped out again, and left Arnau’s countinghouse.

  55

  THE SOLDIERS HAD to come into the dungeon to get him. Two of rhem lifted him under the arms and dragged him out, while Arnau JL struggled to stand. His ankles banged against the stairs up to the palace; he did not have the strength to make his own way. He did not even notice the monks and priests peering at him as he was led to face Nicolau again. Arnau had not been able to sleep for a moment: how could Joan have denounced him?

  When he had been thrown back into the dungeon the previous evening, Arnau had wept, cried out, and flung himself at the wall. Why Joan? And if Joan had denounced him, what role was Aledis playing in all this? And the old woman in the dungeon with him? Aledis had reason to hate him: he had abandoned her and then refused to receive her. Could she be in league with Joan? Had they really gone to fetch Mar? If that were so, why hadn’t she visited him? Was it so hard to bribe a simple jailer?

  Francesca listened to him weeping and crying out. When she heard her son in such pain, her body shrank still further. She would have loved to look at him and respond, to console him even if she had to lie. “You won’t be able to stand it,” she had warned Aledis. But what about her? Would she be able to bear this situation for much longer? Arnau went on howling his anguish to the world, and Francesca crept closer to the dank walls of the prison.

  THE DOORS TO the chamber opened and Arnau was pushed in. The members of the tribunal were all assembled. The soldiers dragged him to the center of the room and let him go: Arnau fell to his knees with his legs splayed out beneath him. He heard Nicolau’s voice breaking the silence, but could not understand a word of what he was saying. What did he care what this friar could do to him, when his own brother had already passed sentence on him? He had no one. He had nothing.

  “Make no mistake,” the bailiff had told him when he tried to buy him off with a small fortune, “you don’t have any money anymore.” Money! Money had been the reason the king had married him to Eleonor ; money was behind his wife’s accusations; it was money that had led to his imprisonment. Could it have been money that led Joan to... ?”

  “Bring in the mother!”

  The barked command stirred a response in Arnau’s befuddled brain.

  MAR AND ALEDIS, with Joan a few paces away, were waiting outside the bishop’s palace in Plaza Nova. “The infante will see my master this evening,” was all that one of Guillem’s slaves had told them the day before. This morning, at first light, the same slave had appeared and told them his master wanted them to go to the Plaza Nova.

  So the three of them waited, wondering what reasons there could be for Guillem to call them there like that.

  ARNAU HEARD THE doors opening behind him. Then he heard the soldiers come back in and approach the center of the chamber close by him. After that, they marched back to stand guard at the doors.

  He could sense her presence. He saw her bare, cracked feet, filthy and bleeding. Nicolau and the bishop smiled when they saw Arnau apparently fascinated by his mother’s feet. He turned to look at her properly. Although he was on his knees and she was standing, she was so shrunken that she was only a hand taller than he. The time she had spent in the dungeons had left its mark: her sparse gray hair was matted and stiff; her profile as she stared at the tribunal bench was a mass of slack skin. The eye in the side of her face he could see was sunken so deep into what looked like purple, mottled flesh that Arnau could scarcely make it out.

  “Francesca Esteve,” said Nicolau, “do you swear on the four gospels?”

  The old woman’s strong, firm voice took everyone by surprise. “I swear,” she said, “but you are wrong; my name is not Francesca Esteve.”

  “What is it then?” asked Nicolau.

  “My name is Francesca, but not Esteve. It’s Ribes. Francesca Ribes,” she said, raising her voice.

  “Do we have to remind you that you are under oath?” the bishop said.

  “No. On my oath, I am telling the truth. My name is Francesca Ribes.”

  “Are you not the daughter of Pere and Francesca Esteve?” Nicolau insisted.

  “I never knew who my parents were.”

  “Did you contract marriage with Bernat Estanyol in the lands of the lord of Navarcles?”

  Arnau stiffened. Bernat Estanyol?

  “No. I have never been in such a place and have never been married.”

  “And did you not bear a son by the name of Arnau Estanyol?”

  “No. I know of no such Arnau Estanyol.”

  Arnau turned to her again.

  Nicolau Eimerich and Berenguer d’Eril whispered together. Then the inquisitor addressed the clerk.

  “Listen,” he told Francesca.

  “Declaration by Jaume de Bellera, lord of Navarcles,” the clerk began to read.

  When he heard the name Bellera, Arnau’s eyes narrowed. His father had told him about that family. He listened closely to the supposed story of his life, the story cut short by his father’s death. The way his mother had been called to the castle to suckle Llorenç de Bellera’s new son. A witch? He heard Jaume de Bellera’s version of how his mother had run away when soon afterward he had begun to suffer from the Devil’s sickness.

  “Arnau Estanyol’s father, Bernat,” the clerk went on, “succeeded in eluding the guard after he had killed an innocent youth, and then abandoned his lands and fled to Barcelona with his son. Once in the city, they were taken in by the family of Grau Puig, the merchant. The witness is aware that the witch became a common whore. Arnau Estanyol is the son of a witch and a murderer.”

  “What do you have to say to that?” Nicolau asked Francesca.

  “That you’ve got the wrong whore,” the old woman said coldly.

  “You!” shouted the bishop, pointing an accusing finger at her. “How dare you challenge the Inquisition’s evidence?”

  “I’m not here for being a whore,” Francesca said, “and that’s not what I’m being tried for. Saint Augustine wrote that only God can judge fallen women.”

  The bishop went bright red with rage. “How dare you quote Saint Augustine? How ... ?”

  Berenguer d’Eril went on ranting and raving, but Arnau was no longer listening. Saint Augustine wrote that God would judge fallen women. Saint Augustine said ... Years ago ... in an inn at Figueres, he had heard those words from a common whore ... Hadn’t she been called Francesca? Saint Augustine wrote ... Could it be?

  Arnau turned to look at Francesca: he had seen her only twice in his life, but both were crucial moments. Everyone in the tribunal saw how he reacted to her.

  “Look at your son!” shouted Eimerich. “Do you deny you are his mother?”

  Arnau and Francesca heard his accusation reverberate from the chamber walls. He was on his knees, staring at her; she was looking ahead of her, straight at the grand inquisitor.

  “Look at him!” Nicolau rag
ed, pointing at Arnau.

  Faced with all the hatred of that accusatory finger, Francesca’s entire body quivered. Only Arnau noticed how the skin of her neck pulled back almost imperceptibly. She did not take her eyes off the inquisitor.

  “You will confess,” Nicolau assured her, rolling his tongue round the word. “I can assure you, you will confess.”

  “VIA FORA!”

  The cry disturbed the peace and quiet of Plaza Nova. A boy ran across the square, shouting the call to arms: “Via fora! Via fora!” Aledis and Mar looked at each other, and then at Joan.

  “The bells aren’t ringing,” he replied with a shrug.

  Yet the cry of “Via fora!” echoed around the city. Curious citizens came out into Plaza del Blat, expecting to see the Sant Jordi banner next to the stone in the center. Instead of that, they found two bastaixos armed with crossbows, who led them to Santa Maria.

  In the square outside the church, the Virgin of the Sea had been hoisted on her dais onto the shoulders of more bastaixos, who were waiting for the people of the city to gather round. Beside her, the guild aldermen had hoisted their banner and were receiving the steady stream of people coming down Calle de la Mar. One of them had the key to the Sacred Urn round his neck. The crowd round the Virgin grew and grew. To one side, outside Arnau’s countinghouse, Guillem was watching and listening closely.

  “The Inquisition has seized a citizen of Barcelona, the consul of the sea,” one of the guild aldermen explained.

  “But the Inquisition ...,” someone said.

  “The Inquisition is not part of our city.” One of the aldermen interrupted him. “It is not subject to the king either. It does not take orders from the Council of a Hundred, or the city magistrate, or the bailiff. None of them chooses its members—that is done by the pope, who is a foreigner and is interested only in our money. How can they accuse someone who has devoted his life to the Virgin of the Sea of heresy?”

  “They only want our consul’s money!” shouted someone in the crowd.

  “They’re lying so they can get their hands on our money!”

  “They hate the Catalan people,” another alderman said.

  The news spread like wildfire among all those gathered in the square. Angry shouts could soon be heard along Calle de la Mar.

  Guillem saw the aldermen explaining what was going on to the leaders of the other guilds. Who wasn’t fearful about what might happen to their money? Although of course the Inquisition was to be feared as well. It was an absurd accusation ...

  “We have to defend our privileges,” shouted one of those who had been talking to the bastaixos.

  The crowd grew agitated. Soon swords, crossbows, and fists were being waved in the air, to more cries of, “Via fora!”

  The noise grew louder and louder. Guillem saw some city councillors arrive. He immediately went over to the group talking together round the statue.

  “What about the king’s soldiers?” he heard one of the newcomers ask.

  The alderman repeated the exact words that Guillem had suggested to him: “Let’s go to Plaza del Blat and see what the magistrate does.”

  Guillem left them. For a brief moment, he stared at the small stone image the bastaixos were carrying. “Help him!” he said in silent prayer.

  The group set off. “To Plaza del Blat!” was the cry.

  Guillem joined the stream of people flocking back up Calle de la Mar to the square where the magistrate’s palace stood. Few among them knew that the aim of the host was to determine what attitude the magistrate would adopt, so that while the Virgin on her dais was placed in the center of the square where usually the banner of Sant Jordi and the other guild banners would hang, Guillem had no difficulty in getting close to the palace itself.

  In the center of the square, the councillors and guild aldermen gathered round the Virgin and the pennant; all had their eyes fixed on the palace. When the rest of the crowd realized what was happening, they all fell silent and turned toward the palace as well. Guillem could feel the tension rising. Had the infante kept his side of the bargain? The king’s soldiers were lined up, swords drawn, between the crowd and the palace. The magistrate appeared at one of the windows, squinted down at the people gathered below him, and disappeared again. A few moments later, a captain appeared in the square. Thousands of pairs of eyes, Guillem’s included, turned to him.

  “The king cannot intervene in the affairs of the city of Barcelona,” the captain shouted. “It is for the city to decide whether to call the host or not.”

  With that, he ordered the line of soldiers to withdraw.

  The crowd watched as the soldiers filed out of the square and disappeared beneath the old city gate. Before they had all left the square, a huge cry of, “Via fora!” rent the air. Guillem trembled.

  JUST AS NICOLAU Eimerich was about to order that Francesca be taken back to the dungeons to be tortured, the sound of bells interrupted him. First came San Jaume, the call for the host to gather, and then one by one all the other church bells in the city began to chime. Most of the priests in Barcelona’s churches were faithful followers of Ramon Llull’s doctrines, and so were not opposed to the lesson the city intended to teach the Inquisition.

  “The host?” the grand inquisitor asked inquiringly of Berenguer d’Eril.

  The bishop shrugged.

  The Virgin of the Sea still stood in the center of Plaza del Blat, waiting for the banners of all the guilds to join that of the bastaix. Already, though, many people were heading for the bishop’s palace.

  Aledis, Mar, and Joan could hear them approaching. Then all of a sudden, cries of “Via fora” began to fill Plaza Nova.

  Nicolau Eimerich and Berenguer d’Eril went over to one of the leaded windows. When they opened it, they saw more than a hundred people down below, shouting and waving their weapons in the air. The shouts grew louder when they spied the two provosts.

  “What’s going on?” Nicolau asked the guard, starting back from the window.

  “Barcelona has come to set its consul of the sea free,” a boy shouted when Joan asked the same question.

  Aledis and Mar closed their eyes and set their mouths in a firm line. They felt for each other’s hand, and stared up with tear-filled eyes at the window that had remained half-open.

  “Go and fetch the magistrate!” Nicolau ordered the captain of the guard.

  With no one paying any attention to him, Arnau got up from his knees and took Francesca by the arm.

  “What made you tremble?” he asked her.

  Francesca just managed to stop a teardrop from falling down her cheek, but she could not prevent her mouth from twisting in pain.

  “Forget me,” she said, her voice choking with emotion.

  The uproar outside the windows made all further conversation or thought almost impossible. The host had assembled and was heading for Plaza Nova. It passed beneath the old city gate, and on past the magistrate’s palace. He watched it go by from one of his windows. Then the men marched along Calle de los Seders up to Calle Boqueria and the church of San Jaume, whose bells were still ringing out, and then up Calle del Bisbe to the bishop’s palace.

  Still clutching each other by the hand, Mar and Aledis rushed to the end of the street. Everyone was pressed up against the walls to leave room for the host to go by: in the vanguard was the banner of the bastaix, then the Virgin under her canopy, and behind her in a riot of color came the banners of all the other guilds of the city.

  THE MAGISTRATE REFUSED to see the Inquisition’s envoy.

  “The king cannot interfere in the host of Barcelona’s affairs,” the king’s captain told him.

  “But they will attack the bishop’s palace,” said the other man, still panting.

  The royal officer shrugged. “Do you use that sword to torture with?” he was on the point of asking him. The Inquisition envoy saw his look, and the two men glared at each other.

  “I’d like to see you measure it against a Castillian blade or a Moorish sc
imitar,” the soldier said, spitting between the other man’s feet.

  Meanwhile, the Virgin’s statue had reached the bishop’s palace, swaying on the shoulders of the bastaixos, who had been forced almost to run up the street to keep pace with the enraged people of Barcelona.

  Somebody threw a stone at the leaded windows.

  This one missed, but not the next one, or many of the others that followed.

  Nicolau Eimerich and Berenguer d’Eril rushed away from the windows. Arnau was still waiting for an answer from Francesca. Neither of them moved.

  Several people started banging on the palace doors. A youth with a crossbow slung over his back climbed up the wall, cheered on by the crowd below. Others followed suit.

  “That’s enough!” shouted one of the city councillors, trying to push the people away from the door. “Enough!” he said again. “Nobody is to attack without the city’s approval.”

  The men stopped hammering on the door.

  “Nobody can attack the building without an order from the councillors and the guild aldermen,” the official repeated.

  The people nearest the door fell silent, and word ran through the square. The Virgin steadied, and silence fell throughout all the host. Everyone in the square was staring up at the six men who had scaled the palace walls; the first of them was already level with the smashed window of the tribunal chamber.