Cathedral of the Sea

by Ildefonso Falcones

  Aledis looked down at the rushing water and at the boatman waiting unconcernedly on the riverbank. When he smiled a condescending smile at her, he revealed two rows of horribly blackened teeth. If she wanted to continue on her way, Aledis knew she had no choice but to use the services of this grinning fool. She tried to draw the top of her dress tighter over her bosom, but having to carry her bundle made it difficult. She slowed down. She had always been told how gracefully she moved: until now, she had been pleased at the idea. But now: the man was a big black bear! A filthy mess. What if she dropped her bundle? No; he would notice. After all, she had no reason to fear him. His shirt was stiff with dirt. What about his feet? “My God!” His toes were almost invisible under the grime. Slowly. Slowly. “What a dreadful man!” she could not help thinking.

  “I’d like to cross the river,” she said in her bravest voice.

  The boatman gazed up from her breasts to her big brown eyes.

  “Ha,” was all he said, before brazenly staring at her bosom once more.

  “Didn’t you hear me?”

  “Ha,” he repeated, without looking up.

  The only sound came from the water rushing by. Aledis could feel the boatman’s eyes on her. She breathed more rapidly, which served only to make her breasts stand out even more. The man’s bloodshot gaze seemed to penetrate to the deepest corners of her body.

  Aledis was all alone, lost in the Catalan countryside, on the banks of a river she had never heard of and that she’d thought she had already crossed with the traders heading for Ripollet. Alone with a big, strong brute of a fellow who was staring at her in the most disgusting way with bloodshot eyes. Aledis looked all round her. There was not a soul in sight. A few yards to her left, at some distance from the riverbank, stood a rough cabin built of tree trunks thrown together. It looked as vile and filthy as its owner. In among a pile of rubbish near the entrance stood an iron tripod with a pot cooking on it. Aledis could scarcely bear to think what might be inside the pot: the smell it gave off was enough to make her feel nauseous.

  “I have to catch up with the king’s army,” she began to say hesitantly.

  “Ha,” was all she got from him again.

  “My husband is a captain,” she lied, speaking more firmly now, “and I have to tell him I’m pregnant before he goes into combat.”

  “Ha,” said the boatman, showing his blackened teeth once more.

  A trickle of saliva appeared in one corner of his mouth. He wiped it away with his sleeve.

  “Don’t you have anything else to say?”

  “Yes,” he replied. His eyes narrowed. “The king’s captains usually die quickly.”

  Aledis did not see it coming. The boatman hit her swiftly and powerfully across the side of the face. Aledis spun around and fell at the feet of her aggressor.

  The man bent down, grabbed her by the hair, and started dragging her toward his hut. Aledis dug her fingernails into the flesh of his hand, but he kept on dragging her along. She tried to get to her feet, but stumbled and fell again. She struggled, and threw herself against his legs, trying to stop him. The boatman evaded her clutching hands, and kicked her in the pit of the stomach.

  Inside the hut, as she tried to get her breath back, Aledis felt earth and mud scraping against her as the ferryman discharged his lust.

  WHILE HE WAITED for the hosts and other armies to assemble, and for their supplies to arrive, King Pedro established his headquarters at an inn in Figueres. This was a town that sent representatives to the Catalan parliament, close to the border with Roussillon. Infante Don Pedro and his knights gathered in Pereleda, while infante Don Jaime and the other noblemen—the lord of Eixèrica, Count Luna, Blasco de Alagó, Juan Ximénez de Urrea, Felipe de Castro, and Juan Ferrández de Luna, among others—made camp outside the town walls of Figueres.

  Arnau Estanyol was among the royal army. At the age of twenty-two, he had never experienced anything like it. The royal camp, with more than two thousand men still excited by their victory in Mallorca, and keen for more fighting, violence, and booty, had nothing to do but await the order to march on Roussillon. It was the opposite of the quiet routine he knew from the bastaixos in Barcelona. Except for the periods when they were receiving training or practicing with their weapons, life in the camp revolved around gambling, listening to the tales of war that the veterans used to terrify the newcomers with, petty thefts, and quarrels.

  Arnau was in the habit of strolling round the camp with three other youths who were from Barcelona and were as unused to the ways of war as he. They stared in admiration at horses and suits of armor, which the squires kept spotless at all times and displayed outside their tents in a kind of competition to show whose arms and equipment could shine the most. But if these steeds and armor impressed them, they could not help but be sickened by the amount of filth, the dreadful smells, and the clouds of insects attracted by the mounds of waste created by the thousands of men and animals. The royal officials had ordered that several long, deep trenches be dug to make latrines, as far as possible from the camp and close to a running stream intended to carry away the soldiers’ waste. But the stream was almost dry, and the refuse piled up every day and rotted, giving off a sickly, unbearable stench.

  One morning when Arnau and his new companions were walking among the tents, they saw a knight on horseback returning from training. The horse was anxious to get back to its stable for a well-earned feed and to have the heavy armor removed from its breast and flanks. It snorted, raising its legs and kicking out, while the rider tried to control it and reach his tent without doing any damage to the soldiers or gear strewn about the lanes that had been created between the rows of tents. Held in check by a fierce iron bit, the huge, powerful animal chose instead to perform a spectacular dance, spraying anyone and anything it met with the white foaming sweat lathering its sides.

  Arnau and his companions tried to get as far as possible out of the way, but unfortunately just at that moment the horse lunged sideways and knocked over Jaume, the smallest of the group. He was not hurt, and the rider did not even notice, continuing on his way back to his tent. But Jaume had fallen onto another group of soldiers, who were busy gaming with dice. One of them had already lost all he could hope to gain from whatever future campaigns King Pedro undertook, and was looking for a fight. He stood up, more than ready to vent the anger he felt toward his gaming colleagues on poor Jaume. He was a strongly built man with long dirty hair and beard. The desperate, frustrated look on his face, which came from losing steadily hour upon hour, would have deterred even the bravest of foes.

  The soldier lifted Jaume clear off the ground until he was level with his face. The poor lad did not even have time to realize what had happened to him. In the space of a few seconds, he had been knocked down by a horse, fallen into a dice game, and now he was being attacked by a great roaring brute who shook him and then all of a sudden punched him so hard in the face that blood started to trickle from his mouth.

  Arnau saw Jaume dangling from the man’s grasp.

  “Let go of him, you swine!” he shouted, surprising even himself.

  The others rapidly moved away from Arnau and the soldier. Jaume, who had been so astounded at Arnau’s words that he had stopped struggling, suddenly found himself on his backside on the ground as the veteran dropped him and turned to face the person who had been foolish enough to insult him. Soon, Arnau found himself at the center of a circle of onlookers curious to see what would happen between him and this enraged soldier. If only he had not insulted him ... Why had he called him a swine?

  “It wasn’t his fault... ,” Arnau stammered, pointing to Jaume, who still had little idea of what was going on.

  The soldier said nothing, but charged straight at Arnau like a bull. His head struck Arnau in the midriff and sent him flying several yards, right through the ring of spectators. Arnau’s chest ached as if it had exploded. The foul-smelling air he had got used to breathing seemed suddenly to have disappeared. He gasped for
breath and tried to get to his feet, but a kick in the face sent him sprawling again. His head throbbed violently as he struggled again to breathe in, but before he could do so, another kick, this time to his kidneys, flattened him once more. After that, the blows rained down on him, and all Arnau could do was roll into a ball on the ground.

  When the madman finally paused, Arnau felt as if his body had been smashed to pieces, and yet despite all the pain, he also thought he could hear a voice. Still curled in a ball, he tried to make out what it was saying.

  He heard it quite clearly, speaking directly to him.

  First once, then over and over again. He opened his eyes and saw the circle of people around him, all of them laughing and pointing at him. It was his father’s words that were resounding in his ears: “I gave up all I had for you to be free.” In his befuddled mind he saw images and had flashes of memory: his father hanging from the end of a rope in Plaza del Blat ... He got to his feet, his face a bloody mess. He remembered the first stone he had carried to the Virgin of the Sea ... The veteran had turned his back on him. Arnau recalled the effort it had taken to lift the stone onto his back ... the pain and suffering, and then his pride when he unloaded it outside the church ...

  “Swine!”

  The bearded veteran whirled round.

  “Stupid peasant!” he roared again, before launching himself full-length at Arnau.

  No stone could have weighed as much as that swine did. No stone ... Arnau stood up to the man’s charge, grappled with him, and the two men fell onto the sandy ground. Arnau managed to get to his feet before him, but instead of punching him, he grabbed him by his hair and his leather belt, lifted him above his head like a rag doll, and threw him right above the heads of the watching circle.

  The bearded veteran fell in a heap on top of them.

  But the soldier was not daunted by this show of Arnau’s strength. He was used to fighting, and in a few seconds he was again in front of Arnau, who was standing with feet spread wide in order to meet his charge. This time, however, instead of flinging himself on his opponent, the soldier tried to punch him, but once more Arnau was too quick for him: he parried the blow by grasping the man’s forearm, then spun round quickly and sent him crashing to the ground again, several yards away. This did not hurt the soldier, and so again and again he returned to the charge.

  Finally, just when the soldier was expecting him to throw him off once more, Arnau instead punched him straight in the face, putting all his pent-up rage into the blow. The soldier fell at his feet, knocked cold. Arnau wanted to clutch his own hand to try to stop the stinging pain he could feel in his knuckles, but instead he stood staring defiantly at the small crowd that had gathered, his fist raised as though he might strike again. “Don’t get up,” he said silently to the fallen man, “for God’s sake, don’t get up.”

  The veteran tried drunkenly to stagger to his feet. “Don’t do it!” Arnau put his foot in the other man’s face and pushed him to the ground. “Don’t get up, you whoreson.” The soldier lay still, until he was dragged away by his friends.

  “You there!” The voice was one of command. Arnau turned and saw himself confronted by the knight who had caused the fight in the first place. He was still in full armor. “Come over here.”

  Arnau went over to him, secretly nursing his bruised hand.

  “My name is Eiximèn d’Esparca, King Pedro the Third’s shield bearer. I want you to serve under me. Go and see my attendants.”

  28

  THE THREE YOUNG women fell silent and looked at one another as Aledis threw herself on the stew like a starving animal. She kneeled down and scooped up the meat and vegetables directly from the cooking pot, without even pausing for breath, although she did keep an eye on them over the food. The youngest of the three, who had blond curls that cascaded down over a sky blue robe, twisted her lips at the other two: which of them had not been in the same situation? she seemed to be saying. Her companions exchanged knowing glances with her, and all three moved away from Aledis.

  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.