Cathedral of the Sea

by Ildefonso Falcones

  “Why is it called Elna the Proud?” one of the veterans interrupted him.

  “Yes ... and why are we showing it so much respect? Why don’t they even bother to shut the gates?”

  The soldier stared at the city for a while long before answering.

  “Elna the Proud weighs on our consciences ... as Catalans,” he explained. “They know we won’t dare touch them.” With that, he fell silent. Arnau had learned to respect the experienced soldiers’ ways. He knew that if he hurried him, the man would look down on him and refuse to say anything more. All the veterans liked to take their time telling their stories and reminiscences, whether they were true or false, had actually happened or not. And they liked to build up the suspense. In his own good time, the soldier continued his explanation: “In the war against the French, when Elna was our possession, Pedro the Great promised to defend it. He sent a detachment of Catalan knights to do so. But they betrayed the town, fleeing at night and leaving it at the enemy’s mercy.” The veteran spat into the fire. “The French profaned the churches, killed the children by beating their heads against the walls, raped the women, and executed all the men ... all except one. That’s why the massacre at Elna is on our consciences. No Catalan would dare touch the town.”

  Arnau looked again at the open gates of Elna the Proud. Then, as he gazed at the campfires of the Catalan forces, he could see that men round each of them were also staring down at Elna in silence.

  “Whose life did they spare?” he asked, breaking his own rules about not being impatient.

  The veteran studied him through the flames.

  “A man called Bastard de Rosselló.” This time, Arnau waited for him to go on. “Years later, that same man guided the French troops through the La Macana pass to invade Catalonia.”

  THE ARMY SLEPT in the shadow of the town of Elna.

  A short way from them, the camp of hundreds of followers also slept. Francesca gazed at Aledis. Was this the right place? Elna’s history had been told in this camp too, and an unusual silence reigned. Francesca had found herself looking time and again at the town’s open gates. Yes, they were in inhospitable territory; no Catalan would ever be well received in Elna or the surrounding area. Aledis was a long way from home. All it needed was for her to feel she was completely alone.

  “Your Arnau is dead,” Francesca told her straightaway after she had sent for her.

  Aledis crumpled before her eyes: Francesca could see her visibly shrink inside her green robe. Aledis raised her hands to her face, and the strange silence was broken by the sound of her sobbing.

  “How ... how did it happen?” she asked after a while.

  “You lied to me,” was all Francesca said coldly.

  Shaking and with eyes brimming with tears, Aledis gazed at the older woman and then looked down.

  “You lied to me,” Francesca repeated. Aledis said nothing. “You want to know how it happened? Your husband—the real one—the tanner, killed him.”

  Pau? That was impossible. Aledis looked up. It was impossible that an old man like him ...

  “He turned up at the royal camp and accused Arnau of abducting you,” Francesca went on, disturbing Aledis’s thoughts. She wanted to observe her reactions, especially as Arnau had told her she was afraid of her husband. “He denied it, and your husband challenged him.” Aledis tried to interrupt—how could Pau challenge anyone? “He paid a captain to fight on his behalf,” Francesca insisted, forcing Aledis to remain quiet. “Didn’t you know? When someone is too old to fight, he can pay somebody else to do it for him. Your Arnau died defending your honor.”

  Aledis grew desperate. Francesca could see her whole body quake. Her legs gradually gave way, and she sank to her knees on the ground in front of the older woman. Francesca was ruthless.

  “I’ve heard that your husband is looking for you.”

  Aledis covered her face with her hands again.

  “You’ll have to leave us. Antonia will give you your old clothes back.”

  That was what she had been after: the look of fear and panic on Aledis’s face!

  A host of questions flooded Aledis’s mind. What could she do? Where could she go? Barcelona was at the far end of the earth, and besides, what did she have left there? Arnau was dead! The journey from Barcelona to Figueres flashed through her mind, and she felt all the horror, humiliation, and shame in her every bone. And now Pau was looking for her!

  “No ... ,” Aledis stammered out, “I couldn’t do that!”

  “I don’t need other people’s problems,” Francesca told her.

  “Protect me!” Aledis begged her. “I’ve nowhere to go. I have no one to turn to.”

  She was sobbing out loud, still on her knees in front of Francesca. She did not dare look up.

  “I can’t. You’re pregnant.”

  “That was a lie too,” wailed the girl.

  She crawled over to Francesca’s legs. Francesca did not move.

  “What would you do in return?”

  “Whatever you wish!” Aledis cried. Francesca hid her smile. That was the promise she had been waiting for. How often had she wrung a similar one out of girls like Aledis? “Whatever you wish,” Aledis said again. “Protect me, hide me from my husband, and I’ll do whatever you wish.”

  “You know what we are,” the other woman insisted.

  What did that matter? Arnau was dead. She had nothing. She had no one left ... apart from a husband who would stone her if he found her.

  “Please, I beg you, hide me. I’ll do whatever you want!”

  FRANCESCA ORDERED ALEDIS not to go with any of the soldiers; Arnau was well-known in the royal army.

  “You’re to work in secret,” she told her the next day, as they prepared to move on. “I wouldn’t want your husband ...” Aledis agreed before she had even finished. “You mustn’t let yourself be seen until the war is over.” Aledis nodded again.

  That same night, Francesca sent Arnau a message: “It’s all arranged. She won’t bother you anymore.”

  THE NEXT DAY, instead of heading for Perpignan, where King Jaime of Mallorca was installed, Pedro the Third decided to lead his army toward the coast and the town of Canet. Here, Ramon, the local viscount, was honor bound to hand over his castle because of the vassalage he had sworn after the conquest of Mallorca, when the Catalan king had allowed him to go free when he had taken Bellver castle.

  So it turned out. Viscount Canet handed over his castle to King Pedro, and the army was able to rest and eat well thanks to the generosity of the local peasantry, who were counting on the fact that the royal army would soon move on to Perpignan. At the same time, King Pedro linked up with his navy.

  While he was at Canet, he received yet another mediator. This time it was no less a figure than a cardinal, the second one who had interceded on Jaime of Mallorca’s behalf. King Pedro dismissed this emissary as well, and set about studying the best way to lay siege to the city of Perpignan. While the king waited for more supplies from the sea, the six days that the army was camped at Canet saw them attacking the castles and fortresses that lay between the coast and Perpignan.

  In the name of the king, the Manresa host took the castle of Santa Maria de la Mar. Other companies assaulted the castle at Castellarnau Sobirà, and Eiximèn d’Esparca, with his Almogavars and other knights, besieged and finally took Castell- Rosselló.

  Castell-Rosselló was not a simple frontier post like Bellaguarda. It was one of the forward defenses of the Roussillon capital. Outside its walls the same war cries of the Almogavars were heard, and the same crash of their spears and daggers. This time they were reinforced by the bloodcurdling shouts of several hundred more soldiers, all of them anxious for combat. The fortress proved much harder to overrun than Bellaguarda: the fight for the walls was bitter, and several battering rams had to be swung into action to force a way through.

  The crossbowmen were the last to rush in through the gaps in the defenses. This was nothing like the victory at Bellaguarda. Sold
iers and civilians, including women and children, were ready to defend the castle with their lives. Arnau was soon involved in vicious hand-to-hand fighting.

  He dropped his crossbow and drew his knife. All around him, hundreds of men were locked in combat. The whistle of a sword blade jolted him back to his own situation. He jumped aside instinctively, and the sword skimmed past him. With his free hand, Arnau grabbed the wrist holding the weapon and lunged with his dagger. He did this mechanically, as he had been taught during the endless lessons Eiximèn d’Esparca’s captain had given him. He had been taught to fight; he had been shown how to kill; and yet nobody had shown him how to thrust a knife into another man’s abdomen. His adversary’s chain mail deflected the blade, and although still held by the arm, the man succeeded in whirling his sword and wounding Arnau in the shoulder.

  It was only a second, but it was long enough for Arnau to realize he had to dispatch the man as quickly as possible. He gripped his dagger even more firmly and jabbed it under the chain mail, into his enemy’s stomach. The defender was still brandishing his sword, but with less strength now. Arnau thrust the dagger upward. He could feel the warmth of the man’s insides on his hand. He lifted him off the ground; the sword fell from his grasp. Arnau found himself staring face-to-face at the soldier. The man’s lips were moving, only a few inches from his own face. Was he trying to tell him something ? Over the din of battle, Arnau could hear his death rattle. What was he thinking? Could he see death coming? As if his bulging eyes had sent him a warning, Arnau wheeled round just as another defender was about to leap on him.

  He did not hesitate. Arnau’s dagger sliced the air, then through his new adversary’s throat. Arnau stopped thinking. It was he who looked for more death. He fought; he shouted at the top of his lungs. He thrust and sank his blade into the flesh of his enemies not once but many times, without paying any attention to their faces or their pain.

  He killed.

  When it was all over and the defenders of Castell- Rosselló had surrendered, Arnau looked down at himself. He was spattered with blood, and his whole body was trembling from his exertions.

  He looked round him: the heaps of bodies reminded him of the battle. He had not had the time to see any of his adversaries as people. He had not shared their pain or taken pity on their souls. Now, though, the faces he had not seen through their veil of blood came back to haunt him, claiming respect for the vanquished. Arnau would often remember the blurred features of all those he had killed.

  IN MID-AUGUST, THE royal army made camp once more between Canet castle and the coast. Arnau had stormed Castell-Rosselló on the fourth of August. Two days later, King Pedro ordered his troops to strike camp, and since the city of Perpignan refused to pay homage to him, the Catalan armies laid waste to the surrounding area: Basoles, Vernet, Soles, San Esteve ... They uprooted vines, olive groves, and all other trees in their way. The only ones they did not touch were fig trees: was this merely a whim on the part of King Pedro? They burned mills and crops, destroyed farmland and villages, but never once laid siege to the capital, Perpignan, where King Jaime had sought refuge.

  15 August 1343

  Solemn campaign mass

  DRAWN UP ON the beach, the entire royal army paid homage to the Virgin of the Sea. Pedro the Third had yielded to the pressure from the Holy Father and agreed to call a truce with Jaime of Mallorca. The news ran through the ranks like wildfire. Like most of the others, Arnau could not concentrate on what the priest was saying in the mass: they all stood sad and contrite. This time, the Virgin was no consolation to Arnau. He had killed. He had chopped down trees. He had destroyed vines and crops before the terrified gaze of peasants and their children. He had helped raze entire villages, the homes of honest people. King Jaime had secured his truce; King Pedro had given way. Arnau remembered the priests haranguing them in Santa Maria de la Mar: “Catalonia needs you! King Pedro needs you! Go to war!” What war? There had only been killing. Skirmishes in the countryside when the ones to suffer had been ordinary people and loyal soldiers ... and children, who would go hungry the next winter when the supplies of grain ran out. What war? The one that bishops and cardinals had fought, acting as go-betweens for sly, scheming kings? The priest went on with his homily, but Arnau was not listening. Why had he been made to kill? What use were all those dead?

  The mass ended. The soldiers split into small groups.

  “What about the booty we were promised?”

  “Perpignan is rich, very rich,” Arnau heard someone say.

  “How is the king going to pay his soldiers now, when he did not have enough before?”

  Arnau strolled among the different groups. What did he care about booty? What was important to him was the way the children had looked at him, like the one who, clutching his sister’s hand, had watched fearfully as Arnau and other soldiers trampled their vegetables and scattered the grain that was meant to feed them that winter. “Why?” his innocent eyes seemed to implore. “What harm have we done you?” The children had probably been left in charge of the vegetable patch: they stood rooted to the spot, tears rolling down their cheeks, until the great Catalan army had finished destroying their meager possessions. As they left, Arnau did not have the heart to cast them a backward glance.

  The army was going home. The columns of soldiers filtered along the roads of Catalonia, still followed by all the hangers-on, prostitutes, and traders who had also seen their dreams of riches dashed.

  BARCELONA DREW NEARER. The different hosts dispersed to return to the towns they had come from. Others were to cross the city. Arnau noticed that, like his companions, he had a new spring in his step. Some of the soldiers were smiling openly: they were going home. Maria’s face flashed into his mind. “All arranged,” he had been told. “Aledis will not trouble you anymore.” That was all he wanted, that was what had driven him to war.

  Maria’s face smiled at him.

  31

  The end of March 1348

  Barcelona

  DAY WAS DAWNING. Arnau and the other bastaixos were waiting AY the water’s edge to unload a Mallorcan galley that had arrived during the night. The guild aldermen were organizing their men. The sea was calm, with the waves gently lapping the shore, calling the inhabitants of Barcelona to start their day. The sun’s rays were beginning to pick out colors on the rippling waters, and while the bastaixos waited for the boatmen to arrive with the ship’s cargo, they allowed themselves to be carried away by the magic of the moment, gazing at the distant horizon or mentally following the dancing waves.

  “That’s odd,” said one of them. “They’re not unloading the ship.”

  They all stared out at the galley. The boatmen had drawn alongside, but some of them were already heading back to the shore with empty vessels. Others were shouting to the sailors on board, some of whom dived into the sea and clambered aboard their craft. But no one was unloading any of the merchandise from the galley.

  “The plague!” the first boatmen’s cries could be heard on the beach long before they landed. “The plague has reached Mallorca!”

  Arnau shuddered. How could such a beautiful sea be bringing such dreadful news? If it had been a gray, stormy day ... but everything about this morning had seemed bathed in magic. For months there had been talk of the plague in Barcelona: it was ravaging the Orient and now was spreading west; whole communities had been wiped out.

  “Perhaps it won’t reach Barcelona,” some said. “To do that, it would have to cross all the Mediterranean.”

  “The sea will protect us,” said others.

  For several months, everyone had wanted to believe that the plague would not reach Barcelona.

  Mallorca, thought Arnau. The plague had reached Mallorca: it had crossed league upon league of the Mediterranean.

  “The plague!” the boatmen repeated when they reached the shore.

  The bastaixos crowded round them to hear the news. The galley captain was in one of the boats.

  “Take me to the magistrate
and the city councillors,” he said, leaping ashore. “Quick about it!”

  The aldermen did as he asked; the other bastaixos pressed round to hear what the newcomers had to say. “Hundreds are dying,” they were told. “It’s terrible. No one can do anything. Children, women, men, rich and poor, nobles and common people ... even animals are victims. The bodies are piling up in the streets and rotting. The authorities are at their wits’ end. People die within two days, howling with pain.” Some of the bastaixos ran off toward the city, shouting and waving their arms in the air. Arnau stayed to listen, horrified by what he heard. They said that those who caught the plague developed huge purulent ganglions on their necks, armpits, or groins, which grew until they burst.

  The news spread quickly through the city. Many people ran down to the beach to hear it from the new arrivals, then swiftly ran back to their homes.

  The whole of Barcelona became a hive of rumors: “When the ganglions burst, a host of devils come pouring out. The plague sufferers go mad and start biting others; that’s how the illness is spread. The eyes and genitals burst. If anyone looks at the ganglions, they catch it too. The victims have to be burned before they die; otherwise the disease attacks someone else. I’ve seen the plague!” Anyone who claimed this immediately became the center of attention: a crowd would gather round to hear that person’s story; after that, imagination magnified the horror as the details were repeated from mouth to mouth. The only precaution the city authorities could think of was to recommend strict measures of hygiene. In consequence, the inhabitants crowded into the public baths... and the churches. Masses, prayers, processions—nothing was enough to ward off the evil creeping ever nearer to the city. After a fearful month’s wait, the plague reached Barcelona.

  The first case was a caulker who worked in the royal shipyard. When the doctors came to see him, all they could do was confirm what they had read in books and medical treatises.