Cathedral of the Sea

by Ildefonso Falcones

  20 September 1355

  The port of Barcelona

  AT THE HEAD of his fleet, King Pedro the Third returned victorious to Barcelona after conquering Sardinia. The whole of the city rushed down to the beach to receive him. As everyone cheered, the king disembarked on a special wooden bridge built in front of Framenors convent. His retinue of nobles and soldiers also came ashore to a Barcelona willing and ready to celebrate his victory over the Sardinians.

  Arnau and Guillem shut the countinghouse and went down to the beach along with all the others. Then Mar joined them to help celebrate in honor of the king: they sang and danced, listened to troubadours, ate sweetmeats, and then, as the sun was setting and the September night air began to grow cool, they returned home.

  “Donaha!” shouted Mar as soon as Arnau opened the front door.

  Still bubbling with emotion from the celebrations, the girl ran into the house, still shouting for Donaha. But when she reached the kitchen doorway, she suddenly came to a halt. Arnau and Guillem looked at each other. What was going on? Had something happened to Donaha?

  They ran to Mar’s side.

  “What is... ?” Arnau started to ask.

  “Arnau, I don’t think all this shouting is the proper way to receive someone you haven’t seen in such a long time.” He heard a male voice that sounded familiar to him.

  Arnau had been pushing Mar out of the way, but stood rooted to the spot when he heard these words.

  “Joan!” he cried after a few moments’ pause.

  Mar watched as he went into the kitchen, arms open wide, to greet the figure in black who had so frightened her. Guillem put his arm round her.

  “It’s his brother,” he whispered in her ear.

  Donaha was crouched in a corner of the kitchen, trying to hide.

  “My God!” exclaimed Arnau, clasping Joan round the waist. “My God!” he went on repeating, as he lifted him clean into the air not once but several times.

  Smiling broadly, Joan managed to struggle free from his grasp.

  “You’ll break me in two!”

  But Arnau was not listening to him.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked, this time seizing him by the shoulders. “Let me look at you! You’ve changed!”

  “It’s been thirteen years,” Joan tried to say, but Arnau would not listen.

  “How long have you been in Barcelona?”

  “I came...”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  With each question, Arnau shook his brother’s shoulders.

  “Are you here to stay this time? Tell me you are!”

  Guillem and Mar could not help smiling. The friar saw them: “That’s enough,” he said, pushing Arnau away. “Enough. You’ll squeeze me to death.”

  Arnau stood back to survey him. Only the bright, lively eyes reminded him of the Joan who had left Barcelona. Now he was almost bald, thin, and hollow-cheeked ... and the black habit hanging from his shoulders only made him look worse. Joan was two years younger than him, but he looked much older.

  “Haven’t you been eating? If the money I sent wasn’t enough—”

  “No,” Joan butted in, “it was more than enough. Your money served to nourish ... my spirit. Books are very expensive, Arnau.”

  “You should have asked for more.”

  Joan waved away the suggestion, then sat down at the table opposite Guillem and Mar.

  “Aren’t you going to present me to your goddaughter? I see she’s grown a lot since your last letter.”

  Arnau signaled to Mar, and she came round the table to stand in front of Joan. Abashed by the stern look in the friar’s eyes, she kept her eyes on the floor. When he had finished his examination of her, Arnau presented Guillem.

  “This is Guillem,” he said. “I’ve talked a lot about him in my letters.”

  “Yes.” Joan made no effort to shake him by the hand, and Guillem was forced to withdraw his own outstretched arm. “Do you fulfill your Christian obligations?” he asked coldly.

  “Yes...”

  “Yes, Brother Joan,” Joan corrected him.

  “Brother Joan,” Guillem repeated.

  “And over there is Donaha,” Arnau said quickly.

  Joan nodded without so much as looking at her.

  “Good,” he said, turning to Mar and indicating with his eyes that she could sit down. “You’re Ramon’s daughter, aren’t you? Your father was a good man, a hardworking Christian who feared his Lord, like all bastaixos.” He looked at Arnau. “I’ve prayed a lot for him since Arnau told me of his death. How old are you, my child?”

  Arnau ordered Donaha to serve their supper, then sat at the table. He realized that Guillem was still standing some way away, as though he did not dare sit down with the newcomer.

  “Come and sit, Guillem,” he said. “This is your home too.”

  Joan said nothing.

  Nobody spoke during supper. Mar was unusually quiet, as if the presence of the friar had robbed her of all spontaneity. For his part, Joan ate frugally.

  “Tell me, Joan,” Arnau said when they had finished eating, “what are you doing here? When did you come back?”

  “I took advantage of the king’s return. I boarded a ship to Sardinia when I learned of his victory there, and came from the island to Barcelona.”

  “Have you seen the king?”

  “He would not receive me.”

  Mar asked permission to leave the table. Guillem did the same. They both said good night to Brother Joan. After that, the two brothers talked until dawn; with the aid of a bottle of sweet wine, they made up for thirteen years apart.

  37

  TO THE RELIEF of everyone in Arnau’s family, Joan decided to move to Santa Caterina convent.

  “That is the proper place for me,” he told his brother, “but I’ll come and visit you every day.”

  Arnau, who had noticed how uncomfortable his goddaughter and Guillem had been during supper the previous evening, did not insist more than was strictly necessary.

  “Do you know what he said to me?” he whispered to Guillem when they were getting up from their meal at midday. The Moor bent closer. “He asked what we have done to see that Mar is married.”

  Without straightening up, Guillem looked across at the girl, who was helping Donaha clear the table. Find a husband for her? Why, she was only ... a woman! Guillem turned to Arnau. Neither of them had ever looked at her as they did now.

  “What has become of our little girl?” Arnau whispered.

  The two men gazed at her again: she was lively, beautiful, serene, and self-assured.

  As she picked up the food bowls, Mar looked back at them.

  Her body was already that of a woman: it was curved and shapely, and her breasts were beginning to show underneath her smock. She was fourteen.

  Mar glanced at them again, and saw them staring openmouthed at her. This time instead of smiling she looked embarrassed, if only momentarily.

  “What are you two staring at?” she bridled. “Don’t you have anything better to do?” she said, standing in front of them defiantly.

  They both nodded as one. There was no doubt about it: she had turned into a woman without their even noticing it.

  When they were safely in the countinghouse, Arnau said: “She’ll have a princess’s dowry. Money, clothes, a house ... no, a palace!” At this, he turned toward his companion. “What has happened about the Puig family?”

  “That means she’ll leave us,” said Guillem, as if he had not heard Arnau’s question.

  The two men sat for a while in silence.

  “She’ll give us grandchildren,” Arnau said eventually.

  “Don’t fool yourself. She’ll give her husband children. Besides, if we slaves cannot have children, we have even less right to grandchildren.”

  “How often have I offered to free you?”

  “What would I do with freedom? I’m fine as I am. But Mar ... a married woman! I don’t know why, but I’m already beginning
to hate her husband, whoever he may be.”

  “Me too,” Arnau admitted.

  They turned toward each other, and both of them burst out laughing.

  “But you didn’t answer my question,” said Arnau once they had recovered their composure. “What’s happened with the Puig family? I want that palace for Mar.”

  “I sent instructions to Filippo Tescio in Pisa. If anyone can achieve what you are after, he’s the one.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “That he was to pay pirates if necessary, but that the Puigs’ commissions were not to reach Barcelona, and those that had left the port should not arrive at their destinations. That he should steal the goods or set fire to them if need be, but that none of them should arrive.”

  “Did he reply?”

  “Filippo? No, he would never do that. He will not put anything in writing or entrust the affair to anyone else. If it got out... We have to wait for the end of the seagoing season. That will be in less than a month. If the Puig family’s commissions have not returned by then, they won’t be able to pay their debts. They’ll be ruined.”

  “Have you bought up their credit notes?”

  “You are Grau Puig’s main creditor.”

  “They must be suffering by now,” Arnau muttered to himself.

  “Haven’t you seen them?” Arnau turned sharply to him. “They’re down at the beach all the time. Before it was the baroness and one of her children; now that Genis is back from Sardinia, he has joined them. They spend hours scanning the horizon in search of a mast... and when a ship appears and comes into port but isn’t one of theirs, the baroness curses the waves. I thought you knew...”

  “No, I didn’t know.” Arnau said nothing for a few moments. “Tell me when one of our ships is due in port.”

  “SEVERAL SHIPS ARE coming in together,” Guillem told him one morning as they were walking back from the Consulate of the Sea.

  “Is the Puig family there?”

  “Of course. The baroness is so close to the water the waves are licking her shoes...” Guillem fell silent. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to ...”

  Arnau smiled.

  “Don’t worry,” he said, reassuring him. Then he went up to his bedroom, where he slowly put on his finest clothes, the ones Guillem had finally convinced him he should buy.

  “A man in your position,” he had argued, “cannot appear badly dressed at the exchange or the consulate. That is what the king decrees, and so do your saints; Saint Vincent, for example ...”

  Arnau made him be quiet, but listened to his advice. Now he donned a white sleeveless shirt made of the finest malines cloth and trimmed with fur, a red silk damascene doublet that came down to his knees, black hose, and black silk shoes. He fastened the doublet round his waist with a wide belt that had gold threads and was studded with pearls. Arnau completed his attire with a marvelous black cloak that Guillem had discovered in one of their ships’ expeditions beyond Dacia. It was lined with ermine and embroidered with gold and precious stones.

  When he stepped into the countinghouse, Guillem nodded his approval. Mar was about to say something, but changed her mind. She watched as Arnau went out of the door: she ran to it and from the street outside saw him walk down to the beach, his cloak rippling in the sea breeze and the precious stones sparkling all round him.

  “Where’s Arnau going?” she asked Guillem, coming back into the countinghouse and sitting opposite him in one of the clients’ chairs.

  “To collect a debt.”

  “It must be a very important one.”

  “It is, Mar,” said Guillem, pursing his lips, “but this is only the first installment.”

  Mar began to play with the ivory abacus. How often, hidden in the kitchen, had she watched as Arnau worked on it? His face was always serious, and he concentrated hard while he moved the counters and noted down figures in his books. Mar shivered the length of her spine.

  “Is something wrong?” asked Guillem.

  “No... no.”

  Why not tell him? Guillem would understand, she said to herself. Except for Donaha, who could not help but smile whenever she saw Mar hiding in the kitchen to spy on Arnau, nobody else was aware of it. All the girls who met in the merchant Escales’s house talked about the same thing. Some of them were already betrothed, and liked nothing better than to praise the virtues of their husbands-to-be. Mar listened to them, but always avoided their questions to her. How could she mention Arnau? What if he found out? Arnau was thirty-four; she was only fourteen. But one of the girls was betrothed to someone even older than Arnau! Mar would have loved to be able to tell someone. Her friends could chatter about money, appearance, attractiveness, manliness, or generosity, but she knew that Arnau was better than any of them! Did not the bastaixos Mar occasionally met on the beach tell her that Arnau had been one of King Pedro’s bravest soldiers? Mar had discovered his old weapons in the bottom of a chest. When she was all alone she would pick them up and caress them, imagining Arnau surrounded by enemies and fighting them off valiantly as the bastaixos had told her he did.

  Guillem studied the young girl. Mar sat there, the tip of her finger on one of the abacus counters, staring into space. Money? Bags and bags of it. Everyone in Barcelona knew that. And as for his kindness ...

  “Are you sure nothing’s wrong?” Guillem asked again, startling her out of her daydream.

  Mar blushed. Donaha always claimed that anybody could read her thoughts, that the name of Arnau was on her lips, her eyes, her whole face. What if Guillem knew this too?

  “No... ,” she repeated, “nothing.”

  Guillem replaced the abacus counters and Mar smiled at him... with a sad expression. What could be going through her mind? Perhaps Brother Joan was right; she was already of marriageable age, and here she was, shut up in a house with two men...

  Mar took her finger off the abacus.

  “Guillem.”

  “Tell me.”

  She fell silent.

  “Oh, it’s nothing,” she said finally, getting up from her chair.

  Guillem watched her as she left the room; it was hard to admit it, but the friar was probably right.

  HE WENT UP to them. He had walked to the shore while the ships, three galleys and a carrack, entered the port. The carrack belonged to him. Isabel was dressed in black, and with one hand held on to her hat. Her stepsons, Josep and Genis, were standing beside her, with their backs to him. All three were peering desperately at the ships. “They won’t bring you any relief,” thought Arnau.

  As he strode by in his best clothes, bastaixos, boatmen, and merchants had all fallen silent.

  “Look at me, you harpy!” Arnau thought and waited, a few steps from the water’s edge. “Look at me! The last time you did...” The baroness turned slowly toward him; her sons did the same. Arnau took a deep breath. “The last time you did, my father was hanging above my head.”

  The bastaixos and boatmen were muttering to one another.

  “Is there something you need, Arnau?” asked one of the aldermen.

  Arnau shook his head, not taking his eyes off Isabel’s face for a moment. The others moved away, and Arnau found himself next to the baroness and his cousins.

  He breathed deeply once more. Defiantly, he stared Isabel in the eye for a few more seconds, then glanced at his cousins, and finally looked out to sea, smiling.

  The baroness’s lips tightened. She too turned toward the sea, following Arnau’s gaze. When she looked toward him again, he was already striding away, the sunlight glinting off the precious stones on his cloak.

  JOAN WAS STILL intent on seeing Mar married. He proposed several candidates: it was not difficult to find them. As soon as they heard the size of Mar’s dowry, nobles and merchants came running, but... how was the girl herself to be told? Joan offered to do it, but when Arnau told Guillem as much, the Moor was resolutely against the idea.

  “You have to do it,” he said. “Not a monk she hardly knows.”


  Ever since Guillem had insisted in this way, Arnau could not take his eyes off the girl. Did he know her? They had lived in the same house for years now, but it had been Guillem who always looked after her. All he had done had been to enjoy her being there, to hear her laughter and cheery banter. He had never talked to her about anything serious. Now, whenever he considered approaching her and asking her to go for a walk with him, on the beach or—why not?—to Santa Maria, whenever he thought of telling her they had to discuss a serious matter, he realized he knew little about her ... and hesitated. Where was the little girl he used to carry on his shoulders?

  “I don’t want to marry any of them,” she told them. Arnau and Guillem looked at each other. Eventually, Arnau had persuaded the Moor they should bring the subject up together.

  “You have to help me,” he had pleaded with him.

  Mar’s eyes lit up when the two men mentioned marriage to her. They were sitting behind their accounting table, with her in front of them on the other side, as if this were another commercial transaction. But she shook her head at the mention of each of the five candidates that Brother Joan had suggested.

  “But, Mar,” Guillem insisted, “you have to choose someone. Any girl would be proud to marry one of the names we have mentioned.”

  Mar shook her head again.

  “I don’t like them.”

  “Well, you have to do something,” said Guillem, looking to Arnau for support.

  Arnau studied the young girl. She was on the verge of tears. Her head was lowered, but he could tell from her trembling bottom lip and troubled breathing that tears were not far away. Why would a girl react in that way when they had just proposed such good matches for her? The silence lasted an eternity. Eventually, Mar raised her eyes slightly and peered at Arnau. Why make her suffer?