Cathedral of the Sea

by Ildefonso Falcones

  Mar turned to confront the baroness, who was standing in the kitchen doorway. Arnau liked partridge. She had gone with Donaha to buy them. She chose them herself, hung them from a rack in the kitchen, and checked on them each day. When she decided they had hung long enough, she went down early in the morning to pluck them.

  “But... ,” Mar tried to object.

  “Veal,” Eleonor insisted, glaring at her.

  Mar turned to look at Donaha, but the slave merely gave a slight shrug of her shoulders.

  “I decide what is eaten in this house,” the baroness went on, addressing all the slaves in the kitchen. “I say what happens here!”

  With that, she turned on her heel and left.

  Eleonor waited to see what would happen following this explosion. Would the girl turn to Arnau, or keep their argument secret? Mar also thought it over. Should she tell Arnau? What would she gain by that? If Arnau took her side, he would argue with Eleonor, who when it came down to it was mistress of the house. And if he didn’t support Mar? Her stomach churned. Arnau had once said that he could not afford to offend the king. What if Eleonor complained to the sovereign over this? What would Arnau say then?

  By the end of the day, when Arnau had still not said a word to her, Eleonor smiled scornfully at Mar. From then on, she stepped up her attack on the girl. She forbade her to go with the slaves to the markets, or to go into the kitchens. She put slaves on the door of whichever room she was in. “The lady baroness does not wish to be disturbed,” they would tell Mar if she tried to enter. Day after day, Eleonor found new ways of making her life difficult.

  The king. They had to avoid offending the king. Those words were engraved in Mar’s memory; she repeated them to herself time and again. Eleonor was still his ward; she could go and see him whenever she wished. She was not going to be the one who gave Eleonor that excuse!

  She could not have been more wrong. Eleonor took little satisfaction from these domestic disputes. All her tiny victories were as nothing when Arnau came home and Mar flung herself in his arms. The two of them laughed, talked together ... their bodies touched. Sitting in an armchair, Arnau would tell her all that had happened during the day: the discussions at the exchange, his business deals, his ships, while Mar kneeled at his feet, entranced by his stories. Wasn’t that the place of his legitimate spouse? At night after dinner he would sit in one of the window openings with Mar in his arms, staring up at the starry sky. Behind them, Eleonor would dig the nails into her hands until they began to bleed; the pain would eventually make her get up and withdraw to her own apartments.

  All alone, she considered her situation. Arnau had not touched her since their marriage. She stroked her body, ran her hands over her breasts... they were still firm! Then her hips, and between her legs... As pleasure began to surge through her, she was jolted back to reality: that girl... that girl had taken her rightful place!

  “WHA’T WILL HAPPEN when my husband dies?”

  She asked the man straight-out, as soon as she had taken a seat at his book-laden table. She could not help coughing; the chamber was full of books, papers, and dust ...

  Reginald d’Area studied his visitor unhurriedly. Eleonor had been told he was the best lawyer in Barcelona, an expert interpreter of the Customs and Usages of Catalonia.

  “I understand you have no children with your husband? Is that right?” Eleonor frowned. “I need to know,” he said placidly. Everything about him, from his plump frame and friendly expression to his white flowing hair and beard, inspired confidence.

  “No, I haven’t had any.”

  “I imagine your inquiry concerns the inheritance?”

  Eleonor stirred uneasily in her chair.

  “Yes,” she said at length.

  “Your dowry will be returned to you. As far as your husband’s own inheritance is concerned, he can dispose of it as he wishes in his will.”

  “Do I get nothing as of right?”

  “You may have use of his goods and properties for a year, the year of strict mourning.”

  “Is that all?”

  Reginald d’Area was taken aback by her violent retort. Who did she think she was?

  “You can thank your guardian King Pedro for that,” he said dryly.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Until your guardian came to the throne there was a law in Catalonia laid down by King Jaime the First by which the widow could enjoy the whole of her husband’s inheritance for life, if she did not misuse it. But the merchants of Barcelona and Perpignan are very jealous of their wealth, even when their wives are involved. It was they who won the concession from Pedro the Third that widows should have access to the inheritance for a year. And your guardian has made this provision into a law throughout the entire principality ...”

  Eleonor was not listening, and got up even before the lawyer had finished speaking. She started coughing again and surveyed his chamber. Why did he need so many books? Reginald stood up as well.

  “If you need anything else ...”

  Still with her back to him, Eleonor merely raised her hand.

  One thing was clear: she needed a child from her husband to secure her future. Arnau had kept his word, and Eleonor had been able to enjoy a very different kind of life: one of luxury, which she had seen while she lived at court, but had been unable to enjoy for herself because of all the royal treasurers’ petty regulations. Now she could spend as much as she wanted; she had all she could wish for. But if Arnau were to die ... And the only thing that stood in her way, the only thing keeping him from her, was that voluptuous young witch. If that witch were not there ... if she disappeared ... Arnau would be hers! Surely she would be capable of seducing a runaway serf.

  A FEW DAYS later, Eleonor summoned the friar to her apartments. He was the only one among the Estanyol family with whom she had any dealings.

  “I don’t believe it!” said Joan.

  “But it’s true, Brother Joan,” said Eleonor, face buried in her hands. “He has not even touched me since we were married.”

  Joan knew that Arnau had no love for Eleonor and that they slept in different chambers. That was unimportant: nobody married for love, and most nobles slept apart. But if Arnau had not ever lain with Eleonor, they were not properly married.

  “Have you spoken to him about it?” he asked.

  Eleonor moved her hands from her face, making sure that Joan got a good view of her reddened eyes.

  “I do not dare. I would not know what to say. Besides, I think ...” Eleonor let her suspicions float on the air.

  “What do you think?”

  “I think Arnau is much closer to Mar than to his own wife.”

  “You know Arnau adores her.”

  “I am not talking about that kind of love, Brother Joan,” she insisted, lowering her voice. Joan sat upright in his chair. “Yes. I know you find it hard to believe, but I’m sure that girl, as you call her, wants my husband for herself. It’s like having the Devil in my house, Brother Joan!” Eleonor brought a tremble to her voice. “My weapons, Brother Joan, are those of a simple woman who merely wishes to comply with the precepts of the Church to married women, but every time I try to, I find that my husband is so blinded by her charms he is prevented from even seeing me. I have no idea what to do!”

  Was that why Mar refused to get married? Could it be true? Joan reflected on it: the two were always together, and he had seen her fling herself in his arms. And the way they looked each other, the way they laughed and smiled! How stupid he had been! He was sure the Moor knew it, and that was why he always defended her.

  “I don’t know what to say,” he said evasively.

  “I have a plan ... but I need your help and, above all, your advice.”

  43

  As HE LISTENED to Eleonor’s plan, a shudder ran through Joan’s body.

  “I have to think about it,” he told her when she insisted how dramatic her situation was.

  That evening he shut himself up in his room. He excus
ed himself from dinner. He avoided Mar and Arnau. He avoided Eleonor’s inquisitive looks. Instead, he consulted his volumes of theology, which were neatly arranged in a cupboard. He was confident he could find the answer to his dilemma there. During all the years he had spent apart from his brother, he had always thought of him. He loved Arnau; he and his father were the only ones Joan could turn to in his childhood. Yet there were as many hidden folds to his affection as there were in his black habit. Lurking somewhere among them was an admiration that came close to envy. Arnau, with that frank smile of his, those easy gestures: a little boy who claimed he could talk to the Virgin. Brother Joan clenched his fists when he remembered how often he himself had tried to hear that voice. Now he knew it was almost impossible, and that only a chosen few were blessed with that honor. He had studied and disciplined himself in the hope that he might be one of them. He fasted until his health was threatened, but all in vain.

  Brother Joan buried himself in the doctrines of Bishop Hincmaro of Rheims, those of Saint Leo the Great, of Master Graciano, the epistles of Saint Paul, and many others.

  It was only through the carnal communion of the married couple, the coniunctio sexuum, that matrimony among human beings reflected the union of Christ with the Church, which was the main objective of the sacrament. Without that carnalis copula, matrimony did not exist, according to the first of these authors.

  Only when a marriage had been consummated through carnal relations was it regarded as valid by the Church, ruled Saint Leo the Great.

  Graciano, his master at the university of Bologna, went further in this doctrine, linking the symbolism of marriage, the consent freely given by the bride and groom at the altar, and sexual relations between man and woman: the una caro. Even Saint Paul, in his famous epistle to the Ephesians, had written: “So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery; but I speak concerning Christ and the church.”

  Joan pored over the teachings and doctrines of the doctors of the Church until far into the night. What was he searching for? He opened one of the treatises a second time. For how long was he going to ignore the truth? Eleonor was right: without copulation, without the union of the flesh, there could be no true matrimony. “Why have you not lain with her? You are living in sin. The Church does not recognize your marriage.” By the light of a candle he reread Graciano, following the words with his finger. He was looking for something that did not exist. “The royal ward! The king himself gave her to you, and yet you have not copulated with her. What would the king say if he found out? Not even all your money ... It’s an insult to him. He gave you Eleonor in marriage. He himself led her to the altar, and you have spurned the offer he gave you. What about the bishop? What would he say?” He went back to Graciano. And all because of a stubborn young girl who was refusing to fulfill her destiny as a woman.

  Joan spent hours with his books, but his mind continually strayed to thoughts of Eleonor’s plan and possible alternatives. He ought to tell Arnau straight-out. He imagined himself sitting face-to-face with Arnau, or possibly standing, yes, both of them standing... “You must lie with Eleonor. At the moment, you are living in sin,” he would tell him. What if this made him angry? After all, he was a Catalan baron, and consul of the sea. Who was he to tell Arnau what to do? He returned to his books. Why on earth had they ever adopted that girl? She was the cause of all their problems. If Eleonor was right, his brother might feel closer to Mar than to her. Mar was the guilty one. She had rejected all offers of marriage in order to keep tempting Arnau with her charms. What man could resist her? She was the Devil! The Devil made flesh, temptation, sin. Why should he risk losing his brother’s love when she was the Devil? Yes, she was the evil one. She was the guilty one. Only Christ was strong enough to resist temptation. Arnau was not God; he was a man. Why should men suffer if the Devil was the guilty one?

  Juan plunged into his books again, until finally he found what he was looking for:See how this evil inclination is so ingrained within us, that human nature of itself and through its original corruption, without need of any other motive or instigation, turns toward this vileness, and were it not for the grace of our Lord in repressing this natural inclination, the whole world would fall into this loathsome temptation. So it is that we read that a young and pure boy, brought up by saintly hermits in the desert far from contact with any female, was sent to the city where his mother and father dwelt. And as soon as he entered the place where they were living, he asked those who had brought him what all the new sights he had seen might be: and as he had seen beautiful, finely adorned women, he asked what they might be, and the saintly hermits told him that these things were devils who brought turmoil everywhere they went, and while they were in his father and mother’s house, the hermits who had brought him there asked him as follows: “Of all the beautiful, new things you have seen and had never seen before, which did you most admire?” And the boy replied: “Of all the beautiful things I have seen, what I most liked are those devils which bring turmoil to the world.” And when the saintly fathers replied: “Oh, wretched creature! Have you not often heard and read the evil that are devils and their works, and that their dwelling place is Hell: how then can they have so much pleased you on your first sight of them?” They say the boy answered them: “Even though the devils are so evil, and do so much harm, and although they may dwell in Hell, I would not care about all that evil or to be in Hell if I could be and live with devils of that sort. Now I know that the devils of Hell are not as evil as is said. Now I know it would be good to be in Hell, since those devils are there and I would like to be with them. Would that I could join them, God willing.”

  It was dawn by the time that Brother Joan had finished reading and closed his books. He was not going to take the risk. He was not going to be the saintly hermit who confronted the little boy who preferred the Devil. He was not going to be the one who called his brother a wretched creature. It was there in his books, the ones Arnau himself had paid for. There was no other possible way. He knelt on the footstool in his room beneath an image of the crucified Christ and prayed.

  That night, before he finally succeeded in finding sleep, he thought he could detect a strange smell, the smell of death seeping into his room and threatening to choke him.

  ON SAINT MARK’s Day, the members of the Council of a Hundred, together with the city aldermen, elected Arnau Estanyol, baron of Granollers, San Vicenc, and Caldes de Montbui, as consul of the sea of Barcelona. Then, as laid down in the Llibre de Consolat de Mar, to popular acclaim Arnau and the other newly chosen consul led a procession of councillors and prominent citizens down to the exchange, where the Consulate of the Sea was housed. The exchange was also being rebuilt, on the shore close to Santa Maria church and Arnau’s countinghouse.

  The missatges, as the soldiers belonging to the consulate were known, were drawn up to greet them as the party entered the palace, and the councillors of Barcelona handed possession of the building over to the newly elected consuls. As soon as the others had left the exchange, Arnau immediately set to work: a merchant was claiming the value of a shipment of pepper that had fallen into the sea while a young boatman was unloading it. The pepper was brought to the courtroom for Arnau to verify that it had been damaged as claimed.

  Arnau listened to the different versions from the merchant, the boatman, and the witnesses both sides had brought. He knew the merchant personally, as he did the boatman. The latter had recently asked him for a loan. He was newly married, in Santa Maria as befitted all men of the sea. On that occasion, Arnau had congratulated him and wished him well.

  “I rule,” he said, his voice trembling, “that the boatman must pay the price of the pepper. This is as laid down in”—Arnau consulted the heavy tome the clerk
passed him—“article sixty-two of our Customs of the Sea.” Was his wife pregnant already? Arnau recalled the gleam of excitement in the young bride’s eyes the day he had congratulated them. He cleared his throat. “Do you have... ?” He coughed again. “Do you have the money to pay?”

  Arnau could not look at him. He had just given him a loan. Could it have been for his house? For linen? For furnishings, or perhaps for the boat itself? The young man’s negative reply rang in his ears.

  “I therefore sentence you to ...” The lump rising in his throat almost prevented him from going on. “I sentence you to prison until you pay off the entire amount of your debt.”

  How could he pay it if he were not able to work? Was his wife pregnant? Arnau forgot to rap the bench with his gavel. The missatges stared at him. He remembered, and hit the wooden bench in front of him. The young boatman was led away to the consulate’s cells. Arnau lowered his head.

  “It’s something you have to do,” the clerk said when all the others had left the courtroom.

  Seated to the right of the clerk in the center of the immense judge’s bench, Arnau said nothing.

  “Look,” the clerk insisted, showing him another thick book that contained the consulate’s rules and regulations. “Here’s what it says concerning prison sentences: ‘This is how the consul shall demonstrate his power, from greater to less.’ You are the consul of the sea and have to demonstrate your power. Our prosperity, the prosperity of this city, depends on it.”

  He did not have to send anyone else to prison that day, but on many others he found himself forced to do so. The consul of the sea’s jurisdiction included everything that had to do with commerce: prices, the crews’ wages, the security of ships and goods... and anything else related to the sea. After taking up his post, Arnau quickly established himself as an authority independent of the city bailiff and magistrate; he passed sentence, embargoed ships, seized debtors’ goods, sent others to jail, backed up by the army of missatges.