Cathedral of the Sea

by Ildefonso Falcones

  While Arnau was busy at the Consulate, obliged to send young boatmen and others to prison, Eleonor summoned Felip de Ponts. He was a knight she had known since her first marriage. He had been to see her on several occasions for her to intercede on his behalf with Arnau, whom he owed a considerable amount of money he could not repay.

  “I’ve tried everything I could, Don Felip,” Eleonor lied when he appeared before her, “but it is impossible. He is going to call in your debt soon.”

  When he heard this, Felip de Ponts, a tall, strong-looking man with a bushy blond beard and small eyes, turned pale. If his debts were reclaimed, he would lose what little land he possessed ... and even his warhorse. A knight without land to provide him with income and without a horse to go to war on was no knight at all.

  Felip de Ponts bent on one knee.

  “I beg you, my lady,” he pleaded. “I’m sure that if you so desired, your husband would postpone his decision. If he recovers his debt, my life will not be worth living. Do it for me! For old times’ sake!”

  Eleonor stood in front of the kneeling knight for some time, giving the impression she was thinking the matter over.

  “Stand up,” she ordered him. “There might be a possibility ...”

  “I beg you!” Felip de Ponts begged, before rising.

  “It is very hazardous.”

  “That does not matter! I’m not afraid of anything. I’ve fought with the king in all—”

  “It would involve abducting a young girl,” Eleonor blurted out.

  “I don’t ... I don’t understand,” the knight stuttered after a few moments.

  “You understood perfectly,” Eleonor replied. “It involves abducting a young girl and then ... deflowering her.”

  “That is punishable by death!”

  “Not always.”

  THIS WAS WHAT Eleonor had heard. She had never dared ask, especially with this plan of hers in mind, but she turned to Joan to confirm it.

  “We need to find someone who will abduct her,” she told him, “and then rape her.” Joan buried his face in his hands. “As I understand it,” she went on, “the Customs of Catalonia state that if the girl or her parents agree to the marriage, then the rapist will not face punishment.” Joan’s hand was still in front of his face. “Is that true, Brother Joan?” she insisted, when he made no reply.

  “Yes, bur ...”

  “Is it true or not?”

  “It is true,” Joan concurred. “Rape is punishable by lifelong exile if no violence is involved, and with death if there is. But if the two agree to marry, or the rapist proposes a husband of similar social rank whom the girl accepts, then there is no punishment.”

  A smile stole across Eleonor’s face, which she quickly tried to stifle when Joan again tried to get her to change her mind. She adopted the position of the wronged wife.

  “I don’t know, but I can tell you there is nothing I would not try in order to win my husband back. Let’s find someone who will abduct her,” she insisted, “then rape her, and then we will consent to his marrying the girl.” Joan shook his head. “What’s the difference?” Eleonor stressed. “We could force Mar to marry, even against her will, if Arnau were not so blind ... so bewitched by that girl. You yourself have said you wanted to see her marry, but Arnau will not hear of it. All we would be doing is to remove that woman’s pernicious influence on my husband. We would be the ones who chose Mar’s future husband, just as if she were being married in an ordinary way. The only difference is we do not need Arnau’s agreement. We cannot count on that, because he has lost his reason over that girl. Do you know any other father who would allow his daughter to grow old without marrying? However much money they may have, or however noble they are. Do you know anyone? Even the king gave me away against ... without asking my opinion.”

  Joan gradually yielded to Eleonor’s arguments. She used the friar’s weakness to insist over and over again on her precarious situation, the sin that was being committed in her own home ... Joan promised to think it over ... and did so. Eventually, he agreed they should approach Felip de Ponts: with conditions, but he did agree.

  “Not always,” Eleonor said again.

  Knights were expected to know what was in the Usatges.

  “Are you sure the girl would agree to the marriage? Why hasn’t she married already then?”

  “Her guardians will give their permission.”

  “Why don’t they simply arrange a marriage for her?”

  “That is none of our business,” Eleonor cut in. “That,” she thought, “will be for me to sort out... me and the friar.”

  “You are asking me to abduct and rape a girl, and yet you tell me the reason behind it is none of my business. You have chosen the wrong man, my lady. I may be a debtor, but I am a knight ...”

  “She is my ward.” Felip de Ponts looked surprised. “Yes. I’m talking about my ward, Mar Estanyol.”

  Felip de Ponts well remembered the girl Arnau had adopted. He had seen her several times in the countinghouse and had even shared a pleasant conversation with her one day when he had gone to visit Eleonor.

  “You want me to abduct and rape your own ward?”

  “I think I have been sufficiently clear, Don Felip. I can assure you that there will be no punishment.”

  “What reason... ?”

  “The reasons are my affair! Well, what do you say?”

  “What will I gain by it?”

  “Her dowry will be generous enough to cancel all your debts. Believe me, my husband will be exceedingly generous toward his daughter. Besides, you would win my favor, and you know how close I am to the king.”

  “What about the baron?”

  “I will deal with him.”

  “I don’t understand ...”

  “There’s nothing more to understand: ruin, disrepute, dishonor ... or my support.” At this, Felip de Ponts sat down. “Ruin or riches, Don Felip. If you reject my offer, tomorrow will see the baron calling in your debt and disposing of your lands, your weapons, and your animals. You can rest assured of that.”

  44

  TEN DAYS OF anguished uncertainty went by until Arnau received the first news of Mar. Ten days during which he suspended all activity beyond that of trying to find out what had become of the girl, who had disappeared without a trace. He met the city magistrate and councillors to press them to do all they could to discover what had happened. He offered huge rewards for any information about Mar’s fate or whereabouts. He prayed more than he had ever prayed before, until finally Eleonor, who said she had heard something from a passing merchant who had been looking for him, confirmed his worst suspicions. The girl had been kidnapped by a knight by the name of Felip de Ponts who was one of his debtors. The knight was keeping her by force in a fortified farmhouse close to Mataró, which was less than a day on foot north of Barcelona.

  Arnau sent the Consulate’s missatges to the farmhouse. He himself returned to Santa Maria to pray to his Virgin of the Sea once more.

  Nobody dared interrupt him; out of respect, the workmen took greater care with whatever they were doing. On his knees beneath the small stone figure that had always meant so much to him, Arnau tried to ward off the scenes of horror and panic that had assaulted him over the past ten days and now came flashing into his mind once again, interspersed with images of Felip de Ponts’s face.

  Felip de Ponts had seized Mar inside her own house. He had bound and gagged her, and beat her until she was so exhausted she could no longer resist. He bundled her into a sack and sat with it up on the back of a cart loaded with harnesses driven by one of his servants. Then, making as though he had come to buy or repair bridles and saddles, he was able to pass through the city gates without arousing the slightest suspicion. Back in his own farmhouse, he took her into the fortified tower lying alongside it, and there raped her time and again, his violence and passion only increasing as he realized how beautiful his captive was and how obstinately she tried to defend her body even after she had lost
her virginity. Felip de Ponts had promised Joan he would rob her of her virtue without even undressing her, without showing her his own body, and using only the minimum force. He kept his promise the first time, which was meant to be the only one he came near her, but soon desire overcame his knight’s sense of honor.

  Nothing that Arnau imagined, with tears in his eyes and quaking heart, could compare to what Mar had really suffered.

  When the missatges entered Santa Maria, all work on the church stopped. Their captain’s words echoed as loudly as they did in the Consulate courtroom:

  “Most honorable consul, it is true. Your daughter has been seized and is being held by the knight Felip de Ponts.”

  “Have you spoken to him?”

  “No, Your Honor. He has barricaded himself in his tower and refused to accept our authority. He claims that this has nothing to do with commerce or the sea.”

  “Do you know how the girl is?”

  The captain lowered his gaze.

  Arnau clawed at the footstool. “He is challenging my authority? If it’s authority he wants,” he growled between clenched teeth, “I’ll see he gets it.”

  THE NEWS OF Mar’s abduction spread rapidly. At dawn the next morning all the bells of Barcelona began to ring. The cry of “Via fora” came from the throats of all the citizens in the streets: a woman from Barcelona had to be rescued.

  As so often in the past, Plaza del Blat became the meeting point for the sometent, the army of Barcelona. Soon all the guilds of the city were present in the square. Not one was missing; they all lined up beneath their pennants, fully armed. Instead of wearing his fine merchant’s clothes, Arnau donned the tunic he had worn when he had fought under Eiximèn d’Esparca and later against Pedro the Cruel. He still had his father’s precious crossbow, which he had never wanted to replace and which he now stroked as he had never done before. He tucked into his belt the dagger he had used so skillfully years before to kill his enemies.

  When he appeared in the square, more than three thousand men cheered him. The standard-bearers raised their pennants. Swords, spears, and crossbows were waved above the heads of the crowd, as they shouted a deafening “Via fora!” Arnau did not react, but Joan and Eleonor turned pale. Arnau searched beyond the sea of weapons and pennants: the money changers did not belong to any guild.

  “Was this part of your plans?” the Dominican asked Eleonor above the hubbub.

  Eleonor was staring fearfully at the massed guilds. The whole of Barcelona had come out to support Arnau. They were waving their weapons in the air and howling. All for that wretched young girl!

  At last Arnau saw the pennant he was looking for. The crowd opened in front of him to allow him to join the bastaix guild.

  “Was this part of your plans?” the friar asked again. Both of them watched Arnau striding away into the crowd. Eleonor made no reply. “They’ll eat your knight alive. They will destroy his lands, raze his farmhouse, and then ...”

  “Then what?” grunted Eleonor, still staring straight ahead of her.

  “Then I’ll lose my brother. Perhaps we’re still in time to do something. This is going to end badly ...,” thought Joan.

  “Speak to him ...,” he insisted.

  “Are you mad, Friar?”

  “What if he won’t accept the marriage? What if Felip de Ponts tells him everything? Talk to him before the host sets off. For the love of God, do it, Eleonor!”

  “For the love of God?” As she spat out the words, she turned to face him. “You speak to your God. Do it, Friar.”

  They followed Arnau toward the bastaix pennant. They met Guillem, who as a slave was not allowed to bear arms.

  When he saw her arriving, Arnau frowned.

  “She’s a ward of mine as well,” she said.

  The city councillors gave the order. The army of the people of Barcelona began to march out of the square. The pennants of Sant Jordi and the city were at the head, followed by that of the bastaixos and then all the other guilds. Three thousand men against a single knight. Eleonor and Joan fell in beside them.

  Outside the city, the host was joined by more than a hundred peasants from Arnau’s lands. They were happy to come to the defense of someone who had treated them so generously. Arnau noticed that no other nobles or knights were among them.

  Grim-faced, Arnau walked alongside the pennant with the bastaix column. Joan tried to pray, but the words that usually came so readily to him now stubbornly refused to appear in his mind. Neither he nor Eleonor had ever imagined that Arnau would call out the host. Joan was still deafened by the noise of the three thousand men clamoring for justice and vengeance for a citizen of Barcelona. Many of them had kissed their daughters before they left; more than one, already strapped into their armor, had cupped their wives’ chins in their hands and told them: “Barcelona defends its own ... especially its women.”

  “They will lay waste to poor Felip de Ponts’s lands as if it were their own daughter who had been abducted,” thought Joan. “They will try him and execute him, but first they will give him the chance to talk ...” Joan looked at Arnau, who was still marching along in silence.

  By evening, the host had reached Felip de Ponts’s lands. It came to a halt at the foot of a small hill atop of which the knight’s fortress was perched. It was nothing more than a peasant farmhouse; its only defenses consisted of a small tower rising on one side. Joan studied the farmhouse, then surveyed the army awaiting its orders from the city councillors. He looked at Eleonor, who avoided his gaze. Three thousand men to take one simple farmhouse!

  Joan shook himself and ran to where Arnau and Guillem were standing, next to the councillors and other prominent citizens of Barcelona, beneath the Sant Jordi pennant. As he drew near, he could hear them discussing what to do next. His stomach wrenched when he realized most of them were in favor of attacking the farmhouse without warning or offering de Ponts the chance to surrender.

  The councillors began to give orders to the guild aldermen. Joan looked at Eleonor, but she was staring straight ahead at the farmhouse. Joan went up to Arnau: he wanted to speak to him, but found it impossible. Guillem was standing proudly beside him; he glanced at the friar with a look of scorn. The guild aldermen passed on the orders to their columns. Sounds of preparation for battle could be heard. Torches were lit; the sound of swords being drawn and crossbows tightened rose through the evening air. Joan turned to look at the farmhouse, and then again at the host. The men began to march on the building. There would be no concessions: Barcelona would show no mercy. Arnau drew his dagger and set off with all the rest, leaving the friar behind as he advanced on the house. Joan glanced despairingly toward Eleonor; still she showed no reaction.

  “No ... !” shouted Joan as his brother strode away from him.

  His cry was swallowed up in a murmur that spread through the ranks of the entire host. A man on horseback had emerged from the farmhouse. It was Felip de Ponts, slowly riding his horse down toward them.

  “Seize him!” shouted one of the councillors.

  “No!” shouted Joan again. Everyone turned in his direction. Arnau looked inquiringly at him. “A man who surrenders should not be seized and made captive.”

  “What’s this, Friar?” one of the councillors asked. “Do you think you can give orders to the Barcelona host?”

  Joan looked at Arnau.

  “A man who surrenders should not be taken captive,” he implored his brother.

  “Let him give himself up,” Arnau conceded.

  Felip de Ponts looked first for his accomplices, then turned to face the men gathered beneath the pennant of Sant Jordi, among them Arnau and the city councillors.

  “Citizens of Barcelona,” he shouted, loud enough for the whole army to hear, “I know the reason why you are here today. I know you are seeking justice for one of your citizens. Here I stand. I confess to being the perpetrator of the crimes I am accused of, but before you take me prisoner and lay waste to my buildings, I beg you for the chance to speak
.”

  “Do so,” one of the councillors authorized him.

  “It is true that, against her will, I have abducted and lain with Mar Estanyol ...” At this, a murmur ran through the ranks of the host, forcing him to break off for a moment. Arnau’s hands gripped his crossbow. “I did so at the risk of losing my life, aware that this is the punishment for such an offense. I did it, and if I were born a second time I would do it again, because such is the love I have for this girl, such the despair I felt at seeing her waste her youth without a husband beside her to help her enjoy the fruits God blessed her with, that my emotions overcame my reason, and I behaved more like an animal crazed with passion than one of King Pedro’s knights.” Joan could sense the entire army listening intently, and willed the knight to say the right thing. “For being an animal, I hand myself over to you; but as the knight I long to become once more, I solemnly swear to marry Mar Estanyol and to love her for the rest of my life. Judge me! I am not prepared, as our laws provide, to give her up to another husband of the same social rank. I would kill myself rather than see her with anyone else.”

  Felip de Ponts finished his speech and waited, proud and erect on his steed, defying an army of three thousand men. The host was silent, trying to take in all that they had heard.

  “Praised be the Lord!” shouted Joan.

  Arnau stared at him in astonishment. Everyone, including Eleonor, turned to look at the friar.

  “What do you mean by that?” Arnau asked him.

  “Arnau,” Joan insisted, taking hold of his arm and speaking loud enough for all those around them to hear, “this is nothing more than the result of our own negligence.” Arnau looked startled. “For years we have gone along with Mar’s whims, neglecting our duties toward a beautiful young woman who should already have brought children into the world, as the laws of God decree—and who are we to go against our Lord’s intentions?” Arnau started to say something, but Joan raised his hand to cut him short. “I feel guilty for this. For years I have felt guilty for being too complaisant with a headstrong girl whose life was without meaning according to the precepts taught by the holy Catholic Church. This knight,” he went on, pointing to Felip de Ponts, “is nothing more than the hand of God, someone sent by our Lord to carry out a task we have proved ourselves unequal to. Yes, for years I have felt guilty seeing how God-given beauty and health were being wasted by a girl fortunate enough to be adopted by somebody as good and kind as you. I have no wish also to feel guilty for the death of a knight who, risking his own life, has merely accomplished what we ourselves were incapable of doing. Give your consent to the marriage. I, if my opinion is of any worth, would accept the knight’s proposal.”