Cathedral of the Sea

by Ildefonso Falcones

  “Hurry up, Captain. I want to arrive before noon.”

  PART FOUR

  Chained to Destiny

  46

  Holy Week 1367

  Barcelona

  ARNAU REMAINED ON his knees in front of his Virgin of the Sea while the priests said the Easter mass. He had stridden into Santa Maria with Eleonor on his arm. The church was full to overflowing, but the congregation gave way to allow them to reach the front. He recognized their smiles: this man had asked him for a loan for his new boat; that one had entrusted him with his savings; over there was someone who wanted a dowry for his daughter; and there was another who had not paid him the sum they had agreed on. The man avoided his gaze, but Arnau paused next to him and, to Eleonor’s disgust, shook him by the hand.

  “Peace be with you,” he said.

  The man’s eyes lit up. Arnau continued on his way up toward the main altar. That was all he had, he told the Virgin: humble people who appreciated him because he helped them. Joan was tracking down sin, and he did not know what had become of Guillem. As for Mar, what could he say?

  Eleonor kicked his ankle. When Arnau glanced across at her, she flapped her hand for him to get up. “Have you ever seen a noble who stays on his knees as long as you do?” she had already chided him on several occasions. Arnau paid no attention, but Eleonor continued flicking her foot at his ankles.

  “I have this too, Mother. A wife who is more concerned with appearances than anything else, except for wanting me to make her a mother too. Should I? She only wants an heir, a son who can guarantee her future.” Eleonor was still kicking his ankles. When Arnau turned to her, she lifted her chin toward the other nobles in Santa Maria. Some were standing; the rest were seated on their pews. Arnau was the only one still down on his knees.

  “Sacrilege!”

  The cry resounded through the church. The priests fell silent. Arnau got to his feet, and everyone turned to look at the main doorway.

  “Sacrilege!” came the cry again.

  Several men pushed their way to the altar, still shouting, “Sacrilege! Heresy! The Devil’s work! ... Jews!” They wanted to talk to the priests, but one of them came to a halt and addressed the congregation:

  “The Jews have profaned a sacred host!”

  A murmur rose from the ranks of the faithful.

  “As if they hadn’t done enough by killing Jesus Christ!” the first man cried out again from the altar. “Now they want to profane his body!”

  The murmur grew to an uproar. Arnau turned to face the congregation, but Eleonor’s scornful countenance was all he saw.

  She scoffed. “Your Jewish friends.”

  Arnau knew what his wife meant. Ever since Mar had married, he had found it almost impossible to be at home, and so on most evenings he went to see his old friend Hasdai Crescas, and stayed talking to him until late into the night. Before he could say anything to Eleonor, the nobles and other leading citizens began to discuss what they had heard:

  “They want Christ to suffer even after his death,” said one of them.

  “By law they are obliged to stay at home with doors and windows shut during Holy Week. How could they have done such a thing?”

  “They must have escaped,” another man asserted.

  “What about our children?” said a woman. “What if they have taken a Christian child to crucify him and then eat his heart ... ?”

  “And drink his blood,” another voice chimed in.

  Arnau could not take his eyes off this group of enraged nobles. How could they... ? He caught Eleonor’s eye again. She was smiling.

  “Your friends,” she said sarcastically.

  Then the entire congregation started to shout, demanding vengeance. “To the Jewish quarter!” they cried, driving one another on with more shouts of “Heresy!” and “Sacrilege!” Arnau watched them all rushing out of the church, with the nobles bringing up the rear.

  “If you don’t hurry,” he heard Eleonor hiss, “you won’t get into the Jewry.”

  Arnau turned to look at her again, and then glanced up at the Virgin. The noise from the crowd of people was dying away down Calle de la Mar.

  “Why so much hatred, Eleonor? Don’t you have everything you want?”

  “No, Arnau. You know I don’t have what I want, and perhaps that’s exactly what you give your Jewish friends.”

  “What are you talking about, woman?”

  “About you, Arnau, about you. You know you have never fulfilled your conjugal duties.”

  For a few brief seconds, Arnau recalled all the occasions he had rejected Eleonor’s advances, at first gently, trying not to hurt her feelings, but gradually more roughly and impatiently.

  “The king forced me to marry you. He said nothing about satisfying your needs.”

  “The king may not have done so,” she replied, “but the Church does.”

  “God cannot force me to lie with you!”

  Eleonor withstood his rebuff, staring straight at him, then turned her face toward the main altar. They were alone in Santa Maria ... apart from the three priests standing there, openly listening to the couple arguing. Arnau also looked at the three priests. When he confronted Eleonor once more, her eyes narrowed, but she said nothing. He turned his back on her and headed for the doorway out of the church.

  “Go to your Jewish lover!” he heard his wife shout behind him.

  A shudder ran the length of his backbone.

  That year, Arnau was once again consul of the sea. Dressed in his robes of office, he made his way to the Jewish quarter. The din of the crowd grew still louder as it advanced along Calle de la Mar, Plaza del Blat, then down Calle de la Presó to San Jaume church. The people were baying for vengeance, and rushed toward the gates of the Jewry, which was defended by a troop of the king’s soldiers. Despite the crush, Arnau had little difficulty pushing his way to the front.

  “You cannot enter the Jewry, Honorable Consul,” the captain of the guard told him. “We’re awaiting orders from the king’s lieutenant, the infante Don Juan, son of Pedro the Third.”

  The orders duly arrived. The next morning, Don Juan ordered all the Jews to be shut in the main synagogue of Barcelona, without food or water, until those guilty of the profanation of the host came forward.

  “Five thousand people,” Arnau growled in his office at the exchange when he heard the news. “Five thousand people shut up in the synagogue without food and water! What will happen to the children, the newborn babies? What does the infante want? What fool could expect any Jew to admit to profaning the host and condemn themselves to death?”

  Arnau thumped his table and stood up. The bailiff who had brought him the news looked startled.

  “Tell the guard,” Arnau ordered him.

  The honorable consul of the sea made his way hastily through the streets of the city, accompanied by half a dozen armed missatges. Still guarded by soldiers, the gates to the Jewry stood wide open. Outside, the angry mob had disappeared, but there were at least a hundred curious onlookers trying to get a glimpse inside, despite being pushed and jostled by the soldiers.

  “Who is in charge here?” Arnau asked the captain.

  “The magistrate is inside,” the officer told him.

  “Tell him I’m here.”

  The magistrate soon appeared.

  “What do you want, Arnau?” he asked, holding out his hand.

  “I want to talk to the Jews.”

  “The infante has given the order—”

  “I know,” Arnau interrupted him. “That’s exactly why I need to talk to them. I’ve got a lot of outstanding business with Jews. I need to talk to them.”

  “But the infante ...,” the magistrate began to protest.

  “The infante lives from the Jewish quarters in Catalonia! The king has ordered that they pay him twelve thousand in yearly wages.” The magistrate nodded. “The infante would like those responsible for the profanation to be found, but you know very well that he also wants Jewish commerce to c
ontinue, because if it doesn’t... Remember, the Jews of Barcelona contribute most of those twelve thousand wages.”

  The magistrate was convinced, and allowed Arnau and his men through.

  “They are in the main synagogue,” he said as they passed by.

  “I know, I know.”

  Even though all the Jews were shut in, the streets of the quarter were thronged with people. As he walked toward the synagogue, Arnau could see a swarm of black-robed monks searching each and every house for the bleeding host.

  At the synagogue entrance, Arnau came up against more guards.

  “I’ve come to talk to Hasdai Crescas.”

  The captain tried to stand in his way, but the other guard, who had accompanied Arnau, explained he had permission.

  While they were waiting for Hasdai to come out, Arnau looked back toward the Jewish quarter. The houses stood wide open and had obviously been ransacked. The friars came and went, carrying out objects and showing them to one another. They shook their heads, then threw them onto the growing pile of Jewish possessions. “Who are the profaners?” thought Arnau.

  “Your Worship,” he heard behind him.

  Arnau wheeled round and found Hasdai standing there. For a few seconds he stared into the Jew’s eyes, full of tears at the violation of his intimate world. Arnau ordered all the soldiers to withdraw. His missatges obeyed at once, but the king’s soldiers stayed where they were.

  “Since when did the consul of the sea’s affairs interest you?” Arnau asked them. “Stand back with my men. The consul’s concerns are secret.”

  The soldiers obeyed reluctantly. Arnau and Hasdai studied each other.

  “I’d like to embrace you,” Arnau said when nobody could hear them.

  “Better not.”

  “How are you?”

  “Not good, Arnau. We old people are unimportant, the young can cope, but the children have had nothing to eat or drink for hours. There are several infants; when their mothers have no more milk to give them ... We’ve been here only a few hours, but bodies have their needs ...”

  “Can I help?”

  “We’ve tried to negotiate, but the magistrate will not listen. You know there is only one way out: we have to buy our freedom.”

  “How much should I ... ?”

  Hasdai’s stare prevented him from finishing. How much was the life of five thousand Jews worth?

  “I trust you, Arnau. My community is in danger.”

  Arnau stretched out his hand.

  “We all trust you,” said Hasdai again, taking it in his.

  Arnau went back among the black friars. Could they have found the bleeding host already? The contents of the houses, including pieces of furniture, were being heaped ever higher in the streets. As he left the Jewry, Arnau thanked the magistrate. He would ask for an official audience with him that afternoon; but how much should he offer for a man’s life? Or for an entire community’s? Arnau had bargained with all kinds of goods: fabrics, spices, grain, animals, ships, gold, and silver; he knew the price of slaves, but—how much was a friend worth?

  ARNAU LEFT THE Jewry. He turned left, took Calle Banys Nous down to Plaza del Blat, but when he was in Calle Carders by the corner with Calle Montcada close to his own house, he suddenly halted. What was the point? To clash yet again with Eleonor? He turned on his heel to go back to Calle de la Mar and his exchange table. From the day he had agreed to Mar’s marriage ... Ever since that day, Eleonor had pursued him relentlessly. At first she did it stealthily. Why, she had not even called him her beloved before then! She had never concerned herself about his business, what he ate, or even how he felt. When that tactic failed, she tried a frontal attack. “I’m a woman,” she told him one day. She must have been discouraged by the way Arnau looked at her, because she said nothing more ... until a few days later : “We have to consummate our marriage; we’re living in sin.”

  “Since when were you so interested in my salvation?” Arnau asked.

  Despite her husband’s gruff rejection, she did not give up. Eventually she decided to talk about it to Father Juli Andreu, one of the priests at Santa Maria. He was interested in the salvation of the faithful, among whom Arnau was one of the most highly regarded. With him, Arnau could not find excuses as he did with Eleonor.

  “I can’t do it, Father,” he told the priest when he confronted him one day in the church.

  It was true. Immediately after handing Mar to the lord of Ponts, Arnau had tried to forget her. Why not have a family of his own? He was all alone. All the people he loved had gone from his life. He could have children, play with them, devote himself to them, and perhaps find what was missing. But he could do this only with Eleonor, and whenever she sidled up to him, or pursued him through the palace chambers, or he heard her false, forced voice, so different from the way she usually spoke to him, all his resolve came to nothing.

  “What do you mean, my son?” asked the priest.

  “The king forced me to marry Eleonor, Father, but he never asked what my feelings were for his ward.”

  “The baroness ...”

  “The baroness does not attract me, Father. My body refuses.”

  “I could recommend a good doctor ...”

  Arnau smiled. “No, Father, no. It’s not that. Physically I’m fine; it’s simply...”

  “Well, then, you should make an effort to fulfill your matrimonial obligations. Our Lord expects ...”

  Arnau listened to the priest’s harangue, imagining the stories Eleonor must have told him. Who did they think they were?

  “Listen, Father,” he said, interrupting him. “I cannot oblige my body to desire a woman if it doesn’t.” The priest raised his hand as though to intervene, but Arnau stopped him. “I swore to be faithful to my wife, and I am; nobody can accuse me of being otherwise. I come often to Santa Maria to pray. I donate large sums of money to the church. It seems to me that my contributions to building this church should compensate for the shortcomings of my body.”

  The priest stopped rubbing his hands. “My son ...”

  “What do you think, Father?”

  The priest searched among his scant theological knowledge for ways of refuting Arnau’s arguments. He was defeated, and soon hastened away among the men still working on Santa Maria. Left alone, Arnau went to find the Virgin in her chapel. He knelt before her statue.

  “I think only of her, Mother. Why did you allow me to give her to Lord de Ponts?”

  He had not seen Mar since her marriage to Felip de Ponts. When her husband died a few months later, he tried to approach the widow, but Mar refused to see him. “Perhaps it’s for the best,” Arnau told himself. The oath he had sworn to the Virgin bound him even more than ever now: he was condemned to be faithful to a woman who did not love him and whom he could not love. And to give up the only person with whom he might have been happy ...

  “HAVE THEY FOUND the host yet?” Arnau asked the magistrate as they sat opposite each other in the palace overlooking Plaza del Blat.

  “No,” said the magistrate.

  “I’ve been talking to the city councillors,” Arnau told him, “and they agree with me. Imprisoning the entire Jewish community could seriously affect Barcelona’s commercial interests. The seagoing season has just begun. If you went down to the port, you would see there are several ships ready to depart. They have Jewish goods on board; they will either have to be unloaded or will need to wait for the traders. The problem is that not all the cargoes belong to Jews; part of them are owned by Christians.”

  “Why not unload them then?”

  “The cost of transporting the Christians’ merchandise would go up.”

  The magistrate spread his hands in a gesture of frustration. “Then put all the Jews’ merchandise on some ships, and the Christians’ goods on others,” he suggested finally.

  Arnau shook his head.

  “That’s impossible. Not all the ships are headed for the same destination. You know the sailing season is short. If the ships c
annot leave, all our trade will be held up. They will not be back in time, and so will miss some journeys. That will push the price of everything up again. We will all lose money.” “You included,” thought Arnau. “On top of which, it’s dangerous for ships to wait too long in Barcelona: if a storm blows up ...”

  “So what do you suggest?”

  “That you set them all free. That you order the friars to stop searching their homes. That you give them back their belongings, that... ,” thought Arnau. “Impose a fine on the whole Jewish community,” was what he said.

  “The people are demanding the guilty be punished, and the infante has promised to find them. The profanation of a host—”

  “The profanation of a host,” Arnau interrupted him, “whether or not the bleeding host appeared, will of course be more expensive than any other kind of crime.” Why bother to argue? The Jews had been judged and condemned. The magistrate wrinkled his brow. “Why not make the attempt? If we succeed, it will be the Jews and only them who pay. If not, it’s going to be a bad year for trade, and all of us will lose.”

  SURROUNDED BY WORKMEN, noise, and dust, Arnau looked up at the keystone that topped the second of the four vaults above Santa Maria’s central nave, the latest completed. On the end of the keystone was an image of the Annunciation, with the Virgin dressed in a red cape edged with gold, kneeling as the angel brought her the news that she was to give birth. Arnau’s attention was caught by the bright reds, blues, and especially the golden hues of the delicate scene. The magistrate had considered Arnau’s arguments and finally yielded.

  Twenty-five thousand shillings and fifteen guilty men! That was the answer the magistrate gave Arnau the next day after he had consulted with the infante Don Juan’s court.