Cathedral of the Sea

by Ildefonso Falcones

  How many big, strong, proud men like him had fallen at Joan’s feet? How many had he seen sobbing and begging for forgiveness before he passed sentence? Joan’s eyes narrowed. He clenched his fists and took two steps toward the servant.

  “How dare you disobey the Inquisition!” he cried.

  Before he could even finish, Mar was on her feet. She was shaking again. The man with the scythe also stood up, but more slowly.

  “Friar, how do you dare come into my house and threaten my servant? Inquisitor? Ha! You’re no more than a devil disguised as a friar. You were the one who raped me!” Joan could see the man’s fingers gripping the handle of the scythe. “You’ve admitted it!”

  “I... ,” Joan stammered.

  The servant came over to him and pushed the blunt edge of the scythe into his stomach.

  “Nobody would find out, Mistress. He came on his own.”

  Joan looked at Mar. There was no fear in her eyes, or compassion. There was only ... He turned as quickly as he could to make for the door, but the little boy slammed it shut and confronted him.

  Behind his back, the man reached out with the scythe until it was hooked round Joan’s neck. This time it was the sharp edge he pressed against his throat. Joan did not move. The boy’s fearful expression had changed to mirror that of the two people near the hearth.

  “What... what are you going to do, Mar?” As Joan spoke, he could feel the scythe cutting into his neck.

  Mar said nothing for a few moments. Joan could hear her breathing.

  “Shut him in the tower,” she ordered.

  Mar had not been in there since the day the Barcelona host first made ready for its attack, then exploded in shouts of triumph. Ever since her husband had fallen at Calatayud, she had kept it locked.

  50

  THE WIDOW AND her two daughters crossed Plaza de la Llana to the Estanyer Inn. This was a tall, two-story building with the kitchen and the guests’ dining room on the ground floor and all the bedrooms on the first floor. The innkeeper greeted them. The kitchen lad was with him; when she saw him staring openmouthed at her, Aledis winked at him. “What are you staring at?” the innkeeper shouted, cuffing him round the head. The lad ran off to the back of the building. Teresa and Eulàlia had noticed the wink, and both smiled.

  “You’re the ones who deserve a good slap,” Aledis whispered, taking advantage of a moment’s lack of attention by the innkeeper. “Stand still and stop scratching, will you? The next one who does will get...”

  “These girdles are impossible ...”

  “Be quiet,” Aledis ordered them, as the innkeeper turned his attention back to her.

  He had a room where the three of them could sleep, although there were only two mattresses.

  “Don’t worry, my man,” said Aledis. “My daughters are used to sharing a bed.”

  “Did you see how that innkeeper looked at us when you told him we were used to sleeping together?” asked Teresa once they were safely in their room.

  Two straw pallets and a small chest on which stood an oil lamp were all the furniture in the room.

  “He was imagining lying between the two of us,” said Eulàlia with a laugh.

  “And that was without him being able to appreciate any of your charms,” said Aledis. “I told you so.”

  “We could work dressed like this. It seems to be successful.”

  “It only works once,” Aledis said. “Or twice at most. Men like the idea of innocence, of virginity. But as soon as they’ve had it... We would have to go from place to place, practicing the deception, and we wouldn’t be able to ask them to pay.”

  “There isn’t enough gold in all Catalonia that would make me wear this girdle or this...” Teresa started furiously scratching from her thighs to her breasts.

  “Don’t scratch!”

  “But no one can see us now,” the girl protested.

  “The more you scratch, the more it will itch.”

  “What about that wink you gave the scullion?”

  Aledis stared at them. “That’s none of your business.”

  “Did you ask him to pay?”

  Aledis remembered the look on the lad’s face when he did not even have time to take off his hose, and the clumsy, violent way he had climbed on top of her. Not only men liked innocence, virginity ...

  She smiled. “He gave me something.”

  THEY WAITED IN their room until suppertime. Then they went down and sat at a rough table of unpolished wood. Soon afterward, Jaume de Bellera and Genis Puig made their appearance. From the moment they sat at their table on the far side of the room, they could not take their eyes off the two girls. There was no one else in the dining room. Aledis caught the girls’ attention. They both crossed themselves and began to make a start on the bowls of soup the innkeeper had brought.

  “Wine? Only for me,” Aledis told him. “My daughters don’t drink.”

  “It’s one jug of wine after the other for her ... since our father died,” Teresa said apologetically to the innkeeper.

  “To get over her grief,” Eulàlia explained.

  “Listen,” Aledis whispered to them some time later, “that makes three jugs of wine, and they have had their effect. In a moment I’m going to let my head drop on the table, and I’ll start snoring. From then on, you know what you have to do. We need to know why Francesca’s been arrested, and what they intend to do with her.”

  Soon afterward, Aledis’s head drooped onto the table between her hands. But she was listening intently.

  “Why not come over here?” came the sound of a man’s voice. Silence. “She’s drunk ... ,” the voice insisted.

  “We won’t harm you,” said a second voice. “How could we, in a place like this, with the innkeeper as witness?”

  Aledis thought of the innkeeper; he wouldn’t say a word, providing they let him lay his hands on something ...

  “Don’t worry ... We are gentlemen...”

  The two girls eventually gave in. Aledis heard them scraping their chairs back and standing up.

  “You’re not snoring loudly enough,” Teresa whispered to her.

  Aledis allowed herself a smile.

  “A castle!”

  Aledis could imagine Teresa and those incredible blue eyes of hers opening wide as she stared at the lord of Bellera, making sure he got an eyeful of all her charms.

  “Did you hear that, Eulàlia? A castle. He’s a real nobleman. We’ve never talked with a noble before ...”

  “Tell us about all your battles,” Aledis heard Eulàlia encouraging him. “Have you met King Pedro? Have you talked to him?”

  “Who else do you know?” Teresa wanted to know.

  The two girls pressed round Lord de Bellera. Aledis was tempted to open her eyes, just enough to see them at work ... but there was no point. Her girls knew what they were doing.

  The castle, the king, the royal court... had they ever been there? The war ... squeals of terror when Genis Puig, who had no castle, no king, and had never been to court, tried to capture their attention by playing up all the battles he had fought in. And wine, lots and lots of wine ...

  “What is a nobleman like you doing in the city, in this inn? Are you waiting to see someone important?” Aledis heard Teresa asking.

  “We’ve brought in a witch,” Genis Puig boasted.

  The girls had been talking to Lord de Bellera. Teresa saw him cast a disapproving look at his companion. Now was the time.

  “A witch!” gushed Teresa, throwing herself on Jaume de Bellera and clasping both his hands in hers. “In Tarragona we saw one being burned. She shrieked as the flames leapt up her legs to her body, then her breasts, and...”

  Teresa looked up at the ceiling as though following the path of the flames. She raised her hands to her own breast, but soon came back to reality, and looked with embarrassment at the nobleman, whose face was already flushed with desire.

  Still holding her hands, Jaume de Bellera stood up.

  “Come with me.” I
t sounded more like an order than a request. Teresa let herself be dragged away.

  Genis Puig watched them leave.

  “What about us?” he said to Eulàlia, suddenly dropping his hand onto her calf.

  Eulàlia made no move to lift it off.

  “First I want to hear everything about the witch. It excites me ...”

  The knight slid his hand up her thigh. He began to tell her the story. When she heard the name “Arnau,” Aledis almost gave the game away by raising her head. “The witch is his mother,” she heard Genis Puig say. Revenge, revenge, revenge ...

  “Now can we go?” Genis Puig pleaded when he had finished his account.

  Aledis heard Eulàlia hesitate.

  “I’m not sure...,” said the girl.

  Genis Puig stood up, swaying. He slapped Eulàlia on the face.

  “That’s enough nonsense. Come with me!”

  “All right, let’s go.” She yielded.

  ONCE SHE REALIZED she was alone in the dining room, Aledis found it hard to stand up. She put her hands to the back of her head and rubbed her neck. So they were going to try Arnau and Francesca—the Devil and the witch, according to Genis Puig.

  “I’d take my own life before letting Arnau know I’m his mother,” Francesca had told her during one of their few conversations after Arnau’s speech on the plains of Montbui. “He’s a well-respected man,” Francesca went on before Aledis could say anything, “and I’m nothing more than the mistress of a bawdy house. Besides... there are many things I could never explain to him: why I didn’t follow his father and him, why I left him to die...”

  Aledis had looked down.

  “I’ve no idea what his father told him about me,” Francesca continued, “but whatever it was, there’s nothing I can do about it now. Time leads one to forget even a mother’s love. Whenever I think of him, I like to picture him on that platform defying the nobles; I have no wish to see him brought down from on high. Best leave things as they are, Aledis. You’re the only person in the world who knows my secret; I’m trusting you not to give it away even after my death. Promise me that, Aledis.”

  But what use was her promise now?

  WHEN ESTEVE CAME back up into the tower, he was no longer carrying the scythe.

  “The mistress says you are to put this over your eyes,” he said, throwing Joan a piece of cloth.

  “Who do you think you are?” Joan exclaimed, kicking the cloth away.

  There was not much room inside the tower, scarcely three steps in any direction. With a single bound, Esteve was beside Joan. He slapped him hard twice, once on either cheek.

  “The mistress says you are to cover your eyes.”

  “I’m an inquisitor!”

  This time, the blow from Esteve sent Joan crashing against the wall. He lay there at Esteve’s feet.

  “Put the blindfold on.” Esteve lifted him with one hand. “Put it on,” he repeated when Joan was upright.

  “Do you think that by using violence you can intimidate an inquisitor? You cannot imagine—”

  Esteve did not let him finish. First he punched him hard in the face, and Joan went hurtling against the wall once again. Then Mar’s servant began to kick him—in the groin, the stomach, his chest, his face ...

  Joan curled up in a ball to protect himself from more pain. Esteve picked him up with one hand.

  “The mistress says you are to put it on.”

  Joan was bleeding from the mouth. His legs gave way under him. When the servant let go, he tried to stay on his feet, but a stab of pain in his knee made him lurch forward and clutch Esteve’s body. The giant pushed him away.

  “Put it on.”

  The cloth was beside him. Joan realized he had wet himself and that his habit was sticking to his thighs.

  He picked up the blindfold and put it on.

  Joan heard the servant close the tower door and go down the staircase. Silence. On and on. Then he heard several footsteps on the stairs. Joan clambered up, gripping the wall. The door opened. They had brought some pieces of furniture with them; could they be chairs?

  “I know you have sinned.” Mar was seated on a footstool. As she intoned the Inquisition’s charge, her voice reverberated around the room. Next to her, the little boy was watching the friar closely.

  Joan said nothing.

  “The Inquisition never blindfolds its... prisoners,” he complained finally. “Perhaps if I could see you face-to-face ...”

  “That’s true,” he heard Mar reply. “You only blindfold their souls, their dignity, decency, their honor. I know you have sinned,” she said again.

  “I won’t accept a trick like that.”

  Mar signaled to Esteve. The servant went over to Joan and punched him hard in the stomach. Joan bent double, gasping for breath. By the time he had managed to straighten up again, there was complete silence in the room. He was panting so hard he could not even hear the others breathing. His legs and chest ached; his face felt raw. Nobody said a word. A knee to the outside of his thigh toppled him to the floor again.

  Pain surged through him. He curled up into a ball once more.

  Still silence.

  A kick to his kidneys sent him arcing in the opposite direction.

  “What do you want from me?” Joan screamed between the waves of pain.

  Nobody answered. Finally the pain subsided, and it was then that Esteve picked him up again and hauled him in front of Mar.

  Joan struggled to stay on his feet.

  “What do you ... ?”

  “I know you have sinned.”

  How far would she go? Would she really beat him to death? Was she capable of killing him? Yes, he had sinned; but what authority did Mar have to judge him? He shuddered so violently he thought he was about to collapse again.

  “You’ve already condemned me,” Joan managed to say. “Why judge me then?”

  Silence. Darkness.

  “Tell me! Why do you want to sit in judgment on me?”

  “You are right,” he heard her say at length. “I’ve already condemned you, but remember it was you who confessed your guilt. On this very spot, it was you who robbed me of my virginity; this was where you had me raped time and again. Hang him and get rid of his body,” Mar told Esteve abruptly.

  Mar’s footsteps began to descend the staircase. Joan felt Esteve tie his hands behind his back. He could not move; none of his muscles responded. The servant raised him in order to get him to stand on the stool where Mar had been sitting. Then Joan heard the noise of a rope being thrown up over one of the wooden beams in the ceiling. Esteve missed his aim, and the rope clattered to the floor. Joan wet himself again, and his bowels loosened. The noose was round his neck.

  “I have sinned!” shouted Joan with what little strength he had left. At the foot of the stairs, Mar heard his anguished confession.

  At last.

  Mar walked back up to the top of the tower, followed by the little boy.

  “Now I’ll listen to you,” she told Joan.

  AT FIRST LIGHT, Mar was ready to leave for Barcelona. Dressed in her finest robes and wearing the few jewels she possessed, she allowed Esteve to lift her onto her mule. She urged the animal on.

  “Take care of the house,” she told the servant as her mount began to set off. “And you, help your father.”

  Esteve pushed Joan behind the mule.

  “Keep your word, Friar,” he said.

  With downcast eyes, Joan stumbled after Mar. What would happen now? Last night, when the blindfold had finally been removed, he had found himself face-to-face with her by the light of the torches hanging on the tower’s circular walls.

  She had spat in his face.

  “You don’t deserve any reprieve ... but Arnau might need you,” she said. “That’s the only thing preventing me killing you with my own bare hands here and now.”

  The mule’s small, sharp hooves clopped their way along the track. Joan followed their rhythm, his eyes fixed on his feet. He had confessed every
thing to her: from his conversations with Eleonor to the hatred that had made him such a ferocious inquisitor. It was then that Mar had snatched off the blindfold and spat in his face.

  The mule plodded on slowly and docilely toward Barcelona. To his left, Joan could smell the sea, accompanying him on his pilgrimage.

  51

  THE SUN WAS already beating down by the time Aledis left the Estanyer Inn and mingled with the people crossing Plaza de la Llana. Barcelona was wide awake. Some women, equipped with buckets, pots, and jars, were queueing at the Cadena well, next to the inn, while others were crowding round the butcher’s stall on the far side. They were all talking loudly and laughing. Aledis would have liked to have been out earlier, but donning her widow’s disguise—with the doubtful help of two girls who never ceased pestering her with questions about what was going to happen next, what was going to become of Francesca, if she were really going to be burned as a witch, as the noblemen had said—had taken her longer than she had anticipated. At least no one was staring at her as she walked down Calle Boria toward Plaza del Blat. Aledis felt odd: she had always attracted men’s attention and won scornful looks from women, but now, with the heat making her black robes stick to her, she looked all round and did not see anyone so much as giving her a second glance.

  The noise from Plaza del Blat told her she could expect more people, more sun, more heat. She was perspiring heavily, and her breasts chafed against the coarse girdle wrapped tightly round them. Just before she reached Barcelona’s main market, Aledis turned right, heading for the shade of Calle de los Semolers. She walked up the street until she reached Plaza del Oli, where customers had come in search of the best olive oil or were buying bread at the stall. She crossed the square until she came to the San Joan fountain, where none of the women lined up gave her a second look either.

  Turning to her left, Aledis soon arrived at the cathedral and the bishop’s palace. The day before they had thrown her out, calling her a witch. Would they recognize her now? The lad at the inn ... Aledis smiled while she searched for a side entrance; that lad was much more likely to have recognized her than any of the Inquisition’s soldiers.