Cathedral of the Sea

by Ildefonso Falcones

  “That man,” the bishop had warned him on their way into the tribunal, “will give away more because of the oath he has taken than from any fear of being tortured.”

  “Please read the prisoner’s last declaration,” said Nicolau to the clerk.

  “‘They only adopt ideas and beliefs just like us.’” Arnau was struck by his own words. All night he had been unable to get the images of Mar and Aledis out of his mind, and had gone over what he had said time and again. Nicolau had not allowed him to explain what he meant, but then again, what could he say? What could he tell those hunters of heretics about his relations with Raquel and her family? The clerk was still reading out his declaration. He must not allow the questions to focus on Raquel: she and her family had suffered more than enough with the death of Hasdai. The last thing they needed was to have the Inquisition on their heels again ...

  “So you think that the Christian faith is no more than a few ideas and beliefs, which men are free to accept or not as they see fit?” Berenguer d’Eril asked him. “How dare a mere mortal judge God’s designs?”

  Why shouldn’t he? Arnau looked steadily at Nicolau. “Aren’t you two mere mortals as well?” he thought. They would burn him. They would burn him just as they had burned Hasdai and so many others. He shuddered.

  “I expressed myself badly,” he said finally.

  “How would you care to express yourself then?” asked Nicolau.

  “I’m not sure. I do not have your learning. All I can say is that I believe in God, that I am a good Christian, and that I have always followed His commandments.”

  “Do you think that burning your father’s body is following God’s commandments?” shouted the inquisitor, rising to his feet and thumping the table with both hands.

  HURRYING ALONG IN the shadows, Raquel ran to her brother’s house as they had agreed.

  “Sahat,” was all she said when she stood on the threshold.

  Guillem got up from the table he was sharing with Jucef.

  “I’m sorry, Raquel.”

  Her only reply was a twist of the mouth. Guillem was a few steps away from her, but when she raised her arms in a helpless gesture, he strode over and embraced her. Guillem pressed her to him and tried to comfort her, but words failed him. “Let the tears flow, Raquel,” he thought. “Let them put out the fire still burning in your eyes.”

  After a few moments, Raquel pulled away from Guillem and dried her tears.

  “You’ve come for Arnau, haven’t you?” she asked once she had regained her composure. “You must help him,” she added when Guillem nodded. “We can’t do much without making things even more difficult for him.”

  “I was just telling your brother that I need a letter of introduction to the royal court.”

  Raquel looked inquiringly at her brother, who was still seated at the table.

  “We’ll get one,” said Jucef. “The infante Don Juan, his retinue, the other members of the court, and prominent men from all over the kingdom are meeting in Barcelona to discuss Sardinia. It’s an excellent opportunity.”

  “What are you planning, Sahat?” asked Raquel.

  “I don’t know yet. You wrote to me,” he said, turning to Jucef, “that the king is at loggerheads with the grand inquisitor.” Jucef nodded. “What about his son?”

  “He’s even angrier with him,” said Jucef. “The infante is a patron of art and culture. He loves music and poetry. He invited many writers and philosophers to his court in Girona. None of them can accept the way Eimerich has attacked Ramon Llull. Catalan thinkers have little regard for the Inquisition: early this century fourteen works by the doctor Arnau de Vilanova were condemned; more recently the work of Nicolás de Calabria was declared heresy by Eimerich himself, and now they are attacking someone as important as Ramon Llull. It’s as though they despise anything Catalan. Nowadays, only a few people dare write, out of fear of the interpretation Eimerich might put on their words; Nicolas de Calabria ended up at the stake. In addition, if anyone could put a stop to the grand inquisitor’s plan to extend his jurisdiction to the Catalan Jewries, that person is the infante. Don’t forget, he lives on the taxes we pay him. He will listen to you,” said Jucef, “but make no mistake, he will not want to confront the Inquisition openly.”

  Guillem took silent note of all this.

  BURNING THE BODY?

  Nicolau Eimerich was still standing, hands pressed on the table, staring at Arnau. He was purple with rage.

  “Your father,” he growled, “was a devil who roused the people to rebellion. That is why he was executed, and why you burned him.”

  Nicolau ended by pointing an accusing finger at Arnau.

  How did he know? There was only one person who knew what he had done ... The clerk’s quill scratched its way across the page. It was impossible. Not Joan ... Arnau could feel his legs buckling beneath him.

  “Do you deny having burned your father’s body?” asked Berenguer d’Eril.

  Joan could not have told anyone!

  “Do you deny it?” Nicolau insisted, raising his voice.

  The faces of the tribunal in front of him became a blur. Arnau thought he was going to be sick.

  “We were hungry!” he shouted. “Do you know what it feels like to be hungry?” He saw his father’s purple face with its tongue lolling out, superimposed on those of the people watching him now. Joan? Why hadn’t he been to see him again? “We were hungry!” he shouted. Arnau could hear his father’s words: “If I were you, I wouldn’t accept it ...” “Have you ever been hungry?”

  Arnau tried to throw himself on Nicolau, who was still standing there arrogantly challenging him, but before he could reach the table, he was grabbed by the soldiers and dragged back to the center of the chamber.

  “Did you burn your father as a devil?” Nicolau shouted again.

  “My father was not a devil!” Arnau replied, shouting and struggling to free himself from the soldiers.

  “But you did burn his body.”

  “Why did you do it, Joan? You are my brother, and Bernat ... Bernat always loved you like a son.” Arnau lowered his head and went limp in the soldiers’ hands. “Why?”

  “Did your mother tell you to do it?”

  Arnau could barely lift his head.

  “Your mother is a witch who transmits the Devil’s sickness,” said the bishop.

  What were they talking about?

  “Your father killed a boy in order to set you free. Do you confess it?” howled Nicolau.

  “What—” Arnau started to say.

  “You,” Nicolau interrupted him, “you also killed a Christian boy. What were you planning to do with him?”

  “Did your parents tell you to kill him?”

  “Did you want his heart?” said Nicolau.

  “How many other boys have you killed?”

  “What are your relations with heretics?”

  The inquisitor and the bishop assailed him with questions. Your father, your mother, boys, murders, hearts, heretics, Jews ... Joan! Arnau’s head fell onto his chest again. His whole body was quivering.

  “Do you confess?” Nicolau rounded on him.

  Arnau did not move. His interrogators were silent, as he hung in the arms of the soldiers. Eventually, Nicolau signaled to them to take him out of the chamber. Arnau could feel them dragging him away.

  “Wait!” came the order from the inquisitor just as they were opening the doors. The guards turned back to him. “Arnau Estanyol!” he shouted. And again: “Arnau Estanyol!”

  Arnau slowly raised his head and peered at Nicolau.

  “You can take him out,” said the inquisitor once he had met Arnau’s gaze. “Take this down,” Arnau heard him instructing the clerk as he was bundled out of the room. “The prisoner did not deny any of the accusations made by this tribunal, and has avoided confessing by pretending to have fainted, the falseness of which has been discovered when, no longer under oath in the tribunal, the prisoner responded to calls for him to answer his n
ame.”

  The sound of the scratching quill followed Arnau all the way to the dungeons.

  DESPITE THE INNKEEPER’S protests, Guillem gave instructions to his slaves to organize his move to the corn exchange, which was close to the Estanyer Inn. He left Mar behind, but he could not risk being recognized by Genis Puig. The slaves only shook their head when the innkeeper tried desperately to get them and their rich master to stay on. “What use to me are nobles who won’t pay?” he growled as he counted out the money the slaves had given him.

  Guillem went straight from the Jewry to his new lodgings. None of the merchants staying in Barcelona knew of his former connections with Arnau.

  “I have a business in Pisa,” he told a Sicilian trader who sat down to eat at the same table and showed an interest in him.

  “What brings you to Barcelona?” he asked.

  He almost said, “A friend who is in trouble,” then thought better of it. The Sicilian was a short, bald man with rough-hewn features. He said his name was Jacopo Lercado. Guillem had discussed the situation in Barcelona thoroughly with Jucef, but it was always a good idea to get another opinion.

  “Years ago I had good contacts in Catalonia, so I thought I would take advantage of a trip to Valencia to see how things are here now.”

  “There’s not much to see,” said the Sicilian, continuing to eat.

  Guillem waited for him to go on, but the other man seemed more interested in his stew. It was obvious he would not say anything more unless he thought he was talking to someone who knew as much about business as he did.

  “I’ve noticed the situation has changed a lot since I was last here. There don’t seem to be many peasants in the markets: their stalls are empty. I can remember when, years ago, the inspector had to struggle to keep order among all the traders and peasants selling produce.”

  “The inspector has no work to do these days,” said the Sicilian with a smile. “The peasants don’t produce, and don’t bring anything to sell. Epidemics have decimated the countryside, the land is poor, and even the landowners no longer plant crops. Many peasant farmers have been heading to where you came from: Valencia.”

  “I’ve visited some people I knew before.” The Sicilian looked up from his food. “They no longer want to risk their money in commerce: they prefer to buy the city’s debt. They live on the interest. They have told me that nine years ago, Barcelona’s debt was around a hundred and sixty-nine thousand pounds; nowadays it must be nearer two hundred thousand, and it’s still increasing. The city can no longer pay the interest on the different loans it has given as guarantee for the debt; it is facing ruin.”

  Guillem reflected on the endless debate among Christians about whether it was permitted to earn money through interest. With the collapse of trade, and the consequent lack of money from commerce, the city authorities had once again sought to get round the prohibition by creating these new types of loans, which entailed the rich lending them money in return for a guarantee of a yearly payment—which obviously included interest. Repayment of the property levy implied handing over a third more than the original sum. The advantage of these loans was that there was much less risk than that involved in commercial ventures... as long as Barcelona could pay.

  “But until that moment of ruin arrives,” said the Sicilian, “there is a great opportunity to make money in Catalonia ...”

  “By selling,” Guillem intervened.

  “In the main, yes,” said the Sicilian. Guillem could tell he trusted him more now. “But you can also buy, provided you do so in the proper currency. The parity between the gold florin and silver croat is a complete fiction; it has nothing to do with the rate that you can get in foreign exchanges. Silver is pouring out of Catalonia, yet the king is determined to defend the value of his gold florin against the market; his attitude is going to cost him dearly.”

  “Why do you think he persists in it then?” Guillem asked. “King Pedro has always behaved very sensibly ...”

  “It’s purely out of political interest,” said Jacopo. “The florin is a royal currency: it is minted in Montpellier under his direct control. But the croat is minted in cities like Barcelona and Valencia under licence. The king is determined to support the value of his own currency even if it’s a mistake—but for us, his obstinacy is very fortunate. He has put parity between gold and silver at thirteen times more than its real value in other markets!”

  “What about the royal coffers?”

  That was what most interested Guillem.

  “Thirteen times overvalued!” laughed the Sicilian trader. “The king is still fighting Castille, although it seems the war may soon be over. King Pedro the Cruel is having problems with his barons, who are deserting him in favor of the House of Trastámara. Pedro the Ceremonious can count on support only from the cities and, apparently, the Jews. The war with Castille has ruined him. Four years ago, the Monzón parliament provided him with two hundred and sixty thousand pounds for his war chest in return for fresh concessions for nobles and cities. The king is spending the money on the war, but he is giving up privileges that might affect him in the future. And now there’s a rebellion in Corsica ... if you are owed money by the king, you can forget it.”

  Guillem’s attention wandered from what the Sicilian was saying. He merely nodded and smiled when it seemed appropriate. So the king was ruined, and Arnau was one of his biggest creditors. When Guillem had left Barcelona, Arnau had lent the royal house more than ten thousand pounds: how much could it be now? The king had probably not even been able to pay off the interest on the cheap loans. “They will put him to death.” Joan’s words came back into Guillem’s mind. “Nicolau will use Arnau to help strengthen his position,” Jucef had told him. “The king does not pay any revenues to the pope, and Eimerich has promised him part of Arnau’s fortune.” Would the king want to owe money to a pope who had just backed a revolt in Corsica by denying the rights of the crown of Aragon? But how could he get the king to stand up to the Inquisition?

  “YOUR PROPOSAL INTERESTS us.”

  The infante’s voice was lost in the vastness of the Tinell chamber in Barcelona’s royal palace. He was only sixteen, but he had just presided, in the name of his father, over the parliament that dealt with the revolt in Sardinia. Guillem glanced surreptitiously at the king’s heir, seated on the throne flanked by his two counsellors, Joan Fernández d’Heredia and Francesc de Perellós, both of whom were standing. It was said that the infante was weak, and yet, two years earlier, he had found the strength to try, pass sentence on, and execute the man who had been his tutor since birth: Bernat de Cabrera. And after ordering his beheading in Zaragoza market square, he had been obliged to send the viscount’s head to his father, King Pedro.

  The same evening he had spoken to the Sicilian trader, Guillem had met with Francesc de Perellós. The counsellor had listened closely to what he had to say, and then asked him to wait behind a small door. When after many minutes he was told to come in, Guillem found himself in the most imposing chamber he had ever seen: it was an airy room more than thirty paces wide, with six long arches that almost reached the floor. The walls were bare apart from the torches that lit the chamber. The infante and his counsellors were waiting for him at the far end.

  When he was still several steps away from the throne, Guillem knelt down on one knee.

  “Yet remember,” said the infante, “we cannot oppose the Inquisition.”

  Guillem waited until Francesc de Perellós nodded for him to speak.

  “You would not have to, my liege.”

  “So be it,” the infante ruled, then stood up and left the chamber, accompanied by Joan Fernández d’Heredia.

  “You may rise,” Francesc de Perellós told Guillem. “When can you arrange this?”

  “Tomorrow, if possible. If not, the day after.”

  “I will inform the magistrate.”

  GUILLEM LEFT THE royal palace as night was falling. He stared up at the clear Mediterranean sky and took a deep breat
h. There was still a lot to do.

  That same afternoon, when he was still talking to Jacopo the Sicilian, he had received a message from Jucef: “The counsellor Francesc de Perellós will see you today in the royal palace, when the parliament has finished.” He knew how to interest the infante. It was easy: he would cancel the substantial debts that the Catalan crown owed Arnau, thus making sure they did not end up in the hands of the pope. But how could he set Arnau free and yet avoid the duke of Girona having to confront the Inquisition?

  Before he headed for the royal palace, Guillem had gone for a walk. His steps led him in the direction of Arnau’s countinghouse. It was boarded up: Nicolau Eimerich must have had all his account books confiscated in order to avoid any further sales. All Arnau’s assistants had gone. Guillem looked toward Santa Maria, still surrounded in scaffolding. How was it possible that someone who had given everything for a church like that ... ? He walked on to the Consulate of the Sea, and then the beach.

  “How is your master?” he heard behind him.

  Guillem turned, and saw a bastaix carrying an enormous sack on his shoulders. Years earlier, Arnau had lent him money, which he had returned coin by coin. Guillem shrugged and twisted his mouth. Almost immediately, he was surrounded by a line of bastaixos who were unloading a ship. “What’s happened to Arnau?” he heard. “How can they accuse him of heresy?” That man had borrowed money from Arnau as well ... for his daughter’s dowry. How many of them had turned to Arnau for help? “If you see him,” said another bastaix, “tell him we’ve lit a candle for him beneath the statue in Santa Maria. We make sure it never goes out.” Guillem tried to explain he knew nothing, but they all launched into attacks on the Inquisition before continuing on their way.

  Emboldened by their passion, Guillem strode off determinedly to the royal palace.

  Now, with Santa Maria silhouetted against the night sky, Guillem found himself once more outside Arnau’s countinghouse. He needed the bill of payment that the Jew Abraham Levi had once signed, which he himself had hidden behind a stone in the wall. The door to the countinghouse was shut, but there was a window on the ground floor that had never closed properly. Guillem strained his ears: there was no one around. The window grated in the nighttime silence. Guillem froze. After all, he was a Moor, an infidel entering the house of a prisoner of the Inquisition in the middle of the night. If he were caught, the fact that he had been baptized a Christian would be of little help. But the nighttime sounds around him made him realize that the universe did not depend on him: the lapping of the waves, the creaking of the scaffolding at Santa Maria, babies crying, men shouting at their wives ...