Cathedral of the Sea

by Ildefonso Falcones

  “Not me,” Genis replied naively.

  “Not you? Who then? Your father?”

  Genis looked down at the floor.

  “So you tried to use the Holy Office by lying! You made a false accusation for your own personal revenge!”

  Hearing the inquisitor scream at his companion brought Jaume de Bellera back to reality.

  “But he burned his father,” Genis insisted almost inaudibly.

  Nicolau waved his hand angrily. What should he do now? If he arrested and tried them, that would only mean keeping alive something that was much better dead and buried as soon as possible.

  “You are to appear before the clerk to the Inquisition and withdraw your charges. If you do not do so ... Do you understand?” he shouted when neither of them appeared to react. They nodded. “The Inquisition cannot judge a man on the basis of false accusations. Get out of here,” he concluded, signaling to the guard captain.

  “You swore on your honor you would have revenge,” Genis Puig said to Jaume de Bellera as they turned to leave.

  Nicolau heard the recrimination. He also heard the response: “No lord of Bellera has ever broken his oath,” Jaume de Bellera retorted.

  The grand inquisitor’s eyes narrowed. That was enough. He had allowed a prisoner to go free. He had just ordered two witnesses to withdraw their charges. He was making a bargain with ... a man from Pisa? He did not even know his name! What if Jaume de Bellera carried out his revenge before he had a chance to get his hands on the fortune Arnau had left? Would the man from Pisa keep his side of the bargain? All this had to be kept quiet once and for all.

  “Well, on this occasion,” he bellowed at the men’s retreating backs, “the lord of Bellera is not going to keep his word.”

  The two men turned back to him.

  “What are you saying?” said Jaume de Bellera.

  “That the Holy Office cannot allow two”—he dismissed them with a gesture—“two laymen to question a sentence that it has passed. That is divine justice. There is to be no other revenge! Do you understand that, Bellera?” The nobleman hesitated. “If you carry out your threat, I will try you for being possessed by the Devil. Do you understand now?”

  “But I’ve sworn an oath ...”

  “In the name of the Holy Inquisition, I relieve you of your promise.” Jaume de Bellera nodded. “And you,” added Nicolau, turning to Genis Puig, “you are to take great care not to wreak vengeance in a matter already resolved by the Inquisition. Is that clear?”

  Genis Puig nodded.

  THE CATBOAT, A small craft with one sail about thirty feet long, had pulled into a tiny cove on the Garraf coast, hidden from passing ships and approachable only by sea.

  A rough wooden hut, built by fishermen from the flotsam the Mediterranean had deposited on the shore of the cove, was the only thing that broke the monotony of gray stones and pebbles that vied with the sun to reflect the light and warmth it brought them.

  Together with a weighty bag of coins, the helmsman had received strict instructions from Guillem: “You are to leave him there with food and water and a man you can trust. Then you can go about your business, but stick to nearby ports and return to Barcelona at least every two days to receive further instructions from me. There will be more money for you when all this is over,” he had promised in order to secure the man’s loyalty. In fact, there was no real need for this: Arnau was known and loved by all seagoing folk, who saw him as an honest consul. The man accepted the money anyway. However, he had not taken Mar into account. She refused to share the responsibility of looking after Arnau with anyone else.

  “I’ll take care of him,” she said once they had disembarked in the cove and she had installed Arnau in the shade of the hut.

  “But the man from Pisa ... ,” the helmsman tried to argue.

  “Tell him that Mar is with Arnau, and if that doesn’t satisfy him, come back with your man.”

  She spoke with an authority he had rarely heard in a woman. He stared her up and down and again tried to object.

  “Be on your way,” was all she said.

  When his boat had disappeared behind the rocks at the cove entrance, Mar took a deep breath and peered up at the sky. How often had she denied herself a fantasy like this? How often, with the memory of Arnau fresh in her mind, had she tried to convince herself her destiny lay elsewhere? And now ... Mar glanced toward the hut. Arnau was still asleep. During the crossing, Mar had been able to check that he did not have a fever and was not wounded. She had sat down next to him, crossed her legs, and lifted his head onto her lap.

  Arnau had opened his eyes on several occasions, stared up at her, then closed them again, a smile on his lips. She took one of his hands in hers, and whenever Arnau gazed at her, she squeezed it until he fell back into a contented sleep. This had happened time and again, as though he were trying to prove to himself that she was real. And now ... Mar went back to the hut and sat at Arnau’s feet.

  HE SPENT TWO days going round Barcelona, remembering the places that had been part of his life for so long. Little seemed to have changed during the five years Guillem had been in Pisa. Despite the crisis, the city teemed with activity. Barcelona was still open to the sea, defended only by the tasques where Arnau had scuttled the whaling boat when Pedro the Cruel had threatened the coast with his fleet. The western wall Pedro the Third had ordered built was still under construction, as were the royal shipyards. Until they were finished, all the ships came aground for repairs or were built in the old yards at the foot of the beach opposite the Regomir tower. Guillem breathed in the sharp smell of tar that the caulkers used, mixed with oakum, to make the ships’ hulls watertight. He watched the carpenters at work, the oarmakers, blacksmiths, and ropemakers. In times gone by, he had accompanied Arnau to make sure that they did not mix new hemp with old when they twisted cables or rigging ropes. They would walk up and down, supervised by solemn-looking carpenters. Then after checking the ropes, Arnau would invariably head for the caulkers. He would send away everyone else, so that just he and Guillem could talk in private with these men.

  “Their work is essential: they are forbidden by law to be paid by how much they do,” Arnau had explained the first time. That was why the consul wanted to talk to them, to ensure that none of the caulkers had been forced by necessity to do his work hurriedly, and so put the fleet at risk.

  Now Guillem watched a caulker on his knees carefully checking the seal he had just finished on a ship’s hull. Seeing him made Guillem close his eyes. He tightened his mouth and shook his head. He and Arnau had fought alongside each other so often, and now his friend was hiding in a distant cove, waiting for the inquisitor to sentence him to a lesser punishment. Christians! At least he had Mar with him ... his little child. Guillem had not been surprised when the captain of the catboat had appeared at the corn exchange and explained what had happened with Mar and Arnau. His little child!

  “Good luck to you, my pretty one,” he had murmured.

  “What did you say?”

  “Nothing, nothing. You did the right thing. Put to sea again, and come back in a couple of days.”

  The first day, he had had no news from Eimerich. On the second, he went back into Barcelona. He could not just sit there waiting; he left his servants in the exchange, with orders to find him if anyone appeared asking for him.

  The merchants’ districts were exactly the same. He could walk through the city with his eyes closed, letting himself be guided by the distinctive smells from each of them. The cathedral, like Santa Maria or the Pi church, was still under construction, although work on the shrine to the Virgin of the Sea was much further advanced. Santa Clara and Santa Anna were also covered in scaffolding. Guillem paused in front of each church and watched the carpenters and masons hard at work. What about the seawall? And the secure harbor? How strange Christians were.

  On the third day, one of his servants came panting up to him. “Someone at the corn exchange is asking for you.”

  “Have
you given way then, Nicolau?” Guillem wondered as he hurried back.

  NICOLAU EIMERICH SIGNED the Inquisition’s sentence with Guillem standing on the far side of the table. He added his seal, and handed it over in silence.

  Guillem picked it off the table and began to read it.

  “Read the end. That’s all you need bother with,” the grand inquisitor urged him.

  He had forced the clerk to work all night, and had no intention of spending all day waiting for this infidel to read the document through.

  Guillem peered at him over the top of the parchment and carried on reading the inquisitor’s arguments. So Jaume de Bellera and Genis Puig had withdrawn their charges: how had Nicolau managed to achieve that? Margarida Puig’s testimony had been thrown into doubt because the tribunal had discovered that her family had been ruined in dealings with Arnau. As for Eleonor ... she had refused to accept the surrender and submission every wife ought to show her lord and master!

  In addition, Eleonor claimed that the accused had publicly embraced a Jewish woman with whom he was suspected of having carnal relations. As witnesses, she cited Nicolau himself and Bishop Berenguer d‘Eril. Guillem looked up again at Nicolau; the inquisitor held his gaze. “It is not true,” Nicolau had written, “that the accused embraced a Jewish woman on the occasion Doña Eleonor was referring to.” Neither he nor Berenguer d’Eril, who had also signed the document—at this point, Guillem did turn to the last sheet to confirm the bishop’s signature and seal—could support this charge. The smoke, the flames, the noise, the crowd’s passion—Nicolau had written—could have led a woman who was by nature weak to have thought this was what she had seen. And since the accusation made by Doña Eleonor regarding Arnau’s relationship with this Jewish woman was obviously false, little credibility could be afforded to the rest of her testimony.

  Guillem smiled.

  This meant that the only actions that could be held against Arnau were those described by the priests of Santa Maria de la Mar. The blasphemy had been admitted by the prisoner, but he had repented of it in front of the whole tribunal, and this was the ultimate goal of every trial held by the Inquisition. For this reason, Arnau Estanyol was sentenced to pay a penalty consisting of the seizure of all his goods, and to do penance every Sunday for a year outside Santa Maria de la Mar, wearing the cloak of repentance that all those found guilty by the Inquisition were obliged to wear.

  Guillem finished reading all the grandiloquent legal formulas, then checked that the document was properly signed and sealed by the grand inquisitor and the bishop. He had done it!

  He rolled up the parchment, then searched in his clothes for the bill of payment signed by Abraham Levi. He handed it to Nicolau and watched in silence as he read it. The document signified Arnau’s ruin, but guaranteed his freedom and his life. In any case, Guillem would never have been able to explain to Arnau where the money had come from, or why he had hidden the piece of paper for so many years.

  58

  ARNAU SLEPT THE rest of that day. At nightfall, Mar lit a fire with twigs and the wood the fishermen had collected in the hut. The sea was calm. Mar looked up at the stars coming out in the night sky. Then she peered out at the cliffs surrounding the cove: the moonlight was playing here and there on the edges of the rocks, creating fantastic shapes.

  She breathed in the silence and savored the calm. The world did not exist. Barcelona did not exist. Nor did the Inquisition, or Eleonor or Joan. There was only her ... and Arnau.

  Around midnight she heard sounds from inside the hut. She got up to see what it was, and saw Arnau emerging into the moonlight. They stood in silence a few steps from each other.

  Mar was standing between Arnau and the bonfire. The glow from the fire silhouetted her figure, but hid her features. “Am I in heaven already?” thought Arnau. As his eyes grew used to the darkness, he was able distinguish the details he had so often pursued in dreams: first of all, her bright eyes—how many nights had he shed tears over them?—then her nose, her cheekbones, her chin ... and her mouth, and those lips ... The figure opened its arms to him and the light from the flames streamed round her, caressing a body clothed in ethereal robes that the light and dark complemented. She was calling him.

  Arnau answered her call. What was happening? Where was he? Could it really be Mar? When he took her hands, saw her smiling at him and then kissing him on the lips, he had his reply.

  Mar clung to him as tightly as she could, and the world returned to normal. “Hold me,” he heard her ask. Arnau put his arm round her shoulder and held her to him. He heard her start to cry. He could feel her sobbing against him, and gently stroked her hair. How many years had gone by before they could enjoy a moment like this? How many mistakes had he made?

  Arnau raised Mar’s head from his shoulder and forced her to look up into his eyes.

  “I’m sorry,” he began to say. “I’m sorry I forced you to—”

  “Don’t say anything,” she interrupted him. “The past doesn’t exist. There is nothing to be sorry for. Today is when we start to live. Look,” she said, pulling away from him and taking his hand, “look at the sea. The sea has no past. It is just there. It will never ask us to explain. The stars, the moon are there to light our way, to shine for us. What do they care what might have happened in the past? They are accompanying us, and are happy with that; can you see them shine? The stars are twinkling in the sky; would they do that if the past mattered? Wouldn’t there be a huge storm if God wanted to punish us? We are alone, you and I, with no past, no memories, no guilt, nothing that can stand in the way of ... our love.”

  Arnau stood looking up at the sky, then lowered his gaze to the sea and the gentle waves lapping at the shore without even breaking. He looked at the wall of rock protecting them, and swayed in the silent darkness.

  He turned back to Mar, still holding her hand. There was something he had to tell her, something painful that he had sworn before the Virgin after the death of his first wife, something he could not renounce. Staring her in the eyes, he told her everything in a whisper.

  When he had finished, Mar sighed.

  “All I know is that I have no intention of ever leaving you again, Arnau. I want to be with you, to be close to you ... in whatever way you choose.”

  ON THE MORNING of the fifth day, a small boat arrived. The only person to disembark was Guillem. The three of them met on the seashore. Mar stood aside to let the two men fling their arms round each other.

  “God!” sobbed Arnau.

  “Which God?” asked Guillem, almost too moved to speak. He pushed Arnau away and smiled a broad smile.

  “The God of everyone,” replied Arnau, as happy as he was.

  “Come here, my child,” said Guillem, releasing one arm.

  Mar came up to the two men and put her arms round their waists.

  “I’m not your child anymore,” she told him with a mischievous smile.

  “You always will be,” said Guillem.

  “Yes, that you will always be,” Arnau confirmed.

  And so arm in arm they walked over and sat down by the remains of the previous evening’s fire.

  “You are a free man, Arnau,” said Guillem when he had settled on the sand. “Here is the Inquisition’s ruling.”

  “Tell me what it says,” Arnau asked him, refusing to take the document. “I’ve never read anything that came from you.”

  “It says they are seizing your goods ...” Guillem glanced at Arnau, but saw no reaction. “And that you are sentenced to a year’s penitence wearing the cloak of repentance every Sunday for a year outside the doors of Santa Maria de la Mar. Beyond that, the Inquisition says that you are free.”

  Arnau saw himself wearing the long penitent’s cloak with two white crosses painted on it, standing outside the doors of Santa Maria.

  “I should have known you could do it when I saw you in the tribunal, but I was in no state—”

  “Arnau,” said Guillem, interrupting him, “did you hear what I said?
The Inquisition has seized all your possessions.”

  For a while, Arnau said nothing.

  “I was a dead man, Guillem,” he replied at length. “Eimerich wanted my blood. Besides, I would have given everything I have ... everything I used to have,” he corrected himself, taking Mar’s hand, “for these past few days.” Guillem looked at Mar and saw her beaming smile and glistening eyes. His child. He smiled too. “I have been thinking...”

  “Traitor!” said Mar, pouting her lips in mock reproach.

  Arnau patted her hand. “As far as I can remember, it must cost a lot of money for the king not to oppose the Barcelona host.”

  Guillem nodded.

  “Thank you,” said Arnau.

  The two men stared at each other.

  “Well,” said Arnau, deciding to break the spell. “What about you? What has happened to you in all this time?”

  THE SUN WAS high in the sky by the time the three of them headed out to the catboat, which the helmsman brought in close to shore at their signal. Arnau and Guillem climbed on board.

  “Just one minute,” Mar begged them.

  The girl turned toward the cove and looked at the hut for one last time. What would the future hold for her? Arnau and his penitence, Eleonor ...

  Mar looked down.

  “Don’t worry about her,” Arnau said when she was on board the boat. “She won’t have any money, and won’t bother us. The palace in Calle de Montcada is part of my wealth, so now it belongs to the Inquisition. All that’s left for her is Montbui. She will have to move there.”

  “The castle,” murmured Mar. “Will the Inquisition take that too?”

  “No. The castle and its lands were given to us by the king on our marriage. The Inquisition has no authority to seize them.”

  “I feel sorry for the feudal peasants,” said Mar, remembering the day when Arnau abolished all the ancient privileges.

  Neither of them mentioned Mataró and Felip de Ponts’s farmhouse.