Cathedral of the Sea (19 page)

Like everyone else in the citizens’ army, Arnau and Joanet watched the negotiations without a word.

In the end, there was no battle. The lord of Creixell had managed to escape through a secret tunnel that led from the castle to the beach, behind the army. When he saw Barcelona’s army drawn up in the valley, the village mayor gave the order to comply with all the city’s demands. The villagers released the flock and the shepherd, agreed to pay a large sum of money in compensation, promised to obey and respect Barcelona’s privileges in the future, and handed over two men who they said were to blame for the insult. They were taken prisoner at once.

“Creixell has surrendered,” the ambassadors informed the army.

A murmur ran through the ranks. The occasional soldiers sheathed their swords, put down their crossbows and spears, and took off their armor. Soon, shouts of triumph, jokes, and laughter could be heard on all sides.

“Where’s the wine, boys?” Ramon teased them. “What’s the matter?” he said, seeing them rooted to the spot. “You would have liked to have seen a battle, wouldn’t you?”

The expression on their faces spoke for itself.

“But any one of us could have been wounded, or even killed. Would you have liked that?” Arnau and Joanet quickly shook their heads. “You should see it in another light: you belong to the biggest and most powerful city in the principality. Everyone is afraid of challenging us.” Arnau and Joanet listened, wide-eyed.

“Go and fetch wine, boys. You’ll have the chance to drink to our victory too.”

The flag of Sant Jordi returned with honor to Barcelona. Alongside it strode the two boys, proud of their city, its citizens, and of being part of everything. The Creixell prisoners were paraded through the streets in chains. Women and crowds of curious onlookers applauded the army and spat on the captives. Stern-faced and proud, Arnau and Joanet marched with the others all the way to the magistrate’s palace, where the prisoners were handed over. Then they went to visit Bernat, who, relieved to see his son back safe and sound, soon forgot the scolding he was going to give him, and instead listened contentedly to the story of his new adventures.

S
EVERAL MONTHS HAD gone by since the excitement that had taken him to Creixell, but little had changed in Arnau’s life. While he waited for his tenth birthday, when he would become an apprentice in Grau’s workshop, he spent his days with Joanet, roaming the streets of the fascinating city, giving the
bastaixos
water, and above all, enjoying watching the new Santa Maria church grow. He prayed to the Virgin and told her all his worries, delighting in the smile he thought he could see on her lips.

As Father Albert had told him, when the main altar of the Romanesque church disappeared, the Virgin was taken to the small Jesus chapel in the ambulatory behind the new main altar, between two buttresses and protected by tall, strong iron bars. It was the
bastaixos
who provided for the chapel. They were the ones who looked after it, guarded it, cleaned it, and made sure it was always lit by fresh candles. Although it was the most important chapel in the new church, the place where the sacraments were kept, the parish had granted it to these humble workers from the port of Barcelona. Many nobles and rich merchants were happy to pay to build and endow the other thirty-three chapels that would be part of Santa Maria de la Mar, Father Albert told them. But this one, the Jesus chapel, belonged to the
bastaixos,
so the young water carrier never had any problem getting close to the Virgin.

One morning, Bernat was sorting through the few possessions he kept under their pallet. It was here that he hid the coins he had managed to rescue during their flight from his farmhouse nine years earlier, and the meager wage his brother-in-law paid him, which would nevertheless help Arnau get on once he had learned the potter’s trade. All of a sudden, Jaume entered the room. Surprised because the assistant usually never came there, Bernat stood up.

“What is it?”

“Your sister has died,” Jaume said hurriedly.

Bernat could feel his legs giving way. He flopped onto the mattress, money bag still in hand.

“Wha ... What happened?” he stammered.

“The master does not know. Her body was cold this morning.”

Bernat dropped the bag and buried his face in his hands. By the time he lowered them again and looked up, Jaume had disappeared. With a lump in his throat, Bernat recalled the little girl who had worked in the fields alongside him and his father, the girl who never stopped singing as she looked after the animals. Bernat had often seen his father pause in his task and close his eyes, allowing himself to be carried away for a few moments by her happy, carefree voice. And now ...

Arnau’s face showed no reaction when his father told him the news at mealtime.

“Did you hear me, son?” Bernat insisted.

Arnau merely nodded. It was more than a year since he had seen Guiamona, apart from the increasingly rare occasions when he climbed the tree to watch her playing with his cousins. Hidden in the branches, he would shed silent tears as he spied on them as they laughed and ran about, none of them ... He felt like telling his father that it did not matter, because Guiamona had no love for him, but when he saw how sad his father looked, he said nothing.

“Father.” Arnau went up to him.

Bernat embraced his son.

“Don’t cry,” said Arnau, pressing his head into his father’s chest. Bernat hugged him, and Arnau responded by wrapping his arms round him.

THEY WERE EATING
quietly with the slaves and apprentices when they heard the first howl. It was a piercing shriek that seemed to rend the air. They all looked toward the big house.

“Paid wailers,” one of the apprentices said. “My mother is one. It might even be her. She’s the best wailer in the city,” he added proudly.

Arnau sought his father’s face. Another howl resounded, and Bernat saw his son flinch.

“We’ll hear lots more,” he told him. “I’ve heard that Grau has hired a lot of wailing women.”

He was right. All that afternoon and night, as people came to visit the Grau house to offer their condolences, women could be heard mourning Guiamona’s death. Neither Bernat nor his son could sleep because of the constant keening.

“The whole of Barcelona knows,” Joanet told Arnau the next morning when the two of them managed to meet up in the crush of people that had formed outside Grau’s gates. Arnau shrugged. “They’ve all come for the funeral,” Joanet added, noticing his friend’s indifferent shrug.

“Why?”

“Because Grau is rich, and anyone who accompanies him is to be given mourning clothes,” said Joanet, showing him a long black tunic he was carrying. “Like this one,” he said with a smile.

By midmorning, when everyone had donned their black clothes, the funeral procession set off for Nazaret church. It was here that the chapel to Saint Hippolytus, the patron saint of potters, was to be found. The paid mourners walked alongside the coffin, crying, howling, and tearing their hair.

The church was full of the rich and famous: aldermen from several guilds, city councillors, and most of the members of the Council of a Hundred. Now that Guiamona was dead, nobody was concerned about the Estanyol family, and Bernat succeeded in pushing his way through people dressed in the simple garments Grau had given out, as well as others wearing silks, byssus, and expensive black linen, until he and his son reached his sister’s coffin. He was not even allowed to bid her a proper farewell.

STANDING AT BERNAT’S side while the priests conducted the funeral service, Arnau caught glimpses of his cousins’ faces, puffy from crying. Josep and Genis looked calm and composed, but Margarida, although she sat up straight, could not prevent her lower lip from constantly trembling. They had lost their mother, just like him. Did they know about the Virgin? Arnau wondered, looking across at his uncle, who sat there stiff as ever. He was sure that Grau Puig would not tell them about her. He had always heard that the rich were different; perhaps they had a different way of finding a new mother.

THEY CERTAINLY DID.
A rich widower in Barcelona, and one with ambitions ... Even before the period of mourning had finished, Grau began to receive offers of marriage. In the end, the one chosen to be the new mother for Guiamona’s children was Isabel. She was young and unattractive, but she was a noble. Grau had weighed the advantages of all the candidates, but eventually chose the only one from a noble family. Her dowry was a title that brought with it no privileges, lands, or riches, but would help him join a class that had always been closed to him. What did he care about the substantial dowries that some merchants offered him in their anxiety to share his wealth? The important noble families in Barcelona were not interested in a widower who, however rich he might be, was nothing more than a potter: only Isabel’s father, who was penniless, could see that Grau’s character might help him make an alliance that would benefit both parties. And so it proved.

“You will understand,” his future father-in-law insisted, “that my daughter cannot live in a potter’s workshop.” Grau nodded. “And that she cannot marry a simple potter.” Grau tried to protest, but his father-in-law dismissed him with a wave of the hand. “Grau,” he went on, “we nobles cannot stoop to working as artisans. You surely understand that? We may not be rich, but we will never be craftsmen.”

“We nobles cannot ...” Grau tried to hide his satisfaction at being included as one of them. His father-in-law was right: which of the city nobles had a workshop? My lord baron: from now on that was how he would be known in his commercial dealings, and in the Council of a Hundred ... My lord baron! How could a Catalan baron have a workshop?

As alderman of the guild, he could smooth the way for Jaume to be made a master potter. They talked the matter over. Grau was in a hurry to wed Isabel, obsessed by the fear that the fickle nobleman might change his mind. The baron-to-be had no time to put his business up for sale. So Jaume would become a master potter, and Grau would sell him the workshop and the house, in installments. There was only one problem: