Cathedral of the Sea (24 page)

“Look at this,” the head stableman roared, showing him the severed rope. “This is your son’s work!”

Bernat took the rope and the halter and examined them. Hand still to his face, Arnau looked at them as well. He had checked them the previous day. He peered up at his father just as he in turn was glancing toward the stable door, where Tomás was observing the scene.

“It was fine,” Arnau shouted, picking up the rope and halter and shaking them in Jesus’s face. He glanced at the stable door again. “It was fine,” he repeated, as the first tears welled in his eyes.

“Look at him cry,” a voice suddenly said. Margarida was pointing at Arnau. “He’s the one to blame for your accident, and now he’s crying,” she added to her brother Genis. “You didn’t cry when you fell off the horse because of him,” she lied.

Josep and Genis were slow to react, but then they too joined in making fun of Arnau.

“That’s right, cry, little girl,” one of them said.

“Yes, go on, cry,” repeated the other.

Arnau saw them pointing at him and laughing. He could not stop crying! The tears ran down his cheeks, and his chest heaved as he sobbed. He stretched out his arms to show everyone, including the slaves, what had happened to the rope and the halter.

“Instead of crying, you should say you’re sorry for your carelessness,” the baroness chided him, smiling broadly at her stepchildren.

Say he was sorry? Arnau looked at his father, a puzzled look on his face. Bernat was staring at the baroness. Margarida was still pointing at Arnau and sniggering with her brothers.

“No,” he objected. “It was fine,” he added, throwing the rope and halter onto the ground.

The baroness began to wave her arms in the air, but stopped when she saw Bernat take a step toward her. Jesus caught Bernat by the elbow.

“She is a noblewoman,” he whispered in his ear.

Arnau looked at them all, then ran out.

“No!” SHOUTED ISABEL when Grau said he would get rid of father and son when he learned what had happened. “I want the father to stay here, working for your sons. I want him to be aware at all times we are waiting for his son to apologize. I want that boy to apologize publicly in front of your children. And that won’t happen if you get rid of them. Tell the father that his son cannot come back to work until he has said he is sorry ...” Isabel was shouting and waving her arms. “Tell him he will receive only half his wage until that happens, and that if he looks for other work we’ll make everyone in Barcelona aware of what happened here, so that he won’t be able to make a living. I want an apology!”

“We’ll make all of Barcelona aware ...” Grau could feel the hair on his body prickle. All those years trying to keep his brother-in-law hidden, and now ... now his wife wanted the whole of Barcelona to hear of him!

“Be discreet, I beg you,” was all he could think to say.

Isabel looked at him, her eyes bloodshot with rage. “I want them humiliated!”

Grau was about to say something, but thought better of it, and pursed his lips.

“Discretion, Isabel, that’s what we need,” was all he said.

Grau gave in to his wife’s demands. After all, Guiamona was no longer alive; there were no more birthmarks in the family, and they were all known as Puig rather than Estanyol. When Grau left the stables, Bernat listened with narrowed eyes as the stableman told him of the new conditions.

“FATHER, THERE WAS nothing wrong with that halter,” Arnau complained that night when the three of them were back in the small room they shared. “I swear it!” he said, when Bernat said nothing.

“But you can’t prove it,” Joan butted in. He had already heard what had happened.

“You don’t need to swear it,” thought Bernat, “but how can I explain to you... ?” He remembered how horrified he had been at his son’s reaction in Grau’s stables: “I’m not to blame, so there’s nothing I need to apologize for.”

“Father,” Arnau repeated, “I swear to you ...”

“But...”

Bernat told Joan to be quiet.

“I believe you. But now, to bed with you.”

“But...” This time it was Arnau who protested.

“To bed!”

Arnau and Joan blew out their candles, but Bernat had to wait long into the night until he heard the rhythmic breathing that told him they were fast asleep. How could he possibly tell his son the family was demanding a public apology?

“ARNAU ...” His VOICE shook when he saw his son stop dressing and glance over at him. “Grau ... Grau wants you to apologize; unless you do...”

Arnau looked at him inquisitively.

“Unless you do, he will not allow you back in the stables.”

He had not even finished speaking when he saw his boy’s eyes take on a seriousness he had never seen before. Bernat looked toward Joan, who had also stopped dressing and stood there openmouthed. Bernat tried to speak again, but the words would not come.

“Well, then?” asked Joan, breaking the silence.

“Do you think I should apologize?”

“Arnau, I gave up everything I had for you to be free. Although they had belonged to the Estanyol family for centuries, I left our lands so that nobody could do to you what they had done to me, to my father and my father’s father ... and now we’re back in the same situation, at the mercy of people who call themselves noble. But there’s a big difference: we can say no. My son, learn to use the freedom it’s cost us so much to win. You and only you can decide.”

“But what do you advise, Father?”

Bernat was silent for a moment. “If I were you, I wouldn’t give in.”

Joan tried to have his say. “They are only Catalan barons! Only the Lord can really grant forgiveness.”

“How will we live?” asked Arnau.

“Don’t worry about that, son. I have some money saved that we can use. And we’ll find somewhere else to work. Grau Puig is not the only man with horses.”

Bernat did not let a single day go by. That same evening, once his work was finished, he started to look for another job for him and Arnau. He found a nobleman’s house with stables where the stableman was happy to see him. There were many in Barcelona who were jealous of the care Grau’s horses received, and when Bernat explained that he was the person responsible, the man was keen to take both of them on. But the next day, when Bernat returned to the stables to confirm something he had already celebrated with his sons, they did not even receive him. “They were not offering enough money,” he lied that night over supper. Bernat tried in several other houses that kept horses, but just when it seemed they were happy to take them on, by the next day the situation had changed completely.

“You won’t find any work,” a stable hand finally told him when he saw the desperation in Bernat’s face as he stared down at the cobbles of the umpteenth stable that refused him. “The baroness will not permit it,” the man explained. “After you came to see us, my master received a message from the baroness begging him not to give you employment. I’m sorry.”

“BASTARD,” HE WHISPERED in his ear in a low but steady voice, drawing out the vowels. Tomás the groom jumped and tried to get away, but Bernat grabbed him by the neck from behind and squeezed until he was almost bent double. Only then did he relax the pressure. “If all the nobles are getting messages,” thought Bernat, “it’s because someone is following me.” “Let me go out through another door,” he had begged the stableman. Tomás, who was keeping watch on a street corner opposite the stables, did not see him leave. Bernat came up behind him. “You tampered with the halter so it would give way, didn’t you? And now what do you want?” He pressed down on the groom’s neck once more.

“What... what does it matter?” Tomás said, gasping for breath.

“What do you mean?” said Bernat, tightening his grip. The groom thrashed his arms in the air, but could not break free. A few moments later, Bernat could feel Tomás’s body go limp. He let go of his neck and turned him round. “What did you mean by that?” he asked again.

Tomás took several deep gulps of air before answering. As soon as the color returned to his cheeks, he smiled an ironic smile.

“Kill me if you like,” he said, still panting for breath, “but you know very well that if it hadn’t been the halter, it would have been something else. The baroness hates you, and always will. You are nothing more than a runaway serf, and your son is the son of a runaway. You will never find work in Barcelona: those are the baroness’s orders, and if it’s not me, it will be someone else who spies on you.”

Bernat spat in his face. Not only did Tomás not move, but his smile broadened.

“You have no option, Bernat Estanyol. Your son will have to beg for forgiveness.”

“I’LL DO IT,” Arnau said wearily that night, fists clenched as he fought back tears after listening to his father’s account. “We can’t fight the nobles, and we have to work. The swine! They’re all swine!”

Bernat looked at his son. “We’ll be free there,” he remembered promising him a few months after his birth, when they had first set eyes on Barcelona. Was this what he had struggled so hard for?