Cathedral of the Sea (25 page)

“No, my son. Wait. We’ll find another—”

“They’re the ones who give the orders, Father. The nobles are in charge. In the countryside, in our lands, here in the city.”

Joan looked on in silence. “You must obey and submit yourselves to your princes,” his teachers had taught him. “Man will find freedom in the Kingdom of God, not in this one.”

“They can’t control the whole of Barcelona. The nobles may be the ones who have horses, but we can learn some other trade. We’ll find something.”

Bernat saw a gleam of hope appear in his son’s eyes. They widened as if he were trying to absorb strength from his father’s words. “I promised you freedom, Arnau. I must give it to you, and I will. Don’t give up so quickly, little one.”

Over the next few days, Bernat roamed the streets in search of freedom. At first, once he had finished his work in Grau’s stables, Tomás followed him, without even bothering to keep hidden. Soon, though, he stopped spying on him: the baroness understood she had no influence over artisans, small traders, or builders.

“It’ll be hard for him to find anything,” her husband tried to reassure his wife when she came to complain about the peasant’s attitude.

“Why do you say that?” she asked him.

“Because he won’t find work. Barcelona is suffering the consequences of a lack of planning.” The baroness urged him to continue; Grau was never wrong in his judgments. “The last few years’ harvests have been disastrous,” he explained. “There are too many people in the countryside, so what little they do harvest never reaches the cities. They eat it all themselves.”

“But Catalonia is big,” said the baroness.

“Make no mistake, my dear. Catalonia may be big, but for many years now the peasants have not grown cereals, which is what is needed. Nowadays they produce linen, grapes, olives, or dried fruit, but not cereals. The change has made their lords rich, and we merchants have done very well out of it too, but the situation is becoming impossible. Until now we’ve been able to eat grain from Sicily and Sardinia, but the war with Genoa has put a stop to that. Bernat will not find work, but all of us, we nobles included, are going to face problems. And all because of a few useless noblemen...”

“How can you talk like that?” the baroness cut in, feeling herself under attack.

“Look at it this way, my love.” Grau was serious in his attempt to explain. “We earn our livelihood from trade, and we’ve done very well out of it. We invest part of what we earn in our own businesses. We don’t use the same ships we had ten years ago, and that’s why we go on making money. But the noble landowners have not invested a thing in their lands or their working methods: they are still using the same implements and techniques as the Romans did. The Romans! They should let their fields lie fallow every two or three years; that way they could produce two or three times as much as they do. But those noble landlords you are so keen to defend never think of the future; all they want is easy money. They are the ones who will be the ruin of Catalonia.”

“Things can’t be as bad as all that,” the baroness insisted.

“Have you any idea how much a sack of wheat costs?” When his wife made no reply, Grau shook his head and went on: “Close to a hundred shillings. Do you know what the normal price is?” This time, he did not wait for her reply. “Ten shillings unground, sixteen ground. So a sack has increased tenfold in price!”

“What will we eat then?” his wife asked, unable to conceal her preoccupation.

“You don’t understand. We’ll still be able to buy wheat... if there is any, because there could come a moment when it runs out—if we haven’t got there already. The problem is that whereas wheat has gone up ten times in price, ordinary people are still receiving the same wages—”

“So we will have wheat,” his wife butted in.

“Yes, but—”

“And Bernat will not be able to find work.”

“I don’t think so, but—”

“Well, that’s all that matters to me,” the baroness said. With that, she turned her back on him, weary of listening to all his explanations.

“Something terrible is brewing,” Grau said when his wife could no longer hear.

A bad year. Bernat was tired of hearing that excuse time and again. Wherever he tried to find work, the bad year was to blame. “I’ve had to lay off half my apprentices: how can I offer you work?” one artisan told him. “This is a bad year. I can’t even feed my children,” said another. “Haven’t you heard?” a third man told him. “This is a bad year; I’ve had to spend half my savings just to feed my family. Normally a twentieth would have been enough.” “How could I not have heard?” Bernat thought, but went on searching until winter and the cold weather came on. Then there were some places where he did not even dare ask. The children went hungry; their parents did not eat so they could give them something; and smallpox, typhus, and diphtheria began to make their deadly appearance.

Arnau looked into Bernat’s money bag when his father was at work. At first he checked it each week, but soon he looked every day, often more than once. He could clearly see that their reserves were rapidly being eaten up.

“What is the price of freedom?” he asked Joan one day as they were both praying to the Virgin.

“Saint Gregory says that at the beginning all men were born equal and were therefore free.” Joan spoke in a quiet, steady voice, as though repeating a lesson. “But it was those men who had been born free who for their own good chose to submit to a lord who would take care of them. They lost part of their freedom, but gained a lord who would take care of them.”

Arnau listened to him, staring intently at the Virgin’s statue. “Why don’t you smile for me? Saint Gregory... Whenever did Saint Gregory have an empty purse like my father’s?”

“Joan.”

“What is it?”

“What do you think I should do?”

“It’s your decision.”

“But what do you think?”

“I’ve already told you. It was the freemen who decided they wanted a lord to take care of them.”

That same day, without telling his father, Arnau presented himself at Grau Puig’s mansion. In order not to be seen from the stables, he slipped in through the kitchen. There he found Estranya, as huge as ever, as if hunger had made no mark on her. She was busy with a pot over the fire.

“Tell your masters I’ve come to see them,” he told her when the cook became aware of him.

A blank smile spread across the slave’s face. She went to tell Grau’s steward, who informed his master. Arnau was kept waiting for hours, standing in the kitchen. Everyone in Grau’s service filed past to get a look at him. Most of them smiled, although a few looked sad at his capitulation. Arnau met all their gazes, responding defiantly to those who mocked him, but he was unable to wipe the smiles from their faces.

The only person who did not appear was Bernat, although Tomás the groom had made sure he knew his son had come to apologize. “I’m sorry, Arnau, so sorry,” Bernat muttered over and over to himself as he brushed down one of the horses.

After waiting for hours, with aching legs—Arnau had tried to sit down, but Estranya had prevented him from doing so—he was led into the main room of Grau’s house. He did not even notice how richly it was appointed: his eyes immediately went to the five members of the family waiting for him at the far end of the room. The baron and his wife were seated; his three cousins stood beside them. The men wore brightly colored silk stockings with jerkins and gold belts; the women’s robes were adorned with pearls and precious stones.

The steward led Arnau to the center of the room, a few feet from the family. Then he returned to the doorway, where Grau had told him to wait.

“What brings you here?” Grau asked, stiff and distant as ever.

“I’ve come to ask your forgiveness.”

“Well, do so then,” Grau ordered him.

Arnau was about to speak, but the baroness interrupted him.

“Is that how you propose to ask for forgiveness? Standing up?”

Arnau hesitated for a moment, but finally sank down on one knee. Margarida’s silly giggle echoed, round the room.

“I beg forgiveness from you all,” Arnau intoned, his eyes fixed on the baroness.

She looked straight through him.

“I’m only doing this for my father,” Arnau said, and stared back at her defiantly. “Trollop.”

“Our feet!” the baroness shrieked. “Kiss our feet!” Arnau tried to stand again, but she stopped him. “On your knees!” she crowed.

Arnau obeyed, and shuffled over to them. “Only for my father. Only for my father. Only for my father...” The baroness put forward her silk slippers, and Arnau kissed them, first the left one and then the right. Without looking up, he moved on to Grau. When he saw the boy kneeling at his feet, Grau hesitated, but when he saw his wife staring furiously at him, he raised his feet in turn up to the boy’s mouth. Arnau’s boy cousins did the same as their father. When Arnau tried to kiss Margarida’s silk slipper, she jerked it away and started giggling once more. Arnau tried again, and she did the same. Finally, he waited for her to lift the slippers to his mouth ... first one ... then the other.

 

 

B
ERNAT COUNTED THE money Grau had paid him. He growled as he dropped it into his purse. It ought to be enough, but... those cursed Genoese! When would they end their siege against the principality? Barcelona was going hungry.

Bernat tied the bag to his belt and went to find Arnau. The boy was undernourished. Bernat looked at him anxiously. A hard winter. At least they had got through the winter. How many others could say the same? Bernat drew his mouth into a tight line, stroked his son’s hair, then let his hand fall on his shoulder. How many in Barcelona had died from the cold, hunger, or disease? How many fathers could still rest their hands on their sons’ shoulders? “At least you’re alive,” he thought.

That day a grain ship, one of the few that had succeeded in evading the Genoese blockade, arrived in the port of Barcelona. The cereals were bought by the city itself at exorbitant prices, to be resold to the inhabitants for more accessible sums. That Friday there was wheat in the Plaza del Blat, and people had started congregating there since first light. They were already fighting to see how the official measurers were going to divide the stocks.

For a few months now, despite the best efforts of the councillors to silence him, a Carmelite friar had been preaching against the rich and powerful. He blamed them for the food shortages, and accused them of keeping wheat hidden away. The friar’s diatribes had struck a chord among the faithful. The rumors about the hidden wheat spread throughout the city. That was why this particular Friday people were crowding noisily into the Plaza del Blat, arguing and pushing their way forward to the tables where city officials were weighing the grain.

The authorities had calculated how much wheat there was for each inhabitant and put the cloth merchant Pere Juyol, the official inspector for the Plaza del Blat, in charge of supervising its sale.

“Mestre doesn’t have a family,” came the cry a few minutes later as a ragged-looking man with an even more ragged child stepped up to the table. “They all died over the winter.”

The weighers took back the grain from Mestre, but this was just the start: one man had sent his son to another table; another had already had his share; a third had no family; that is not his son, he’s only brought him to get more ...

The square became a hive buzzing with rumors. People abandoned the queues, started to argue, and were soon swapping insults. Someone shouted that the authorities should put the wheat they were hiding on public sale; the crowd backed him. The officials found they could no longer control the swarm of people pushing and shoving round the tables. The king’s stewards began to confront the hungry mob, and it was only a quick decision by Pere Juyol that saved the situation. He ordered that the grain be taken to the magistrate’s palace at the eastern side of the square and suspended all sales that morning.