Cathedral of the Sea (28 page)

“Shhh!” hissed Arnau.

“What are you going to do?” the old man insisted.

“What I have to,” said Arnau, getting up.

“I don’t exist. I am Arnau Estanyol.” The soldiers were still watching him. “Burning a body must be a sin,” thought Joan. Bernat was staring at him! Joan came to a halt a few paces from the hanged man. “Arnau’s given me that idea.”

“You there, is something wrong?” said one of the soldiers, making to stand up.

“No, nothing,” Joan replied, renewing his walk toward the dead eyes that seemed to follow him everywhere.

Arnau picked up the lamp and ran out of the house. He found some mud and smeared it on his face. How often his father had talked to him about this city that now had brought about his death. He went around Plaza del Blat by La Llet and La Corretgeria squares, until he was at the end of Calle Tapineria, right next to the line of carts with the hanged men. Joan was sitting beneath their father’s body, trying to stop shaking so as not to give himself away.

Arnau hid the lantern in the street, slung the waterskin across his back, and started to crawl toward the far side of the carts drawn up against the palace wall. Bernat was in the fourth one. The soldiers were still talking round their fire at the opposite end of the line. Arnau crawled behind the carts. As he reached the second one, a woman saw him; her eyes were puffy from crying. Arnau paused, but the woman looked away and went on weeping. He climbed up on the cart where his father was hanging. Joan heard him, and turned round.

“Don’t look!” His brother lowered his gaze. “And try not to shake so much!”

Arnau stretched up toward his father’s body, but a sudden noise made him crouch down again. He waited a few moments, and stood up once more; again he heard a noise, but this time he remained upright. The soldiers were still talking to one another. Arnau raised the waterskin and began to pour oil over his father’s body. Bernat’s head was too high for him to reach, so he stretched up as far as he could and squeezed the skin hard so that the oil shot out. A greasy patch of oil began to soak Bernat’s hair. When the skin was empty, Arnau headed back to Calle Tapineria.

He would have only one chance. Arnau hid the lamp behind his back to conceal its weak flame. “I have to get it right the first time.” He looked over at the soldiers. Now it was his turn to tremble. He took a deep breath and stepped into the square. Bernat and Joan were ten paces from him. He lifted the lamp, casting light over himself. As he entered the square the lamplight seemed to him as bright as a radiant dawn. The soldiers looked in his direction. Arnau was about to start running when he realized that none of them was stirring. “Why would they? How are they supposed to know I’m going to burn my father? Burn my father!” The lantern shook in his hand. With the soldiers looking on, he reached Joan. Nobody moved. Arnau came to a halt beneath Bernat’s dangling body and looked up at him one last time. Oil glistened on his face, hiding the terror and pain so evident there before.

Arnau threw the lamp at the body. Bernat started to burn. The soldiers leapt up, glancing at the flames as they ran after the fleeing Arnau. The lamp fell onto the floor of the cart, where a pool of oil also caught fire.

“Hey, you!” he heard the soldiers shouting.

Arnau was about to run out of the square when he spied Joan still sitting in front of the cart. He was completely covered by the blanket, and seemed paralyzed with fear. Immersed in their grief, other mourners looked on in silence.

“Stop! Stop in the king’s name!”

“Move, Joan!” Arnau looked back at the soldiers, who were almost upon him. “Move, or you’ll be burned!”

He could not leave Joan where he was. The burning oil was snaking across the ground toward his brother’s trembling figure. Arnau was about to pull him away, when the woman who had seen him earlier stepped in between them.

“Run. Run for it,” she urged him.

Arnau ducked under the first soldier’s hand and sprinted off. He ran down Calle Boria to Nou gate, the soldiers’ shouts echoing in his ears. “The longer they chase me, the longer it will take them to get back to Father and put the fire out,” he thought as he darted along. The soldiers, none of them young and all of them laden with weapons, would never catch a lad like him, running with the speed of fire.

“In the king’s name, halt!” he heard behind him.

Something whistled past his right ear. Arnau heard the spear clatter to the ground in front of him. He sped across Plaza de la Llana as more spears fell around him. He went past the Bernat Marcús Chapel and reached Calle Carders. The soldiers’ cries were fading in the distance. He could not carry on running to the Nou gateway, because there were bound to be more soldiers guarding it. If he headed down toward the sea, he would reach Santa Maria; if instead he went up toward the mountains, he could reach as far as Sant Pere de les Puelles, but then he would come up against the city walls again.

He chose to aim for the sea. He skirted the San Agustin convent, then lost himself in the maze of streets of the Mercadal neighborhood. He climbed walls, ran through gardens, wherever looked darkest. As soon as he was convinced there was no sound behind him apart from the echo of his own footsteps, he slowed to a walk. He followed the Rec Comtal down to Pla de’n Llull, beside the Santa Clara convent. From there it was an easy matter to reach Plaza del Born, then the street of the same name, and finally Santa Maria, his refuge. But just as he was about to squeeze in through the boards of the doorway, something caught his attention: there was a guttering lantern on the floor of the church. He peered into the shadows beyond its feeble light, and soon saw the figure of the watchman stretched out on the ground, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth.

Arnau’s heart started to pound. What was going on? The watchman was meant to look after Santa Maria. Why would anyone ... ? The Virgin! The Jesus chapel! The bastaixos’ collection box!

Arnau did not think twice. His father had been executed; he could not allow anyone to bring dishonor to his mother. He crept into Santa Maria through the boarded-up doorway and headed for the ambulatory. The Jesus chapel was on his left between two buttresses. He walked round the church and hid behind one of the columns near the main altar. He could hear sounds coming from the Jesus chapel, but as yet could not see anything. He slid to the next column. From there he could see into the chapel, which as usual was lit by dozens of candles.

A man was climbing out over the chapel railings. Arnau looked at the Virgin: everything seemed to be all right. What was going on? He scanned the interior of the chapel: the collection box had been forced open. As the thief continued to climb over the iron grille, Arnau could almost hear the clink of coins the
bastaixos
dropped into the box in aid of their orphans and widows.

“Thief!” he shouted, lunging at the iron railings and striking the man on the chest. Taken by surprise, the thief fell to the floor. He had no time to think. The man leapt to his feet and delivered a tremendous punch to Arnau’s face. Arnau crashed to the floor of Santa Maria.

“H
E MUST HAVE fallen trying to escape after he had robbed the
bastaixos’
collection box,” said one of the king’s guards standing next to Arnau, who was still unconscious. Father Albert shook his head. How could Arnau have done such a terrible thing? The bastaixos’ collection box, in the Jesus chapel, underneath the statue of his Virgin! The soldiers had come to tell him a couple of hours before dawn.

“That cannot be true,” he told himself.

“Yes, Father,” the captain insisted. “The boy was carrying this purse,” he added, showing him the bag with the money Grau had given Bernat to pay for his prisoners. “What’s a young lad like him doing with so much money?”

“And look at his face,” another soldier said. “Why would he smear his face with mud if he wasn’t planning to steal something?”

Staring at the purse the officer was holding up, Father Albert shook his head again. What could Arnau have been doing there at this time of night? Where had he got the money?

“What are you doing?” he asked the soldiers, who were busy lifting Arnau from the floor.

“Taking him to prison.”

“No, you aren’t,” he heard himself say.

Perhaps... perhaps there was an explanation for all this. It was impossible that Arnau had tried to steal from the
bastaixos’
collection box. Not Arnau.

“He’s a thief, Father.”

“That’s for a court to decide.”

“And that’s what will happen,” said the captain as his men supported Arnau under the arms. “But he can wait for the judgment in jail.”

“If he goes to any jail, it will be the bishop’s,” said the priest. “The crime was committed on holy ground. Therefore it is under ecclesiastical jurisdiction, not that of the city magistrate.”

The captain looked at his soldiers and Arnau. Shrugging his shoulders, he ordered them to release him, which they did by simply letting him go and allowing him to fall to the ground again. A cynical smile spread across the captain’s face when he saw how the youngster’s face struck the paving stones.

Father Albert glared at them.

“Bring him round,” he ordered, taking out the keys to the chapel. He opened the grille and stepped inside. “I want to hear what he has to say.”

He went over to the collection box. He saw that the three clasps had been broken. It was empty. There was nothing else missing in the chapel, and nothing had been destroyed. “What happened, Our Lady?” he asked the Virgin silently. “How could you allow Arnau to do something like this?” He heard the soldiers splashing water on the boy’s face, and reappeared outside the chapel just as several bastaixos who had heard about the robbery came rushing into the church.

The freezing water brought Arnau round. He looked up and saw he was surrounded by soldiers. In his mind, he heard the spear whistling past his head in Calle Boria once again. He was running in front of them: how had they managed to catch him? Had he stumbled? The soldiers’ faces bent toward him. His father! His body was burning! He had to escape! Arnau struggled to his feet and tried to push one of them off, but they easily succeeded in pinioning him.

Dejected, Father Albert saw how Arnau was trying to wriggle free from the soldiers.

“Do you need to hear any more, Father?” the officer growled. “Isn’t this confession enough?” he insisted, pointing at Arnau.

Father Albert raised his hands to his face and sighed. He walked slowly over to where the soldiers were holding Arnau.

“Why did you do it?” he asked when he came up to them. “You know that box belongs to your friends the
bastaixos.
They use the money to help the widows and orphans of their guilds, or to pay for the burial of any member who dies. It’s also for works of charity, and to decorate the Virgin, your mother, with candles that are always alight. So why did you do it, Arnau?”

Seeing the priest reassured Arnau: but what was he doing there? The bastaixos’ collection box! The thief! He remembered being punched, but then what? Wide-eyed, he looked around him. Beyond the soldiers, countless faces that he knew were waiting for his answer. He recognized Ramon and little Ramon, Pere, Jaume, Joan—who was trying to see more by standing on tiptoe—Sebastia and his son Bastianet, and many more he had given water to and with whom he had shared unforgettable moments when the Barcelona host had marched on Creixell. So that was it! He was being accused of the robbery!

“It wasn’t me ... ,” he muttered.

The king’s captain held up Grau’s purse. Arnau felt on his belt for where it should have been. He had not wanted to leave it under his mattress in case the baroness reported them to the authorities and accused Joan, and now ... Damn Grau! Damn the purse!

“Is this what you’re looking for?” the captain said.

Arnau defended himself. “It wasn’t me, Father.”

The captain guffawed, and the soldiers joined in the laughter.

“Ramon, it wasn’t me. I swear it,” Arnau insisted, staring directly at the
bastaix.

“What were you doing here so late at night then? Where did you get that money? Why did you try to run away? Why is your face covered in mud?”

Arnau felt his face: it was caked with mud.

The purse! The king’s officer was continually waving it in front of his eyes. More and more
bastaixos
kept arriving, and remarking on what had happened. Arnau watched the purse swinging. That damned purse! He spoke imploringly to Father Albert.

“There was a man,” he said. “I tried to stop him but couldn’t. He was very big and strong.”

The captain’s incredulous laugh echoed once more round the ambulatory.

“Arnau,” the priest said, “just answer the captain’s questions.”

“No ... I can’t,” Arnau admitted, producing more hilarity among the soldiers, and consternation among the
bastaixos.