Cathedral of the Sea (57 page)

“Nowadays the main one,” he said, “is the route from Crete to Cyprus, from there to Beirut, and from there to Damascus or Alexandria ... although the pope has forbidden trade with Alexandria.”

“So how is it done?” asked Arnau, playing with the abacus in front of him.

“With money, of course. You buy a pardon.”

Arnau remembered the explanation he had heard in the royal quarries about how the royal dockyards were being paid for.

“And do we trade only around the Mediterranean?”

“No. We trade with everyone. With Castille, with France and Flanders, although you are right, it is mostly around the Mediterranean. The difference is the kind of goods we trade. We buy cloth in France, England, and Flanders, especially expensive materials: wool from Toulouse, Bruges, Malines, Dieste, or Vilages, although we sell them Catalan linen too. We also buy copper and tin goods. In the Orient, in Syria and Egypt, we buy spices ...”

“Pepper,” said Arnau.

“Yes, pepper. When people talk about the spice trade to you, they also mean wax, sugar, and even elephant tusks. If they talk of fine spices, then they are referring to what you commonly imagine them to be: cinnamon, cloves, pepper, nutmeg, and so on ...”

“Did you say wax? Do we import wax then? How can it be that we import wax when the other day you told me we export honey?”

“That’s how it is,” the moor interrupted. “We export honey but import wax. We have too much honey, but the churches use a lot of wax.” Arnau recalled the first
bastaix
duty in Santa Maria: to ensure there were always candles lit beneath the statue of the Virgin of the Sea. “Wax comes from Dacia via Byzantium. The other main goods we trade in,” Guillem went on, “are foodstuffs. Many years ago, Catalonia exported wheat, but now we have to import all kinds of cereals: wheat, rice, millet, and barley. We export olive oil, wine, dried fruits, saffron, bacon, and honey. We also sell salted meat...”

At that moment, a client came in. Arnau and Guillem fell silent. The man sat opposite them and, after an exchange of greetings, deposited a sizable sum of money with them. Guillem was pleased: he did not know the client, which was a good sign, as it meant they were beginning not to have to depend on Hasdai’s clients. Arnau dealt with him in a professional way, counting out the coins and verifying their authenticity—although for good measure he passed them one by one to Guillem. Then he wrote down the sum deposited in his ledger. Guillem watched him write. Arnau had improved: his efforts were bearing fruit. The Puig family’s tutor had taught him the alphabet, but he had not written anything for years.

While waiting for the seagoing season to begin, Arnau and Guillem spent nearly all their time preparing commission contracts. They bought goods for export, joined with other traders to charter ships, or contracted them and discussed what cargoes to fill them with on the return journeys.

“What profits do the merchants we are contracting make?” Arnau wanted to know.

“That depends on the commission. On normal ones, they take a quarter of the profits. If the transaction is in gold or silver money, it does not amount to that much. We state the exchange rate we want, and the merchants make their profits from whatever they can get above that.”

“How do they manage in such distant lands?” Arnau asked, trying to imagine what these places were like. “They are foreign countries, where people speak other tongues... everything must be different.”

“Yes, but don’t forget that in all those cities,” Guillem replied, “Catalonia has consulates. They’re like the Consulate of the Sea here in Barcelona. There is a consul appointed by the city of Barcelona in every port. He tries to see that everything in commerce is carried out fairly, and mediates in any disputes that might arise between Catalan traders and local merchants or authorities. Each consulate has his own warehouse. Warehouses are walled premises where Catalan merchants can stay and where their goods can be stored until they are sold or loaded on board ship. Every warehouse is like a part of Catalonia on foreign soil. The person with authority over them is the consul, not the authorities of the country they are in.”

“Why is that?”

“Every country is interested in trade. They can levy taxes and fill their coffers from it. Trade is a different world, Arnau. We may be at war with the Saracens, but, for example, since the last century Catalonia has had consulates in Tunis or Bugia, and make no mistake, no Arab leader would ever attack one.”

ARNAU ESTANYOL’S MONEY-CHANGING business was thriving. The plague had decimated Barcelona’s money changers, the presence of Guillem was a guarantee for investors, and as the plague receded, more and more people wanted to put the money they had hidden at home to good use. And yet Guillem could not sleep. “Sell them in Mallorca,” Hasdai had recommended, referring to slaves, so that Arnau would not find out about it. Guillem had followed the advice: would that he hadn’t! he told himself, tossing and turning on his bed. He had used one of the last ships to leave Barcelona, at the start of October. Byzantium, Palestine, Rhodes, and Cyprus—those were the destinations of the four merchants who set sail in the name of Arnau Estanyol, supplied with bills of exchange that Guillem had handed to Arnau for signature. The former
bastaix
had scarcely even glanced at them. Now the merchants were to buy slaves and transport them to Mallorca. Guillem shifted once more in bed.

The political situation was conspiring against him. Despite the holy pontiff’s efforts to mediate, King Pedro had conquered the Cerdagne and Roussillon a year after his first attempt, when the truce he had agreed to had run out. On the fifteenth of July 1344, after most of his villages and towns had capitulated, King Jaime the Third knelt bareheaded before his brother-in-law. He begged for mercy and handed over his lands to the count of Barcelona. King Pedro left him as lord of Montpellier and viscount of Omelades and Carladés, but recovered the Catalan territory his ancestors had once possessed: Mallorca, Roussillon, and the Cerdagne.

However, after surrendering in this way, Jaime of Mallorca gathered a small army of sixty knights and three hundred foot soldiers and made for the Cerdagne to fight his brother-in-law again. King Pedro did not even deign to go and do battle against him, but instead sent his lieutenants. Weary, unhappy, and defeated yet again, King Jaime sought refuge from Pope Clement the Sixth, who still supported him. While he was under the Church’s safe protection, he thought up the last of his schemes: he sold Henri the Sixth of France the title of lord of Montpellier for twelve thousand golden crowns, then used that money, together with loans from the Church, to equip a fleet conceded him by Queen Juana of Naples. In 1349, he and his fleet disembarked in Mallorca.

Guillem had planned for the slaves to arrive with the first ships of the year 1349. A great deal of money was at stake. If anything went wrong, Arnau’s name—however strongly he was backed by Hasdai Crescas—would suffer among the agents he would need to work with in the future. He was the one who had signed the bills of exchange, and even though they were guaranteed by Hasdai, they would have to be paid. Relations with agents in far-off countries depended on trust, absolute trust. How could a money changer succeed if his first operation was a failure?

“Even he told me to avoid having anything to do with Mallorca,” Guillem confessed one day to Hasdai, the only person he could admit his fears to, as they walked in the Jewish man’s garden.

They did not look each other in the eye, and yet they both knew they were thinking the same. Four slave ships! If they failed, it could even be the ruin of Hasdai.

“If King Jaime will not keep the word he gave the day he surrendered,” said Guillem, finally looking at Hasdai, “what will become of Catalan trade and goods?”

Hasdai said nothing: what was there to say?

“Perhaps your merchants will choose another port,” he said at length.

“Barcelona?” mused Guillem, shaking his head.

“Nobody could have foreseen this,” said the Jew, trying to reassure him. Arnau had saved his children from certain death. What was this in comparison?

In May 1349 King Pedro sent the Catalan fleet to Mallorca, right in the middle of the seagoing season, right in the middle of the trading season.

“What good fortune we did not send any ships to Mallorca,” Arnau commented one day.

Guillem had to sit down.

“What would happen,” asked Arnau, “if we had sent any?”

“What do you mean?”

“We take money from people and invest it in commissions. If we had sent ships to Mallorca and King Jaime had requisitioned them, we would lose both the money and the goods on board; we wouldn’t be able to return the deposits. The commissions are at our own risk. What happens in cases like that?”

“Abatut,” the Moor replied tersely.

“If a money changer cannot repay the deposits, the magistrate gives him six months to settle the debts. If by the end of that time he has been unable to pay them off, he is declared
abatut
or bankrupt. He is imprisoned on bread and water, and all his possessions are sold to pay his debtors ...”

“I don’t have any possessions.”

“If those possessions are insufficient,” Guillem continued reciting from memory, “he is beheaded outside his countinghouse as a warning to all the others.”

Arnau said nothing.

Guillem did not dare look at him. How was he to blame for any of this?

“Don’t worry,” he told him. “It will never happen.”

T
HE WAR CONTINUED in Mallorca, but Arnau was happy. Whenever there was no work to do, he stood at the door of his countinghouse and looked out. Now that the plague had gone, Santa Maria was coming back to life. The tiny Romanesque church he and Joanet had known no longer existed; work on the new church was steadily advancing toward the main doorway. He could spend hours watching the masons placing the blocks of stone; he had a vivid memory of all those he had carried. Santa Maria meant everything to Arnau: his mother, his acceptance into the guild ... and of course, a place of refuge for the Jewish children. Occasionally a letter from his brother made him even happier. Joan’s letters were always short, and told him only about his health and the fact that he was studying hard.

As he looked out, a
bastaix
appeared carrying a stone. Few of the guild members had survived the plague. His own father-in-law, Ramon, and many others had died. Arnau had wept for them on the beach with his former companions.

“Sebastiá,” he muttered when he recognized the man.

“What did you say?” he heard Guillem ask behind him.

Arnau did not turn round.

“Sebastiá,” he repeated. “That man carrying the stone over there is called Sebastiá.”

As he passed by, the
bastaix
called a greeting, without turning his head or pausing. His lips were drawn in a tight line from the effort.

“For many years, that could have been me,” Arnau went on, his voice choked with emotion. Guillem made no comment. “I was only fourteen when I took my first stone to the Virgin.” At that moment, another
bastaix
walked past the door. Arnau greeted him. “I thought I was going to snap in two, that my spine was going to break, but you can’t imagine the satisfaction I felt when I finally got there ... my God!”

“There must be something good about your Virgin for people to sacrifice themselves for her like that,” he heard the Moor say.

At that they both fell silent, watching the line of
bastaixos
passing by on their way to the church.