Cathedral of the Sea (61 page)

“No, I didn’t know.” Arnau said nothing for a few moments. “Tell me when one of our ships is due in port.”

“SEVERAL SHIPS ARE coming in together,” Guillem told him one morning as they were walking back from the Consulate of the Sea.

“Is the Puig family there?”

“Of course. The baroness is so close to the water the waves are licking her shoes...” Guillem fell silent. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to ...”

Arnau smiled.

“Don’t worry,” he said, reassuring him. Then he went up to his bedroom, where he slowly put on his finest clothes, the ones Guillem had finally convinced him he should buy.

“A man in your position,” he had argued, “cannot appear badly dressed at the exchange or the consulate. That is what the king decrees, and so do your saints; Saint Vincent, for example ...”

Arnau made him be quiet, but listened to his advice. Now he donned a white sleeveless shirt made of the finest malines cloth and trimmed with fur, a red silk damascene doublet that came down to his knees, black hose, and black silk shoes. He fastened the doublet round his waist with a wide belt that had gold threads and was studded with pearls. Arnau completed his attire with a marvelous black cloak that Guillem had discovered in one of their ships’ expeditions beyond Dacia. It was lined with ermine and embroidered with gold and precious stones.

When he stepped into the countinghouse, Guillem nodded his approval. Mar was about to say something, but changed her mind. She watched as Arnau went out of the door: she ran to it and from the street outside saw him walk down to the beach, his cloak rippling in the sea breeze and the precious stones sparkling all round him.

“Where’s Arnau going?” she asked Guillem, coming back into the countinghouse and sitting opposite him in one of the clients’ chairs.

“To collect a debt.”

“It must be a very important one.”

“It is, Mar,” said Guillem, pursing his lips, “but this is only the first installment.”

Mar began to play with the ivory abacus. How often, hidden in the kitchen, had she watched as Arnau worked on it? His face was always serious, and he concentrated hard while he moved the counters and noted down figures in his books. Mar shivered the length of her spine.

“Is something wrong?” asked Guillem.

“No... no.”

Why not tell him? Guillem would understand, she said to herself. Except for Donaha, who could not help but smile whenever she saw Mar hiding in the kitchen to spy on Arnau, nobody else was aware of it. All the girls who met in the merchant Escales’s house talked about the same thing. Some of them were already betrothed, and liked nothing better than to praise the virtues of their husbands-to-be. Mar listened to them, but always avoided their questions to her. How could she mention Arnau? What if he found out? Arnau was thirty-four; she was only fourteen. But one of the girls was betrothed to someone even older than Arnau! Mar would have loved to be able to tell someone. Her friends could chatter about money, appearance, attractiveness, manliness, or generosity, but she knew that Arnau was better than any of them! Did not the
bastaixos
Mar occasionally met on the beach tell her that Arnau had been one of King Pedro’s bravest soldiers? Mar had discovered his old weapons in the bottom of a chest. When she was all alone she would pick them up and caress them, imagining Arnau surrounded by enemies and fighting them off valiantly as the
bastaixos
had told her he did.

Guillem studied the young girl. Mar sat there, the tip of her finger on one of the abacus counters, staring into space. Money? Bags and bags of it. Everyone in Barcelona knew that. And as for his kindness ...

“Are you sure nothing’s wrong?” Guillem asked again, startling her out of her daydream.

Mar blushed. Donaha always claimed that anybody could read her thoughts, that the name of Arnau was on her lips, her eyes, her whole face. What if Guillem knew this too?

“No... ,” she repeated, “nothing.”

Guillem replaced the abacus counters and Mar smiled at him... with a sad expression. What could be going through her mind? Perhaps Brother Joan was right; she was already of marriageable age, and here she was, shut up in a house with two men...

Mar took her finger off the abacus.

“Guillem.”

“Tell me.”

She fell silent.

“Oh, it’s nothing,” she said finally, getting up from her chair.

Guillem watched her as she left the room; it was hard to admit it, but the friar was probably right.

HE WENT UP to them. He had walked to the shore while the ships, three galleys and a carrack, entered the port. The carrack belonged to him. Isabel was dressed in black, and with one hand held on to her hat. Her stepsons, Josep and Genis, were standing beside her, with their backs to him. All three were peering desperately at the ships. “They won’t bring you any relief,” thought Arnau.

As he strode by in his best clothes,
bastaixos,
boatmen, and merchants had all fallen silent.

“Look at me, you harpy!” Arnau thought and waited, a few steps from the water’s edge. “Look at me! The last time you did...” The baroness turned slowly toward him; her sons did the same. Arnau took a deep breath. “The last time you did, my father was hanging above my head.”

The
bastaixos
and boatmen were muttering to one another.

“Is there something you need, Arnau?” asked one of the aldermen.

Arnau shook his head, not taking his eyes off Isabel’s face for a moment. The others moved away, and Arnau found himself next to the baroness and his cousins.

He breathed deeply once more. Defiantly, he stared Isabel in the eye for a few more seconds, then glanced at his cousins, and finally looked out to sea, smiling.

The baroness’s lips tightened. She too turned toward the sea, following Arnau’s gaze. When she looked toward him again, he was already striding away, the sunlight glinting off the precious stones on his cloak.

JOAN WAS STILL intent on seeing Mar married. He proposed several candidates: it was not difficult to find them. As soon as they heard the size of Mar’s dowry, nobles and merchants came running, but... how was the girl herself to be told? Joan offered to do it, but when Arnau told Guillem as much, the Moor was resolutely against the idea.

“You have to do it,” he said. “Not a monk she hardly knows.”

Ever since Guillem had insisted in this way, Arnau could not take his eyes off the girl. Did he know her? They had lived in the same house for years now, but it had been Guillem who always looked after her. All he had done had been to enjoy her being there, to hear her laughter and cheery banter. He had never talked to her about anything serious. Now, whenever he considered approaching her and asking her to go for a walk with him, on the beach or—why not?—to Santa Maria, whenever he thought of telling her they had to discuss a serious matter, he realized he knew little about her ... and hesitated. Where was the little girl he used to carry on his shoulders?

“I don’t want to marry any of them,” she told them. Arnau and Guillem looked at each other. Eventually, Arnau had persuaded the Moor they should bring the subject up together.

“You have to help me,” he had pleaded with him.

Mar’s eyes lit up when the two men mentioned marriage to her. They were sitting behind their accounting table, with her in front of them on the other side, as if this were another commercial transaction. But she shook her head at the mention of each of the five candidates that Brother Joan had suggested.

“But, Mar,” Guillem insisted, “you have to choose someone. Any girl would be proud to marry one of the names we have mentioned.”

Mar shook her head again.

“I don’t like them.”

“Well, you have to do something,” said Guillem, looking to Arnau for support.

Arnau studied the young girl. She was on the verge of tears. Her head was lowered, but he could tell from her trembling bottom lip and troubled breathing that tears were not far away. Why would a girl react in that way when they had just proposed such good matches for her? The silence lasted an eternity. Eventually, Mar raised her eyes slightly and peered at Arnau. Why make her suffer?

“We’ll go on looking until we find someone she does like,” he said to Guillem. “Do you agree, Mar?”

She nodded, got up from the chair, and left the room. The two men sat staring at each other.

Arnau sighed.

“And I thought the difficult part was going to be telling her!”

Guillem said nothing. He was still gazing at the kitchen doorway through which Mar had disappeared. What was going on? What was his little girl trying to hide? When she had heard the word “marriage” she smiled, and her eyes had lit up, but then afterward ...

“Just wait until you see how Joan reacts when he hears... ,” Arnau grumbled.

Guillem turned to him, but in the end did not reply. What did it matter what the friar thought?

“You’re right. We’d best go on looking.”

ARNAU TURNED TOWARD Joan.

“Please,” he said, “this isn’t the moment.”

They had gone into Santa Maria to calm down. The news was not good, but here, with his Virgin, the constant sounds of the stonemasons, and the smiles of all the workmen, Arnau felt at ease. Joan, though, had found him and would not let him be: it was Mar here, Mar there, Mar everywhere. After all, what business was it of his?

“What reasons can she have against marriage?” Joan insisted.

“This isn’t the moment, Joan,” Arnau said again.

“Why not?”

“Because we are facing another war.” The friar looked startled. “Didn’t you know? King Pedro the Cruel of Castille has just declared war on us.”

“Why?”

Arnau shook his head.

“Because he’s been wanting to do so for some time now,” he growled, raising his arms. “The excuse was that our admiral, Francesc de Perellos, captured two Genoese boats carrying olive oil off the coast of Sanlúcar. The Castillian king demanded they be released, and when our admiral paid no attention, he declared war on us. That man is dangerous,” muttered Arnau. “I understand that he has earned his nickname: he is spiteful and vengeful. Do you realize what this means, Joan? We are at war with Genoa and Castille at the same time. Does it seem like a good moment to be bothering ourselves with getting the girl married?” Joan hesitated. They were standing beneath the keystone for the nave’s third arch, surrounded by scaffolding erected for the construction of the ribs. “Do you remember?” asked Arnau, pointing up at the keystone. Joan looked up and nodded. They had been children when the first stone had been put in place! Arnau waited a moment and then added: “Catalonia is not going to be able to finance this. We’re still paying for the campaign against Sardinia, and now we have to fight on another front.”