Cathedral of the Sea (66 page)

“Without that, your possession of the castle would not be legal,” the friar concluded.

Arnau was about to say something, but thought better of it and merely shook his head wearily.

INSIDE THE CASTLE yard, behind the walls and around the keep, the usual conglomeration of buildings had been put up haphazardly over the years. There was a long hall with a vast dining room, kitchens, and pantries, with other rooms on the upper floor. Scattered around outside the hall were a handful of wooden buildings that housed the servants and the small garrison of soldiers.

The captain of the guard, a small, broad-beamed man who looked unkempt and filthy, came out to officially greet Eleonor and her party. They all went into the large dining chamber.

“Show me where the thane lived,” Eleonor screamed.

The captain pointed to a stone staircase whose only adornment was a stone balustrade. The baroness started up the steps, followed by her steward, the scribe, and her maidens. She completely ignored Arnau.

The three Estanyols stood in the middle of the hall, watching as the slaves carried in all Eleonor’s possessions.

“Perhaps you should—” Joan started to say.

“Don’t interfere, Joan,” Arnau said curtly.

For some moments, they surveyed the great hall: the high ceiling, huge hearth, armchairs, the candelabra, and the table with room for a dozen guests. Then Eleonor’s steward appeared on the stairs. He came down toward them but stopped three steps before the bottom.

“The lady baroness,” he said in fluted tones, without speaking to anyone in particular, “says she is very tired tonight and does not want to be disturbed.”

The steward was about to turn on his heel when Arnau halted him.

“Hey, you!” he shouted. The steward turned back toward him. “Tell your lady mistress not to worry. No one is going to disturb her ... ever,” he hissed. Mar’s eyes opened wide, and she raised her hands to her mouth. The steward turned to make his way up the stairs once more, but Arnau again called out to him: “Hey! Which are our rooms?” The steward shrugged. “Where’s the captain of the guard?”

“He’s attending my lady.”

“Well, go upstairs and find her, and get the captain to come down. And be quick about it, because if you aren’t I’ll see to it you are castrated, and the next time you announce the handover of a castle you’ll be singing it.”

The steward gripped the balustrade tightly, confused at this violent threat. Could this be the same man who had sat quietly the whole day as his cart bumped and jolted along? Arnau’s eyes narrowed. He strode over to the staircase, pulling out the
bastaix
dagger he had insisted on wearing to his wedding. The steward did not have time to see that in fact it was completely blunt: before Arnau had taken three steps, he fled upstairs.

Arnau turned back to the others: Mar was laughing, but Joan scowled disapprovingly. Behind them, several of Eleonor’s slaves had seen what had happened and were smiling to themselves as well.

“You over there!” Arnau shouted when he saw them. “Stop laughing and unload the cart. Then take the things up to our rooms.”

BY NOW THEY had been living in the castle for more than a month. Arnau had tried to sort out the affairs of his new possessions, but whenever he began to pore over the account books, he ended by closing them with a sigh. Torn pages, figures scratched out and written over, contradictory or even false dates—they were incomprehensible, completely indecipherable.

It took only a week in Montbui castle for Arnau to long to get back to Barcelona and leave his lands in the hands of a capable administrator. But while he made up his mind, he decided he should get to know them a little better. To do this, he did not turn to the noblemen who were his vassals and who, whenever they came to the castle, completely ignored him but bowed their knee to Eleonor. Instead, he sought out the ordinary people, the peasants, the serfs chained to his vassals.

Taking Mar with him, he toured his lands. He was curious to know if what he had heard in Barcelona was true. The traders there often based their decisions on the news they received from the countryside. Arnau knew, for example, that the 1348 epidemic had depopulated the countryside, and that as recently as the previous year, 1358, a plague of locusts had made the situation even worse by devouring all the crops. The lack of resources was beginning to show even in the city, forcing the traders there to change their way of doing business.

“My God!” muttered Arnau behind the back of the first peasant who had run into his farmhouse to present his family to the new baron.

Mar too found it impossible to take her eyes off the ruin of a house and its outbuildings, all of them as filthy and uncared-for as the man who had come out to greet them, and who now reappeared with a woman and two small children.

The four of them lined up in front of the newcomers and tried awkwardly to bow to them. Their eyes were filled with fear. Their clothes were rags, and the children ... The children could hardly stand up straight. Their legs were spindle-thin.

“Is this all your family?” asked Arnau.

The peasant was about to nod when the sound of a feeble wail came from inside the house. Arnau frowned, and the man shook his head slowly. The look of fear in his eyes changed to one of sadness.

“My wife has no milk, Your Honor.”

Arnau looked at her. How could anyone with a body like that have milk! First she would need to have breasts ...

“Is there no one near here who could... ?”

The peasant anticipated the question. “Everyone is in the same situation, Your Honor. The children are dying.”

Arnau saw Mar raise a hand to her mouth.

“Show me your farm: your granary, the stables, your house and fields.”

“We can’t pay any more, Your Honor!”

The woman had fallen to her knees and was crawling over to where Arnau and Mar stood.

Arnau went over to her and took her by her skinny arms. She shrank beneath his touch.

“What ...”

The children began to cry.

“Don’t hit her, please, Your Honor, I beg you,” pleaded the peasant, coming up to Arnau. “It’s true. We can’t pay any more. Punish me if you must.”

Arnau let go of the woman and withdrew to where Mar was standing, watching in horror what was happening.

“I’m not going to hit her,” Arnau told the man, “or you, or anyone else in your family. Nor am I going to ask you for more money. I just want to see your farm. Tell your wife to stand up, please.”

First their eyes had shown fear, then sadness; now the man’s and woman’s sunken eyes stared at him in bewilderment. “Are we meant to play at being gods?” thought Arnau. What had been done to this family for them to act this way? They were allowing one of the children to die, and yet thought that someone had come to ask them to pay even more.

The granary was empty. So was the stable. The fields were untended, and the plowing gear had fallen into disrepair. As for the house ... if the child did not die of hunger it would die of any disease. Arnau did not dare touch it; it seemed... it seemed as though the infant might snap in two just by moving it.

He took his purse from his belt and pulled out a few coins. He was about to give them to the man, but thought again and got out several more.

“I want this child to live,” he said, leaving the coins on the remains of what must once have been a table. “I want you, your wife, and your two other children to eat. This money is for you, and you alone. Nobody has the right to take it from you. If there are any problems, come to the castle to see me.”

None of the family moved: they were all staring at the coins. They did not even look up when Arnau said farewell and left the house.

Arnau returned to his castle in silence, deep in thought. Mar shared his silence with him.

“THEY’RE ALL THE same, Joan,” Arnau told him one evening when the two men were walking in the cool air outside the castle. “Some of them have been lucky enough to take over uninhabited farmhouses whose owners have died or simply fled the land: who could blame them? They use the land for woods and pasture: that gives them some chance to survive even though they can’t produce crops. But the rest... the rest are in a terrible state. The fields are barren, and so they are dying of hunger.”

“That’s not all,” Joan added. “I have heard that the nobles, your vassals, are forcing the remaining peasants to sign
capbreus.”

“Capbreus?”

“They’re documents that accept all the feudal rights that had been allowed to lapse during the years of plenty. There are so few men left that the nobles are making more and more demands so that they can get as much out of them as before, when there were far more serfs.”

Arnau had not been sleeping well for some time now. He had night-mares with all the haggard faces he had seen. Now he found he could not get back to sleep. He had visited all his lands and been generous. How could he allow things to stay as they were? All those peasant families depended on him: they were directly responsible to their lords, but the lords in turn owed their allegiance to him. If he, as their feudal baron, demanded the nobles pay their rents and duties, they would in turn force the wretched peasants to meet the new demands that the thane had through his negligence allowed to be reintroduced.

They were slaves. Chained to the land. Slaves on his lands. Arnau turned to and fro on his bed. His slaves! An army of starving men, women, and children whom nobody considered important... except to extort more and more out of until they died. Arnau recalled the nobles who had come to pay homage to Eleonor: they were all healthy, strong, dressed in fine clothes—happy, fortunate people! How could they have turned their backs so completely on the reality their serfs were forced to live? And what could he do about it?

He was generous. He gave money where he could see it was needed: to him it was a pittance, but it brought delight to the children he saw, and a warm smile to the face of Mar, who never left his side. But he could not carry on doing it forever. If he went on handing out money, the nobles would soon find a way to get their hands on it. They would still refuse to pay him, but would exploit the poorest peasants still further. What could he do?