Cathedral of the Sea (68 page)

The son could not see it, but in the crowd that was starting to react joyously as they realized Arnau meant what he was saying, an old woman—his mother—let go of Aledis’s arm and raised her hands to her face. Aledis instantly understood. Tears welled in her eyes, and she turned to embrace the older woman. At the foot of the dais, nobles and knights were noisily debating the best way to present the problem to King Pedro.

“I declare null and void all other duties that poor peasants have been obliged to fulfill, apart from the right and proper levies on their lands. I declare you free to bake your own bread, to shoe your animals, and repair your gear in your own forges. I declare you women and mothers free to refuse to give suck to the children of your lords without payment.” At this, lost in her memories, the old woman could not stop the tears flowing. “And also to refuse to serve unpaid in their households. I further free you from having to offer gifts to your lords at Christmas and to work on their lands for no reward.”

Arnau fell silent for a few moments, his eyes fixed not on the squabbling nobles but on the throng of peasants beyond them. They were waiting to hear something more. One thing more! They all knew it, and were waiting impatiently for Arnau to speak again. One more thing!

“I declare that you are free!”

The thane leapt up and shook his fist at Arnau. All around him, the nobles stood and shouted their fury.

“Free!” sobbed the old woman as the peasants cheered wildly.

“From this day on, a day when nobles have refused to pay homage to the king’s ward, the peasants who work on the lands that are part of the baronies of Granollers, San Vicenc, and Caldes de Montbui are to be treated exactly the same as those in New Catalonia, the baronies of Entenca, Conca del Barberà, the counties of Tarragona and Prades, the Serraga and Garriga, the marquisate of Aytona, the territories of Tortosa and Urgell ... the same as in all the nineteen regions of Catalonia conquered thanks to the efforts and the blood of your fathers. You are free! You are peasants but never again in these lands will you be serfs, and nor will your children or your children’s children!”

“Nor will your mothers,” Francesca murmured to herself. “Nor will your mothers,” she said again, before dissolving into floods of tears once again, and clutching Aledis, who was close to tears herself.

Arnau had to leave the dais in order not to be overwhelmed by the peasants rushing to congratulate him. Joan helped Eleonor away: she was unable to walk on her own. Behind them, Mar was trying to control the emotions she felt were about to explode inside her.

When Arnau set off back toward the castle, the plain began to empty of people. After agreeing on how they would present their complaint to the king, the nobles galloped off, paying no heed to those on foot, who were forced to leap off the tracks into the fields to avoid being knocked down by the furious horsemen. Nevertheless, as they headed back to their farms, there were smiles on all the peasants’ faces.

Soon the only ones left near the dais were the two women.

“Why did you lie to me?” asked Aledis.

This time the old woman turned to face her.

“Because you did not deserve him ... and he was not meant to live with you. You were never meant to be his wife.” Francesca said this without hesitation. She said it coldly, despite the emotion still choking her.

“Do you really think I don’t deserve him?” asked Aledis.

Francesca wiped away her tears, and soon was once again the energetic, determined woman who had run her business for so many years.

“Haven’t you seen what he has become? Didn’t you hear what he just said? Do you think his life would have been the same if he had been with you?”

“What you said about my husband and the duel ...”

“All a lie.”

“That I was being pursued ... ?”

“That too.” Aledis frowned and glared at Francesca. The old woman was not intimidated. “You lied to me too, remember?”

“I had my reasons.”

“So did I.”

“You wanted me for your business... I see that now.”

“That was one of the reasons, I admit. But do you have anything to complain about? How many naive girls have you fooled in the same way since then?”

“I wouldn’t have had to if you ...”

“Remember, the choice was yours.” Aledis looked doubtful. “Some of us never had a choice.”

“It was very hard, Francesca. To reach Figueres, dragging myself there with all that I went through, and with what result?”

“You live well, better than many of those nobles here today. You lack for nothing.”

“My honor.”

Francesca straightened as far as her bent body would permit. She turned to confront Aledis.

“Listen, Aledis, I know nothing about honor or honors. You sold me yours. Mine was stolen when I was still a girl. Nobody gave me any choice. Today I cried in a way I have never allowed myself to do before, and that is enough. We are what we are, and it serves no purpose for either of us to think about how we became it. Let others fight for their honor. You saw today what they are like. Who among them knows what honor really is?”

“Perhaps now that those privileges have been abolished ...”

“Don’t fool yourself; the peasants will continue to be poor, wretched souls with nowhere to lay their heads. We have had to struggle hard to gain what little we have, so forget about honor: that is not for ordinary people.”

Aledis looked around her at the peasants streaming away. They might no longer have to submit to their lords’ abusive privileges, but they were still the same men and women deprived of hope, the same starving, barefoot children dressed in rags. She nodded and put her arms round Francesca.

“Y
OU’RE NOT THINKING of leaving me here, are you?”

Eleonor flew down the staircase. Arnau was in the great hall, seated at the table signing the documents that annulled the malpractices and privileges on his lands. “As soon as I’ve signed them, I’m leaving,” he had told Joan. The friar was standing with Mar behind Arnau, watching him sign.

Arnau finished what he was doing, and then looked up to confront Eleonor. This must have been the first time they had spoken since their marriage. Arnau did not stand up.

“Why do you want me to stay with you?”

“You don’t expect me to stay in a place where I’ve suffered so much humiliation, do you?”

“I’ll put it another way then: why would you want to come with me?”

“You’re my husband!” screeched Eleonor. She had gone over it time and again: she could not stay at Montbui, but she could not return to court either. Arnau grimaced. “If you go and leave me here, I’ll protest to the king.”

This time, her words gave Arnau pause for thought. “We’ll petition the king!” the nobles had threatened him. He thought he could deal with the threat from the nobles, but ... He looked at the documents he had signed. If the king’s ward Eleonor added her voice to theirs ...

“Sign these,” he said, passing her the parchments.

“Why should I? If you abolish all the privileges, we’ll not receive any revenues.”

“Sign and you will live in a palace on Calle de Montcada in Barcelona. You won’t need the revenues: you’ll have all the money you could wish for.”

Eleonor walked across to the table, picked up the quill, and leaned over the documents.

“What guarantees do I have that you will keep your word?” she asked suddenly, glancing at Arnau.

“The fact that the bigger the palace is, the less I’ll see of you. That’s one guarantee. The fact that the better life you have, the less you’ll bother me. That’s another. Is that enough? I’ve no intention of offering any more.”

Eleonor looked up at the two figures standing behind Arnau. Was that a smile on the girl’s face?

“Are they going to live with us?” she asked, pointing at them with the quill.

“Yes.”

“The girl too?”

Mar and Eleonor glared at each other.

“Wasn’t I clear enough for you, Eleonor? Are you going to sign or not?”

She signed.

ARNAU DID NOT wait for Eleonor to pack all her things. To avoid the August heat he set off that evening in the same rented cart he had arrived in.

None of them looked behind as the cart emerged from the castle gates.

“Why do we have to go and live with her?” Mar asked Arnau during the journey back to Barcelona.

“I cannot afford to offend the king, Mar. One never knows how a king may react.”

Mar sat silently for a few moments, deep in thought.

“Is that why you offered her all you did?”

“No ... Well, yes, in part, but the main reason was the peasants. I don’t want her to make any complaint. The king has supposedly given us the revenues from these lands to live on, even if in fact they are tiny or nonexistent. If she goes to the king and says that through my fault those revenues have vanished, he could possibly overturn my decisions.”

“The king ... Why would the king ... ?”

“You need to know that only a few years ago the king published a decree against the serfs, a decree that even went against privileges he and his predecessors had given the cities. The Church and nobility had demanded he take measures against any serfs who escaped and left their lands untended ... and the king did so.”

“I didn’t think he would do anything like that.”

“He’s just another noble, Mar, even if he is first among them.”

They spent the night in a farmhouse outside the village of Montcada. Arnau paid the peasants generously. They rose at dawn and were in Barcelona before the heat of the day.

“The situation is dramatic, Guillem,” Arnau told him once everyone had finished their greetings and the two men were on their own. “The Catalan countryside is in a far worse state than we thought. We hear about it only when there is news, but when you see how bad the fields and properties are, you realize we are in real trouble.”

“I’ve been taking that into account for some time now,” Guillem said, to Arnau’s surprise. “It’s a real crisis, but I could see it coming. We’ve talked about it, if you remember. Our currency is constantly losing value in foreign markets, but the king is not doing anything about it here in Catalonia, and the exchange rate is unsustainable. The city is falling deeper and deeper into debt in order to finance everything it has created in Barcelona. Nobody is making any profit from trade, and so people are looking for more secure places to invest.”

“What about our business?”

“I’ve moved it outside the country. To Pisa, Florence, even Genoa. Those are places where we can trade with logical exchange rates.” The two men fell silent. “Castelló has been declared
abatut,”
Guillem said eventually. “Disaster is looming.”

Arnau remembered the fat, sweating money changer who had always been very friendly to him.

“What happened?”

“He wasn’t sufficiently cautious. His clients began to reclaim their deposits, and he couldn’t meet their demands.”

“Will he be able to?”

“I don’t think so.”