Cathedral of the Sea (90 page)

“They might decide torture is not necessary.”

“What will they do to him?” insisted Mar.

“Why do you want to know?” said Aledis, taking her by the hand. “It will only torment you ... still further.”

“The law forbids death or the loss of any limb under torture,” Joan explained, “and suspected heretics may be tortured only once.”

Joan could see how the two women, their faces streaming with tears, sought some comfort in that. Yet he knew that Eimerich had found a way to make a mockery of this legal requirement. “Non ad
modum iterationis sed continuationis,”
he used to say, with a strange gleam in his eye; “Not repeatedly but continuously,” he translated for the novices who did not yet have a good grasp of Latin.

“What happens if they torture him and he still doesn’t confess?” asked Mar, after taking a deep breath.

“His attitude will be taken into account at the moment of handing down a sentence,” Joan said, without further explanation.

“Will it be Eimerich who sentences him?” asked Aledis.

“Yes, unless the sentence is life imprisonment or burning at the stake; in that case, he will need the bishop’s approval. And yet,” the friar went on, anticipating the women’s next question, “if the Inquisition considers that it is a complex matter, it has been known for them to consult the
boni viri,
between thirty and eighty people, not members of the Church, so that they can give their opinion as to the guilt of the accused, and the appropriate sentence. That means the trial drags on for months and months.”

“During which time Arnau would remain in jail,” said Aledis.

Joan nodded. The three of them sat in silence. The women were trying to take in everything they had heard; Joan was remembering another of Eimerich’s maxims: “The jail is to be forbidding, placed underground so that no light, and especially no sun or moonlight, may enter. It has to be harsh and tough, in order to shorten the prisoner’s life to the point that he faces death.”

FILTHY, IN RAGS,
Arnau stood in the center of the chamber while the inquisitor and the bishop put their heads together and started whispering. The clerk took advantage of the interruption to tidy his papers. The four Dominicans continued to stare at the prisoner.

“How are you going to conduct the interrogation?” Berenguer d’Eril asked.

“We’ll start as usual, and as we progress, we’ll inform him what the charges are.”

“You’re going to tell him?”

“Yes. I think he is the sort of person who will react more to dialectic pressure than to a physical threat, although if necessary ...”

Arnau tried to withstand the looks from the black friars. One, two, three, four ... He shifted his weight onto his other foot and glanced again at the inquisitor and the bishop. They were still whispering to each other. The Dominicans, on the other hand, were observing him closely. The chamber was absolutely quiet apart from the inaudible whispering.

“He’s growing nervous,” said the bishop, glancing up at Arnau before turning back to the inquisitor.

“He is someone who is used to giving commands and being obeyed,” said Eimerich. “He needs to understand what the situation is; he has to accept the tribunal and its authority, and submit to it. Only then will he respond to interrogation. Humiliation is the first step.”

Bishop and inquisitor continued their conversation. Throughout the whole time, the Dominicans did not take their eyes off Arnau. Arnau tried to think of other things: of Mar, or Joan, but whenever he did so, he could feel one of the Dominican’s eyes clawing at him as if he had guessed what he was thinking. He shifted his weight time and again, felt his unruly beard and unkempt hair. In their gleaming gold robes, Berenguer d’Eril and Nicolau Eimerich sat comfortably behind the tribunal bench, glancing at him and continuing their discussion at their own leisure.

After a long pause, Nicolau Eimerich addressed him in a loud voice: “Arnau Estanyol, I know you have sinned.”

The trial proper had begun. Arnau took a deep breath.

“I do not know what you mean. I consider I have always been a good Christian. I have tried—”

“You yourself have admitted to this tribunal that you have not lain with your wife. Is that the attitude of a good Christian?”

“I cannot have carnal relations. I do not know if you are aware that I was already married before, and could ... could not have children then either.”

“Are you telling the tribunal you have a physical problem?” said the bishop.

“Yes.”

Eimerich studied Arnau for a few moments. He leaned forward on his elbows and then hid his mouth behind his hands. He turned to the clerk and whispered an order to him.

“Declaration by Juli Andreu, priest at Santa Maria de la Mar,” the clerk read out from one of his pieces of parchment. “‘I, Juli Andreu, priest at Santa Maria de la Mar, questioned by the grand inquisitor of Catalonia, do declare that approximately in the month of March in the year of our Lord 1364, I held a conversation with Arnau Estanyol, baron of Catalonia, at the request of his wife, Doña Eleonor, baroness, ward of King Pedro. She had expressed to me her concern at her husband’s neglect of his conjugal duties. I declare that Arnau Estanyol confided to me that he was not attracted to his wife, and that his body refused to allow him to enjoy relations with her. He said that it was not a physical problem, but that he could not force his body to desire a woman for whom he felt no attraction. He further said that he knew he was in a state of sin’”—Nicolau Eimerich’s eyes narrowed—“ and that for this reason he prayed as often as he could in Santa Maria and made substantial donations toward the construction of the church.”’

The chamber fell silent again. Nicolau stared fixedly on Arnau.

“Do you still affirm that you have a physical problem?” the inquisitor asked finally.

Arnau remembered his conversation with the priest, but could not remember exactly what... “I cannot recall what I said to him.”

“Do you admit that you had this conversation with Father Juli Andreu?”

“Yes.”

Arnau could hear the clerk’s quill scratching across the parchment.

“Yet you are calling into question the declaration by a man of God. What possible interest could the priest have in lying about you?”

“He might be mistaken. I do not remember exactly what was said ...”

“Are you saying that a priest who was not certain what he heard would make a declaration like the one Father Juli Andreu has made?”

“All I am saying is that he might be mistaken.”

“Father Andreu is not an enemy of yours, is he?” intervened the bishop.

“I have never considered him one.”

Nicolau spoke to the clerk again.

“Declaration by Pere Salvete, canon at Santa Maria de la Mar. ‘I, Pere Salvete, canon at Santa Maria de la Mar, questioned by the grand inquisitor of Catalonia, declare that at Easter in the year of our Lord 1367, while I was saying holy mass, the service was interrupted by a number of citizens of Barcelona who alerted us to the theft of a host by heretics. The mass was suspended, and the faithful left the church, with the exception of Arnau Estanyol, consul of the sea.’” “Go with your Jewish lover!” Eleonor’s words rang out in his head once more. Arnau shuddered, exactly as he had when he first heard them. He looked up. Nicolau was staring at him ... and smiling. Had he seen his reaction? The clerk was still reading the declaration: ‘“... and the consul answered that God could not oblige him to lie with her...’”

Nicolau silenced the scribe. The smile vanished.

“So is the canon lying too?”

“Go with your Jewish lover!” Why had he not let the clerk finish? What was Nicolau up to? “Your Jewish lover, your Jewish lover ...” The flames licking at Hasdai’s body, the silence, the enraged mob baying for justice, shouting words that were never properly spoken, Eleonor pointing at him, the bishop standing next to her, staring ... and Raquel clinging to him.

“Is the canon lying as well?”

“I have not accused anyone of lying,” said Arnau. He needed time to think.

“Do you deny God’s commandments? Do you object to the duties demanded of you as a Christian husband?”

“No ... no ...,” stammered Arnau.

“Well, then?”

“Well, then what?” “Do you deny God’s commandments?” Nicolau repeated, his voice rising.

His words reverberated from the stone walls of the vast chamber. Arnau’s legs felt heavy after all those days in the dungeon ...

“The tribunal could take your silence for a confession,” said the bishop.

“No, I don’t deny them.” His legs began to ache. “Why does the Holy Office take such an interest in my relations with Doña Eleonor? Is it a sin to—”

“Be careful, Estanyol,” the inquisitor cut in. “It is for the tribunal to ask the questions, not you.”

“Ask them, then.”

Nicolau could see Arnau moving unsteadily, shifting his weight from foot to foot.

“He’s beginning to feel pain,” he whispered in Berenguer d’Eril’s ear.

“Leave him to think about it,” replied the bishop.

They began to whisper together again. Arnau could sense the four Dominicans’ eyes fixed on him once more. His legs ached dreadfully, but he had to resist. He could not bow down before Nicolau Eimerich. What would happen if he collapsed to the floor? He needed ... a stone! A stone on his back, a long road to carry a stone for his Virgin. “Where are you now? Can these people really be your representatives? I was little more than a boy, and yet ...” Of course he could resist now. He had walked across all Barcelona with a stone that weighed more than he did, sweating, bleeding, with everyone’s shouts of encouragement ringing in his ears. Was there none of that strength left? Was a fanatic friar going to defeat him? Him? The boy
bastaix
admired by all the other boys in the city? Step by step, fighting his way along the path to Santa Maria, and then returning home to rest until the next day. His home ... those brown eyes, those big brown eyes. Then all at once, with a shudder that almost knocked him off his feet, he realized that the person who had spoken to him in the dungeon was Aledis.

When they saw Arnau suddenly straighten, Nicolau Eimerich and Berenguer d’Eril exchanged looks. For the first time, one of the Dominicans’ stares wavered, and he looked toward the center of the table.

“He’s not going to fall,” the bishop whispered nervously.

“Where do you satisfy your needs?” Nicolau asked loudly.

That explained why she had known his name. Her voice ... Yes, that was the voice he had heard so often on the slopes of Montjuic hill.

“Arnau Estanyol!” The inquisitor’s cry brought him back to the tribunal. “I asked how you satisfy your needs.”

“I do not understand your question.”

“You are a man. You have had no physical contact with your wife for years. It’s a very simple question: where do you satisfy your needs as a man?”

“For the same number of years, I have had no contact with any woman.”

He had answered without thinking. The jailer had said she was his mother.

“That’s a lie!” Arnau gave a start. “This tribunal has seen you embracing a heretic. Is that not contact with a woman?”

“Not the kind of contact you were referring to.”

“What can drive a man and a woman to embrace in public”—Nicolau waved his hands—“if not lasciviousness?”

“Grief.”

“What grief?” the bishop wanted to know.

“What grief?” Nicolau insisted when Arnau did not reply.

Arnau still said nothing. The flames from the funeral pyre lit the chamber. “Grief because a heretic who had profaned the sacred host had been executed?” the inquisitor insisted, pointing a bejeweled finger at him. “Is that the grief you feel as a true Christian? Because the weight of justice fell on a monster, a profaner, a wretch, a thief... ?”

“He did nothing!” Arnau shouted.

All the members of the tribunal, including the clerk, stirred in their seats.

“Those three men confessed their guilt. Why do you defend heretics? The Jews ...”

“Jews! Jews!” Arnau faced them defiantly. “What does the world have against them?”

“Do you not know?” asked the inquisitor, anger in his voice. “They crucified Jesus Christ!”

“Haven’t they paid enough for that?”

Arnau stared at the men ranged in front of him. They were all sitting up attentively.

“Are you saying they should be pardoned?” asked Berenguer d’Eril.

“Isn’t that what our Lord teaches us?”

“Their only salvation is through conversion! There can be no pardon for those who do not repent,” shouted Nicolau.

“You’re talking about something that happened more than thirteen hundred years ago. What do the Jews born in our time have to repent for? They are not to blame for what might have happened all those years ago.”

“Anyone who accepts the Jewish doctrine is making himself responsible for what his forebears did; he is taking on their guilt.”