Cathedral of the Sea Read online

  “Where is he?”

  “In the magistrate’s palace, but—”

  Before he could finish, Arnau had run out the door. Pere looked at his wife and shook his head. The old woman buried her face in her hands.

  “They held emergency trials,” Pere explained. “Lots of witnesses recognized Bernat because of his birthmark, and swore he was one of the leaders of the uprising. Why did he do it? He seemed—”

  “Because he has two children to feed,” his wife interrupted him, tears in her eyes.

  “Because he had... ,” Pere said wearily. “He has already been hanged along with nine others in Plaza del Blat.”

  Mariona raised her hands to her face again, but then suddenly dropped them.

  “Arnau...,” she exclaimed, heading for the door. Her husband’s words brought her to a halt:

  “Let him go. From today he’s no longer a boy.”

  Mariona nodded. Pere went over and held her in his arms.

  By order of the king, the executions had been carried out immediately. There was not even time to build a scaffold, and so the prisoners were hanged from carts.

  Arnau stopped running as soon as he got to Plaza del Blat. He was panting, out of breath. The square was full of silent people standing with their backs to him, staring at... Above their heads, next to the palace, hung ten lifeless bodies.

  “No! ... Father!”

  His anguished cry echoed round the square. Hundreds of heads turned toward him. Arnau walked slowly through the crowd, which pulled back to let him through. He searched the ten dead faces...

  “AT LEAST LET me go and tell the priest,” Pere’s wife pleaded.

  “I’ve already told him. He must be there by now.”

  When he identified his father, Arnau vomited. The people around him jumped back. The boy took another look at the swollen purplish black face, tilted to one side, with its contorted features and eyes that were fighting now for all eternity to burst from their sockets. His father’s tongue lolled lifelessly from the corner of his mouth. The second and third times he looked, all Arnau brought up was bile.

  He felt a hand on his shoulder.

  “We should go, my boy,” said Father Albert.

  The priest tried to pull him in the direction of Santa Maria, but Arnau would not move. He looked over again at his father, and shut his eyes. He would never be hungry again. Arnau trembled like a leaf. Father Albert tried again to pull him away from the macabre scene.

  “Leave me, Father, please.”

  With the priest and the others in the square looking on, Arnau ran unsteadily over to the improvised gallows. He was clutching his stomach and was still shaking all over. When he reached his father, he turned toward one of the soldiers standing guard beside the bodies.

  “Can I take him down?” he asked.

  Faced with the boy’s insistent gaze from below his father’s body, the soldier hesitated. What would his own children have done if he had been hanged?

  “No,” he had to tell him. If only he could have been somewhere else! He would have preferred to be fighting a band of Moors, or to be with his children ... What kind of death was this? The hanged man had simply been fighting for his children, for this boy begging him with his eyes, like everyone else in the square. Where was the city magistrate? “The magistrate has ordered that they be left hanging in the square for three days.”

  “I’ll wait.”

  “After that they are to be placed above the city gates, like everyone executed in Barcelona, so that anyone passing by will heed the laws.”

  With that, the soldier turned his back on Arnau and continued his patrol round the hanged bodies.

  “Hunger,” he heard behind him. “He was only hungry.”

  When his futile patrol brought him back alongside Bernat’s body, the boy was sitting on the ground beneath him, head in hands, crying. The soldier hardly dared look at him.

  “Come with me, Arnau,” said the priest, who had joined him again.

  Arnau shook his head. Father Albert was about to say something, but a sudden shout silenced him. The families of the other victims were arriving in the square. Mothers, wives, children, and brothers flocked round the hanged men. They were silent except for the occasional howl of grief. The soldier went on his way again, trying to remember the war cries of the heathen foe. Joan, who had to pass through the square on his way home, saw the terrible spectacle and fainted. He did not even have time to notice Arnau, who still sat in the same spot, rocking himself back and forth. Joan’s schoolmates picked him up and took him into the bishop’s palace. Arnau did not see his brother either.

  The hours went by. Arnau was oblivious to the comings and goings of townspeople visiting the square out of a sense of pity or morbid curiosity. Only the sound of the soldier’s boots pacing up and down seemed to bring him out of himself.

  “Arnau, I gave up everything I had for you to be free. Although they had belonged to the Estanyol family for centuries, I left our lands so that nobody could do to you what they had done to me, to my father and my father’s father ... and now we’re back in the same situation, at the mercy of people who call themselves noble. But there’s a big difference: we can say no. My son, learn to use the freedom it’s cost us so much to win. You and only you can decide.”

  “Is it true we can refuse, Father?” The soldier’s boots passed in front of his eyes once more. “Where there is hunger there is no freedom. You aren’t hungry anymore, Father. What about our freedom?”

  “Take a good look at them, children.”

  That voice ...

  “They are criminals. Take a good look.” For the first time, Arnau lifted his head and looked at the people who had come to see the hanged men. The baroness and her three stepchildren were peering at Bernat Estanyol’s contorted features. Arnau stared first at Margarida’s feet, then at her face. His cousins had gone pale, but the baroness was smiling and looking directly at him. Arnau got shakily to his feet. “They didn’t deserve to be citizens of Barcelona,” he heard Isabel say. He dug his fingers into the palms of his hands; he flushed and felt his bottom lip start to tremble. The baroness was still smiling: “What else could one expect from a runaway serf?”

  Arnau was about to throw himself at the baroness. But the soldier moved to intercept him.

  “Is something wrong, my lad?” The soldier followed Arnau’s gaze. “I wouldn’t do it, if I were you,” he warned. Arnau tried to get round him, but the soldier grabbed his elbow. Isabel was no longer smiling, but stood there stiffly arrogant, challenging him to attack her. “I wouldn’t do it, if I were you. That would be the end of you,” Arnau heard the man say. He looked up at him. “Your father is dead,” the soldier insisted. “You aren’t. Sit down again.” The soldier could feel Arnau stop straining against him. “Sit down,” he repeated.

  Arnau gave way, and the soldier stood beside him.

  “Take a good look at them, children,” said the baroness again, the smile back on her face. “We’ll come here again tomorrow. The hanged men will be here until they rot, just like all runaway criminals should be left to rot.”

  Arnau could feel his lower lip tremble uncontrollably. He stared at the Puig family until the baroness decided to turn her back on him.

  “Someday ... someday I’ll see you dead... I’ll see you all dead,” he promised himself. Arnau’s hatred pursued the baroness and her stepchildren across Plaza del Blat. She had said she would be back the next day. Arnau looked up at his father’s body.

  “I swear to God they will never rejoice again at the sight of you, but what can I do?” He saw the soldier’s boots pass in front of his face once more. “Father, I won’t allow your body to rot here on the end of a rope.”

  Arnau spent several hours trying to think how he could remove his father’s corpse, but all his plans came up against the boots marching past him. He could not even get Bernat down without being seen: at night they were bound to have torches lit ... torches lit ... torches lit? At that precise m
oment he saw Joan come into the square. White as a sheet, with bloodshot eyes swollen from tears, his brother wearily came across to him. Arnau stood up, and Joan flung himself into his arms.

  “Arnau ... I... ,” he stuttered.

  “Listen to me,” Arnau said, still clinging to him, “Keep on crying ...”

  “I couldn’t stop if I wanted to,” thought Joan, surprised at the tone of his brother’s voice.

  “Tonight at ten o’clock I want you to hide on the corner of Calle de la Mar and the square. Make sure nobody sees you. Bring ... bring a blanket. The biggest one you can find at Pere’s house. Now go home.”

  “But ...”

  “Go home, Joan. I don’t want the soldiers to get a good look at you.”

  Arnau had to push his brother away from him. Joan stared first at his brother’s face, then up at their father’s body. He started shaking with sobs.

  “Go home, Joan.”

  That night, when the only people left in the square were the relatives grouped underneath the swinging corpses, there was a change of guard. The new soldiers stopped patrolling round the bodies, and instead sat by a fire they had lit at one end of the line of carts. Everything was quiet in the cool of the night. Arnau stood up and walked past the soldiers, trying to conceal his features.

  “I’m going to get a blanket,” he told them.

  One of them glanced across at him.

  He crossed Plaza del Blat to the corner of Calle de la Mar. He stood there a few moments, wondering what had happened to Joan. It was ten o’clock: where had he got to? Arnau called out softly. Silence.

  “Joan?” he whispered.

  A shadow emerged from a doorway opposite.

  “Arnau?” he heard in the darkness.

  “Of course it’s me.” Joan’s sigh of relief was clearly audible.

  “Who did you think it was? Why didn’t you answer me at first?”

  “It’s very dark,” was Joan’s only reply.

  “Have you brought the blanket?” The shadowy figure lifted a bundle. “Good. I’ve already told them I was going to fetch one. I want you to wrap it round you, and go and take my place. Walk on tiptoe so you look taller.”

  “What are you planning to do?”

  “I’m going to burn him,” Arnau said when Joan was beside him. “I want you to take my place. I want the soldiers to think you’re me. All you have to do is sit underneath ... sit where I was, and do nothing. Just keep your face concealed, and don’t move. Whatever you see, whatever happens, don’t move. Is that clear?” He did not wait for Joan to answer. “When it’s all over, you will be me. You’ll be Arnau Estanyol, your father’s only son. Do you understand that? If the soldiers ask ...”

  “Arnau.”

  “What is it?”

  “I can’t do it.”

  “Wh ... what?”

  “I can’t do it. They’ll find me out. When I see our farher ...”

  “Do you prefer to see him rot? Do you prefer to see him hanging at the city gate for the crows and worms to devour his body?” Arnau waited, giving his brother time to imagine the scene for himself. “Do you want the baroness to go on mocking him even after his death?”

  “Isn’t this a sin?” Joan suddenly asked.

  Arnau tried to catch his brother’s features in the darkness, but could see only a shadow.

  “His only crime was to be hungry! I don’t know if this is a sin, but I will not let our father’s body rot, dangling from a rope. I’m going to do it. If you want to help, wrap yourself in that blanket and sit still. If you don’t ...”

  At that, Arnau headed off down Calle de la Mar, while Joan walked across Plaza del Blat. He wrapped the blanket round himself and stared up at Bernat: one ghost among ten dangling from the carts, dimly lit by the glow from the bonfire the soldiers had made. Joan did not want to see his face. He did not want to have to look at his purple, lolling tongue, but despite himself he found he could not take his eyes off Bernat. The soldiers watched as he approached.

  Arnau ran to Pere’s house. He found his waterskin and poured the contents out. Then he filled it with the oil from the lamps. Sitting by the hearth in their kitchen, Pere and his wife looked on.

  “I don’t exist,” he told them in a faint voice. He took Mariona’s hand as she gazed affectionately at him. “Joan is to be me. My father had only one son ... Take care of him if anything happens.”

  “But, Arnau—” Pere started to say.

  “Shhh!” hissed Arnau.

  “What are you going to do?” the old man insisted.

  “What I have to,” said Arnau, getting up.

  “I don’t exist. I am Arnau Estanyol.” The soldiers were still watching him. “Burning a body must be a sin,” thought Joan. Bernat was staring at him! Joan came to a halt a few paces from the hanged man. “Arnau’s given me that idea.”

  “You there, is something wrong?” said one of the soldiers, making to stand up.

  “No, nothing,” Joan replied, renewing his walk toward the dead eyes that seemed to follow him everywhere.

  Arnau picked up the lamp and ran out of the house. He found some mud and smeared it on his face. How often his father had talked to him about this city that now had brought about his death. He went around Plaza del Blat by La Llet and La Corretgeria squares, until he was at the end of Calle Tapineria, right next to the line of carts with the hanged men. Joan was sitting beneath their father’s body, trying to stop shaking so as not to give himself away.

  Arnau hid the lantern in the street, slung the waterskin across his back, and started to crawl toward the far side of the carts drawn up against the palace wall. Bernat was in the fourth one. The soldiers were still talking round their fire at the opposite end of the line. Arnau crawled behind the carts. As he reached the second one, a woman saw him; her eyes were puffy from crying. Arnau paused, but the woman looked away and went on weeping. He climbed up on the cart where his father was hanging. Joan heard him, and turned round.

  “Don’t look!” His brother lowered his gaze. “And try not to shake so much!”

  Arnau stretched up toward his father’s body, but a sudden noise made him crouch down again. He waited a few moments, and stood up once more; again he heard a noise, but this time he remained upright. The soldiers were still talking to one another. Arnau raised the waterskin and began to pour oil over his father’s body. Bernat’s head was too high for him to reach, so he stretched up as far as he could and squeezed the skin hard so that the oil shot out. A greasy patch of oil began to soak Bernat’s hair. When the skin was empty, Arnau headed back to Calle Tapineria.

  He would have only one chance. Arnau hid the lamp behind his back to conceal its weak flame. “I have to get it right the first time.” He looked over at the soldiers. Now it was his turn to tremble. He took a deep breath and stepped into the square. Bernat and Joan were ten paces from him. He lifted the lamp, casting light over himself. As he entered the square the lamplight seemed to him as bright as a radiant dawn. The soldiers looked in his direction. Arnau was about to start running when he realized that none of them was stirring. “Why would they? How are they supposed to know I’m going to burn my father? Burn my father!” The lantern shook in his hand. With the soldiers looking on, he reached Joan. Nobody moved. Arnau came to a halt beneath Bernat’s dangling body and looked up at him one last time. Oil glistened on his face, hiding the terror and pain so evident there before.

  Arnau threw the lamp at the body. Bernat started to burn. The soldiers leapt up, glancing at the flames as they ran after the fleeing Arnau. The lamp fell onto the floor of the cart, where a pool of oil also caught fire.

  “Hey, you!” he heard the soldiers shouting.

  Arnau was about to run out of the square when he spied Joan still sitting in front of the cart. He was completely covered by the blanket, and seemed paralyzed with fear. Immersed in their grief, other mourners looked on in silence.

  “Stop! Stop in the king’s name!”

  “Move, Joan!” Ar
nau looked back at the soldiers, who were almost upon him. “Move, or you’ll be burned!”

  He could not leave Joan where he was. The burning oil was snaking across the ground toward his brother’s trembling figure. Arnau was about to pull him away, when the woman who had seen him earlier stepped in between them.

  “Run. Run for it,” she urged him.

  Arnau ducked under the first soldier’s hand and sprinted off. He ran down Calle Boria to Nou gate, the soldiers’ shouts echoing in his ears. “The longer they chase me, the longer it will take them to get back to Father and put the fire out,” he thought as he darted along. The soldiers, none of them young and all of them laden with weapons, would never catch a lad like him, running with the speed of fire.

  “In the king’s name, halt!” he heard behind him.

  Something whistled past his right ear. Arnau heard the spear clatter to the ground in front of him. He sped across Plaza de la Llana as more spears fell around him. He went past the Bernat Marcús Chapel and reached Calle Carders. The soldiers’ cries were fading in the distance. He could not carry on running to the Nou gateway, because there were bound to be more soldiers guarding it. If he headed down toward the sea, he would reach Santa Maria; if instead he went up toward the mountains, he could reach as far as Sant Pere de les Puelles, but then he would come up against the city walls again.

  He chose to aim for the sea. He skirted the San Agustin convent, then lost himself in the maze of streets of the Mercadal neighborhood. He climbed walls, ran through gardens, wherever looked darkest. As soon as he was convinced there was no sound behind him apart from the echo of his own footsteps, he slowed to a walk. He followed the Rec Comtal down to Pla de’n Llull, beside the Santa Clara convent. From there it was an easy matter to reach Plaza del Born, then the street of the same name, and finally Santa Maria, his refuge. But just as he was about to squeeze in through the boards of the doorway, something caught his attention: there was a guttering lantern on the floor of the church. He peered into the shadows beyond its feeble light, and soon saw the figure of the watchman stretched out on the ground, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth.