Cathedral of the Sea (99 page)

“Very well, Baron,” he said, “what do you want?”

“You promised you would sentence Arnau Estanyol, but you have let him escape.”

“I do not recall having promised anything, and as for letting him go ... it was your king, the man whose noble line you support, who refused to come to the aid of the Church. Go and demand an explanation from him.”

Jaume de Bellera muttered some unintelligible words and waved his hands in the air.

“You could still condemn him,” he said.

“He has escaped,” Nicolau admitted.

“We’ll bring him to you!” shouted Genis Puig, who was still threatening the captain, but was listening closely to what they were saying.

Nicolau turned to look at him. Why did he have to explain anything to them?

“We provided you with more than enough proof of his sin,” said Jaume de Bellera. “The Inquisition cannot—”

“What proof?” barked Eimerich. These two dolts were offering him a way to save his honor. If he could question their proof... “What proof?” he repeated. “The accusation by someone possessed by the Devil like you, Baron?” Jaume de Bellera tried to say something, but Nicolau silenced him with a scything movement of his hand. “I’ve looked for the documents you said the bishop drew up when you were born.” The two men glared at each other. “But I couldn’t find them.”

Genis Puig let his sword hand drop to his side.

“They must be somewhere in his archives,” Jaume de Bellera spluttered.

“And you, sir?” Nicolau shouted, turning to Genis. “What do you have against Arnau Estanyol?” The inquisitor could tell that Genis was trying to hide the truth: that was what Nicolau was good at. “Did you know that to lie to the Inquisition is a crime?” Genis looked to Jaume de Bellera for support, but the nobleman was gazing up at some point on the chamber ceiling. Genis was on his own. “What do you have to say?” Genis shifted uncomfortably, not knowing where to look. “What did the moneylender do to you?” Nicolau insisted. “Did he ruin you, perhaps?”

Genis reacted. It was only for a split second, a second in which he glanced at the inquisitor out of the corner of his eye. That must be it! What could a moneylender do to a nobleman if not ruin him financially?

“Not me,” Genis replied naively.

“Not you? Who then? Your father?”

Genis looked down at the floor.

“So you tried to use the Holy Office by lying! You made a false accusation for your own personal revenge!”

Hearing the inquisitor scream at his companion brought Jaume de Bellera back to reality.

“But he burned his father,” Genis insisted almost inaudibly.

Nicolau waved his hand angrily. What should he do now? If he arrested and tried them, that would only mean keeping alive something that was much better dead and buried as soon as possible.

“You are to appear before the clerk to the Inquisition and withdraw your charges. If you do not do so ... Do you understand?” he shouted when neither of them appeared to react. They nodded. “The Inquisition cannot judge a man on the basis of false accusations. Get out of here,” he concluded, signaling to the guard captain.

“You swore on your honor you would have revenge,” Genis Puig said to Jaume de Bellera as they turned to leave.

Nicolau heard the recrimination. He also heard the response: “No lord of Bellera has ever broken his oath,” Jaume de Bellera retorted.

The grand inquisitor’s eyes narrowed. That was enough. He had allowed a prisoner to go free. He had just ordered two witnesses to withdraw their charges. He was making a bargain with ... a man from Pisa? He did not even know his name! What if Jaume de Bellera carried out his revenge before he had a chance to get his hands on the fortune Arnau had left? Would the man from Pisa keep his side of the bargain? All this had to be kept quiet once and for all.

“Well, on this occasion,” he bellowed at the men’s retreating backs, “the lord of Bellera is not going to keep his word.”

The two men turned back to him.

“What are you saying?” said Jaume de Bellera.

“That the Holy Office cannot allow two”—he dismissed them with a gesture—“two laymen to question a sentence that it has passed. That is divine justice. There is to be no other revenge! Do you understand that, Bellera?” The nobleman hesitated. “If you carry out your threat, I will try you for being possessed by the Devil. Do you understand now?”

“But I’ve sworn an oath ...”

“In the name of the Holy Inquisition, I relieve you of your promise.” Jaume de Bellera nodded. “And you,” added Nicolau, turning to Genis Puig, “you are to take great care not to wreak vengeance in a matter already resolved by the Inquisition. Is that clear?”

Genis Puig nodded.

THE CATBOAT,
A small craft with one sail about thirty feet long, had pulled into a tiny cove on the Garraf coast, hidden from passing ships and approachable only by sea.

A rough wooden hut, built by fishermen from the flotsam the Mediterranean had deposited on the shore of the cove, was the only thing that broke the monotony of gray stones and pebbles that vied with the sun to reflect the light and warmth it brought them.

Together with a weighty bag of coins, the helmsman had received strict instructions from Guillem: “You are to leave him there with food and water and a man you can trust. Then you can go about your business, but stick to nearby ports and return to Barcelona at least every two days to receive further instructions from me. There will be more money for you when all this is over,” he had promised in order to secure the man’s loyalty. In fact, there was no real need for this: Arnau was known and loved by all seagoing folk, who saw him as an honest consul. The man accepted the money anyway. However, he had not taken Mar into account. She refused to share the responsibility of looking after Arnau with anyone else.

“I’ll take care of him,” she said once they had disembarked in the cove and she had installed Arnau in the shade of the hut.

“But the man from Pisa ... ,” the helmsman tried to argue.

“Tell him that Mar is with Arnau, and if that doesn’t satisfy him, come back with your man.”

She spoke with an authority he had rarely heard in a woman. He stared her up and down and again tried to object.

“Be on your way,” was all she said.

When his boat had disappeared behind the rocks at the cove entrance, Mar took a deep breath and peered up at the sky. How often had she denied herself a fantasy like this? How often, with the memory of Arnau fresh in her mind, had she tried to convince herself her destiny lay elsewhere? And now ... Mar glanced toward the hut. Arnau was still asleep. During the crossing, Mar had been able to check that he did not have a fever and was not wounded. She had sat down next to him, crossed her legs, and lifted his head onto her lap.

Arnau had opened his eyes on several occasions, stared up at her, then closed them again, a smile on his lips. She took one of his hands in hers, and whenever Arnau gazed at her, she squeezed it until he fell back into a contented sleep. This had happened time and again, as though he were trying to prove to himself that she was real. And now ... Mar went back to the hut and sat at Arnau’s feet.

HE SPENT TWO days going round Barcelona, remembering the places that had been part of his life for so long. Little seemed to have changed during the five years Guillem had been in Pisa. Despite the crisis, the city teemed with activity. Barcelona was still open to the sea, defended only by the
tasques
where Arnau had scuttled the whaling boat when Pedro the Cruel had threatened the coast with his fleet. The western wall Pedro the Third had ordered built was still under construction, as were the royal shipyards. Until they were finished, all the ships came aground for repairs or were built in the old yards at the foot of the beach opposite the Regomir tower. Guillem breathed in the sharp smell of tar that the caulkers used, mixed with oakum, to make the ships’ hulls watertight. He watched the carpenters at work, the oarmakers, blacksmiths, and ropemakers. In times gone by, he had accompanied Arnau to make sure that they did not mix new hemp with old when they twisted cables or rigging ropes. They would walk up and down, supervised by solemn-looking carpenters. Then after checking the ropes, Arnau would invariably head for the caulkers. He would send away everyone else, so that just he and Guillem could talk in private with these men.

“Their work is essential: they are forbidden by law to be paid by how much they do,” Arnau had explained the first time. That was why the consul wanted to talk to them, to ensure that none of the caulkers had been forced by necessity to do his work hurriedly, and so put the fleet at risk.

Now Guillem watched a caulker on his knees carefully checking the seal he had just finished on a ship’s hull. Seeing him made Guillem close his eyes. He tightened his mouth and shook his head. He and Arnau had fought alongside each other so often, and now his friend was hiding in a distant cove, waiting for the inquisitor to sentence him to a lesser punishment. Christians! At least he had Mar with him ... his little child. Guillem had not been surprised when the captain of the catboat had appeared at the corn exchange and explained what had happened with Mar and Arnau. His little child!

“Good luck to you, my pretty one,” he had murmured.

“What did you say?”

“Nothing, nothing. You did the right thing. Put to sea again, and come back in a couple of days.”

The first day, he had had no news from Eimerich. On the second, he went back into Barcelona. He could not just sit there waiting; he left his servants in the exchange, with orders to find him if anyone appeared asking for him.

The merchants’ districts were exactly the same. He could walk through the city with his eyes closed, letting himself be guided by the distinctive smells from each of them. The cathedral, like Santa Maria or the Pi church, was still under construction, although work on the shrine to the Virgin of the Sea was much further advanced. Santa Clara and Santa Anna were also covered in scaffolding. Guillem paused in front of each church and watched the carpenters and masons hard at work. What about the seawall? And the secure harbor? How strange Christians were.

On the third day, one of his servants came panting up to him. “Someone at the corn exchange is asking for you.”

“Have you given way then, Nicolau?” Guillem wondered as he hurried back.

NICOLAU EIMERICH SIGNED
the Inquisition’s sentence with Guillem standing on the far side of the table. He added his seal, and handed it over in silence.

Guillem picked it off the table and began to read it.

“Read the end. That’s all you need bother with,” the grand inquisitor urged him.

He had forced the clerk to work all night, and had no intention of spending all day waiting for this infidel to read the document through.

Guillem peered at him over the top of the parchment and carried on reading the inquisitor’s arguments. So Jaume de Bellera and Genis Puig had withdrawn their charges: how had Nicolau managed to achieve that? Margarida Puig’s testimony had been thrown into doubt because the tribunal had discovered that her family had been ruined in dealings with Arnau. As for Eleonor ... she had refused to accept the surrender and submission every wife ought to show her lord and master!