Cathedral of the Sea

“Who will look after her?”

“Don’t worry,” said the priest with a smile. “The Virgin will be well looked after. The Jesus chapel belongs to the bastaix guild; they are the ones who will have the key to its railings, and will make sure she is looked after.”

Arnau and Joanet knew the bastaixos well by now. Angel had reeled off their names when a line of them appeared, bowed beneath their enormous stones: Ramon, the first one they had met; Guillem, as hard as the rocks he carried on his back, tanned by the sun and with a face horribly disfigured by an accident, but gentle and affectionate in his dealings with them; another Ramon, known as “Little Ramon” because he was smaller and stockier than the other one; Miquel, a scrawny man who did not look strong enough to carry the huge weights, but who succeeded in doing so by straining all the nerves and tendons in his body until it seemed they might explode; Sebastìa, the least friendly or talkative of the group, with his son Bastianet. Then there were Pere, Jaume, and a seemingly endless list of others, all of them men from La Ribera who had committed themselves to carrying the thousands of stones needed for the new church from the royal quarry at La Roca to Santa Maria de la Mar.

Arnau thought of the bastaixos, and the way they gazed at the church as they arrived bent double under the weight of a stone; the way they smiled when they were relieved of their load; the mighty strength of their backs. He was sure they would look after the Virgin.

THE OPERATION BERENGUER de Montagut had told them about took place within the next week.

“Come at first light tomorrow,” Angel had told them. “That’s when we’ll put the keystone in place.”

The two boys made sure they were there. They ran toward the workmen who had gathered at the foot of the scaffolding. Between laborers, bastaixos, and priests, there must have been more than a hundred people present. Even Father Albert had taken off his robe and was dressed like all the rest, with a thick piece of red cloth tied round his waist.

Arnau and Joanet joined the throng, saying hello to some and waving at others.

“Boys,” they heard one of the masons say, “when we start to raise the keystone, I want you to stay well away from here.”

The two boys nodded in agreement.

“Where is the stone?” Joanet asked, looking up at the builder.

They ran over to where he pointed, at the foot of the first and lowest scaffold.

“Good heavens!” they both exclaimed when they saw the huge circular stone on the ground.

Many of the men stared at it as admiringly as they did, but said nothing. They knew how important this day was.

“It weighs more than six tons,” one of them said.

With eyes like saucers, Joaner looked inquiringly at Ramon, the first man they had seen carrying a block of stone.

“No,” he said, reading the boy’s mind. “We didn’t carry this one here.”

There was nervous laughter at his comment, but it soon died away. Arnau and Joanet watched the men file past, looking alternately at the stone and at the top of the scaffolding: they had to raise more than six tons some thirty yards in the air, by pulling on cables!

“If anything goes wrong ... ,” the boys heard one of the men say as he crossed himself.

“We’ll be caught underneath,” another man replied, twisting his lips.

No one was standing still. Even Father Albert, in his strange attire, kept moving among them, encouraging them, slapping them on the back, ralking animatedly. The old church stood there in the midst of all the people and the mass of scaffolding. Curious onlookers from the city began to gather at a safe distance.

Finally, Berenguer de Montagut appeared. He gave nobody time to stop and greet him, but leapt onto the lowest level of scaffolding and began to address all those present. As he did so, some masons tied a huge pulley round the stone.

“As you can see,” he shouted, “we have rigged up tackle at the top of the scaffolding so that we can raise the keystone. The pulleys up there and the ones round the stone are made up of three separate sets, each of which has another three coming off them. As you know, we cannot use capstans or wheels, because we need to move the stone sideways as well. There are three cables to each pulley system. They go all the way up to the top, and back down again.” He pointed out the path of the cables; a hundred heads followed his gesture. “I want you to form three groups around me.”

The masons began to divide the men. Arnau and Joanet ran to the rear of the old church and stood with their backs to the wall, watching the preparations. When Berenguer saw that the three groups had formed, he went on:

“Each group will haul on one of the cables. You,” he said, addressing one of the groups, “are to be Santa Maria. Repeat after me: Santa Maria!”

The men all shouted: “Santa Maria!”

“You are Santa Clara.” The second group called out the name of Santa Clara. “And you over there are Santa Eulàlia. I’ll call you by those names. When I shout, ‘Everyone!’ I mean all three groups. When you are in position, you have to pull in a straight line, and keep your eyes on the back of the man in front of you. Listen for the instructions from the mason in charge of each group. And remember: always pull in a straight line! Now line up.”

The mason leading each group made sure they were in line. The cables were made ready, and the men picked them up. Before the boys could start wondering what was going to happen, Berenguer shouted again:

“Everyone! When I give the word, start to pull—gently at first, until you can feel the cables grow taut. Now!”

Arnau and Joanet watched the three lines pull until the cables were taut.

“Everyone! Pull hard!”

The boys held their breath. The men dug their heels into the ground and started to pull. Their arms, backs, and faces tensed. Arnau and Joanet stared at the huge block of stone. It had not budged.

“Everyone! Pull harder!”

The order rang out round the church. The men’s faces went purple with effort. The wooden scaffolding started to creak. The keystone rose a hand’s breadth from the ground. Six tons!

“More!” shouted Berenguer, his gaze fixed on the keystone.

Another few inches. The boys had almost forgotten to breathe.

“Santa Maria! Pull harder! Harder!”

Arnau and Joanet looked toward the Santa Maria line. Father Albert was among them. He had his eyes shut and was pulling with all his might.

“That’s right, Santa Maria! That’s right. Now everyone: pull!”

The wooden scaffolding creaked again. Arnau and Joanet glanced at it and then at Berenguer de Montagut. He was staring intently at the stone, which slowly, very slowly, rose into the air.

“Heave! Come on, everyone. Pull harder!”

When the keystone reached the level of the first scaffolding, Berenguer ordered the groups to stop pulling, and to keep the stone in the air.

“Santa Maria and Santa Eulàlia, stop pulling,” he ordered. “Santa Clara, you pull!” The stone moved sideways until it reached the platform Berenguer was standing on. “Now, everyone! Slacken off the ropes little by little.”

Everyone, including all those hauling on the ropes, held his breath as the stone came to rest on the wooden structure, close to Berenguer’s feet.

“Slowly!” he cried out.

The platform buckled under the weight of the stone.

“What if it gives way?” Arnau whispered to Joanet.

If it gave way, Berenguer ...

It did not give way. But the scaffold had not been built to withstand such a weight for any length of time. The keystone had to be hauled to the top, where Berenguer had calculated that the platforms were more resistant. The workmen changed the cables onto the next set of pulleys, and the men started to haul on them again. The next platform, then the one after that; six tons of stone rose to the spot where the vaulted arches were to come together, high in the heavens above all their heads.

The men were sweating; their muscles had seized up. From time to time, one of them collapsed, and the builder in charge of that line ran to pull him out from under the feet of the man in front. Some strong-looking men from the city were among the crowd, and whenever a man dropped out, they took over.

Berenguer continued to shout orders from high up on the scaffolding. Another man lower down made sure all the groups heard him. When the keystone finally reached the topmost platform, a few smiles appeared on tightly drawn lips, but they all knew that the most crucial moment had arrived. Berenguer de Montagut had calculated the exact position where the keystone had to be placed so that the vaults of the arches would fit perfectly around it. For days he had used ropes and stakes to calculate the precise spot in between the ten columns. He had dropped plumb lines from the scaffolding and tied ropes from the stakes on the ground up to the top. He had spent hour after hour scribbling on parchment, then scratching out the figures and writing over them. If the keystone was not placed exactly right, it would not support the stress from the arches, and the whole apse could come crashing down.

In the end, following thousands of calculations and even more sketches, he traced the outline of where the keystone should go on the top platform of the scaffolding. That was the exact spot, not an inch to one side or the other. When they had hauled the keystone right to the top, the men below almost despaired when Berenguer refused to allow them to rest it on the platform as they had done lower down, but went on shouting orders:

“A little more, Santa Maria. No. Santa Clara, pull, now hold it there. Santa Eulàlia! Santa Clara! Santa Maria ... ! Lower! Higher! Now!” he suddenly shouted. “Everyone hold it there. A little lower! Little by little. Gently does it!”

All at once, there was no more weight on the cables. The men peered silently up at the sky, where Berenguer de Montagut was kneeling to inspect the positioning of the keystone. He walked round its two-yard diameter, stood up, and waved in triumph to everybody down below.

Arnau and Joanet could feel the shouts of joy that rose from the throats of men who had been toiling for hours: they reverberated against the church wall behind them. Many of them sank thankfully to the ground. A few others hugged one another and danced. The hundreds of spectators who had been watching shouted and applauded. Arnau could feel a knot in his throat, and all the hairs on his body stood on end.

“I wish I were older,” he whispered to his father that night as the two of them lay on the straw pallet surrounded by the coughs and snores of the slaves and apprentices.

Bernat tried to fathom what was behind his son’s wish. Arnau had returned home in high spirits, and had told him a thousand times how the keystone of the Santa Maria apse had been raised. Even Jaume had listened closely to him.

“Why, son?”

“Because everybody does something. There are lots of boys who help their fathers at Santa Maria, but Joanet and I ...”

Bernat put his arm round his son’s shoulders and drew him toward him. It was true that except when his father had some special errand for him, Arnau spent the whole day at the church. What could he usefully do there?

“You like the bastaixos, don’t you?”

Bernat had felt his son’s enthusiasm whenever he spoke about these men who carried the blocks of stone to the new church. The boys followed them as far as the gates of the city, waited there for them, then walked back with them, all along the beach from Framenors to Santa Maria.

“Yes,” Arnau said. His father rummaged for something under the pallet.

“Here, take this,” Bernat said, giving him the old waterskin he had taken with them when they first fled his lands. Arnau felt for it in the darkness. “Offer them fresh water. You’ll see how they thank you for it.”

As always, at dawn the next day Joanet was waiting for him at the gates of Grau’s workshop. Arnau showed him the skin, then hung it round his neck, and they both ran off down to the beach. They made for the angel fountain, the only one that was on the bastaixos route. The next fountain was down in Santa Maria itself.

When the boys spotted the line of bastaixos coming slowly toward them, bent under the weight of their stones, they clambered onto one of the boats on the beach. As the first bastaix came level with them, Arnau showed him the waterskin. The man smiled and came to a halt next to the boat so that Arnau could pour the water directly into his mouth. The others waited until the first man had finished; then the next one stepped up. Lightened of their load, on their way back to the royal quarry they paused at the boat to thank the boys for the fresh water.

From that day on, Arnau and Joanet became the water carriers for all the bastaixos. They waited for them close to the angel fountain, or, whenever the laborers had to unload a ship and could not work for Santa Maria, followed them, around the city to pour them water without their having to drop the heavy loads they were carrying.

The two boys still found time to go down to Santa Maria to watch the building work, talk to Father Albert, or sit and watch how Angel wolfed down his food. Anyone observing them could see how their eyes shone in a different way whenever they looked at the church. They were doing their bit to help build it! That was what the bastaixos and even Father Albert had told them.

The keystone hung high in the sky, and the boys saw how the ribs from each of the ten columns were gradually rising to meet it. The masons built trusses and then placed one block after another on them, curving upward. Behind the columns, surrounding the first eight of them, the walls of the ambulatory had already been built, with the interior buttresses in place. “Between these two,” Father Albert told them as he pointed out two of the stone columns, “we will put the Jesus chapel, the one belonging to the bastaixos, where the Virgin will stand.”

He said this because as the walls of the ambulatory were being built, and the new vaults were constructed on the struts from the columns, the old church was gradually being demolished.

“Then above the apse,” Father Albert went on, with Angel nodding at his side, “we’ll build the roof. Do you know what we will use?” The two boys shook their heads. “All the faulty pottery jars in the city. First will come the ashlar filling, and then on top of that all the jars, lined up next to one another. Finally there will be the roof covering.”

Arnau had seen all the broken jars piled next to the blocks of stone outside Santa Maria. He had asked his father why they were there, but Bernat did not know the answer.

“All I know,” he had said, “is that we have to pile up all the faulty pieces until someone comes and collects them.”

In this way, the new church began to take shape behind the apse of the old one, which they carefully dismantled in order to be able to use its stones. The La Ribera district did not want to be left without a church, even while the new, magnificent shrine to the Virgin was rising around them. Masses were said as usual, and yet there was a strange atmosphere in the church. Like everyone else, Arnau went in through the lopsided doorway of the tiny Romanesque construction, but once inside, instead of the welcoming gloom that had protected him while he talked to the Virgin, there was now a flood of light from the windows in the new apse. The old church was like a small box contained within another much larger and more beautiful one, a box destined to disappear as the other one grew, a box whose fourth side was taken up by the new, soaring apse that already boasted a roof.

10

HOWEVER, THERE WAS more to Arnau’s life than Santa Maria and giving water to the bastaixos. In exchange for bed and board, he had, among other duties, to help the Grau family cook whenever she went into the city to buy food.

So every two or three days Arnau left the workshop at dawn and went with Estranya, the mulatto slave, into the city streets. She walked with splayed legs, her huge body swaying dangerously as she waddled along. As soon as Arnau appeared in the kitchen doorway, she would give him the first things to carry: two baskets of dough they were to take to the ovens in the Calle Ollers Blancs for baking. One basket contained the loaves for Grau and his family: these were made of wheat flour, and became the finest white bread. The other held the loaves for the rest of the household, made from rye, millet, or even beans and chickpeas. When baked, this bread was dark, heavy, and hard.

Once they had handed over the loaves, Estranya and Arnau would leave the potters’ neighborhood and cross the wall into the center of Barcelona. In this first part of their journey, Arnau had no problem following the slave, and even found time to laugh at her swaying body and rippling dark flesh.

“What are you laughing at?” the mulatto had asked him more than once.

At that, Arnau would look into her round, flat face and stifle his smile.

“You want to laugh? Laugh at this then,” she said in Plaza del Blat as she gave him a sack of wheat to carry. “Where’s your smile now?” she would say on the way down La Llet as she loaded him with the milk his cousins were to drink. She would repeat the taunt in the narrow Plaza del Cols, where she bought cabbages, pulses, or other vegetables, and in Plaza de l’Oli, weighing him down with oil, game, or fowl.

After that, struggling under her purchases, Arnau followed the slave all over Barcelona. On the 160 days of abstinence, the mulatto plodded and swayed down to the shore, near Santa Maria. There she fought with the other customers at one of the city’s two official fishmongers (the old and the new) to buy the best dolphin, tuna, sturgeon, or palomides, neros, reigs, and corballs.

“Now we’ll get your fish,” she said. It was her turn to smile as she went round the back of the stalls to buy the leftovers. There were as many people here as at the front, but Estranya did not fight to get the best.

Even so, Arnau preferred these days of abstinence to those when Estranya had to go and buy meat, because whereas to purchase the leftovers of fish she simply had to walk round the stall, when she bought meat Arnau had to carry all his packages across half the city.

She bought the meat for Grau and his family from one of the butchers situated outside the slaughterhouses. Like everything else sold in the city, this was fresh, first-class meat: no dead animals were allowed inside Barcelona. Everything that was sold was slaughtered on the spot.

That was why, to get the cheap cuts to feed to the servants and slaves in the household, they had to leave the city by Portaferrisa until they reached the market where carcasses were piled alongside meat of unknown origin. Again it was Estranya’s turn to smile as she bought, and loaded the boy with her new purchases. Then it was back to the baker’s to pick up the bread from the oven, and then to Grau’s house, Estranya still swaying and waddling her way along, Arnau dragging his feet.

ONE MORNING, WHEN Estranya and Arnau were buying meat at the main slaughterhouse by Plaza del Blat, they heard the bells of San Jaume church begin to peal. It was not Sunday or a feast day. Estranya came to a halt, legs spread wide. Someone in the square let out a shout. Arnau could not understand what he was saying, but lots of others soon joined in, and people started running about in all directions. He turned toward Estranya, a question on his lips. He dropped the load. The wheat merchants were all scrambling to dismantle their stalls. People were still rushing to and fro, and the bells of San Jaume were still ringing out over the square. Arnau thought of running there, but... weren’t those the bells of Santa Clara he could hear too? He strained to capture the sound, but at that very moment the bells of San Pere, Framenors, and San Just all started up. All the churches in the city were ringing their bells! Arnau stood stock-still, openmouthed and deafened, watching everyone running all round him.

All of a sudden, he saw Joanet’s face in front of him. His friend was hopping about nervously.

“Via fora! Via fora!” he was shouting.

“What’s that?” Arnau asked.

“Via fora!” Joaner bawled in his ear.

“What does that mean?”

Joanet motioned to him to be quiet, and pointed toward the ancient Mayor gate, beneath the magistrate’s palace.

As Arnau watched, one of the magistrate’s stewards came out. He was dressed for battle, in a silver breastplate and with a broadsword at his side. In his right hand he was carrying the banner of Sant Jordi on a gilded pole: a red cross on a white background. Behind him, another steward who was also in battle dress held aloft the city banner. The two men ran to the center of the square and the stone dividing Barcelona into four quarters. When they reached it, waving their banners, the two men cried out as one:

“Via fora! Via fora!”

All the bells were still ringing, and the cry of Via fora was taken up along all the streets around the square. Joanet, who until then had witnessed the spectacle without a word, suddenly began to shout like a madman.

Finally, Estranya reacted. She swatted a hand at Arnau to make him move, but he was still entranced by the sight of the two stewards standing in the center of the square, with their shining armor and swords, waving their colorful banners, and ducked under her fist.

“Come with me, Arnau,” Estranya ordered him.

“No,” he said, egged on by Joanet.

Estranya grabbed him by the shoulder and shook him. “Come on. This is no business of ours.”

“What are you saying, slave?” The words came from a woman who, like them, was caught up in the excitement of what was going on in front of them and had heard the argument between Arnau and the mulatto. “Is the boy a slave?” Estranya shook her head. “Is he a free citizen?” Arnau nodded. “How dare you say then that the ‘Via fora’ is none of the boy’s business?” Estranya hesitated, her feet slipping under her like a duck’s on ice.

“Who are you, slave,” another woman said, “to deny the boy the honor of defending Barcelona’s rights?”

Estranya lowered her head. What would her master say if he heard? After all, he was the first to defend the city’s honor. The bells were still ringing. Joanet had joined the group of women and was signaling to Arnau to come with him.

“Women don’t go with the city host,” the first woman reminded Estranya.

“And slaves still less,” another woman added.

“Who do you think will look after our husbands if not boys like them?”

Estranya did not dare raise her eyes from the ground.

“Who do you think will cook for them or run their errands? Who will take off their boots and clean their crossbows?”

“Go where you need to go,” the women told her. “This is no place for a slave.”

Estranya picked up all the sacks that Arnau had been carrying, and started to waddle off. Smiling contentedly, Joanet looked admiringly at the group of women. Arnau had not moved.

“Come on, boys,” the women encouraged them. “Come and look after our menfolk.”

“Make sure you tell my father!” Arnau shouted to Estranya, who had managed to walk only three or four yards.

Joanet saw that Arnau could not take his eyes off the slave, and understood his doubts.

“Didn’t you hear the women?” he said. “It’s up to us to look after Barcelona’s soldiers. Your father will understand.”

Arnau agreed, hesitantly at first, but then with more conviction. Of course Bernat would understand! Hadn’t he himself fought so that they could become free citizens of the city?

When they looked back at the center of the square, they saw that a third man had joined the two stewards: the standard bearer from the merchants’ guild. He did not wear armor, but had a crossbow strapped across his back and wore a sword at his belt. A short while later, the standard of the silversmiths was fluttering alongside the others; slowly the square filled up with banners displaying all kinds of symbols and figures: the furriers’ banner, the surgeons and barbers’, the ones for the guilds of carpenters, coppersmiths, potters ...

The freemen of Barcelona began gathering beneath the banner of their trade. As required by law, they each came armed with a crossbow, a quiver with a hundred bolts, and a sword or spear. Within two hours, the sagramental of the city of Barcelona was ready to move off in defense of the city’s privileges.

By then, Arnau had understood from Joanet what this was all about.

“Barcelona not only defends itself when necessary,” Joanet told him. “It also goes on the attack if anyone threatens it.” He spoke excitedly, pointing to the soldiers and their banners, proud of the way the city had responded. “It’s fantastic! You’ll see. With any luck, we’ll be out of Barcelona for a few days. If anybody mistreats an inhabitant of the city or attacks its rights, they are denounced ... well, I’m not sure who they are denounced to, whether it’s the magistrate or the Council of a Hundred, but if the authorities decide the charge is justified, they call the host together beneath the banner of Sant Jordi—can you see it over there in the center of the square, flying higher than all the others? The bells are rung, and people pour out into the streets shouting, ‘Via fora!’ so that all the inhabitants know what is going on. The leaders of each guild bring out their banners, and their members gather under them to set off for battle.”

Wide-eyed, Arnau tried to take in everything that was going on around him. He followed Joanet through the different groups congregated in the square.

“What do we have to do? Is it dangerous?” Arnau asked, impressed by the vast array of arms on display.

“No, usually it’s not dangerous,” Joanet replied, smiling. “Remember that if the magistrate has called the citizens to arms, he has done it not only in the name of the city but of the king as well. That means we never have to fight the royal troops. Of course, it depends on who the aggressor is, but generally when a feudal lord sees the Barcelona host approaching, he usually gives in to their demands.”

“So there is no battle?”

“That depends on what the authorities decide, and the feudal lord’s attitude. The last time, a castle was destroyed, and then there was a battle, with deaths, attacks, and ... Look! Your uncle must be over there,” said Joanet, pointing to the potters’ banner. “Let’s go and see!”

Beneath the banner, Grau Puig stood in his armor with the three other guild aldermen: he was wearing boots, a leather jacket that protected him down to midcalf, and a sword. The city’s potters crowded around their four leaders. As soon as Grau saw the young boys, he signaled to Jaume, who stepped in front of them, blocking their way.

“Where are you two going?” he asked them.

Arnau looked at Joanet for support.

“We’re going to offer to help the master,” said Joanet. “We could carry his food ... or whatever else he wants.”

“I’m sorry,” was all Jaume replied.

As he turned away, Arnau asked his friend: “Now what do we do?”

“It doesn’t matter!” said Joanet. “Don’t worry. There are plenty of people here who would be pleased to have our help. Anyway, I’m sure he won’t notice if we join in.”

The two boys started to mingle with the crowd, studying the swords, crossbows, and lances, and admiring the men dressed in armor. They tried to follow their lively conversation.

“What’s happened to the water?” they heard someone shout behind them.

Arnau and Joanet looked round. Their faces lit up when they saw it was Ramon smiling at them. All around him, a group of twenty or more bastaixos, armed and powerful-looking, were staring in their direction.

Arnau felt for the waterskin on his back. He must have looked so crestfallen when he could not find it that several of the men laughed and came to offer theirs.

“You always have to be ready when the city calls,” they said jokingly.

The army of citizens left Barcelona behind the banner bearing the red cross of Sant Jordi. They were heading for the village of Creixell, close to Tarragona, where the villagers had seized a flock of sheep that was the property of the city butchers.

“Is that so bad?” Arnau asked Ramon, whom they had decided to accompany.

“Of course it is. Any animals that belong to Barcelona’s butchers have the right to travel and graze anywhere in Catalonia. Nobody, not even the king, can stop any flock or herd that is on its way to the city. Our children have to eat the best meat in the land,” said Ramon, ruffling their hair. “The lord of Creixell has seized a flock and is demanding that the shepherd pay him for grazing and for the right to pass through his lands. Can you imagine what would happen if all the lords and barons between Tarragona and Barcelona did the same? We would never eat.”

“If only you knew what sort of meat Estranya gives us ... ,” thought Arnau. Joanet guessed what was going through his mind and pulled a face. He was the only one whom Arnau had told. He had been tempted to warn his father where the scraps of meat floating in the pot had come from, but when he saw not only how eagerly his father devoured them but the way that all the slaves and workmen in Grau’s pottery threw themselves on the food, he thought better of it, said nothing, and ate along with the rest of them.

“Are there any other reasons for the sagramental to be called?” asked Arnau, still with the foul taste in his mouth.

“Of course. Any threat to Barcelona’s privileges or against a citizen can mean we are called on. For example, if a citizen is held against his will, then the sagramental will go and free him.”

As Arnau and Joanet talked, the army moved up the coast, from San Boi to Castelldefels and then Garraf. As the men passed by, everyone stared silently at them, making sure they kept well out of their way. Even the sea seemed to respect the Barcelona host, the sound of the waves dying away as the hundreds of armed men marched behind the banner of Sant Jordi. The sun shone on them all day, and as the sea was turning to silver in the evening light, they came to a halt in Sitges. The lord of Fonollar welcomed their leaders into his castle, while the rest of the men made camp outside the town gates.

“Is there going to be a war?” asked Arnau.

All the bastaixos stared at him. The only sound was the crackling of their bonfire. Joanet lay fast asleep, his head on Ramon’s lap. Some of the men looked at one another, asking themselves the same question: would there be a war?

“No,” said Ramon, “the lord of Creixell cannot stand against us.”

Arnau looked disappointed.

“He might, though,” one of the guild leaders on the far side of the fire said to encourage him. “Many years ago, when I was about as young as you are now”—Arnau almost burned himself as he leaned forward to catch his words—“the sagramental was called out to march on Castellbisbal, where the lord had seized a flock of cattle, just like the lord of Creixell has done now. But at Castellbisbal, he did not back down, and decided to face our army. He probably thought that the citizens of Barcelona—merchants, artisans, or bastaixos like us—could not fight. But the men of Barcelona stormed the castle, took the lord and his soldiers prisoner, and razed it to the ground.”

Arnau imagined himself wielding a sword, swarming up a ladder, shouting victoriously on the battlements of Creixell castle: “Who dares stand against the Barcelona sagramental?” All the men around the fire could see how excited he was: he was staring intently into the flames, his hands clasping a stick he had previously used to poke the fire with. “I, Arnau Estanyol ...” The sound of their laughter brought him back to Sitges.

“Go and sleep,” Ramon advised him, getting up with Joanet in his arms. Arnau made a face. “You can dream of battles,” the bastaix said to console him.

The night air was cool, but one of the men gave up his blanket for the two boys.

At dawn the next day the army resumed its march on Creixell. They passed through the villages and castles of Geltrú, Vilanova, Cubelles, Segur, and Barà. From Barà, they turned inland toward Creixell. About a mile from the sea, the lord of Creixell had built his castle on rocks at the crest of a ridge. It boasted several towers; the houses of the village were clustered round them.

By now it was only a few hours before nightfall. The leaders of the guilds were called together by the councillors and the magistrate. Then the army of Barcelona lined up in battle formation outside Creixell, with banners waving in front of it. Arnau and Joanet roamed behind the lines, offering water to any bastaix who wanted some. Most of them refused, their eyes fixed on the castle. Nobody spoke, and the children did not dare break the silence. The leaders returned and each took his place at the head of a guild. Everyone in the ranks watched as three ambassadors from Barcelona strode toward Creixell; the same number came out of the castle, and the two groups met halfway down the hill.

Like everyone else in the citizens’ army, Arnau and Joanet watched the negotiations without a word.

In the end, there was no battle. The lord of Creixell had managed to escape through a secret tunnel that led from the castle to the beach, behind the army. When he saw Barcelona’s army drawn up in the valley, the village mayor gave the order to comply with all the city’s demands. The villagers released the flock and the shepherd, agreed to pay a large sum of money in compensation, promised to obey and respect Barcelona’s privileges in the future, and handed over two men who they said were to blame for the insult. They were taken prisoner at once.

“Creixell has surrendered,” the ambassadors informed the army.

A murmur ran through the ranks. The occasional soldiers sheathed their swords, put down their crossbows and spears, and took off their armor. Soon, shouts of triumph, jokes, and laughter could be heard on all sides.

“Where’s the wine, boys?” Ramon teased them. “What’s the matter?” he said, seeing them rooted to the spot. “You would have liked to have seen a battle, wouldn’t you?”

The expression on their faces spoke for itself.

“But any one of us could have been wounded, or even killed. Would you have liked that?” Arnau and Joanet quickly shook their heads. “You should see it in another light: you belong to the biggest and most powerful city in the principality. Everyone is afraid of challenging us.” Arnau and Joanet listened, wide-eyed.

“Go and fetch wine, boys. You’ll have the chance to drink to our victory too.”

The flag of Sant Jordi returned with honor to Barcelona. Alongside it strode the two boys, proud of their city, its citizens, and of being part of everything. The Creixell prisoners were paraded through the streets in chains. Women and crowds of curious onlookers applauded the army and spat on the captives. Stern-faced and proud, Arnau and Joanet marched with the others all the way to the magistrate’s palace, where the prisoners were handed over. Then they went to visit Bernat, who, relieved to see his son back safe and sound, soon forgot the scolding he was going to give him, and instead listened contentedly to the story of his new adventures.

12

SEVERAL MONTHS HAD gone by since the excitement that had taken him to Creixell, but little had changed in Arnau’s life. While he waited for his tenth birthday, when he would become an apprentice in Grau’s workshop, he spent his days with Joanet, roaming the streets of the fascinating city, giving the bastaixos water, and above all, enjoying watching the new Santa Maria church grow. He prayed to the Virgin and told her all his worries, delighting in the smile he thought he could see on her lips.

As Father Albert had told him, when the main altar of the Romanesque church disappeared, the Virgin was taken to the small Jesus chapel in the ambulatory behind the new main altar, between two buttresses and protected by tall, strong iron bars. It was the bastaixos who provided for the chapel. They were the ones who looked after it, guarded it, cleaned it, and made sure it was always lit by fresh candles. Although it was the most important chapel in the new church, the place where the sacraments were kept, the parish had granted it to these humble workers from the port of Barcelona. Many nobles and rich merchants were happy to pay to build and endow the other thirty-three chapels that would be part of Santa Maria de la Mar, Father Albert told them. But this one, the Jesus chapel, belonged to the bastaixos, so the young water carrier never had any problem getting close to the Virgin.

One morning, Bernat was sorting through the few possessions he kept under their pallet. It was here that he hid the coins he had managed to rescue during their flight from his farmhouse nine years earlier, and the meager wage his brother-in-law paid him, which would nevertheless help Arnau get on once he had learned the potter’s trade. All of a sudden, Jaume entered the room. Surprised because the assistant usually never came there, Bernat stood up.

“What is it?”

“Your sister has died,” Jaume said hurriedly.

Bernat could feel his legs giving way. He flopped onto the mattress, money bag still in hand.

“Wha ... What happened?” he stammered.

“The master does not know. Her body was cold this morning.”

Bernat dropped the bag and buried his face in his hands. By the time he lowered them again and looked up, Jaume had disappeared. With a lump in his throat, Bernat recalled the little girl who had worked in the fields alongside him and his father, the girl who never stopped singing as she looked after the animals. Bernat had often seen his father pause in his task and close his eyes, allowing himself to be carried away for a few moments by her happy, carefree voice. And now ...

Arnau’s face showed no reaction when his father told him the news at mealtime.

“Did you hear me, son?” Bernat insisted.

Arnau merely nodded. It was more than a year since he had seen Guiamona, apart from the increasingly rare occasions when he climbed the tree to watch her playing with his cousins. Hidden in the branches, he would shed silent tears as he spied on them as they laughed and ran about, none of them ... He felt like telling his father that it did not matter, because Guiamona had no love for him, but when he saw how sad his father looked, he said nothing.

“Father.” Arnau went up to him.

Bernat embraced his son.

“Don’t cry,” said Arnau, pressing his head into his father’s chest. Bernat hugged him, and Arnau responded by wrapping his arms round him.

THEY WERE EATING quietly with the slaves and apprentices when they heard the first howl. It was a piercing shriek that seemed to rend the air. They all looked toward the big house.

“Paid wailers,” one of the apprentices said. “My mother is one. It might even be her. She’s the best wailer in the city,” he added proudly.

Arnau sought his father’s face. Another howl resounded, and Bernat saw his son flinch.

“We’ll hear lots more,” he told him. “I’ve heard that Grau has hired a lot of wailing women.”

He was right. All that afternoon and night, as people came to visit the Grau house to offer their condolences, women could be heard mourning Guiamona’s death. Neither Bernat nor his son could sleep because of the constant keening.

“The whole of Barcelona knows,” Joanet told Arnau the next morning when the two of them managed to meet up in the crush of people that had formed outside Grau’s gates. Arnau shrugged. “They’ve all come for the funeral,” Joanet added, noticing his friend’s indifferent shrug.

“Why?”

“Because Grau is rich, and anyone who accompanies him is to be given mourning clothes,” said Joanet, showing him a long black tunic he was carrying. “Like this one,” he said with a smile.

By midmorning, when everyone had donned their black clothes, the funeral procession set off for Nazaret church. It was here that the chapel to Saint Hippolytus, the patron saint of potters, was to be found. The paid mourners walked alongside the coffin, crying, howling, and tearing their hair.

The church was full of the rich and famous: aldermen from several guilds, city councillors, and most of the members of the Council of a Hundred. Now that Guiamona was dead, nobody was concerned about the Estanyol family, and Bernat succeeded in pushing his way through people dressed in the simple garments Grau had given out, as well as others wearing silks, byssus, and expensive black linen, until he and his son reached his sister’s coffin. He was not even allowed to bid her a proper farewell.

STANDING AT BERNAT’S side while the priests conducted the funeral service, Arnau caught glimpses of his cousins’ faces, puffy from crying. Josep and Genis looked calm and composed, but Margarida, although she sat up straight, could not prevent her lower lip from constantly trembling. They had lost their mother, just like him. Did they know about the Virgin? Arnau wondered, looking across at his uncle, who sat there stiff as ever. He was sure that Grau Puig would not tell them about her. He had always heard that the rich were different; perhaps they had a different way of finding a new mother.

THEY CERTAINLY DID. A rich widower in Barcelona, and one with ambitions ... Even before the period of mourning had finished, Grau began to receive offers of marriage. In the end, the one chosen to be the new mother for Guiamona’s children was Isabel. She was young and unattractive, but she was a noble. Grau had weighed the advantages of all the candidates, but eventually chose the only one from a noble family. Her dowry was a title that brought with it no privileges, lands, or riches, but would help him join a class that had always been closed to him. What did he care about the substantial dowries that some merchants offered him in their anxiety to share his wealth? The important noble families in Barcelona were not interested in a widower who, however rich he might be, was nothing more than a potter: only Isabel’s father, who was penniless, could see that Grau’s character might help him make an alliance that would benefit both parties. And so it proved.

“You will understand,” his future father-in-law insisted, “that my daughter cannot live in a potter’s workshop.” Grau nodded. “And that she cannot marry a simple potter.” Grau tried to protest, but his father-in-law dismissed him with a wave of the hand. “Grau,” he went on, “we nobles cannot stoop to working as artisans. You surely understand that? We may not be rich, but we will never be craftsmen.”

“We nobles cannot ...” Grau tried to hide his satisfaction at being included as one of them. His father-in-law was right: which of the city nobles had a workshop? My lord baron: from now on that was how he would be known in his commercial dealings, and in the Council of a Hundred ... My lord baron! How could a Catalan baron have a workshop?

As alderman of the guild, he could smooth the way for Jaume to be made a master potter. They talked the matter over. Grau was in a hurry to wed Isabel, obsessed by the fear that the fickle nobleman might change his mind. The baron-to-be had no time to put his business up for sale. So Jaume would become a master potter, and Grau would sell him the workshop and the house, in installments. There was only one problem:

“I’ve got four sons,” Jaume told him. “I’ll find it hard enough to pay you for the business ...” Grau encouraged him to go on: “I can’t take on all the responsibilities you have: the slaves, the craftsmen, the apprentices ... I wouldn’t even be able to feed them! If I want to succeed, I’m going to have to manage with my four sons.”

The date for the wedding was set. At the urging of Isabel’s father, Grau bought an expensive mansion in Calle de Montcada, where many of Barcelona’s noble families lived.

“Remember,” his father-in-law warned him as they left the new mansion, “you are not to go into church with a potter’s workshop still on your hands.”

They had inspected every nook and cranny of his new house. The baron had nodded condescendingly while Grau was mentally calculating how much it was going to cost him to fill all those rooms. In the mansion behind the gateway onto Calle de Montcada there was a cobbled yard. At the far end stood the stables, which took up most of the ground floor, together with the kitchens and the slaves’ bedrooms. On the right-hand side of the yard was a broad stone staircase, which led up to the first floor of the house proper, with the principal chambers and rooms. Above that there was another floor, with the family bedrooms. The whole mansion was made of stone; the two principal floors had rows of Gothic windows that gave onto the yard.

“Very well,” Grau said to the man who for years had been his chief assistant, “you are free of those responsibilities.”

They signed the contract that very day. Grau proudly took it to show his future father-in-law.

“I’ve sold the workshop,” he announced.

“My lord baron,” the other man said, holding out his hand.

“What now?” Grau thought when he was alone again. “The slaves are no problem; I’ll keep those that are of use to me, and those who aren’t... can be sold. As for the craftsmen and apprentices ...”

Grau spoke to the other members of the guild and was able to place them all for modest sums. The only ones left were his brother-in-law and his son. Bernat had no official position within the guild: he was not even a certified craftsman. Nobody would have him in their workshop, even if it was not forbidden. The boy had not even begun his apprenticeship, but there was the question of the contract. Besides, how could Grau possibly ask anyone to take on members of the Estanyol family? Everybody would find out that those two fugitives were his relatives. They were called Estanyol, just like Guiamona. Everybody would discover that he had sheltered two landless serfs, and now that he was to become a nobleman ... weren’t the nobles the fiercest enemies of all runaway serfs? Wasn’t it they who were trying to put pressure on the king to abolish the laws allowing serfs to leave the land? How could he become a noble if the name of the Estanyol family was on everyone’s lips? What would his father-in-law say?

“You are to come with me,” he told Bernat, who for several days now had been worried by the new turn of events.

As the new owner of the workshop, and consequently free of any commitment to Grau, Jaume had sat Bernat down earlier and talked openly to him. “Grau won’t dare do anything to you. I know, because he told me as much. He doesn’t want people to hear of your situation. I’ve got a good deal here, Bernat. He is in a hurry; he wants everything settled before he marries Isabel. You have a signed contract for your son. You should take advantage of that, and put pressure on that rogue. Threaten to take him to the tribunal. You are a good man. I hope you understand that everything that has happened in these past years ...”

Bernat did understand. And, thanks to the former assistant’s support, he decided to go and confront his brother-in-law.

“What was that you said?” shouted Grau when Bernat answered him with a brief “Where and what for?” “Where I say, and for whatever I wish,” he went on, nervously flinging his arms in the air.

“We are not your slaves, Grau.”

“You don’t have much choice.”

Bernat cleared his throat, then followed Jaume’s advice.

“I could go to the tribunal.”

Tense, shaken, Grau raised his small, skinny body out of his chair, but Bernat did not back down, however much he would have liked to have run from the room: the threat of the tribunal worked wonders.

HE AND HIS son would look after the horses that Grau had been forced to buy along with the mansion. “You can’t possibly have empty stables,” his father-in-law had commented in passing, as though talking to a slow child. Grau was busy adding up all the costs in his mind. “My daughter Isabel has always had horses,” the other man added.

But the most important thing for Bernat was the good wage he obtained for himself and for Arnau, who was also going to start working with the horses. They could live outside the mansion, in a room of their own, without slaves or apprentices. He and his son would have enough money to get by.

It was Grau himself who urged Bernat to annul Arnau’s existing contract as a potter’s apprentice and to sign a new one.

EVER SINCE HE had been granted the status of a freeman, Bernat had seldom left Grau’s workshop. Whenever he had done so, it had been on his own or with Arnau. It did not seem as though there were any outstanding warrants against him: his name was registered on the list of Barcelona citizens. Every time he went out into the street, he reassured himself, thinking that they would surely have come for him by now. What he most liked was to walk down to the beach and join the dozens of men who worked on the sea. He would stand staring out at the horizon, feeling the sea breeze on his face and enjoying the tangy smells from the beach, the boats, the tar ...

It was almost ten years since he had struck the lad at the forge. He hoped he had not killed him. Arnau and Joanet were scampering around him, staring up at him bright-eyed, smiles on their lips.

“Our own house!” Arnau had shouted earlier. “Let’s live in La Ribera, please!”

“I’m afraid it will be only one room,” Bernat had tried to explain, but his son went on smiling as though they were moving to the city’s grandest palace.

“It’s not a bad area,” Jaume said when Bernat told him his son’s suggestion. “You can find a good room there.”

That was where the three of them were heading now. The boys were running around as usual; Bernat was carrying their few belongings.

On the way down to Santa Maria church, the two boys never stopped greeting people they met.

“This is my father!” Arnau shouted to a bastaix weighed down under a sack of grain, pointing to Bernat, who was some twenty yards behind them.

The bastaix smiled but continued walking, bent double under his load. Arnau turned and started to run back toward his father, but then realized Joanet was not following him.

“Come on,” he said, waving to him.

Joaner shook his head.

“What’s wrong?”

The little boy lowered his head.

“He is your father,” he muttered. “What will become of me now?”

He was right. Everyone they knew thought they were brothers. Arnau had not considered that.

“Come on, run with me,” he said, tugging at Joanet’s sleeve.

Bernat watched them approach: Arnau was pulling at Joanet, who seemed reluctant. “Congratulations for your sons,” said the bastaix as he walked past. Bernat smiled. The two boys had been playing together for more than a year now. What about little Joanet’s mother? Bernat imagined him sitting on the crate, having his head stroked by an arm that had no face. A lump rose in his throat.

“Father—” Arnau began to say when they reached him.

Joanet hid behind his friend.

“Boys,” Bernat interrupted his son, “I think that...”

“Father, how would you like to be Joanet’s father too?” Arnau said hurriedly.

Bernat saw the smaller boy peep out from behind Arnau’s back.

“Come here, Joanet,” said Bernat. “Would you like to be my son?” he asked, as the boy approached.

Joanet’s face lit up.

“Does that mean yes?”

The boy clung to his leg. Arnau beamed at him.

“Now go and play,” said Bernat, his voice choking with emotion.

THE BOYS TOOK Bernat to meet Father Albert.

“I’m sure he can help us,” said Arnau. Joanet nodded.

“This is our father!” the smaller boy said, rushing in front of Arnau and repeating the words he had been telling everyone on their way to the church, even those they knew only by sight.

Father Albert asked the boys to leave them for a while. He offered Bernat a cup of sweet wine while he listened to his story.

“I know where you can stay,” he told him. “They are good people. Now tell me, Bernat: you’ve found a good job for Arnau. He’ll earn a wage and will learn a trade. There is always a need for grooms. But what about your other son? What are your plans for Joaner?”

Bernat looked uncomfortable, and told the priest the truth.

Father Albert took them to the house of Pere and his wife. They were an old, childless couple who lived in a small, two-story house close to the beach. The kitchen was on the ground floor, and there were three rooms above it, one of which they could rent.

The whole way there, and while he was introducing them to Pere and his wife, then watching Bernat offer them payment, Father Albert held Joanet firmly by the shoulder. How could he have been so blind? Why had he not realized how much the little boy suffered? To think of all the occasions he had seen him sitting there, gazing into space with a lost look on his face!

Father Albert pulled the boy toward him. Joanet glanced up and smiled.

The room was simple but clean. The only furniture was two mattresses on the floor, the only company the sound of the waves on the beach. Arnau strained to hear the noise of the men working on Santa Maria, which was behind them nearby. They ate the stew that Pere’s wife prepared most days. Arnau looked down at the food, then looked up and smiled at his father. Estranya’s concoctions were a thing of the past now! The three of them ate heartily, watched by the old woman, who seemed ready to refill their bowls whenever they wished.

“Time for bed,” said Bernat, when he had eaten his fill. “We have to work tomorrow.”

Joanet hesitated. He stared at Bernat and, when everybody had got up from the table, headed for the door.

“This is no time to be going out, son,” said Bernat, in front of the old couple.

13

“THEY ARE MY mother’s brother and his son,” Margarida explained to her stepmother when she was surprised that Grau had taken on two more people for only seven horses.

Grau had told Isabel he wanted nothing to do with the horses. In fact, he did not even go down to inspect the magnificent stables on the ground floor of the mansion. His new wife took care of everything: she chose the animals and brought her chief stableman, Jesus, with her. He in turn advised her to employ an experienced groom, whose name was Tomás.

But four men to look after seven horses was excessive even for the way of life the baroness was used to, and she said as much on her first visit to the stables after the two Estanyols had arrived.

Now she encouraged Margarida to tell her more.

“They were peasants, serfs on a lord’s lands.”

Isabel said nothing in reply, but a suspicion was planted in her mind.

Margarida went on: “It was the son, Arnau, who was responsible for my little brother Guiamon’s death. I hate both of them! I’ve no idea why my father has kept them on.”

“We’ll soon find out,” muttered the baroness, her eyes fixed on Bernat’s back as he brushed one of the horses down.

When she brought the matter up that evening, Grau was dismissive.

“I thought it was a good idea,” was all he said, although he did confirm that they were fugitives.

“If my father got to hear of ir ...”

“But he won’t, will he, Isabel?” said Grau, looking at her intently. She was already dressed for dinner, one of the new customs she had introduced into the life of Grau and his family. She was only just twenty, and like Grau was extremely thin. She was not particularly attractive, and lacked the voluptuous curves that he had once found alluring in Guiamona, but she was noble—and her character must be noble too, Grau thought. “I’m sure you wouldn’t want your father to discover that you are living with two fugitives.”

The baroness looked at him, eyes ablaze, then swept out of the room.

In spite of the baroness’s and her stepchildren’s dislike of him, Bernat soon showed his worth with the horses. He knew how to deal with them, feed them, to clean their hooves and frogs, and to look after them when they were sick. He moved easily among the animals: the only part of his work where he lacked experience was in turning them out spotlessly.

“They want them to shine,” he told Arnau one day as they walked back home. “They don’t want to see a speck of dust. We have to scrape and scrape to get all the grit out of their hair, then polish them until they really glisten.”

“What about their manes and tails?”

“We have to cut them, plait them, and put ribbons on them.”

“Why do they want horses with so many ribbons?”

Arnau was forbidden to go near the horses. He looked at them admiringly in the stables, and could see how they responded to his father’s care. What he most enjoyed was when only the two were there and he was allowed to stroke them. As a treat, when there was no one around, Bernat allowed him to sit on the back of one or other of them inside the stable. Usually, though, his tasks meant he was never allowed to leave the harness room. He would clean the harnesses over and over again, greasing the leather, then rubbing it with a cloth until the grease was completely absorbed and the surface of the saddles and reins gleamed. He cleaned the bits and stirrups, then combed the blankets and other pieces of tackle until he had got rid of every last horse hair. Often he had to finish the job by using his hands as a pair of pincers to pull out the fine, needle-like hairs that stuck so closely to the cloth they seemed to be part of it. If there was any time left after he had done all this, he would polish and polish the new carriage that Grau had bought.

As the months went by, even Jesus had to admit Bernat’s worth. Whenever he went into one of the stables, not only did the horses not become alarmed, but more often than not they moved toward him. He touched and stroked them, whispering to reassure them. When Tomás came in, on the other hand, the steeds flattened their ears and retreated to the farthest wall when he shouted at them. What was the matter with him? Until now he had been perfectly competent, thought Jesus each time he heard a fresh outburst.

IN THE MORNING, when father and son set off for work, Joanet stayed to help Mariona, Pere’s wife. He would clean and tidy the house, then accompany her to market. After that, while she busied herself with her cooking, he would head off to the beach to find Pere. The old man had spent his life fishing, and apart from receiving occasional aid from their guild, he also earned a few coins by helping the younger fishermen repair the nets. Joanet went with him, listening to all his explanations and running off to get whatever he might need.

Apart from all this, whenever he could he escaped and went to visit his mother.

“This morning,” he explained to her one day, “when Bernat went to pay Pere, he gave him back some of the money. He told him that the ‘little one’ ... that’s me, Mother, that’s what they call me ... well, he said that seeing that the little one helped so much at home and on the beach, there was no need for him to pay for me.”

The imprisoned woman listened, hand on her son’s head. How everything had changed! Ever since he’d been living with the Estanyols her little one no longer sat there sobbing, waiting for her silent caresses and words of affection. A blind affection. Now he spoke, told her about his life. Why, he even laughed!

“Bernat hugged me,” Joanet said proudly, “and Arnau congratulated me.”

The hand closed on the boy’s head.

Joanet went on talking, in a rush to tell her everything. About Arnau, Bernat, Mariona, Pere, the beach, the fishermen, the nets they repaired. But his mother was no longer listening: she was only happy that her son finally knew what it was like to be hugged, to be happy.

“Run, my boy,” his mother interrupted him, trying to conceal the tremor in her voice. “They’ll be waiting for you.”

From inside the walls of her prison, she heard how her little one jumped down from the crate and ran off. She imagined him climbing the wall she wished she had never seen.

What was left for her? She had survived for years on bread and water within those four walls, every last inch of which her fingers had explored hundreds of times. She had fought against solitude and madness by staring up at the sky through the tiny window the king, in his great mercy, had allowed her. She had fought off fever and other illnesses, and had done all this for her son, to be able to stroke his head, to give him encouragement, to make him feel that, in spite of everything, he was not alone in the world.

Now he was not alone. Bernat hugged him! It felt as though she knew him. She had even dreamed of him during the endless hours of her imprisonment. “Take care of him, Bernat,” she had whispered to the thin air. And now Joanet was happy. He laughed, ran everywhere, and ...

Joana sank to the ground and stayed there. That day she did not touch any of the bread or water left for her; her body did not need it.

Joanet came back the next day, and the day after, on and on. She could hear how he laughed and talked of the world so full of hope. All that came out of the window were faint words: yes, no, look, run, run and live.

“Run and enjoy the life that because of me you have never enjoyed until now,” she whispered as he climbed back over the wall.

The pieces of bread formed a pile on the floor of Joana’s prison.

“Do you know what has happened, Mother?” said Joanet, pulling the crate against the wall to sit on: his feet still did not touch the ground. “No, how could you?” He sat curled up and pressed his back against the wall exactly where he knew his mother’s hand could reach down and touch his head. “I’ll tell you. Well, yesterday one of Grau’s horses ...”

But no arm appeared through the window.

“Mother, listen. It’s funny, I tell you. It’s about one of the horses ...”

He turned and looked up at the window.

“Mother?”

He waited.

“Mother?”

He strained to hear above the sounds of the coppersmiths hammering in the streets all around: nothing.

“Mother!” he shouted.

He knelt upon the crate. What could he do? She had always forbidden him to approach the window.

“Mother!” he shouted again, standing up on the crate.

She had always insisted he should not try to look in and see her. Yet there was no answer! Joanet peered inside: it was too dark for him to see anything.

He climbed up and lifted his leg through the window. He was too big—he would have to slide in sideways.

“Mother?” he said again.

He grabbed the top of the window, lifted both legs onto the sill, then squeezed in on his side. He jumped to the floor.

“Mother?” he said as his eyes grew used to the gloom.

Gradually he could make out a point of light that gave off an unbearable stench, and then on the other side of the room, to his left, he saw a body curled up on a straw pallet against the wall.

Joanet waited without moving. The noise of hammers on metal had faded into the distance.

“I wanted to tell you a funny story,” he said, going over to the shape on the floor. Tears started to course down his cheeks. “It would have made you laugh,” he stammered, coming up to her.

Joanet sat for a long while next to his mother’s body. As though she had guessed her son might come into her cell, Joana had buried her face in her arms, as if trying to avoid him seeing her like this even after her death.

“Can I touch you?”

The little one stroked his mother’s hair. It was filthy, disheveled, dry as dust.

“You had to die for us to be together.”

Joanet burst into tears.

BERNAT KNEW WHAT to do as soon as he returned home and was met by Pere and his wife, interrupting each other as they tried to tell him that Joanet had not come back. They had never asked him where he disappeared to. They always thought he went to Santa Maria, but nobody had seen him there that afternoon. Mariona raised her hand to her mouth.

“What if something has happened to him?” she said.

“We’ll find him,” Bernat said, trying to reassure her.

Joanet was still sitting beside his mother’s body. First he stroked her hair; then he curled it between his fingers, getting some of the knots out. After that, he got up and stared up at the window.

Night fell.

“Joanet?”

Joanet looked back up at the window.

“Joanet?” he heard once more from beyond the wall.

“Arnau?”

“What’s happened?”

He answered: “She’s dead.”

“Why don’t you ... ?”

“I can’t. I don’t have a crate inside here. The window is too high up.”

“THERE’S A VERY bad smell,” concluded Arnau. Bernat beat on the door of Pone the coppersmith’s house once more. What could the little one have done, shut up in there all day? He called out again, in a loud voice. Why did nobody answer? At that moment, the door opened, and a gigantic figure almost filled the entire doorway. Arnau took a step back.

“What do you want?” the man growled. He was barefoot, and the only clothing he was wearing was a threadbare shirt that came down to his knees.

“My name is Bernat Estanyol, and this is my son,” he said, grasping Arnau by the shoulder and pushing him forward. “He’s a friend of your son Joa—”

“I don’t have a son,” Pone protested, making as though to shut the door in their faces.

“But you do have a wife,” said Bernat, pushing the door open despite Ponc’s efforts. “Well ... ,” he explained to the coppersmith, “you did have one. She has died.”

Pone showed no reaction.

“So what?” he said, with an almost imperceptible shrug of his shoulders.

“Joanet is inside the hut with her.” Bernat tried to make his voice sound as threatening as he could. “He can’t get out.”

“That’s where that bastard should have spent his entire life.”

Squeezing Arnau’s shoulder tight, Bernat looked steadily at the other man. Arnau was frightened again, but when Pone looked down at him, he stood defiantly straight.

“What are you going to do?” Bernat insisted.

“Nothing,” the coppersmith replied. “Tomorrow, when they knock the hut down, the boy will get out.”

“You can’t leave a child all night in—”

“I can do what I like in my own house.”

“I’ll go and tell the magistrate,” Bernat said, knowing it was an empty threat.

Ponc’s eyes narrowed. Without another word, he disappeared inside, leaving the door open. Bernat and Arnau waited. He finally came back carrying a rope, which he handed directly to Arnau.

“Get him out of there,” he ordered the boy, “and tell him that now his mother is dead I don’t ever want to see him here again.”

“How ... ?” Bernat began to ask.

“The same way he has been getting in there all these years,” Pone said. “By climbing over the wall. You are not going through my house.”

“What about his mother?” Bernat asked before he could shut the door again.

“The king handed me the mother with orders that I should not kill her. Now that she is dead, I’ll give her back to the king,” Pone quickly replied. “I paid a lot of money as surety, and by God, I have no intention of forfeiting it for a whore like her.”

ONLY FATHER ALBERT, who already knew Joanet’s story, and old Pere and his wife, whom Bernat had no choice but to tell, ever found out about the boy’s terrible misfortune. All three of them paid him special attention, but he still refused to talk. Whereas before he had constantly been on the move, now he walked slowly and deliberately, as if he were carrying an unbearable weight on his shoulders.

“Time is a great healer,” Bernat said to Arnau one morning. “We have to wait and offer him our love and help.”

Yet Joanet continued to say nothing. His only reaction was when he burst into tears each night. Bernat and Arnau lay quietly on their mattress, until it seemed the poor boy ran out of energy and was overcome by a fitful sleep.

“Joanet,” Bernat heard his son call out to him one night. “Joanet!”

There was no answer.

“If you like, I can ask the Virgin Mary to be your mother too.”

“Well said, son!” thought Bernat. He had not wanted to suggest it, because the Virgin was Arnau’s secret. It was up to him to decide if he wanted to share it.

Now he had done so, but Joanet had made no reply. The room remained completely silent.

“Joanet?” Arnau insisted.

“That was what my mother called me.” These were the first words he had spoken in days. Bernat lay on his mattress without moving. “She’s no longer here. Now my name is Joan.”

“As you like. Did you hear what I said to you about the Virgin, Joanet ... Joan?”

“But your mother doesn’t speak to you—mine did.”

“Tell him about the birds,” Bernat whispered.

“Well, I can see the Virgin, and you could never see your mother.” Joan was silent again.

“How do you know she listens?” he asked finally. “She is only a stone figure, and stone figures don’t listen.”

Bernat held his breath.

“If it’s true they don’t listen,” Arnau responded, “why does everyone talk to them? Even Father Albert. You’ve seen him. Do you think Father Albert is making a mistake?”

“She isn’t Father Albert’s mother,” the other boy insisted. “He’s already told me he has one. How will I know if the Virgin wants to be my mother if she doesn’t speak to me?”

“She’ll tell you at night when you sleep, and through the birds.”

“The birds?”

“Well,” said Arnau hesitantly. The truth was he had never really understood what the birds were meant to do, but he had never dared tell his father so. “That’s more complicated. My ... our father will explain it to you.”

Bernat felt a lump in his throat. Silence filled the room again, until Joan spoke once more: “Arnau, could we go right now and ask the Virgin?”

“Now?”

“Yes, now, my son, now. He needs it,” thought Bernat.

“Please.”

“You know it’s forbidden to go into the church at night. Father Albert—”

“We won’t make any noise. Nobody will find out. Please!”

Arnau gave in. The two boys stole out of the house and ran the short distance to Santa Maria de la Mar.

Bernat curled up on the mattress. What could possibly happen to them? Everyone in the church loved them.

Moonlight played over the outlines of the scaffolding, the half-built walls, the buttresses, arches, and apses ... Santa Maria lay silent, with only the occasional flames from bonfires showing there were watchmen in the vicinity. Arnau and Joan sneaked round the church to Calle del Born; the main entrance to the church was closed, and the side by the Las Moreres cemetery, where much of the building material was kept, was the most closely guarded. But on the side where the new work was being carried out there was only one fire. It was not hard to get in: the walls and buttresses led down from the apse to the Born doorway, where a wooden board marked the site of the new steps into the church. The two boys walked over the chalk lines drawn by Master Montagut, showing the exact position for the new door and steps, and entered Santa Maria. They headed silently toward the Jesus chapel in the ambulatory. There, behind strong and wonderfully wrought-iron railings, they found the Virgin, lit as ever by the candles that the bastaixos made sure never went out.

They crossed themselves: “That’s what you should always do when you come into church,” Father Albert had told them. They grasped the iron bars of the chapel.

“He wants you to be his mother,” Arnau said silently to the Virgin. “His mother has died, and I don’t mind sharing you.”

Clinging to the bars, Joan stared in turn at the Virgin and at Arnau.

“What?” Arnau asked.

“Be quiet!”

“Father says he must have suffered a lot. His mother was imprisoned, you see. She could only reach her arm out through a window, and he couldn’t see her. Not until she had died, but even then he says he didn’t really look at her because she had forbidden him to.”

The smoke rising from the pure beeswax candles in the rack below the statue clouded Arnau’s sight once more, and the lips of the Virgin smiled at him.

“She will be your mother,” he declared to Joan.

“How do you know, if you say she replies through—”

“I know, and that’s all there is to it,” Arnau cut in.

“What if I asked her—”

“No,” said Arnau, interrupting him again.

Joan stared at the stone figure: how he wanted to be able to talk to her the way Arnau did! Why did she listen to his brother and not to him? How could Arnau know ... ? Joan was promising himself that one day he would be worthy of her talking to him, when they heard a noise.

“Shhh!” Arnau whispered, looking toward the empty Las Moreres doorway.

“Who goes there?” A lantern appeared in the doorway.

Arnau started to run toward the Calle del Born, where they had got into the church, but Joan stood rooted to the spot, staring at the light that was now coming along the ambulatory.

“Let’s go!” said Arnau, tugging at him.

When they looked out at the Calle del Born, they saw more lanterns heading toward them. Arnau looked back; there were more lights inside the church too.

There was no way out. The watchmen were talking and shouting to one another. What could the boys do? The wooden floor! He pushed Joan down. The planks did not quite reach the wall. He pushed Joan down again, until the two of them were in the church foundations. The lights reached the platform above them. The footsteps on the wooden boards echoed in Arnau’s ears, and the watchmen’s voices hid the sound of his wildly beating heart.

They waited while the watchmen searched the building. It took them a lifetime! Arnau peered upward, trying to work out what was going on. Each time he saw light filtering through the boards, he crouched down to hide still farther in.

In the end the watchmen completed their search. Two of them stood on the wooden boards and for a few moments shone their lanterns all round. How could they possibly not hear the beating of his or Joan’s heart? The men moved away. Arnau turned his head to look at the spot where his brother had been crouching. One of the watchmen placed a lamp by the wooden planks; the other one was already walking away. Joan was not there! Where could he have got to? Arnau went over to where the church foundations joined the wooden floor. There was a hole, a small underground passage through the foundations of the church.

When Arnau had pushed him down into the foundations, Joan had crawled under the wooden floor. He found nothing in his way, so he went on crawling along the passageway, which angled slowly down toward the main altar. Arnau had encouraged him onward, whispering, “Be quiet,” several times. The noise of his body scraping against the sides of the tunnel prevented him from hearing anything more, but he was sure Arnau was right behind him: he could hear him clambering under the floor. It was only once the tunnel broadened out, allowing him to turn round and get to his knees, that Joan realized he was all alone. Where was he? It was completely dark.

“Arnau?” he called out.

His voice echoed round him. It was ... it was like a cave. Beneath the church!

He called out again and again. Quietly at first, then much louder, but he was frightened by the sound of his own shouts. He could try to get back, but where was the mouth of the tunnel? Joan stretched out his arms, but could feel nothing: he had crawled too far.

“Arnau!” he shouted again.

Nothing. He began to cry. What might he find in the cave? Monsters? What if this was hell? He was underneath a church; didn’t they say that hell was down there somewhere? What if the Devil appeared?

Arnau meanwhile was crawling down the passage. That was the only place Joan could have gone. He would never have climbed back out from under the floor. Arnau struggled on for a few yards, then called out once more. No one would hear outside the tunnel. No reply. He crawled on.

“Joanet!” he shouted, then corrected himself. “Joan!”

“Here,” he heard the reply.

“Where is here?”

“At the end of the tunnel.”

“Are you all right?”

Joan stopped shaking. “Yes.”

“Come back then.”

“I can’t. This is like a cave, and I can’t find the way back.”

“Feel the walls until you ... No!” Arnau changed his mind. “Don’t do that, Joan, do you hear me? There might be other tunnels. If only I could reach you ... Can you see anything, Joan?”

“No,” the other boy replied.

Arnau could crawl on until he found him, but what if he got lost too? Why was there a cave down there? Ah, now he had an idea! He needed light. If they had a lamp, they could find their way back.

“Wait where you are! Do you hear me, Joan? Stay still, all right? Can you hear me?”

“Yes, I can. What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to get a lamp and come back. Stay where you are and don’t move, promise?”

“Yes ... ,” said Joan reluctantly.

“Think that you are underneath your mother, the Virgin.” Arnau did not hear any reply. “Did you hear me, Joan?”

Of course he heard him. He had said, “Your mother.” Arnau could hear her, even if he could not. But he had not let him talk to her. What if Arnau did not want to share his mother, and had deliberately shut him up down there, in hell?

“Joan?” Arnau insisted.

“What is it?”

“Wait for me, and don’t move.”

With difficulty, Arnau managed to crawl back until he was under the boards by the Calle del Born entrance. He quickly snatched the lamp that the watchman had left there, then disappeared into the tunnel again.

Joan could see the light approaching. When the walls opened out, Arnau took his hand away from the lantern to give more light. His brother was kneeling a couple of yards from the mouth of the passageway.

“Don’t be afraid,” Arnau said, trying to calm him.

He raised the lamp, and the flame rose higher. Where were they ... ? It was a cemetery! They were in a cemetery. A tiny cave that for some reason had survived beneath Santa Maria like an air bubble. The roof was so low they could not stand up. Arnau looked over at several huge amphorae. They looked just like the jars he was used to seeing in Grau’s workshop, but more rounded. Some of them were broken, showing the skeletons inside, but others were still intact: big clay vessels cut in half, stacked together, and sealed at the top.

Joan was still shaking: he was staring straight at a skeleton.

“It’s all right,” Arnau insisted, going over to him.

Joan drew away from him.

“What is—” Arnau started to ask.

“Let’s get out of here,” said Joan, interrupting him.

Without waiting for a reply, he plunged into the tunnel. Arnau followed, and when they reached the boards at the entrance, he blew out the lamp. There was no one in sight. He put the lantern back where he had found it, and they returned to Pere’s house.

“Don’t say a word of this to anyone,” he warned Joan on the way. “Agreed?”

Joan said nothing.

14

EVER SINCE ARNAU had told him that the Virgin was his mother too, Joan ran to the church whenever he had a free moment. He would cling to the grille of the Jesus chapel, push his head in between them, and stare at the stone figure with the child on her shoulder and boat at her feet.

“One of these days you won’t be able to get your head out,” Father Albert said to him once.

Joan pulled back and smiled at him. The priest ruffled his hair and knelt down beside him.

“Do you love her?” he asked, pointing inside the chapel.

Joan hesitated.

“She’s my mother now,” he replied, more as a wish than a certainty.

Father Albert was choked with emotion. How much he could tell the little boy about Our Lady! He tried to speak, but the words would not come. He put his arm round Joan’s shoulders until he could safely speak again.

“Do you pray to her?” he asked when he had recovered.

“No. I just talk to her.” Father Albert looked inquisitively at him. “Well, I tell her what’s been happening to me.”

The priest looked at the Virgin.

“Carry on, my son, carry on,” he said, leaving him at the chapel.

IT WAS NOT hard. Father Albert considered three or four possible candidates, and finally settled on a rich silversmith. During his last annual confession, the craftsman had seemed very contrite about several adulterous affairs he had been involved in.

“If you really are his mother,” Father Albert muttered, raising his eyes to the heavens, “you won’t hold this little subterfuge against me, will you?”

The silversmith could not say no.

“It’s only a small donation to the cathedral school,” the priest told him. “It will help a child, and God ... God will thank you for it.”

Now all that was left was to speak to Bernat. Father Albert went to find him.

“I’ve managed to get a place for Joanet at the cathedral school,” he told him as they walked along the beach near Pere’s house.

Bernat turned to look at him.

“I don’t have the money for that,” he said apologetically.

“It won’t cost you anything.”

“But I thought that schools ...”

“Yes, but those are the public ones in the city. For the cathedral school, it’s enough ...” What was the point explaining the details? “Well, I’ve seen to that.” The two men continued walking. “He will learn to read and write, first from hornbooks and then from psalms and prayers.” Why did Bernat not say anything? “Then when he is thirteen, he can start secondary school. There he will study Latin and the seven liberal arts: grammar, rhetoric, dialectics, arithmetics, geometry, music, and astronomy—”

“Father,” Bernat interrupted him, “Joanet helps out in the house, and because of that Pere does not charge me for his food. But if the boy goes to school ...”

“He’ll be fed at school.” Bernat looked at him again, and shook his head slowly, as though thinking it over. “Besides,” the priest went on, “I’ve already spoken to Pere, and he’s agreed you should pay the same as now.”

“You’ve done a lot for the boy.”

“Yes, do you mind?” Bernat shook his head, smiling. “Just imagine if one day Joanet went to university, to the main center in Lérida, or even to somewhere abroad, like Bologna or Paris ...”

Bernat burst out laughing.

“If I refused, you’d be really disappointed, wouldn’t you?” Father Albert nodded. “He’s not my son, Father,” Bernat added. “If he were, I wouldn’t allow one boy to work for the other, but it’s not going to cost me anything, so why not? He deserves it. And perhaps one day he will go to all those places you mentioned.”

“I’D PREFER TO be with the horses, like you,” Joanet told Arnau as they walked along the same part of the beach where Father Albert and Bernat had decided his future.

“But it’s very hard work, Joanet ... Joan. All I do is clean and polish, and just when I’ve got everything gleaming, a horse gets taken out and I have to start all over again. That’s when Tomás doesn’t come in shouting and throwing a bridle or harness at me for me to see to. On the first day he cuffed me around the ear as well, but my father came in, and ... you should have seen him! He had a pitchfork, and pinned Tomás against the wall with it. The tines were pressing into his chest, so he started stammering and begging for forgiveness.”

“That’s why I’d like to be with you.”

“Oh, no!” Arnau replied. “It’s true that he hasn’t laid a hand on me since then, but he always finds something wrong with what I do. He rubs dirt into things on purpose—I’ve seen him!”

“Why don’t you tell Jesús?”

“Father tells me not to. He says Jesus wouldn’t believe me, that Tomás is his friend, and so he would always take his side. Father says the baroness hates us and would use any argument against us. So you see, there you are learning lots of new things at school, while I have to put up with someone deliberately making things dirty and shouting at me.” They both fell silent for a while, kicking sand and staring out to sea. “Make the most of it, Joan,” Arnau said all of a sudden, repeating the words he had heard Bernat say.

Joan was soon making the most of his classes. He took to them from the day the priest who taught them congratulated him in front of the whole class. Joan felt an agreeable tingling sensation as the other boys stared at him. If only his mother were still alive! He would immediately run and sit on the crate in the garden and tell her exactly what the priest had said: “the best,” he had called him, and all the others, all of them, had looked at him! He had never been the best at anything before!

That evening, Joan walked home wreathed in a happy cloud. Pere and Mariona listened to him with contented smiles, asking him to repeat clearly phrases the boy thought he had already said, but had only gabbled incomprehensibly in his excitement. When Arnau and Bernat arrived, the three in the house looked toward the door. Joan made as if to rush over to them, but stopped when he caught sight of his brother’s face: it was obvious he had been crying. Bernat had a hand on his shoulder, and was holding him close.

“What ... ?” asked Mariona, going up to Arnau to give him a hug.

Bernat held her off with a gesture.

“We have to put up with it,” he said, to no one in particular.

Joan tried to catch his brother’s gaze, but he was looking at Mariona.

They put up with it. The groom Tomás did not dare cross Bernat, but he took it out on Arnau.

“He’s looking for a fight, son,” Bernat said to calm Arnau when he grew angry again. “We mustn’t fall into the trap.”

“But we can’t carry on like this all our lives,” Arnau complained another day.

“We won’t. I’ve heard Jesus warn him several times already. He’s not a good worker, and Jesus knows it. The horses in his care are wild: they kick and bite. It won’t be long before he’s in trouble, my son. It won’t be long.”

Bernat was right. The consequences of Tomás’s attitude were soon felt. The baroness was determined that Grau’s children should learn to ride. It was acceptable for Grau not to do so, but the two boys had to learn. So several times a week after lessons, Jesus drove Isabel and Margarida in the carriage, and the boys, the tutor, and Tomás the groom walked alongside, the latter leading a horse on a halter. They went to a small field outside the walls of the city, where each of them in turn had riding lessons from Jesus.

Jesus held a long rope attached to the horse’s bit in his right hand, and led the animal round in circles, while in the other he had a whip to control its movements. The young riders climbed onto their mounts one after another and circled round the head stableman, listening to his instructions and advice.

One day, from beside the carriage where he was supervising the team, Tomás stared fixedly at the horse’s mouth: all that was needed was a stronger pull than normal, just one. And there was always a moment when the horse took fright.

Genis Puig was astride the mount. Tomás looked at the boy’s face. Panic. He was terrified of horses and sat stiff as a board.

Jesus cracked the whip, urging the horse into a gallop. The horse reared its head and pulled on the rope.

When the leading rein came away from the halter and the horse ran free, Tomás could not stop himself from smiling. He quickly stifled it. It had been easy for him to sneak into the harness room and cut the rope until it hung by a thread.

Isabel and Margarida gave strangled cries. Jesus dropped the leading rein and tried to stop the horse. It was no use.

When he saw the rope fall away, Genis started to shriek, and clung to the horse’s neck. This meant that his feet and legs dug into his mount’s withers, which spurred it into a full gallop. It headed straight for the city gate, with the boy still hanging on desperately. When the horse leapt over a small mound, he was thrown off into the air, then rolled on the ground until he came to rest in a clump of bushes.

Bernat was in the stables. The first he heard was the thunder of horses’ hooves on the cobblestones, and then the baroness shouting. Instead of walking in quietly as they usually did, the horses clattered across the yard. Bernat went out to look, and came across Tomás leading in the horse. It was in a lather, panting heavily through its nostrils.

“What... ?” Bernat started to ask.

“The baroness wants to see your son,” Tomás shouted, hitting the animal’s side.

The baroness’s shrieks could still be heard outside the stables. Bernat looked pityingly at the horse, which was pawing the ground.

“The mistress wants to see you,” Tomás shouted again as Arnau came out of the harness room.

Arnau looked at his father, who merely shrugged.

They went out into the yard. The baroness was livid, waving the whip she always took when she went riding, and shouting at Jesus, the tutor, and all the slaves who had come out to see what was going on. Margarida and Josep were still hanging behind. Genis stood next to the baroness, dirty, bleeding, and with torn clothes. As soon as Arnau and Bernat appeared, the baroness strode toward the boy and slashed his face with her whip. Arnau lifted his hand to his mouth and cheek. Bernat darted forward, but Jesus stepped in between them.

“Look at this,” the head stableman roared, showing him the severed rope. “This is your son’s work!”

Bernat took the rope and the halter and examined them. Hand still to his face, Arnau looked at them as well. He had checked them the previous day. He peered up at his father just as he in turn was glancing toward the stable door, where Tomás was observing the scene.

“It was fine,” Arnau shouted, picking up the rope and halter and shaking them in Jesus’s face. He glanced at the stable door again. “It was fine,” he repeated, as the first tears welled in his eyes.

“Look at him cry,” a voice suddenly said. Margarida was pointing at Arnau. “He’s the one to blame for your accident, and now he’s crying,” she added to her brother Genis. “You didn’t cry when you fell off the horse because of him,” she lied.

Josep and Genis were slow to react, but then they too joined in making fun of Arnau.

“That’s right, cry, little girl,” one of them said.

“Yes, go on, cry,” repeated the other.

Arnau saw them pointing at him and laughing. He could not stop crying! The tears ran down his cheeks, and his chest heaved as he sobbed. He stretched out his arms to show everyone, including the slaves, what had happened to the rope and the halter.

“Instead of crying, you should say you’re sorry for your carelessness,” the baroness chided him, smiling broadly at her stepchildren.

Say he was sorry? Arnau looked at his father, a puzzled look on his face. Bernat was staring at the baroness. Margarida was still pointing at Arnau and sniggering with her brothers.

“No,” he objected. “It was fine,” he added, throwing the rope and halter onto the ground.

The baroness began to wave her arms in the air, but stopped when she saw Bernat take a step toward her. Jesus caught Bernat by the elbow.

“She is a noblewoman,” he whispered in his ear.

Arnau looked at them all, then ran out.

“No!” SHOUTED ISABEL when Grau said he would get rid of father and son when he learned what had happened. “I want the father to stay here, working for your sons. I want him to be aware at all times we are waiting for his son to apologize. I want that boy to apologize publicly in front of your children. And that won’t happen if you get rid of them. Tell the father that his son cannot come back to work until he has said he is sorry ...” Isabel was shouting and waving her arms. “Tell him he will receive only half his wage until that happens, and that if he looks for other work we’ll make everyone in Barcelona aware of what happened here, so that he won’t be able to make a living. I want an apology!”

“We’ll make all of Barcelona aware ...” Grau could feel the hair on his body prickle. All those years trying to keep his brother-in-law hidden, and now ... now his wife wanted the whole of Barcelona to hear of him!

“Be discreet, I beg you,” was all he could think to say.

Isabel looked at him, her eyes bloodshot with rage. “I want them humiliated!”

Grau was about to say something, but thought better of it, and pursed his lips.

“Discretion, Isabel, that’s what we need,” was all he said.

Grau gave in to his wife’s demands. After all, Guiamona was no longer alive; there were no more birthmarks in the family, and they were all known as Puig rather than Estanyol. When Grau left the stables, Bernat listened with narrowed eyes as the stableman told him of the new conditions.

“FATHER, THERE WAS nothing wrong with that halter,” Arnau complained that night when the three of them were back in the small room they shared. “I swear it!” he said, when Bernat said nothing.

“But you can’t prove it,” Joan butted in. He had already heard what had happened.

“You don’t need to swear it,” thought Bernat, “but how can I explain to you... ?” He remembered how horrified he had been at his son’s reaction in Grau’s stables: “I’m not to blame, so there’s nothing I need to apologize for.”

“Father,” Arnau repeated, “I swear to you ...”

“But...”

Bernat told Joan to be quiet.

“I believe you. But now, to bed with you.”

“But...” This time it was Arnau who protested.

“To bed!”

Arnau and Joan blew out their candles, but Bernat had to wait long into the night until he heard the rhythmic breathing that told him they were fast asleep. How could he possibly tell his son the family was demanding a public apology?

“ARNAU ...” His VOICE shook when he saw his son stop dressing and glance over at him. “Grau ... Grau wants you to apologize; unless you do...”

Arnau looked at him inquisitively.

“Unless you do, he will not allow you back in the stables.”

He had not even finished speaking when he saw his boy’s eyes take on a seriousness he had never seen before. Bernat looked toward Joan, who had also stopped dressing and stood there openmouthed. Bernat tried to speak again, but the words would not come.

“Well, then?” asked Joan, breaking the silence.

“Do you think I should apologize?”

“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.”

“But what do you advise, Father?”

Bernat was silent for a moment. “If I were you, I wouldn’t give in.”

Joan tried to have his say. “They are only Catalan barons! Only the Lord can really grant forgiveness.”

“How will we live?” asked Arnau.

“Don’t worry about that, son. I have some money saved that we can use. And we’ll find somewhere else to work. Grau Puig is not the only man with horses.”

Bernat did not let a single day go by. That same evening, once his work was finished, he started to look for another job for him and Arnau. He found a nobleman’s house with stables where the stableman was happy to see him. There were many in Barcelona who were jealous of the care Grau’s horses received, and when Bernat explained that he was the person responsible, the man was keen to take both of them on. But the next day, when Bernat returned to the stables to confirm something he had already celebrated with his sons, they did not even receive him. “They were not offering enough money,” he lied that night over supper. Bernat tried in several other houses that kept horses, but just when it seemed they were happy to take them on, by the next day the situation had changed completely.

“You won’t find any work,” a stable hand finally told him when he saw the desperation in Bernat’s face as he stared down at the cobbles of the umpteenth stable that refused him. “The baroness will not permit it,” the man explained. “After you came to see us, my master received a message from the baroness begging him not to give you employment. I’m sorry.”

“BASTARD,” HE WHISPERED in his ear in a low but steady voice, drawing out the vowels. Tomás the groom jumped and tried to get away, but Bernat grabbed him by the neck from behind and squeezed until he was almost bent double. Only then did he relax the pressure. “If all the nobles are getting messages,” thought Bernat, “it’s because someone is following me.” “Let me go out through another door,” he had begged the stableman. Tomás, who was keeping watch on a street corner opposite the stables, did not see him leave. Bernat came up behind him. “You tampered with the halter so it would give way, didn’t you? And now what do you want?” He pressed down on the groom’s neck once more.

“What... what does it matter?” Tomás said, gasping for breath.

“What do you mean?” said Bernat, tightening his grip. The groom thrashed his arms in the air, but could not break free. A few moments later, Bernat could feel Tomás’s body go limp. He let go of his neck and turned him round. “What did you mean by that?” he asked again.

Tomás took several deep gulps of air before answering. As soon as the color returned to his cheeks, he smiled an ironic smile.

“Kill me if you like,” he said, still panting for breath, “but you know very well that if it hadn’t been the halter, it would have been something else. The baroness hates you, and always will. You are nothing more than a runaway serf, and your son is the son of a runaway. You will never find work in Barcelona: those are the baroness’s orders, and if it’s not me, it will be someone else who spies on you.”

Bernat spat in his face. Not only did Tomás not move, but his smile broadened.

“You have no option, Bernat Estanyol. Your son will have to beg for forgiveness.”

“I’LL DO IT,” Arnau said wearily that night, fists clenched as he fought back tears after listening to his father’s account. “We can’t fight the nobles, and we have to work. The swine! They’re all swine!”

Bernat looked at his son. “We’ll be free there,” he remembered promising him a few months after his birth, when they had first set eyes on Barcelona. Was this what he had struggled so hard for?

“No, my son. Wait. We’ll find another—”

“They’re the ones who give the orders, Father. The nobles are in charge. In the countryside, in our lands, here in the city.”

Joan looked on in silence. “You must obey and submit yourselves to your princes,” his teachers had taught him. “Man will find freedom in the Kingdom of God, not in this one.”

“They can’t control the whole of Barcelona. The nobles may be the ones who have horses, but we can learn some other trade. We’ll find something.”

Bernat saw a gleam of hope appear in his son’s eyes. They widened as if he were trying to absorb strength from his father’s words. “I promised you freedom, Arnau. I must give it to you, and I will. Don’t give up so quickly, little one.”

Over the next few days, Bernat roamed the streets in search of freedom. At first, once he had finished his work in Grau’s stables, Tomás followed him, without even bothering to keep hidden. Soon, though, he stopped spying on him: the baroness understood she had no influence over artisans, small traders, or builders.

“It’ll be hard for him to find anything,” her husband tried to reassure his wife when she came to complain about the peasant’s attitude.

“Why do you say that?” she asked him.

“Because he won’t find work. Barcelona is suffering the consequences of a lack of planning.” The baroness urged him to continue; Grau was never wrong in his judgments. “The last few years’ harvests have been disastrous,” he explained. “There are too many people in the countryside, so what little they do harvest never reaches the cities. They eat it all themselves.”

“But Catalonia is big,” said the baroness.

“Make no mistake, my dear. Catalonia may be big, but for many years now the peasants have not grown cereals, which is what is needed. Nowadays they produce linen, grapes, olives, or dried fruit, but not cereals. The change has made their lords rich, and we merchants have done very well out of it too, but the situation is becoming impossible. Until now we’ve been able to eat grain from Sicily and Sardinia, but the war with Genoa has put a stop to that. Bernat will not find work, but all of us, we nobles included, are going to face problems. And all because of a few useless noblemen...”

“How can you talk like that?” the baroness cut in, feeling herself under attack.

“Look at it this way, my love.” Grau was serious in his attempt to explain. “We earn our livelihood from trade, and we’ve done very well out of it. We invest part of what we earn in our own businesses. We don’t use the same ships we had ten years ago, and that’s why we go on making money. But the noble landowners have not invested a thing in their lands or their working methods: they are still using the same implements and techniques as the Romans did. The Romans! They should let their fields lie fallow every two or three years; that way they could produce two or three times as much as they do. But those noble landlords you are so keen to defend never think of the future; all they want is easy money. They are the ones who will be the ruin of Catalonia.”

“Things can’t be as bad as all that,” the baroness insisted.

“Have you any idea how much a sack of wheat costs?” When his wife made no reply, Grau shook his head and went on: “Close to a hundred shillings. Do you know what the normal price is?” This time, he did not wait for her reply. “Ten shillings unground, sixteen ground. So a sack has increased tenfold in price!”

“What will we eat then?” his wife asked, unable to conceal her preoccupation.

“You don’t understand. We’ll still be able to buy wheat... if there is any, because there could come a moment when it runs out—if we haven’t got there already. The problem is that whereas wheat has gone up ten times in price, ordinary people are still receiving the same wages—”

“So we will have wheat,” his wife butted in.

“Yes, but—”

“And Bernat will not be able to find work.”

“I don’t think so, but—”

“Well, that’s all that matters to me,” the baroness said. With that, she turned her back on him, weary of listening to all his explanations.

“Something terrible is brewing,” Grau said when his wife could no longer hear.

A bad year. Bernat was tired of hearing that excuse time and again. Wherever he tried to find work, the bad year was to blame. “I’ve had to lay off half my apprentices: how can I offer you work?” one artisan told him. “This is a bad year. I can’t even feed my children,” said another. “Haven’t you heard?” a third man told him. “This is a bad year; I’ve had to spend half my savings just to feed my family. Normally a twentieth would have been enough.” “How could I not have heard?” Bernat thought, but went on searching until winter and the cold weather came on. Then there were some places where he did not even dare ask. The children went hungry; their parents did not eat so they could give them something; and smallpox, typhus, and diphtheria began to make their deadly appearance.

Arnau looked into Bernat’s money bag when his father was at work. At first he checked it each week, but soon he looked every day, often more than once. He could clearly see that their reserves were rapidly being eaten up.

“What is the price of freedom?” he asked Joan one day as they were both praying to the Virgin.

“Saint Gregory says that at the beginning all men were born equal and were therefore free.” Joan spoke in a quiet, steady voice, as though repeating a lesson. “But it was those men who had been born free who for their own good chose to submit to a lord who would take care of them. They lost part of their freedom, but gained a lord who would take care of them.”

Arnau listened to him, staring intently at the Virgin’s statue. “Why don’t you smile for me? Saint Gregory... Whenever did Saint Gregory have an empty purse like my father’s?”

“Joan.”

“What is it?”

“What do you think I should do?”

“It’s your decision.”

“But what do you think?”

“I’ve already told you. It was the freemen who decided they wanted a lord to take care of them.”

That same day, without telling his father, Arnau presented himself at Grau Puig’s mansion. In order not to be seen from the stables, he slipped in through the kitchen. There he found Estranya, as huge as ever, as if hunger had made no mark on her. She was busy with a pot over the fire.

“Tell your masters I’ve come to see them,” he told her when the cook became aware of him.

A blank smile spread across the slave’s face. She went to tell Grau’s steward, who informed his master. Arnau was kept waiting for hours, standing in the kitchen. Everyone in Grau’s service filed past to get a look at him. Most of them smiled, although a few looked sad at his capitulation. Arnau met all their gazes, responding defiantly to those who mocked him, but he was unable to wipe the smiles from their faces.

The only person who did not appear was Bernat, although Tomás the groom had made sure he knew his son had come to apologize. “I’m sorry, Arnau, so sorry,” Bernat muttered over and over to himself as he brushed down one of the horses.

After waiting for hours, with aching legs—Arnau had tried to sit down, but Estranya had prevented him from doing so—he was led into the main room of Grau’s house. He did not even notice how richly it was appointed: his eyes immediately went to the five members of the family waiting for him at the far end of the room. The baron and his wife were seated; his three cousins stood beside them. The men wore brightly colored silk stockings with jerkins and gold belts; the women’s robes were adorned with pearls and precious stones.

The steward led Arnau to the center of the room, a few feet from the family. Then he returned to the doorway, where Grau had told him to wait.

“What brings you here?” Grau asked, stiff and distant as ever.

“I’ve come to ask your forgiveness.”

“Well, do so then,” Grau ordered him.

Arnau was about to speak, but the baroness interrupted him.

“Is that how you propose to ask for forgiveness? Standing up?”

Arnau hesitated for a moment, but finally sank down on one knee. Margarida’s silly giggle echoed, round the room.

“I beg forgiveness from you all,” Arnau intoned, his eyes fixed on the baroness.

She looked straight through him.

“I’m only doing this for my father,” Arnau said, and stared back at her defiantly. “Trollop.”

“Our feet!” the baroness shrieked. “Kiss our feet!” Arnau tried to stand again, but she stopped him. “On your knees!” she crowed.

Arnau obeyed, and shuffled over to them. “Only for my father. Only for my father. Only for my father...” The baroness put forward her silk slippers, and Arnau kissed them, first the left one and then the right. Without looking up, he moved on to Grau. When he saw the boy kneeling at his feet, Grau hesitated, but when he saw his wife staring furiously at him, he raised his feet in turn up to the boy’s mouth. Arnau’s boy cousins did the same as their father. When Arnau tried to kiss Margarida’s silk slipper, she jerked it away and started giggling once more. Arnau tried again, and she did the same. Finally, he waited for her to lift the slippers to his mouth ... first one ... then the other.

15

15 April 1334

Barcelona

BERNAT COUNTED THE money Grau had paid him. He growled as he dropped it into his purse. It ought to be enough, but... those cursed Genoese! When would they end their siege against the principality? Barcelona was going hungry.

Bernat tied the bag to his belt and went to find Arnau. The boy was undernourished. Bernat looked at him anxiously. A hard winter. At least they had got through the winter. How many others could say the same? Bernat drew his mouth into a tight line, stroked his son’s hair, then let his hand fall on his shoulder. How many in Barcelona had died from the cold, hunger, or disease? How many fathers could still rest their hands on their sons’ shoulders? “At least you’re alive,” he thought.

That day a grain ship, one of the few that had succeeded in evading the Genoese blockade, arrived in the port of Barcelona. The cereals were bought by the city itself at exorbitant prices, to be resold to the inhabitants for more accessible sums. That Friday there was wheat in the Plaza del Blat, and people had started congregating there since first light. They were already fighting to see how the official measurers were going to divide the stocks.

For a few months now, despite the best efforts of the councillors to silence him, a Carmelite friar had been preaching against the rich and powerful. He blamed them for the food shortages, and accused them of keeping wheat hidden away. The friar’s diatribes had struck a chord among the faithful. The rumors about the hidden wheat spread throughout the city. That was why this particular Friday people were crowding noisily into the Plaza del Blat, arguing and pushing their way forward to the tables where city officials were weighing the grain.

The authorities had calculated how much wheat there was for each inhabitant and put the cloth merchant Pere Juyol, the official inspector for the Plaza del Blat, in charge of supervising its sale.

“Mestre doesn’t have a family,” came the cry a few minutes later as a ragged-looking man with an even more ragged child stepped up to the table. “They all died over the winter.”

The weighers took back the grain from Mestre, but this was just the start: one man had sent his son to another table; another had already had his share; a third had no family; that is not his son, he’s only brought him to get more ...

The square became a hive buzzing with rumors. People abandoned the queues, started to argue, and were soon swapping insults. Someone shouted that the authorities should put the wheat they were hiding on public sale; the crowd backed him. The officials found they could no longer control the swarm of people pushing and shoving round the tables. The king’s stewards began to confront the hungry mob, and it was only a quick decision by Pere Juyol that saved the situation. He ordered that the grain be taken to the magistrate’s palace at the eastern side of the square and suspended all sales that morning.

Frustrated in their attempts to buy the precious grain, Bernat and Arnau went back to work at Grau’s mansion. In the yard outside the stables they told the head stableman and anyone else who cared to listen what had happened in Plaza del Blat. Neither of them was slow to accuse the authorities, or to complain how hungry they were.

The noise brought the baroness to one of the windows overlooking the yard. She was delighted at the sufferings of the runaway serf and his shameless son. As she looked down on them, a smile spread across her face: she recalled the instructions Grau had given her before he left on a journey. Hadn’t he told her his prisoners must eat?

The baroness picked up the bag of money reserved for the food of those prisoners who were in jail for debts they owed Grau. She called the steward and ordered him to entrust the task to Bernat Estanyol. His son, Arnau, was to go with him in case of trouble.

“Don’t forget to tell them,” she said, “that this money is to buy food for my husband’s prisoners.”

The steward carried out his mistress’s orders. He too enjoyed the look of disbelief on their faces, which grew greater still when Bernat felt the weight of coins in his hand.

“This is for the prisoners?” Arnau asked his father as they set off to carry out the order.

“Yes.”

“Why for the prisoners?”

“They’re in jail because they owe Grau money, but he is obliged to pay for their food.”

“What if he didn’t?”

They went on walking down toward the beach.

“Then they would be set free. That’s the last thing Grau wants. He pays the royal taxes and for the prison governor, and he pays for his prisoners’ food. That’s the law.”

“But...”

“Don’t insist, my lad.”

They walked on in silence back to their house.

That evening, Arnau and Bernat went to the jail to fulfill their strange task. They had heard from Joan, who had to cross the square on his way back from the cathedral school, that feelings were still running high. Even in Calle de la Mar, which ran from Santa Maria up to the square, they could hear the crowd shouting. People were thronging round the magistrate’s palace, where the grain that had been withdrawn from sale that morning was being stored. It was also here that Grau’s prisoners were kept.

The crowd wanted wheat, and the city authorities did not have enough people to distribute it in an orderly way. The five councillors met the magistrate to try to find a solution.

“Everyone should take a solemn oath,” said one of them. “If they don’t swear, they won’t get any grain. Every person who buys must swear that they need the amount they are asking for to feed their family, and nothing more.”

“Do you think that will work?” another councillor said doubtfully.

“The oath is sacred!” the first one retorted. “Don’t people swear oaths for contracts, to claim their innocence, or to fulfill their duties? Don’t they go to Saint Felix’s altar to swear on the holy sacraments?”

They announced their decision from a balcony in the magistrate’s palace. Word spread to those who had not heard the proclamation, and the devout Christians clamored to swear their oath ... yet again, as they had done so often in their lives.

The wheat was brought out into the square again. The hunger was palpable. Some people took the oath, but soon arguments, shouting, and scuffles broke out again. The crowd grew angry and started to demand the wheat that the Carmelite friar had told them the authorities were hiding.

Arnau and Bernat were still at the end of Calle de la Mar, at the opposite side of the square to the magistrate’s palace, where the wheat was being sold. All round them, the crowd was shouting and protesting.

“Father,” asked Arnau, “will there be any wheat left for us?”

“I believe so,” said Bernat, trying not to look at his son. How could there be any left for them? There was not enough wheat for a quarter of the citizens demanding it.

“Father,” Arnau insisted, “why are the prisoners guaranteed food when we’re not?”

Bernat pretended he had not heard his son’s question above all the uproar, but he could not help glancing down at him. He was starving: his legs and arms were like sticks, and his eyes, which had once been so carefree and joyous, now stood out from his gaunt face.

“Father, did you hear me?”

“Yes,” thought Bernat, “but what can I tell you? That we poor are united by hunger? That only the rich can eat? That only the rich can allow themselves the luxury of keeping their debtors? That we poor mean nothing to them? That the children of the poor are worth less than even one of the prisoners being held in the magistrate’s palace?” Bernat said nothing.

“There’s wheat in the palace!” he shouted, along with the rest of the crowd. “There’s wheat in the palace!” he shouted even louder when those around him fell silent and turned to stare at him. Soon lots of them had noticed this man who was insisting that there was grain in the magistrate’s palace. “If there wasn’t, how could they feed the prisoners?” he said, holding up Grau’s money bag. “The nobles and the rich pay for the prisoners’ food! Where do the prison governors get the wheat for his prisoners? Do they have to buy it like us?”

The crowd gave way to let Bernat through. He was beside himself. Arnau rushed after him, trying to catch his attention.

“What are you doing, Father?”

“Do the governors have to take an oath like we do?”

“What’s wrong with you, Father?”

“Where do the governors get the wheat for the prisoners from? Why isn’t there enough for our children, when the prisoners get plenty?”

Bernat’s words inflamed the crowd still further. This time the officials were unable to withdraw the supplies, as the mob engulfed them. Pere Juyol and the city magistrate were about to be lynched, and were saved only by some soldiers who ran to their defense and then escorted them back inside the palace.

Few managed to satisfy their needs. The wheat was spilled across the square, and trodden on and wasted by the mob. Those who tried to scoop it up risked being trodden on as well.

Somebody shouted that the city councillors were to blame. The crowd rushed off to drag them out of their houses.

Bernat joined in this collective madness, shouting as loud as anyone and allowing himself to be carried away on the tide of enraged citizens.

“Father, Father!”

Bernat looked down at his son.

“What are you doing here?” he asked, still striding along and shouting at the top of his voice.

“I ... What has happened to you, Father?”

“Get away from here. This is no place for children.”

“Where should I ... ?”

“Here, take this.” Bernat handed him two money bags: his own and the one for the prisoners.

“What am I to do with these?” asked Arnau.

“Go home, son, go home.”

Arnau saw his father disappear in the midst of the crowd. The last thing he saw of him was the glint of hatred in his eyes.

“Where are you going, Father?” he shouted after him.

“In search of freedom,” said a woman who was standing nearby, also watching the mob swarming through the streets of the city.

“But we’re already free,” ventured Arnau.

“There is no freedom where there is hunger, my lad,” the woman declared.

In tears, Arnau fought his way through the rushing crowd.

THE DISTURBANCES LASTED two entire days. The homes of the councillors and many other noble residences were sacked. The enraged crowd went round the city, at first in search of food ... and then in search of vengeance.

For two whole days the city of Barcelona was submerged in chaos. The authorities were powerless to stop it, until an envoy from King Alfonso arrived with sufficient soldiers to put an end to the violence. A hundred men were arrested, and many others fined. Of the hundred, ten were hanged after the briefest of trials. Among those called to testify, there were few who did not point to Bernat Estanyol, with the birthmark over his right eye, as one of the instigators of the citizens’ revolt in Plaza del Blat.

16

ARNAU RAN THE whole length of Calle de la Mar to Pere’s house without glancing at Santa Maria even once. His father’s eyes were engraved on his mind; his shouts echoed in his ears. He had never seen him like that before. “What’s happened to you, Father? Is it true as that woman said that we are not free?” He rushed into Pere’s house without paying heed to anyone or anything, and shut himself in his room. Joan found him there, sobbing.

“The city has gone mad... ,” Joan said, opening the door. “What’s wrong?”

Arnau did not answer. His brother looked round the room.

“Where’s Father?”

Arnau choked back his tears and pointed up into the city.

“Is he with them?”

“Yes,” Arnau managed to stutter.

Joan recalled the rioting he had been forced to avoid on his way back from the bishop’s palace. The soldiers had sealed off the Jewry and were standing guard outside the gates to keep out the mob, who had turned their attention to looting the houses of rich Christians. How could Bernat be with them? Images of groups of enraged people battering down doors and emerging with armfuls of possessions filled Joan’s mind. There was no way that Bernat could be one of them.

“It can’t be,” he said out loud. Arnau looked up at him from the pallet. “Bernat is not like the others... How can it be possible?”

“I don’t know. There were lots of people. They were all shouting ...”

“But... Bernat? Bernat couldn’t do things like that... Perhaps he was just... trying to find someone?”

Arnau stared at Joan. “How can I tell you it was he who was shouting the loudest, who was leading the others on? How can I tell you I don’t believe it myself?”

“I don’t know, Joan. There were a lot of people.”

“They are stealing, Arnau! They’re attacking the city aldermen!”

Arnau’s look silenced him.

THE TWO BOYS waited in vain for their father to return that night. The next day, Joan got ready for school.

“You shouldn’t go,” Arnau advised him.

Now it was Joan’s turn to silence him with a look.

“KING ALFONSO’S SOLDIERS have put an end to the revolt,” was Joan’s only comment when he came back that evening.

But Bernat did not return that night either.

The next morning, Joan said good-bye to Arnau once more.

“You ought to get out,” he said.

“What if Bernat comes home?” said Arnau, his voice choking with emotion.

The two brothers hugged each other. “Where are you, Father?” they both thought.

It was Pere who went out in search of news. It was easier to find out what had happened than it was to make his way back home.

“I’m sorry, my lad,” he told Arnau. “Your father has been arrested.”

“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 moment 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!” Arnau 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.

Arnau’s heart started to pound. What was going on? The watchman was meant to look after Santa Maria. Why would anyone ... ? The Virgin! The Jesus chapel! The bastaixos’ collection box!

Arnau did not think twice. His father had been executed; he could not allow anyone to bring dishonor to his mother. He crept into Santa Maria through the boarded-up doorway and headed for the ambulatory. The Jesus chapel was on his left between two buttresses. He walked round the church and hid behind one of the columns near the main altar. He could hear sounds coming from the Jesus chapel, but as yet could not see anything. He slid to the next column. From there he could see into the chapel, which as usual was lit by dozens of candles.

A man was climbing out over the chapel railings. Arnau looked at the Virgin: everything seemed to be all right. What was going on? He scanned the interior of the chapel: the collection box had been forced open. As the thief continued to climb over the iron grille, Arnau could almost hear the clink of coins the bastaixos dropped into the box in aid of their orphans and widows.

“Thief!” he shouted, lunging at the iron railings and striking the man on the chest. Taken by surprise, the thief fell to the floor. He had no time to think. The man leapt to his feet and delivered a tremendous punch to Arnau’s face. Arnau crashed to the floor of Santa Maria.

17

“HE MUST HAVE fallen trying to escape after he had robbed the bastaixos’ collection box,” said one of the king’s guards standing next to Arnau, who was still unconscious. Father Albert shook his head. How could Arnau have done such a terrible thing? The bastaixos’ collection box, in the Jesus chapel, underneath the statue of his Virgin! The soldiers had come to tell him a couple of hours before dawn.

“That cannot be true,” he told himself.

“Yes, Father,” the captain insisted. “The boy was carrying this purse,” he added, showing him the bag with the money Grau had given Bernat to pay for his prisoners. “What’s a young lad like him doing with so much money?”

“And look at his face,” another soldier said. “Why would he smear his face with mud if he wasn’t planning to steal something?”

Staring at the purse the officer was holding up, Father Albert shook his head again. What could Arnau have been doing there at this time of night? Where had he got the money?

“What are you doing?” he asked the soldiers, who were busy lifting Arnau from the floor.

“Taking him to prison.”

“No, you aren’t,” he heard himself say.

Perhaps... perhaps there was an explanation for all this. It was impossible that Arnau had tried to steal from the bastaixos’ collection box. Not Arnau.

“He’s a thief, Father.”

“That’s for a court to decide.”

“And that’s what will happen,” said the captain as his men supported Arnau under the arms. “But he can wait for the judgment in jail.”

“If he goes to any jail, it will be the bishop’s,” said the priest. “The crime was committed on holy ground. Therefore it is under ecclesiastical jurisdiction, not that of the city magistrate.”

The captain looked at his soldiers and Arnau. Shrugging his shoulders, he ordered them to release him, which they did by simply letting him go and allowing him to fall to the ground again. A cynical smile spread across the captain’s face when he saw how the youngster’s face struck the paving stones.

Father Albert glared at them.

“Bring him round,” he ordered, taking out the keys to the chapel. He opened the grille and stepped inside. “I want to hear what he has to say.”

He went over to the collection box. He saw that the three clasps had been broken. It was empty. There was nothing else missing in the chapel, and nothing had been destroyed. “What happened, Our Lady?” he asked the Virgin silently. “How could you allow Arnau to do something like this?” He heard the soldiers splashing water on the boy’s face, and reappeared outside the chapel just as several bastaixos who had heard about the robbery came rushing into the church.

The freezing water brought Arnau round. He looked up and saw he was surrounded by soldiers. In his mind, he heard the spear whistling past his head in Calle Boria once again. He was running in front of them: how had they managed to catch him? Had he stumbled? The soldiers’ faces bent toward him. His father! His body was burning! He had to escape! Arnau struggled to his feet and tried to push one of them off, but they easily succeeded in pinioning him.

Dejected, Father Albert saw how Arnau was trying to wriggle free from the soldiers.

“Do you need to hear any more, Father?” the officer growled. “Isn’t this confession enough?” he insisted, pointing at Arnau.

Father Albert raised his hands to his face and sighed. He walked slowly over to where the soldiers were holding Arnau.

“Why did you do it?” he asked when he came up to them. “You know that box belongs to your friends the bastaixos. They use the money to help the widows and orphans of their guilds, or to pay for the burial of any member who dies. It’s also for works of charity, and to decorate the Virgin, your mother, with candles that are always alight. So why did you do it, Arnau?”

Seeing the priest reassured Arnau: but what was he doing there? The bastaixos’ collection box! The thief! He remembered being punched, but then what? Wide-eyed, he looked around him. Beyond the soldiers, countless faces that he knew were waiting for his answer. He recognized Ramon and little Ramon, Pere, Jaume, Joan—who was trying to see more by standing on tiptoe—Sebastia and his son Bastianet, and many more he had given water to and with whom he had shared unforgettable moments when the Barcelona host had marched on Creixell. So that was it! He was being accused of the robbery!

“It wasn’t me ... ,” he muttered.

The king’s captain held up Grau’s purse. Arnau felt on his belt for where it should have been. He had not wanted to leave it under his mattress in case the baroness reported them to the authorities and accused Joan, and now ... Damn Grau! Damn the purse!

“Is this what you’re looking for?” the captain said.

Arnau defended himself. “It wasn’t me, Father.”

The captain guffawed, and the soldiers joined in the laughter.

“Ramon, it wasn’t me. I swear it,” Arnau insisted, staring directly at the bastaix.

“What were you doing here so late at night then? Where did you get that money? Why did you try to run away? Why is your face covered in mud?”

Arnau felt his face: it was caked with mud.

The purse! The king’s officer was continually waving it in front of his eyes. More and more bastaixos kept arriving, and remarking on what had happened. Arnau watched the purse swinging. That damned purse! He spoke imploringly to Father Albert.

“There was a man,” he said. “I tried to stop him but couldn’t. He was very big and strong.”

The captain’s incredulous laugh echoed once more round the ambulatory.

“Arnau,” the priest said, “just answer the captain’s questions.”

“No ... I can’t,” Arnau admitted, producing more hilarity among the soldiers, and consternation among the bastaixos.

Father Albert said nothing. He stared at Arnau. How often had he heard those words? “I can’t,” someone would say to him, a terrified look on their face. “If it got out ...” Of course, the priest always thought on those occasions, “If it got out that I had stolen, or committed adultery, or blasphemed, then I would be arrested.” And so he had to insist, swearing that he would never tell, until they opened their conscience to God and to forgiveness.

“Would you tell me in private?” he asked.

Arnau nodded. The priest pointed to the Jesus chapel.

“The rest of you wait here,” he told them.

“It was our box that was robbed,” came a voice from behind the group of soldiers. “A bastaix should be present too.”

Father Albert agreed, and glanced down at Arnau.

“Ramon?” he suggested.

The boy nodded again. The three of them walked inside the chapel. Arnau immediately told them everything. He told them about Tomás the groom, his father, Grau’s purse, the baroness’s orders, the riots, the execution, the fire ... He told them about being chased, about stumbling upon the man stealing from the box, his fruitless attempt to stop him. He told them of his fear that the soldiers would find out he had Grau’s purse, or that he would be arrested for setting fire to his father’s body.

His explanations went on and on. Arnau could not give a proper description of the man who had hit him: it was too dark, he said in answer to their questions. All he remembered was that he was big and strong. Finally, the priest and the bastaix exchanged glances: they believed him, but how could they prove to all the people congregated outside the chapel that it had not been him? The priest looked at the Virgin, then at the forced collection box, and left the chapel.

“I think the boy is telling the truth,” he told the small crowd gathered in the ambulatory. “I don’t think he stole from the box; in fact, I think he tried to prevent the robbery.”

Ramon, who had come out of the chapel behind him, agreed.

“Well, then,” said the officer, “why can’t he answer my questions?”

“I know the reasons.” Ramon nodded agreement again. “And they are convincing ones. If anyone doesn’t believe me, let them say so now.” Nobody spoke. “Now, where are the three aldermen of the guild?” Three bastaixos stepped forward. “Each of you has a key to open the box, don’t you?” The three men agreed. “Do you swear that it has only ever been opened by all three of you together, in the presence of ten guild members, as your statutes specify?” The men swore that it had. “Do you also swear therefore that the final total in the account book should tally with what was in the box?” The three aldermen swore that too. “And you, Captain, do you solemnly swear that this was the purse the boy had on him?” The captain swore. “And that it contains as much as when you found it?”

“Now you are insulting an officer of King Alfonso!”

“Do you solemnly swear it or not?”

Some of the bastaixos pressed round the captain, demanding an answer.

“I swear.”

“Good,” said Father Albert. “Now I’ll go and fetch the account book for the box. If this boy is the thief, what is in the purse should match or be more than the last entry in the book. If there is less, then we ought to believe him.”

A murmur of agreement spread through the assembled bastaixos. Most of them looked at Arnau: all of them at one time or another had been given fresh water from his waterskin.

Father Albert gave the chapel keys to Ramon for him to lock the grille. Then he went to the priest’s house to find the account book, which according to the guild’s statutes had to be kept by a third person outside the association. As far as he could recall, the amount of money in the box was much greater than the sum destined by Grau as payment for his prisoners’ food. That should be irrefutable proof of Arnau’s innocence, he thought with a smile.

While Father Albert went to fetch the book, Ramon set about locking the chapel grille. As he was doing so, he saw something glint inside. He went over and, without moving it, examined the shiny object. He said nothing to anyone. He locked the grille, then rejoined the group of bastaixos waiting for the priest by the boy and the soldiers.

Ramon whispered something to three of them, and they immediately left the church without anyone else noticing.

“According to the account book,” Father Albert said as he showed it to the three guild aldermen, “there were seventy-four pounds and five shillings in the collection box. Now count what there is in the purse,” he said to the captain.

Even before opening it, the soldier shook his head. There was nothing like that sum inside.

“Thirteen pounds!” he declared. “But,” he shouted, “the boy’s accomplice could have run off with the rest.”

“Why would that accomplice leave thirteen pounds with Arnau then?” said one of the bastaixos.

A murmur of assent ran through the crowd.

The captain stared at all the bastaixos. He almost made the mistake of saying something hasty that he might regret, but then thought better of it. Some of the stone carriers had already gone up to Arnau, clapping him on the back and ruffling his hair.

“If it wasn’t the boy, who was it?” the captain asked.

“I think I know who it was,” came the voice of Ramon from the far side of the main altar.

Behind him, two of the bastaixos he had spoken to earlier were dragging in a third, stocky man.

“It would be him,” someone in the crowd agreed.

“That was the man!” shouted Arnau as soon as he saw him.

The Mallorcan had always caused trouble in the guild, until one day they discovered he had a concubine and expelled him. No bastaix was allowed to have a relationship with anyone other than his wife. Nor could his wife: if she did, he was also dismissed from the guild.

“What is that boy saying?” the Mallorcan protested as he was pushed into the ambulatory.

“He accuses you of having stolen the money from the bastaixos’ collection box,” Father Albert told him.

“He’s lying!”

The priest sought out Ramon, who nodded his head slightly.

“I also accuse you!” Ramon shouted, pointing at him.

“He’s lying too!”

“You’ll get the chance to prove it in the cauldron at the Santes Creus monastery.”

A crime had been committed in a church. The Peace and Truce Charter established that innocence had to be proved by the ordeal of boiling water.

The Mallorcan went pale. The aldermen and the soldiers looked inquiringly at the priest, but he indicated that they should not say anything. In reality, the ordeal by boiling water was no longer used, but the priests often still employed the threat of plunging a suspect’s limbs into a cauldron of boiling water to obtain a confession.

Father Albert narrowed his eyes and studied the Mallorcan.

“If the boy and I are lying, I’m sure you will withstand the boiling water on your arms and legs without having to confess to any crime.”

“I’m innocent,” the Mallorcan protested.

“As I’ve told you, you’ll have the chance to prove it,” said the priest.

“And if you’re innocent,” Ramon butted in, “explain to us what your dagger was doing inside the chapel.”

The Mallorcan turned on him.

“It’s a trap!” he said quickly. “Somebody must have put it there to make me look guilty! The boy! It must have been him!”

Father Albert opened the chapel grille again, and came out carrying the dagger.

“Is this yours?” he asked, thrusting it in his face.

“No ... no.”

The guild aldermen and several bastaixos came over to the priest and asked to examine the knife.

“It is yours,” one of the aldermen said, weighing it in his hand.

Six years earlier, as a consequence of all the fights that had broken out in the port, King Alfonso banned the stone carriers and other free workmen from carrying hunting knives or other similar weapons. The only knives they could carry were blunt ones. The Mallorcan had refused to obey the order, and had often shown off his magnificent dagger to the others. It was only when he was threatened with expulsion from the guild that he had agreed to go to a blacksmith’s to have the point filed smooth.

“Liar!” one of the bastaixos cried.

“Thief!” shouted another.

“Someone must have stolen it to incriminate me!” the Mallorcan protested, trying to break free from the two men holding him.

It was then that the third bastaix who had gone with Ramon to find the Mallorcan came back. He had been to search the man’s house.

“Here it is,” he called out, waving a purse. He handed it to the priest, who passed it on to the captain.

“Seventy-four pounds and five shillings,” the captain announced after counting the coins.

As the captain was counting, the bastaixos had encircled the Mallorcan. They knew none among them could ever hope to have so much money! When the count was finished, they flung themselves on the thief. Insults, kicks, punches—all rained down on him. The soldiers did not intervene. The captain looked across at Father Albert and shrugged.

“This is the house of God!” shouted the priest, pushing the stone carriers away. “We’re in the house of God!” he repeated, until he was next to the Mallorcan, who was rolled up into a ball on the floor of the church. “This man is a thief, and a coward too, but he deserves a fair trial. You cannot take the law into your own hands. Take him to the bishop’s palace,” he ordered the captain.

Someone took advantage of his talking to the captain to aim one last kick at the Mallorcan. When the soldiers dragged him to his feet, others spat on him. The soldiers led him out.

AFTER THE SOLDIERS had left Santa Maria with their prisoner, the bastaixos came up to Arnau, smiling and apologizing. Then they gradually drifted away. Eventually, the only people left outside the Jesus chapel were Father Albert, Arnau, the three guild aldermen, and the ten witnesses called for whenever the guild’s collection box was involved.

The priest put the money back in the box. He noted what had happened that night in the account book. Day had dawned, and someone had gone to ask a locksmith to come and repair the three clasps. All of them had to wait until the box could be locked again.

Father Albert rested his hand on Arnau’s shoulder. It was only then that he remembered how he had seen him sitting beneath Bernat’s body as it dangled from a rope. He tried not to think about the fire. He was only a boy! He looked up at the Virgin. “He would have been left to rot at the city gate,” he explained to himself silently. “What does it matter? He’s only a boy, and now he has nothing: no father, no job to help feed himself ...”

“I think,” he said all of a sudden, “that you should make Arnau a member of your guild.”

Ramon smiled. He too, once things had calmed down, had been thinking about all Arnau had confessed to them. The others, including Arnau, gave the priest puzzled looks.

“But he’s only a boy,” one of the guild aldermen said.

“He’s not strong enough. How will he be able to carry sacks or stones on his back?” asked another.

“He’s very young,” insisted a third.

Arnau gazed at them all, eyes open wide.

“Everything you say is true,” the priest admitted, “but neither his size, his strength, nor his youth prevented him from defending money that was rightfully yours. But for him, your collection box would be empty.”

The bastaixos studied Arnau awhile longer.

“I think we could try him out,” Ramon said finally, “and if he is not up to it...”

Someone in the group agreed.

“All right,” one of the aldermen said eventually, looking across at his two companions. Neither of them demurred. “We’ll take him on trial. If he shows his worth over the next three months, we’ll accept him fully into the guild. He will be paid in proportion to the work he does. Here,” he said, handing Arnau the Mallorcan’s dagger, which he was still holding, “this can be your bastaix knife. Father, write that in the book too, so that the boy has no problems of any kind.”

Arnau could feel the priest’s hand gripping his shoulder. He did not know what to say, but he smiled his thanks to the stone carriers. He was a bastaix! If only his father could see him!

18

“WHO WAS IT? Do you know him, lad?”

The noise of the soldiers running and shouting as they chased Arnau still filled the square, but all Joan could hear was the burning crackle of Bernat’s body above him.

The captain of the guard had stayed near the scaffold. He shook Joan and asked again: “Do you know who it was?”

Joan was transfixed by the sight of the man who had been a father to him burning like a torch.

The captain shook Joan until he turned toward him. He was still staring blindly ahead of him, and his teeth were chattering.

“Who was it? Why did he burn your father?”

Joan did not even hear the question. His whole body started to shake.

“He can’t speak,” said the woman who had urged Arnau to run off. It was she who had pulled Joan away from the flames, and had recognized Arnau as the boy who had been sitting guard over the hanged man all that afternoon. “If I only dared do the same,” she thought, “my husband’s body wouldn’t be left to rot on the walls, to be pecked at by the birds.” Yes, that lad had done something all the relatives there wished they had done, and the captain ... he had come on duty only that night, so he could not have recognized Arnau: he thought the man’s son must be this one. The woman put her arms round Joan and hugged him tight.

“I need to know who set fire to him,” the captain insisted.

“What does it matter?” the woman murmured, feeling Joan trembling uncontrollably in her embrace. “This boy is half-dead with fear and hunger.”

The captain rolled his eyes, then slowly nodded. Hunger! He himself had lost an infant child: the boy had grown thinner and thinner until a simple fever had been enough to carry him off. His wife used to hold him just as this woman was doing now. He used to stare at the two of them: his wife in tears, the little boy pressing up against her, desperate for warmth...

“Take him home,” the captain told her.

“Hunger,” he muttered, turning to look at Bernat’s burning corpse, “Those cursed Genoese!”

DAWN HAD BROKEN over the city.

“Joan!” shouted Arnau as soon as he opened the door.

Pere and Mariona, sitting close to the hearth, motioned to him to be quiet.

“He’s asleep,” said Mariona.

The woman in the square had brought him home and told them what had happened. The two old folks cosseted him until he fell asleep, then went to sit by the fireside.

“What will become of them?” Mariona asked her husband. “Without Bernat, the boy will never survive in the stables.”

“And we won’t be able to feed them,” thought Pere. They could not afford to let them keep the room without paying, or to feed them every day. It was then that he noticed how Arnau’s eyes were shining. His father had just been executed! His body had been burned—so why was he looking so excited?

“I’m a bastaix!” Arnau announced, heading for the few cold scraps left in the pot from the previous evening.

The two old folks looked at each other, and then at the boy, who was eating directly from the ladle, his back to them. He was starving! The lack of grain had affected him, as it had all Barcelona. How was such a puny boy going to be able to carry those heavy loads?

Mariona looked across at her husband, shaking her head.

“God will find a way,” Pere said.

“What did you say?” asked Arnau, turning to face them, his mouth full of food.

“Nothing, my lad, nothing.”

“I have to go,” said Arnau, picking up a piece of stale bread and biting off a chunk. His wish to tell them all that had happened in the square was outweighed by his desire to join his new companions. He said: “When Joan wakes up, tell him where I’ve gone.”

IN APRIL THE ships put out to sea again, after being hauled up on the beach since October. The days grew longer, and the big trading vessels began to enter and leave the city. No one involved—the merchants, owners, pilots—wanted to spend longer than was strictly necessary in the dangerous port of Barcelona.

Before he joined the group of bastaixos waiting on the shore, Arnau stared out to sea. It had always been there, but when he had been with his father they had turned their backs on it after a few steps. Today he looked at it with different eyes: it was going to be his livelihood. The port was filled with countless small craft, two big ships that had just arrived, and a fleet of six enormous men-o’-war, with 260 small boats and twenty-six rows of oarsmen each.

Arnau had heard of this fleet; it was Barcelona itself that had paid for it to help King Alfonso in his war against Genoa, and the city’s fourth councillor, Galcera Marquet, was in command. Only victory over Genoa could open the trade routes again and guarantee the Catalan capital’s prosperity: that was why the city had shown the king such generosity.

“You won’t let us down, will you, lad?” someone said as he stood on the shore. Arnau turned and saw it was one of the guild aldermen. “Come on,” the man said, hurrying on to where the other guild members had congregated.

Arnau followed him. When they reached the group, all the bastaixos smiled at him.

“This isn’t like giving people water,” one of them said. The others laughed.

“Here,” said Ramon. “It’s the smallest we could find in the guild.”

Arnau took the headpiece carefully.

“Don’t worry. It won’t snap!” laughed one of the bastaixos when he saw how gently Arnau was holding it.

“Of course not!” thought Arnau, smiling back at him. “How could it?”

He put the pad on the support and made sure the leather thongs fit round his forehead.

Ramon made sure the support was in the right place.

“Good,” he said, patting Arnau on the back. “All you need is the callus.”

“What callus?” Arnau started to ask, but just at that moment the arrival of the guild aldermen drew everyone’s attention.

“They can’t agree,” one of the aldermen explained. All the bastaixos, including Arnau, looked a little farther down the beach, where a group of finely dressed men were arguing. “Galcera Marquet wants his war galleys to be loaded first, but the merchants want their two ships unloaded beforehand. So we have to wait.”

The men muttered among themselves; many of them sat down on the sand. Arnau sat next to Ramon, the leather strap still on his forehead.

“It won’t break, Arnau,” the bastaix said, pointing to it, “but don’t get any sand in it; that would hurt when you lift your load.”

The boy took off the headpiece and put it away carefully, making sure no sand got in it.

“What’s the problem?” he asked Ramon. “We can unload or load first one lot, then the other.”

“Nobody wants to be in Barcelona longer than necessary. If a storm blew up, all the boats would be in peril, defenseless.”

Arnau surveyed the port, from Puig de les Falsies round to Santa Clara, then turned his gaze on the group of men who were still arguing.

“The city councillor is in charge, isn’t he?”

Ramon laughed and ruffled his hair.

“In Barcelona it’s the merchants who are in charge. They are the ones who have paid for the royal men-o’-war.”

In the end, the dispute was settled with a compromise: the bastaixos would first go and collect the supplies for the royal galleys from the city, while the small boats unloaded the merchant ships. The bastaixos ought to be back before the others had reached the shore with the ships’ goods, which would be left under cover in a suitable place rather than immediately distributed to their owners’ storehouses. The boatmen would take the supplies out to the warships while the bastaixos went back for more, then go on from them to the merchant ships to pick up the goods there. This would be repeated until the process was complete, with the warships loaded and the others empty. After that, the goods would be distributed to their corresponding storehouses, and if there was any time left, the merchant ships would be loaded again.

Once the agreement had been struck, all the men set to work. Different groups of bastaixos headed into Barcelona and the city warehouses, where the supplies for the crews and oarsmen of the galleys were kept. The boatmen headed out to the recently arrived merchant ships and began to unload their cargoes, which could not be taken onshore directly because of the lack of a harbor.

Each boat, catboat, cog, or barge had a crew of three or four men: the boatman and, depending on the guild, slaves or freemen who were paid a wage. The boatmen from the Sant Pere guild, the oldest and richest in the city, used two slaves per boat, as stipulated in their ordinances. Those in the more recent and less wealthy guild of Santa Maria had only paid hands. Whoever was in the crew, the operation to load and unload the cargoes was slow and cautious, even when the sea was calm, because the boatmen were held responsible by the ship owners for any loss or damage to their goods. They could even be sent to jail if they could not pay the compensation demanded.

When the sea grew rough in the port of Barcelona, things became even more complicated, not only for the boatmen but for everyone involved in the sea trade. First because the boatmen could refuse to go out and unload the cargo (which they were not allowed to do in fine weather) unless a special price was agreed upon with the owner. But it was the owners, captains, and even the crews of the ships who were most affected by storms. There were severe penalties if they left their ship before the cargo had been completely taken off; and the owner or his clerk, who were the only ones allowed off the ship, had to return at the first sign of any tempest.

So while the boatmen began to unload the first merchant ship, the bastaixos, divided into groups by their leaders, began to transfer the supplies for the galleys from different storehouses in the city. Arnau was put with Ramon, to whom the alderman gave a meaningful look.

They walked down the shoreline to the doors of the Forment, the city’s grain warehouse. It had been heavily guarded by soldiers since the popular uprising. When they reached it, Arnau tried as much as possible to hide behind Ramon, but the soldiers soon saw there was a young lad among all the robust men.

“What’s this fellow going to carry?” one of them asked, pointing to him and laughing.

When he saw all the soldiers staring at him, Arnau felt his stomach churn, and tried to hide even more behind Ramon, but the bastaix grasped him by his shoulder, put the leather headpiece on his forehead, and answered the soldier in a similarly jocular tone. “It’s time he started work!” he shouted. “He’s fourteen and has to help his family.”

The soldiers nodded and stepped aside. Arnau walked between them, head down. As he entered the warehouse, the smell of grain hit him. The beams of sunlight filtering through the windows picked out the particles of fine dust that soon made Arnau and many other bastaixos cough.

“Before the war against Genoa,” Ramon told him, stretching out his hand in a sweeping gesture as though trying to encompass the entire storehouse, “all this was filled with wheat, but now ...”

Arnau spotted lined up against one another the big earthenware jars that Grau had manufactured.

“Get started!” shouted their leader.

Holding a parchment in his hand, the manager of the warehouse started pointing to the jars. “How on earth are we going to carry such full jars?” Arnau wondered. It was impossible for one man to carry all that weight. But the bastaixos formed pairs, and after tipping the jars slightly to put ropes round them, they threaded a long pole through the ropes, lifted it together, and set off for the beach.

Clouds of dust started to swirl around. Arnau coughed still more. When it was his turn, he heard Ramon shout: “Give the boy one of the small ones, one with salt in it.”

The warehouse manager looked at Arnau and shook his head. “Salt is expensive,” he said, addressing Ramon. “If he drops the jar ...”

“Give him one with salt!”

The grain jars measured about three feet in height, but the one Arnau had to carry was about half that size. Even so, when Ramon helped him lift it onto his back, he could feel his knees buckle.

Ramon squeezed his shoulders. “It’s time to show your worth,” he whispered.

Bent over, Arnau took a step forward. He grasped the handles of the jar firmly and pushed his head until he could feel the leather thong biting into his forehead.

Ramon watched as he set off unsteadily, putting one foot in front of the other slowly and carefully. The warehouse man shook his head again. The soldiers said nothing as the boy passed by them.

“This is for you, Father!” Arnau muttered between clenched teeth when he felt the heat of the sun on his face. The weight was going to split him in two! “I’m not a child any longer, Father; can you see me?”

Ramon and another bastaix walked behind him, carrying a large grain jar on a pole. They watched as Arnau almost fell over his own feet. Ramon shut his eyes.

“Are you still hanging there?” Arnau was thinking, the image of Bernat’s body imprinted on his mind. “Nobody can make fun of you anymore! Not even that witch and her stepchildren!” He steadied himself under the load and set off again.

He reached the shore. Ramon was smiling behind him. Nobody said a word. The boatmen came and relieved him of the salt jar before he reached the sea. It took Arnau several moments before he could straighten up again. “Did you see me, Father?” he muttered, peering at the sky.

When he had unloaded his grain jar, Ramon patted Arnau on the back.

“Another one?” the boy asked in all seriousness.

Two more. When Arnau had deposited the third salt jar on the beach, Josep, one of the guild leaders, came up to him.

“That’s enough for today, my lad,” he told him.

“I can do more,” replied Arnau, trying not to show how much his back was hurting.

“No, you can’t. Besides, I can’t have you going round Barcelona bleeding like a wounded animal,” he said in a fatherly way, pointing to thin trickles of blood running down Arnau’s sides. Arnau put a hand to his back, then glanced at it. “We’re not slaves; we’re freemen, working for ourselves, and that’s how people should see us. Don’t worry,” the alderman said, seeing how disappointed Arnau looked. “The same has happened to all of us at one time or another, and we all had someone who told us to stop working. The blisters you have on your neck and back have to harden, to form a callus. That will only take a few days, and you can be assured that from then on, I won’t let you rest any more than the others.”

Josep handed him a small bottle. “Make sure you clean the wounds properly. Then have some of this ointment rubbed on. It will help dry out the wounds.”

As he listened to the man, Arnau relaxed. He would not have to carry anything more that day, but the pain and the tiredness from the sleepless night he had just experienced left him feeling faint. He muttered a few words of good-bye and dragged himself home. Joan was waiting for him at the door. How long had he been there?

“Did you know I’m a bastaix now?” Arnau said when he reached the doorway.

Joan nodded. He knew. He had watched his brother on his last two journeys, clenching teeth and fists as he saw each unsteady step, praying he would not fall, shedding tears at the sight of his blotched purple face. Now Joan wiped away the last of his tears and held out his arms. Arnau fell into his embrace.

“You have to put this ointment on my back,” Arnau managed to say as Joan helped him upstairs.

That was all he did say. A few seconds later, collapsed flat out on the pallet with his arms outstretched, he fell into a deep, restorative sleep. Trying not to wake him, Joan cleaned his wounds with hot water that Mariona brought up to him. The ointment had a strong, sharp smell. He spread it on, and it seemed to take effect immediately, because Arnau stirred but did not wake up.

That night it was Joan who could not sleep. He sat on the floor next to his brother, listening to him breathe. He allowed his own eyelids to droop whenever the sound was regular and quiet, but started awake whenever Arnau moved uncomfortably. “What’s going to become of us now?” he wondered from time to time. He had talked to Pere and his wife; the money Arnau earned as a bastaix would not be enough to keep them both. What would happen to him?

“Get to school!” Arnau ordered the next morning, when he saw Joan busy helping Mariona with her household chores. He had thought about it the previous day: everything should stay the same, just as his father had left it.

Mariona was leaning over her fire. She turned to her husband, who spoke before Joan could even answer.

“Obey your elder brother,” he told him.

Mariona’s face creased in a smile. Her husband, though, looked serious: how were the four of them going to live? Mariona went on smiling, until Pere shook his head as if trying to clear it of all the doubts they had talked over endlessly the previous evening.

Joan ran out of the house. As soon as he had gone, Arnau tried to stretch. He could not move a single muscle. They had all seized up, and he felt stiff from head to toe. Bit by bit, however, his young body came back to life, and after eating a frugal breakfast he went out into the sunshine. He smiled when he saw the beach, the sea, and the six galleys still at anchor in the port.

Ramon and Josep made him show them his back.

“One trip,” the guild alderman told Ramon before rejoining the group. “Then he can go to the chapel.”

Arnau turned to look at Ramon as he struggled to replace his shirt.

“You heard him,” Ramon said.

“But...”

“Do as you’re told, Arnau. Josep knows what he is doing.”

He did. As soon as Arnau lifted the first jar onto his back, his wound started bleeding again.

“But if it has started bleeding already,” he said when Ramon unloaded his jar of grain on the beach behind him, “what’s the problem if I make a few more journeys?”

“The callus, Arnau, the hard skin. The idea is not to destroy your back, but to let the hard skin form. Now go and wash, put more ointment on, and get down to our chapel in Santa Maria ...” As Arnau made to protest, Ramon insisted: “It’s our chapel—it’s your chapel, Arnau. We have to look after it.”

“My boy,” said the bastaix who had carried the jar with Ramon, “that chapel means a lot to us. We’re nothing more than port workers, but La Ribera has offered us something that no nobleman or wealthy guild has: the Jesus chapel and the keys to the church of Santa Maria de la Mar. Do you understand what that means?” Arnau nodded thoughtfully. “There can be no greater honor for any of us. You’ll have plenty of time to load and unload; don’t worry about that.”

Mariona tended his back, and then Arnau headed for Santa Maria. He went to find Father Albert to get the keys to the chapel, but the priest first took him to the cemetery outside Las Moreres gate.

“This morning I buried your father,” he told him, pointing to the cemetery. Puzzled, Arnau looked at him. “I didn’t want to tell you in case any soldiers appeared. The magistrate decided he did not want people to see your father’s burned body either in Plaza del Blat or above the city gates. He was frightened others might do the same. It wasn’t hard to convince him to let me bury the body.”

They both stood silently outside the cemetery for a while.

“Would you like me to leave you on your own?” the priest eventually asked.

“I have to clean the bastaixos’ chapel,” said Arnau, wiping away his tears.

For several days after that, Arnau made only one trip carrying a load, then went back to the chapel. The galleys had already weighed anchor, and the goods from the merchant ships were the usual items of trade: fabrics, coral, spices, copper, wax ... Then one day, Arnau’s back did not bleed. Josep inspected it again, and Arnau spent the whole day carrying heavy bundles of cloth, smiling at every bastaix he met on the way.

He was also paid his first wage. Barely a few pence more than he had earned working for Grau! He gave it all to Pere, together with a few coins he still had from Bernat’s purse. “It’s not enough,” the boy thought as he counted out the coins. Bernat used to pay Pere a lot more. He peered inside the purse again. That would not last very long, he realized. His hand still inside the purse, he looked at the old man. Pere grimaced.

“When I can carry more,” said Arnau, “I’ll earn more.”

“You know as well as I do that will take time, Arnau. And before that, your father’s purse will be empty. You know this house isn’t mine ... No, it isn’t,” he added, when the boy looked up at him in surprise. “Most of the houses in the city belong to the Church: to the bishop or a religious order. We have them only in emphyteusis, a long lease for which we pay rent every year. You know how little I can work, so I rely on the money from the room to be able to pay. If you can’t cover it... what am I to do?”

“So what’s the point of being free if citizens are chained to their houses just as peasants are to their lands?” asked Arnau, shaking his head.

“We’re not chained to them,” Pere said patiently.

“But I’ve heard that all these houses are passed down from father to son; they even get sold! How is that possible if they don’t belong to you? Are you not tied to them?”

“That’s easy to understand, Arnau. The Church is very rich in lands and properties, but according to its laws it cannot sell ecclesiastical possessions.” Arnau tried to intervene, but Pere raised a hand to stop him. “The problem is that the bishops, abbots, and other important positions in the Church are appointed by the king. He always chooses his friends, and the pope never says no. All those friends of the king hope to receive a good income from what they own, and since they cannot sell any properties, they have invented this system called emphyteusis to get round the ban.”

“So that makes you tenants,” said Arnau, trying to understand.

“No. Tenants can be thrown out at any time. The emphyteuta can never be thrown out ... as long as he pays his rent to the Church.”

“Could you sell the house?”

“Yes. That’s known as subemphyteusis. The bishop would get a part of the proceeds, known as the laudemium, and the new subemphyteuta could carry on just as I do. There is only one caveat.” Arnau looked at him inquisitively. “The house cannot be passed on to anyone of a higher social position. It could never be sold to a nobleman ... although I doubt whether any noble would be interested in this place, don’t you?” he said with a smile. When Arnau did not join in, Pere became serious once more. He said nothing for a while, then added: “The thing is, I have to pay the annual rent, and between what I earn and what you pay me ...”

“What are we going to do now?” Arnau thought. With the miserable wage he earned, he and his brother could not even pay enough for food, and yet it was not fair to cause Pere problems: he had always treated them well.

“Don’t worry,” he said hesitantly. “We’ll leave and then you—”

“Mariona and I have been thinking.” Pere interrupted him. “If you and Joan accept, perhaps you could sleep down here by the fire.” Arnau’s eyes opened wide. “That way ... that way we could rent the room to a family and be able to pay the annual rent. You would only have to find two pallets for yourselves. What do you think?”

Arnau’s face lit up. His lips began to tremble.

“Does that mean yes?” Pere prompted him.

Arnau steadied his mouth and nodded enthusiastically.

“Now IT’S TIME we helped the Virgin!” one of the guild aldermen shouted.

Arnau felt the hairs prickle on his arms and legs.

That day there were no ships to load or unload. The sea in the port was dotted with small fishing boats. The bastaixos had gathered on the beach as usual. The sun was climbing in the sky, heralding a fine spring day.

This was the first time since Arnau had become a bastaix at the start of the seagoing season that they had been able to spend a day working for Santa Maria.

“We’ll help the Virgin!” the group of bastaixos shouted.

Arnau surveyed his companions: their drowsy faces were suddenly all smiles. Some of them swung their arms back and forward to loosen their back muscles. Arnau recalled when he used to give them water, and see them going by, bent double under the weight of the enormous stones. Would he be up to it? Fear tightened his muscles, and he began to exercise like the others.

“This is your first time, isn’t it?” said Ramon, congratulating him. Arnau said nothing, and allowed his arms to drop to his sides. “Don’t worry, my lad,” Ramon added, resting his hand on his shoulder and encouraging him to catch up with the others, who were already leaving the beach. “Remember that when you are carrying stones for the Virgin, she carries part of the weight.”

Arnau looked at him.

“It’s true,” the bastaix insisted with a smile. “You’ll discover that today.”

They started from Santa Clara, at the eastern end of the city, and had to cross the entire city, then out of the walls and up to the royal quarry at La Roca, in Montjuic. Arnau walked without talking: from time to time he could sense that some of the others were watching him. They left La Ribera behind, then the exchange and the Forment storehouse. As they passed by the angel fountain, Arnau could see the women waiting to fill their pitchers; many of them had let him and Joan in when they came running up with the waterskin. People waved as they went by. Some children ran and jumped around the group of men, whispering and pointing at Arnau with respect. The bastaixos left behind the gates of the shipyard and reached the Framenors convent at the western end of the city. It was here that the city walls petered out; beyond them were the unfinished royal dockyards and, farther on still, open countryside and vegetable plots: San Nicolau, San Bertran, and San Pau del Camp. This was where the track up to the quarry began.

Before they could reach it, however, the bastaixos had to cross Cagalell. The stench from the city’s waste hit them long before they could see it.

“They’re draining it,” one of the men said when the smell overwhelmed them.

Most of the others agreed.

“It wouldn’t smell so bad if they weren’t,” another bastaix explained.