Cathedral of the Sea

Arnau passed by friars, priests, and scribes, all of them squeezing against the walls to let him and his guard through. Nobody had wanted to answer his question: the jailer had come into the dungeon and undone his chains. “Where are you taking me?” A Dominican in black crossed himself as he went by; another raised a crucifix. The soldiers marched on without paying any attention. For days now, Arnau had heard nothing from Joan or the brown-eyed woman: where had he seen those eyes before? He asked the old crone in the dungeon but got no reply. “Who was that woman?” he had shouted four times at least. Some of the shadows chained to the walls had groaned; others did not stir. Nor did the old woman, and yet, when the jailer pushed him out of the dungeon, Arnau thought he saw her shifting nervously.

Arnau bumped into the back of one of the soldiers in front of him. They had come to a halt outside an imposing double door. The soldier pushed him back, while the captain banged on the wooden panel. The doors opened, and the escort marched into a huge chamber. The walls were hung with rich tapestries. The soldiers accompanied Arnau to the center of the room, then returned to stand guard at the door.

Sitting behind an elaborately carved table, seven men were staring at him. Nicolau Eimerich, the grand inquisitor, sat in the middle, together with Berenguer d’Eril, the bishop of Barcelona. Both of them were wearing fine robes embroidered in gold. To the inquisitor’s left sat the Holy Office clerk; Arnau had seen him on occasion, but had never had any dealings with the man. On either side sat two black-robed Dominican friars, whom Arnau did not know.

Arnau looked steadily at the members of the tribunal until one of the friars turned away in disgust. Arnau raised a hand to his face: it was covered in a greasy beard that had grown during his days in the dungeon. His torn clothes had lost all their original color. He was barefoot, and his feet, hands, and nails were caked with black dirt. He stank. He himself found his smell unbearable.

Eimerich smiled when he saw Arnau reacting to his own sorry state.

“FIRST THEY WILL get him to swear on the four gospels,” Joan explained to Aledis as they sat round a table at the inn. “The trial could last days, or even months,” he had already told them, when they had urged him to go to the bishop’s palace. “It’s better to wait at the inn.”

“Will there be someone to defend him?” asked Mar.

Joan shook his head wearily. “He will be appointed a lawyer ... but that person is not allowed to defend him.”

“Why not?” the two women asked together.

“It is forbidden for lawyers and notaries,” Joan recited, “to aid heretics, to advise or support them, or to believe their word and defend them.” Mar and Aledis looked nonplussed. “That’s what the bull by Pope Innocent says.”

“What do they do then?” asked Mar.

“The lawyer’s task is to obtain the heretic’s voluntary confession; if he were to defend a heretic, he would be defending heresy.”

“I HAVE NOTHING to confess,” Arnau told the young priest who had been appointed as his lawyer.

“He’s an expert in civil and canon law,” said Nicolau Eimerich, “and also a passionate believer,” he added with a smile.

The priest spread his arms wide in a helpless gesture, in the same way he had done in the dungeon, when he had encouraged Arnau to confess his heresy. “You ought to do so,” he had said, “and put your faith in the tribunal’s mercy.” Now he repeated the same gesture—how often had he done that in the past as a lawyer for heretics?—and then at a sign from Eimerich, he withdrew from the chamber.

“AFTER THAT,” JOAN continued at Aledis’s prompting, “they will ask him to name his enemies.”

“Why is that?”

“If he were to name any of the witnesses accusing him, the tribunal could consider their testimony unsound.”

“But Arnau doesn’t know who denounced him,” Mar said.

“No, not at the moment. He might find out in due course ... if Eimerich concedes him that right. In fact, he is entitled to know,” said Joan, noticing how the two women reacted. “That is what Pope Boniface the Eighth decreed, but the pope is a long way away, and each inquisitor conducts his own trials as he sees fit.”

“I THINK MY wife hates me,” Arnau replied in answer to Eimerich’s question.

“Why should Doña Eleonor hate you?” the inquisitor insisted.

“Because we have no children.”

“Have you tried? Have you lain with her?”

Arnau had sworn on the four gospels. “No.”

The clerk’s quill copied all the words onto the pile of parchments in front of him. Nicolau Eimerich turned to the bishop.

“Can you name any other enemy?” asked Berenguer d’Eril.

“The nobles on my lands, in particular the thane of Montbui.” The clerk went on writing. “I have also judged many people as consul of the sea, but I consider I have always been just in my judgments.”

“Do you have any enemies among members of the Church?”

Why were they asking him that? He had always got on well with the Church.

“Apart from some of those here—”