Cathedral of the Sea

“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.