“Why do they keep building the scaffolding higher?” Arnau asked a second time.
The three of them peered at the rear of the church, where the ten columns stood: eight of them in a semicircle and two more farther back. Beyond them, workmen had started to build the buttresses and walls that would form the new apse. The columns rose higher than the small Romanesque building, but the scaffolding went on up still farther into the sky. It was not surrounding anything, as though the workmen had gone crazy and were trying to make a stairway to heaven.
“I’ve no idea,” Angel admitted.
“None of that scaffolding is supporting anything.”
“No, but it will,” they suddenly heard a man’s firm voice say.
The three of them turned round. They had been so busy laughing and coughing they had not noticed that several men had gathered behind them. Some of them were dressed in fine clothes; others wore priests’ vestments, enriched with bejeweled gold crosses on their chests, big rings, and belts threaded with gold and silver.
Father Albert was watching from the church door. He came hurrying over to greet the newcomers. Angel leapt up, and choked once more on his bread. This was not the first time he had seen the man who had spoken to them, but he had rarely seen him in such splendid company. He was Berenguer de Montagut, the person in charge of the building work on Santa Maria de la Mar.
Arnau and Joanet also stood up. Father Albert joined the group, and bent to kiss the bishops’ rings.
“What will they support?”
Joanet’s question caught Father Albert just as he was stooping to kiss another ring: “Don’t speak until you’re spoken to,” his eyes implored him. One of the provosts made as though to continue on toward the church, but Berenguer de Montagut grasped Joanet by the shoulder and leaned down to talk to him.
“Children are often able to see things we miss,” he said out loud to his companions. “So I would not be surprised if these three have noticed something that has escaped our attention. So you want to know why we’re building this scaffolding, do you?” Glancing toward Father Albert for permission, Joanet nodded. “Do you see the tops of those columns? Well, from the top of each of them we are going to build six arches. The most important one of all will be the one that takes the weight of the new church’s apse.”
“What is an apse?” asked Arnau.
Berenguer smiled and looked round. Some of the group with him seemed as anxious to hear his explanation as the boys were.
“An apse is something like this.” The master builder joined his hands together in an arch. The children were fascinated by his magic hands, and others in the group crowded forward to see. “Well, on top of all the rest,” he said, separating one hand and pointing to the tip of the other first finger, “we put a big stone called the keystone. To do that we first have to raise it to the very highest scaffolding—right up there, can you see?” They all peered up at the sky. “Once that is in place, we’ll build the rib vaults of these arches until they meet the keystone. And that is why we need such tall scaffolding.”
“Why are you doing all that?” Arnau wanted to know. Poor Father Albert gave a start, although by now he was growing used to the boys’ questions and comments. “None of this will be visible from inside the church, because it’s all above the roof.”
Berenguer and a few of the others laughed. Father Albert sighed.
“Of course it will be visible, my boy, because the roof of the present church will gradually disappear as we build the new structure. It will be as though this tiny church were giving birth to another, bigger one.”
Joanet’s obvious disappointment unsettled him. The boy had become accustomed to the small church’s sense of intimacy, to its smell, its darkness, the atmosphere there when he prayed.
“Do you love the Virgin of the Sea?” Berenguer asked him.
Joanet glanced at Arnau. They both nodded.
“Well, when we have finished her new church, the Virgin you love so much will have more light than any other Virgin in the world. She will no longer be in darkness as she is now. She’ll have the most beautiful church you could ever imagine. She won’t be shut in by thick, low walls, but will shine among tall, delicate ones, with slender columns and apses that reach up to the heavens: the perfect place for the Virgin.”
They all looked up at the sky.
“Yes,” Berenguer de Montagut went on, “the Virgin of the Sea’s new church will reach right up there.”
He and his companions set off toward Santa Maria, leaving Father Albert and the boys behind.
“Father,” Arnau asked when the others were out of earshot, “what will happen to the Virgin when they take down the old building, but haven’t finished her new church yet?”
“Do you see those buttresses?” the priest replied, pointing to two of the ones being built as the back part of the ambulatory, behind the main altar. “In between them they are going to construct the first chapel, dedicated to the Lord Jesus. That’s where they will put the Virgin, together with the body of Christ and the sepulcher containing Saint Eulàlia’s remains. That way she will come to no harm.”
“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 t
his 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.