Cathedral of the Sea

  Once quiet had returned to the farmhouse, Bernat peered at the cloud of dust trailing off toward the horizon, and then looked over at the two oxen, stolidly chewing on the ears of corn they had been trampling.

  From that day on, although Bernat continued working with his animals and on the land, his thoughts returned constantly to his son. At night, he wandered around the farmhouse recalling the childish breathing that spoke of life and the future, the creaking of the wooden slats of the cradle whenever Arnau moved, his shrill cry when he was hungry. He tried to discern his son’s innocent smell in every corner of the house. Where might he be sleeping now? His cradle, the one Bernat had made with his own hands, was here. When finally Bernat succeeded in falling asleep, the silence would wake him with a start. He curled up on his pallet, listening hour after hour to the sounds of the animals down below that now were all the company he had.

  Bernat went regularly to Llorenç de Bellera’s castle to have his bread baked. He never saw Francesca: she was shut away to attend to Doña Caterina and her son’s unpredictable appetite. The castle, as his father had explained when the two of them had been obliged to come here together, had started out as little more than a watchtower on the summit of a small hill. Llorenç de Bellera’s forebears had taken advantage of the power vacuum following Count Ramon Borrell’s death to build new fortifications, thanks to the forced labor of the serfs who lived on their ever-expanding territories. Around the keep a hodgepodge of buildings soon grew up, including the bakery, the forge, some new, more spacious stables, kitchens, and sleeping quarters.

  The castle was more than a league away from the Estanyol farmhouse. On his first visits, Bernat heard no news of his son. Whenever he inquired, he always received the same reply: his wife and boy were in Doña Caterina’s private apartments. The only difference was that, while some of those he asked laughed cynically, others lowered their gaze as though ashamed to look the child’s father in the eye. Bernat put up with their evasive answers for weeks on end, until one day when he was leaving the bakery with two loaves of bean-flour bread, he ran into one of the scrawny blacksmith apprentices whom he had already questioned several times about his son.

  “What do you know about my Arnau?” he asked again.

  There was no one else around. The lad tried to avoid him, as if he had not heard, but Bernat seized him by the arm.

  “I asked you what you know about my son, Arnau.”

  “Your wife and son ...” The apprentice started with the usual formula, not lifting his eyes from the ground.

  “I know where he is,” Bernat interrupted him. “I’m asking if my Arnau is well and healthy.”

  Still not looking at him, the lad started shuffling his feet in the sand. Bernat shook him roughly.

  “Is he well?”

  When the apprentice still would not look up, Bernat shook him even harder.

  “No!” the lad finally admitted. Bernat loosened his grip so that he could look him in the face. “No,” he said again.

  “What’s wrong with him?”

  “I can’t ... We have orders not to tell you ...” The apprentice’s voice trailed off.

  Bernat raised his voice, not caring whether a guard might hear.

  “What’s wrong with my boy? What’s wrong? Tell me!”

  “I can’t. We cannot ...”

  “Would this change your mind?” asked Bernat, offering him one of the loaves.

  The lad’s eyes opened wide. Without a word, he snatched the bread from Bernat’s hands and bit into it as if he had not eaten in days. Bernat pulled him to one side, away from any prying eyes.

  “What’s happened to my Arnau?” he asked anxiously.

  His mouth stuffed with bread, the apprentice glanced at Bernat, then signaled for him to follow. They crept stealthily along the castle walls until they reached the forge. They crossed it and headed for the back, where the lad opened a door leading into a shed where equipment and tools were kept. He went in, and Bernat followed. As soon as he was inside, the boy sat on the floor and started to devour more bread. Bernat peered around the squalid room. It was stiflingly hot, but he could not understand why the apprentice had brought him there: all he could see was piles of tools and old scraps of iron.

  Bernat looked inquiringly at the boy. Chewing on the loaf, he pointed to one of the corners of the room and waved Bernat to go and look there.

  Abandoned and starved, his son lay on a pile of wooden planks in a broken wicker basket. The strips of white linen bound round him were filthy and in tatters. He was on the verge of death. Bernat could not stop himself uttering a strangled cry that sounded hardly human. He snatched Arnau up and pressed him to his chest. The infant responded only feebly, but he did respond.

  “The baron ordered your son be kept here,” Bernat heard the apprentice explain. “At first, your wife came several times a day, and soothed him by breast-feeding him.” Bernat clutched the child to him, as if trying to breathe life into his tiny lungs. “One day, the steward came in after her,” the boy went on. “Your wife fought him off. She shouted as loud as she could ... I saw him. I was in the forge next door.” He pointed to a crack in the wooden planks of the wall. “But the steward is a very strong man ... When he was done with her, the lord and some soldiers came in too. Your wife was lying on the floor; the lord began to laugh at her. All of them did. Since that day, whenever your wife came to feed her child, there would be soldiers waiting at the door. She could not fight them all off. In the past few days, I have hardly seen her here. The soldiers catch her as soon as she leaves Doña Caterina’s apartments. She cannot even reach the forge. Sometimes the lord sees what they are doing, but all he does is laugh.”

  Without a moment’s thought, Bernat lifted his shirt and pushed his son’s tiny body inside. He disguised the bulge by holding the other loaf of bread up against his chest. The infant did not even stir. As he made for the door, the apprentice rose to stop him.

  “The lord has forbidden it! You cannot—”

  “Out of my way, boy!”

  The lad stepped in front of Bernat. Once again, he did not hesitate for a second: holding the baby and the loaf of bread in one hand, he snatched an iron bar from the wall and whirled round. Bernat caught the apprentice full on the head. He fell to the ground in the entrance to the storeroom before he had time to utter a sound. Bernat did not even look at him; he went out and shut the door behind him.

  He had no problem leaving Llorenç de Bellera’s castle. No one could have suspected that beneath the loaf of bread he was hiding his son’s poor, abused body. It was only after he had emerged through the castle gate that he thought of Francesca and the soldiers. Indignantly, he reproached her for not trying to contact him, to warn him of the danger their son was in, for not fighting for Arnau ... Bernat cradled his son’s body, and thought of his wife being raped by the soldiers while his son was left to die on a pile of rotten planks.

  How LONG WOULD it take them to find the lad he had struck? Was he dead? Had he shut the storeroom door properly? As he strode back to his farm, Bernat’s mind was filled with questions. Yes, he dimly remembered he had shut the door.

  As soon as he had turned the first bend on the twisting path that rose toward the castle, so that he was now out of sight, Bernat uncovered his son. His eyes were dull and lifeless. He weighed even less than the loaf of bread! His arms and legs were so thin! Bernat’s stomach churned, and a lump came to his throat. Tears began to trickle down his cheeks. He told himself this was no time to cry. He knew they would set out in search of them, that they would set the dogs on them, but ... what was the use of running away if the child did not survive? Bernat left the path and hid in some bushes. He kneeled down, left the loaf of bread on the ground, and lifted Arnau in both hands until he was level with his face. The baby hung there limply, his head lolling to one side. “Arnau!” whispered Bernat. He shook him gently, over and over again. The baby’s eyes seemed finally to be looking straight at him. His face streaked with tears, Berna
t realized that the poor thing did not even have the strength to cry. He cradled him in one arm, then tore off a small piece of bread, wet it with his saliva, and brought it close to his son’s mouth. Arnau did not react, but Bernat persisted until he managed to force a tiny piece of bread between his lips. Bernat waited. “Swallow, son, swallow,” he begged him. His lips trembled when he saw Arnau’s throat contract almost imperceptibly. He crumbled some more bread and anxiously repeated the operation. Arnau swallowed seven more fragments.

  “We’ll get out of this—you’ll see,” Bernat told him. “I promise you.”

  He returned to the path. Everything was still calm. That must mean they had not discovered the apprentice’s body yet. For a while, Bernat thought of Llorenç de Bellera: cruel, evil, implacable. How much pleasure he would get from hunting down an Estanyol!

  “We’ll get out of this, Arnau,” he repeated, setting off at a run toward his farmhouse.

  Never once did he look back, and when he reached the farm he did not allow himself even a moment’s rest. Leaving Arnau in his cradle, Bernat picked up a sack and stuffed some flour and dried vegetables in it. He put in a wineskin filled with water, and another full of milk, then added salt meat, a bowl, a spoon, and some clothing. Last came some coins he had kept hidden, a hunting knife, and his crossbow. “How proud Father was of this crossbow!” he thought, feeling its weight in his hand. He had always told Bernat when he was teaching him how to use it, how their ancestor had fought with it alongside Count Ramon Borrell in the days when the Estanyols were freemen. Free! Bernat strapped the child to his chest and loaded up all the other things. He would always be a serf, unless ...

  “As of now we are fugitives,” he whispered to his son as he headed off toward the woods. “Nobody knows these forests like we Estanyols do,” he told him when he had reached cover. “We have always hunted here.” He pushed through the undergrowth until they came to a stream. He stepped down into the water until it was knee-height, then started walking against the current. Arnau had closed his eyes and was asleep, but Bernat went on talking to him: “The lord’s dogs are not very alert, they’ve been badly handled. We’ll go up to the top, where the woods are denser and no one can hunt us on horseback. That means the lord and his friends have never been up there. They would get their fine clothes torn. As for the soldiers ... why would they go up there to hunt? They get all they need by stealing from us. We can hide there, Arnau. I swear no one will find us.” He stroked his son’s head as he waded upstream.

  In midafternoon he came to a halt. The woods had become so thick that their branches overhung the stream and blotted out the sky. He sat on a rock and looked down at his legs: the water had made them white and wrinkled. It was only then that he realized how much they ached, but he did not care. He put down the sack and crossbow and untied Arnau. The boy had opened his eyes once more. Bernat diluted some milk in water, added flour, stirred the mixture, and then brought the bowl up to the infant’s lips. Arnau wrinkled his face in disgust. Bernat wiped one of his fingers clean in the stream, dipped it into the mixture, and tried again. After several attempts, Arnau responded, allowing his father to feed him from his finger. Soon afterward, he closed his eyes and fell fast asleep. All Bernat ate was a chunk of salted meat. He would have liked to rest, but he knew there was still a long way to go.

  The Estanyol cave, his father had called it. Night had fallen by the time they reached it, after stopping once more for Arnau to have some food. The cave entrance was a narrow slit in the rocks, which Bernat, his father, and his grandfather used to close up with branches to protect them from storms or animals on the prowl.

  Bernat lit a fire just inside the cave, then took a torch to make sure no wild animal had chosen it for a lair. He settled Arnau on a pallet he made from his sack and some dry twigs, and fed him again. This time, the infant took the food gladly, and then fell into a deep sleep. Before he could eat more than a mouthful of meat, Bernat did the same. They would be safe from Llorenç de Bellera here, he thought as he closed his eyes and matched his breathing to that of his sleeping son.

  No SOONER HAD the master blacksmith told him of the discovery of his apprentice’s dead body in a pool of blood, than Llorenç de Bellera galloped out of the castle with his men. Arnau’s disappearance and the fact that his father had been seen in the castle pointed directly toward Bernat. Now de Bellera sat astride his horse in the Estanyol farmhouse yard, and smiled when his soldiers informed him that to judge by the disorder inside, it seemed Bernat had fled and taken his son with him.

  “You were fortunate when your father died,” he growled, “but now all this will be mine! Go and find him!” he shouted to his men. Then he turned to his steward and commanded: “Draw up a list of all the goods, chattels, and animals on this property. Make sure it’s all there, down to the last grain of corn. Then join the search for Estanyol.”

  Several days later, the steward appeared before his lord in the castle keep.

  “We’ve searched all the other farmhouses, the woods, and the fields. There is no sign of Estanyol. He must have gone to hide in a town, perhaps in Manresa or—”

  With a wave of his hand, Llorenç de Bellera silenced him.

  “We will find him. Inform the other barons and our agents in the towns. Tell them one of my serfs has escaped and is to be arrested.” At that moment, Doña Caterina and Francesca appeared. De Bellera’s son Jaume was in Francesca’s arms. When de Bellera saw her, his face fell: she was of no use to him anymore. “My lady,” he said to his wife, “I cannot understand how you permit a strumpet like this to give suck to a son of mine.” Doña Caterina gave a start. “Did you not know that your wet nurse is the whore of all the soldiers in the castle?”

  Doña Caterina seized her son from Francesca.

  When Francesca learned that Bernat had fled with Arnau, she wondered what could have become of her son. The Estanyol family lands and properties had all passed into the hands of the lord of Navarcles. She had no one to turn to for help, and all the while the soldiers continued to take advantage of her. A crust of dry bread, a rotten vegetable or two—that was the price of her body.

  None of the many peasant farmers who visited the castle even deigned to glance at her. If she tried to draw near them, they chased her away. After her mother had publicly disowned her outside the castle bakery, she did not dare return to her family home. She was forced to remain close to the castle, one of the army of beggars fighting over the scraps left by the walls. It seemed her fate was to be passed from one man to the next, and her only nourishment was whatever leftovers the soldier who had chosen her that day cared to give her.

  The month of October arrived. Bernat had already seen his son smile, and crawl around the cave and the ground outside. But their provisions had almost run out, and winter was approaching fast. It was time for them to leave.

  4

  THE CITY LAY spread at his feet. “Look, Arnau,” Bernat said to his son, who was sleeping peacefully strapped to his chest. “There’s Barcelona. We’ll be free there.”

  Ever since fleeing with Arnau, Bernat had been unable to get the city out of his mind. It was the one great hope all the serfs had. Bernat had heard them talk about it when they were forced to go and work on their lord’s land, to repair his castle walls or perform any other of the services he demanded. When he heard them whispering carefully so as not to be overheard by the steward or soldiers, Bernat had been merely curious. He was happy working on his farm, and would never have abandoned his father, or fled with him. Yet now, he had lost his lands, and as he’d watched his son asleep inside the Estanyol cave, what the others had said had come back to haunt him.

  “If anyone manages to live in Barcelona for a year and a day without being arrested by the lord,” he remembered someone saying, “they can acquire the status of residents, and become freemen.” All the other serfs had fallen silent. Bernat had looked at them: some had closed their eyes and clenched their teeth; others were shaking their heads in disbelief;
still others were smiling up at the sky, dreaming of breaking the chains that tied them to the land.

  “So all you have to do is live in the city?” asked one of the youngsters who had been staring skyward. “Why can people become freemen by living in Barcelona?”

  The eldest serf confirmed what had been said: “Yes, you need only to live in Barcelona for a year and a day.”

  Eyes shining, the young lad urged him to explain further.

  “Barcelona is a very rich city. For many years now, from the days of Jaime the Conqueror to those of Pedro the Great, all our kings have asked it for money to wage war, or for their courts. The citizens of Barcelona granted them the money, but in return won special privileges. One day when he was at war with Sicily, Pedro the Great himself had them all written down in a charter ...” The old man hesitated. “Recognoverunt procures, I believe it is called. That is where it is laid out how we can become freemen. Barcelona needs workmen, people who are free to work.”

  The next day, the youth did not appear on the lord of Navarcles’s lands. Nor the day after. His father was there, but he did not say a word. Then, three months later, the youth was dragged back in chains, with the threat of the whip at his back; even so, all the other serfs thought they could see a gleam of pride in his eyes.

  From the summit of the Sierra de Collserola, on the old Roman road between Ampurias and Tarragona, Bernat gazed down at freedom ... and the sea! He had never even imagined, let alone set eyes on, that huge, seemingly endless expanse. He had heard from traders that Catalonia was the master of lands beyond the waves, but ... this was the very first time he had been confronted with something he could not see the far end of. “Beyond that mountain. After you cross that river ...” He had always been able to point to the spot in the distance that a stranger was asking him about. Now he scanned the horizon line, standing silently as he took it all in, gently caressing the unruly curls that had grown on Arnau’s head since they had been in hiding.