Cathedral of the Sea

The soldier hesitated a moment. Arnau calmly motioned with his hand for the intruders to move closer to the door. Still glaring at his prisoner, the captain stepped aside just enough for Arnau to be able to see the dead sailor’s relatives.

“I find in favor of the widow and her children,” Arnau ruled imperturbably. “They are to receive half of the total wage for the journey, and not the two months, as the ship owner is claiming. That is the resolution of this court.”

Arnau thumped the table, stood up, and faced the captain.

“Now we can go,” he said.

THE NEWS OF Arnau Estanyol’s arrest spread throughout Barcelona, and from there, nobles, merchants, and even peasants took it to the rest of Catalonia.

A few days later, in a small village to the north of the principality, an inquisitor who was busy putting the fear of God into a group of inhabitants suddenly heard it from an officer of the Inquisition.

Joan stared at him.

“It seems it is true,” the officer insisted.

The inquisitor turned toward the group of people. What had he been saying to them? What was this about Arnau being arrested?

He glanced at the captain, who nodded.

Arnau?

The small crowd began to shift uneasily. Joan wanted to go on, but could not find the words. He turned to the captain again; the man was smiling.

“Aren’t you going to continue, Brother Joan?” said the officer. “These sinners are waiting.”

Joan turned to him. “Let’s go to Barcelona,” he said.

On their way back to the city, Joan passed close by the baron of Granollers’s lands. If he had turned aside a little from his route, he would have seen how the thane of Montbui and other knights who owed allegiance to Arnau were already riding through their lands to threaten the peasants that they would soon see the return of practices Arnau had abolished. “They say it was the baroness herself who accused Arnau,” someone said.

But Joan did not pass through Arnau’s lands. Ever since they had begun their journey, he had not said another word to the captain or anyone else in their small party, not even the scribe. There was no way he could not hear what they were saying, however.

“It seems they’ve arrested him for heresy,” said one of the soldiers, loud enough for Joan to hear.

“The brother of an inquisitor?” another soldier shouted.

“Nicolau Eimerich will make him confess everything he is trying to hide,” the captain replied.

Joan remembered Nicolau Eimerich well. How often had he congratulated him on his work as an inquisitor?

“We have to fight heresy, Brother Joan ... We have to seek out sin beneath people’s virtuous exteriors: in their bedrooms, their children, their spouses.”

And Joan had done the same. “You should not hesitate to use torture to obtain a confession.” He had done the same, tirelessly. What torture could they have used on Arnau for him to confess to heresy?

Joan quickened his pace. His filthy, shabby black habit hung stiffly down his legs.

“IT’S HIS FAULT I am in this situation,” Genis Puig said, pacing up and down the chamber. “I, who once had—”

“Money, women, and power,” the baron interrupted him.

But Genis paid no attention.

“My parents and brother died as starving peasants. They died from illnesses that thrive only among the poor, and I—”

“A mere knight who has no soldiers to offer the king,” the baron said, wearily finishing the phrase he had heard a thousand times.

Genis Puig came to a halt in front of Jaume, Llorenç de Bellera’s son.

“Do you think it’s amusing?”

The lord of Bellera did not move from the seat from which he had been watching Genis roving round the chamber in the keep of Navarcles castle.

“Yes,” he replied after a while. “Extremely amusing. Your reasons for hating Arnau Estanyol are grotesque compared to mine.”

Jaume de Bellera looked up toward the roof of the keep. “Will you please stop walking up and down?”

“How long will your man be?” Genis asked, still on the move.

Both of them were waiting for confirmation of the news Margarida Puig had hinted at in a previous letter. From Navarcles, Genis had convinced his sister stealthily to win the confidence of the baroness in the long hours Eleonor spent alone in the Puig family house. It was not difficult: Eleonor was desperate for a confidante who hated her husband as much as she did. It was Margarida who insinuated to Eleonor where the baron had come from that day. It was Margarida who had invented the adultery between Arnau and Raquel. And now that Arnau Estanyol had been arrested for having congress with a Jewess, Jaume de Bellera and Genis Puig were ready to take the next step as planned.

“The Inquisition has arrested Arnau Estanyol,” the captain confirmed as soon as he came into the keep.

“So Margarida was—” Genis exclaimed.

“Be quiet,” the lord of Bellera warned him from his seat. “Go on.”

“He was arrested three days ago, while presiding over the Consulate of the Sea tribunal.”

“What is he accused of?” asked the baron.