Cathedral of the Sea

“Holy Mother of God! What... What have they done to you? How are you?” Joan felt Arnau’s head: the hair was matted; his cheekbones were beginning to stand out from the gaunt cheeks. “Don’t they feed you?”

“Yes,” Arnau replied. “A crust of bread and water.”

When Joan’s fingers came up against the shackles round his brother’s ankles, he quickly drew his hands away.

“Could you do something for me?” asked Arnau. Joan said nothing. “You’re one of them. You’ve always told me the grand inquisitor holds you in great esteem. This is unbearable, Joan. I don’t know how many days I’ve been in here. I was waiting for you...”

“I came as soon as I could.”

“Have you spoken to the grand inquisitor?”

“Yes.” Despite the darkness, Joan tried to hide his features. The two of them fell silent.

“And?” asked Arnau eventually.

“What have you done, Arnau?”

Arnau’s hand tightened on Joan’s arm. “How could you think that ... ?”

“I need to know, Arnau. If I’m to help you, I need to know what they are accusing you of. You must be aware that they never say what the accusation is. Nicolau refused to tell me.”

“So, what did you talk about?”

“Nothing,” Joan said. “I didn’t want to talk about anything with him until I had seen you. I need to know what sort of accusation they are making if I am to convince Nicolau.”

“Go and ask Eleonor.” Arnau remembered how he had seen his wife pointing at him through the flames licking around the body of an innocent man. “Hasdai is dead,” he said.

“Eleonor?” queried Joan.

“Does that surprise you?”

Joan lost his balance, and leaned on Arnau for support.

“What’s the matter, Joan?” his brother asked, trying to steady him.

“It’s this place... and seeing you like this... I feel faint.”

“Get out of here then,” Arnau encouraged him. “You’ll be more use to me on the outside than you will be trying to comfort me in here.”

Joan stood up. His legs were weak. “Yes, I think you’re right.”

Joan called the jailer and left the dungeon. He followed the fat man back up the passageway. He had a few coins on him.

“Take these,” he said. The jailer put them in his purse without a word. “Tomorrow there’ll be more if you treat my brother properly.” The only sound was from rats scurrying along the passage. “Did you hear me?” he insisted. This time the reply was a deep growl that at least silenced the rats.

JOAN NEEDED MONEY. As soon as he left the bishop’s palace, he headed for Arnau’s exchange table. When he arrived, he saw a crowd outside the small building on the corner of Canvis Vells and Canvis Nous from which Arnau had conducted his business affairs. Joan drew back.

“That’s his brother!” one of the crowd shouted.

Several of them rushed up to him. Joan was about to turn tail, but stopped when he saw that they had come to a halt a few steps from him. Of course they would not attack a Dominican. He stood as upright as possible and carried on walking.

“What’s happened to your brother, Friar?” one of the men asked as he passed by.

Joan confronted a man who was a good head taller than him.

“My name is Brother Joan. I’m an inquisitor with the Holy Office,” he said, raising his voice as he explained his position. “When you speak to me, call me ‘my lord inquisitor.’”

Joan looked up, staring the man straight in the eye. “What sins do you have to confess?” he inquired silently. The man took a couple of steps backward. Joan strode on toward the exchange, the crowd giving way before him.

“I am Brother Joan, an inquisitor from the Holy Office!” he shouted outside the closed doors of the building.

Three of Arnau’s assistants allowed him in. The room inside was in turmoil : account books were strewn all over the rumpled red cloth covering his brother’s money table. If Arnau could have seen it ...

“I need money,” he told them.

The three men looked at him in disbelief.

“So do we,” responded the eldest, a man by the name of Remigi who had taken over from Guillem.

“What’s that?”

“We have hardly any money left, Brother Joan.” Remigi opened several money boxes on the table. “Look, there’s nothing in them.”

“Doesn’t my brother have money?”

“Not in cash. Why do you think there are all those people outside? They want their money. They’ve been besieging us for days now. Arnau is still a very rich man,” he said, trying to reassure the friar, “but it’s all invested—in loans, commissions, in business deals...”

“Can’t you demand repayment of the loans?”

“The main debtor is the king, and you know that His Majesty’s coffers are...”

“Is there no one who owes Arnau money?”

“Yes, lots of people do, but either they are loans that have not come to term, or ones that have, but... You know Arnau lent money to many people who have nothing. They can’t pay him back. Even so, when they heard about his situation, many of them came and paid back part of what they owed him, what little they could afford. But that is no more than a gesture. We cannot hope to cover all the deposits that way.”

Joan turned back and pointed to the door. “So how is it that they can demand their money?”