Cathedral of the Sea

“In fact, they don’t have the right to. They all deposited their funds for Arnau to use on their behalf, but money is slippery, and the Inquisition...”

Joan gestured for him to forget that he was also a member of the Holy Office. The jailer’s growl echoed in his ears.

“I need money,” he repeated out loud.

“I’ve already told you, there isn’t any,” Remigi protested.

“But I need some,” Joan insisted. “Arnau needs it.”

“Arnau needs it, and above all,” thought Joan, turning to look at the door again, “he needs breathing space. This scandal can only do him harm. People will think he is ruined, and then no one will want to know him ... We’ll need help.”

“Is there nothing we can do to calm those people down? Is there nothing we can sell?”

“We could pass on some commissions. We could put the creditors together in them, instead of Arnau,” said Remigi. “But to do that, we would need his authority.”

“Is mine enough?”

The official stared at him.

“It has to be done, Remigi.”

“I suppose you’re right,” the other man said after a few moments’ thought. “In fact, we would not be losing money. We would simply be switching things around. They could keep some investments. We would still have others. If Arnau were not involved, that would calm them down ... but you will have to give me your written authority.”

Remigi quickly prepared a document. Joan signed it. “Gather some money by first thing tomorrow,” he said as he signed. “It’s cash we need,” he insisted when the assistant looked at him hesitantly. “Sell something off cheaply if necessary, but we must have money.”

As soon as Joan had left the exchange house and calmed down the creditors outside once more, Remigi began to redistribute the investments. That same afternoon, the last ship leaving Barcelona carried with it instructions for Arnau’s agents all over the Mediterranean. Remigi acted swiftly; by the next day, the satisfied creditors were spreading the news that Arnau’s business affairs were sound.

48

FOR THE FIRST time in almost a week, Arnau drank fresh water and ate something other than a crust of bread. The jailer forced him to his feet by kicking him, and then sluiced a bucket of water on the floor. “Better water than excrement,” thought Arnau. For a few seconds, all that could be heard was the water splashing on the stones, and the obese jailer’s labored breathing. Even the old woman who had given herself up to death and kept her face buried in her filthy rags looked up at Arnau.

“Leave the bucket,” the bastaix ordered the jailer as he was about to leave.

Arnau had seen him mistreat prisoners just because they had dared to meet his gaze. Now the jailer lunged at him with outstretched arms, but when he saw Arnau defying him, he pulled away just before making contact. He spat, and threw the bucket on the ground. Before he shut the door behind him, he kicked at one of the shadows looking on.

After the ground had absorbed the water, Arnau sat down again. He could hear a church bell ringing. That and the feeble rays of sun that managed to penetrate the filthy window that was at street level outside were his only links to the world. Arnau raised his eyes to the tiny window and strained to hear more. Santa Maria was bathed in light, but did not yet have any bells, and yet the sound of chisels on stone, the hammering on timbers, and the workmen’s calls on the scaffolding could be heard some distance from the church. Whenever the distant echo of those sounds reached the dungeons, that and the sunlight transported Arnau’s spirit to accompany all those working so devotedly for the Virgin of the Sea. Arnau felt once more the weight of that first block of stone he had carried to Santa Maria. How long ago had that been? How things had changed! He had been little more than a boy, a boy who’d found in the Virgin the mother he had never known...

At least, thought Arnau, he had managed to save Raquel from the terrible fate that seemed to await her. As soon as he had seen Eleonor and Margarida pointing to them, Arnau had made sure Raquel and her family fled the Jewish quarter. Not even he knew where they had gone ...

“I want you to go and look for Mar,” he told Joan on his next visit.

Still two paces away from his brother, the friar tensed.

“Did you hear me, Joan?” Arnau tried to approach him, but the chains cut into his legs. Joan had not moved. “Joan, did you hear me?”

“Yes... yes... I heard you.” Joan went up to his brother and embraced him. “But... ,” he started to say.

“I have to see her, Joan.” He gripped him by the shoulders and gently shook him. “I don’t want to die without speaking to her again...”

“My God! Don’t say that... !”

“Yes, Joan. I might well die in here, all alone, with only a dozen helpless unfortunates as witness. I don’t want to perish without having had the chance to see Mar. It’s something ...”

“What do you want to say to her? What can be that important?”