Cathedral of the Sea

“Keep going!” Joan whispered, adding his voice to the clamor that had arisen. The bastaixos were smiling. As each of them deposited his stone on the ground, the shouts grew louder. Afterward, they were handed water-skins, which they raised high over their heads for the contents to run off their faces before they drank. Joan saw himself running along the beach to offer the bastaixos Bernat’s waterskin. Then he raised his eyes to the heavens. He had to go and find her: if that was the penitence the Lord was imposing on him, he would seek out Mar and confess the truth. He went round Santa Maria to Plaza del Born, then Pla d’en Llull and Santa Clara convent, leaving Barcelona by the San Daniel gate.

IT WAS NOT difficult for Aledis to find the lord of Bellera and Genis Puig. Apart from the corn exchange, where visiting merchants stayed, Barcelona had only five inns. She ordered Teresa and Eulàlia to hide on the way out to Montjuic hill until she came to fetch them. Aledis was silent as she watched them walk away, fond memories flooding her mind ...

When she could no longer see the bright gleam of their robes, she began her search. She went first to the Del Bou Inn, close by the bishop’s palace and Plaza Nova. When she appeared at the kitchen door to the rear of the inn, the scullion boy rudely shooed her away when she asked for the lord of Bellera. At the De la Massa Inn in Portaferrissa, also near the bishop’s palace, a woman kneading bread told her no two such gentlemen were staying there. So Aledis headed for the Estanyer Inn, on Plaza de la Llana. There another young lad brazenly stared her up and down.

“Who wants to know about the lord of Bellera?” he asked.

“My mistress,” replied Aledis. “She has been following him from Navarcles.”

The lad was tall and thin as a rake. He stared at Aledis’s breasts, then reached out his right hand and fondled one.

“What interest does your mistress have in this nobleman?”

Aledis did not move away, but stifled a smile. “It’s not for me to know.” The lad began to rub her breasts more vigorously. Aledis stepped closer to him and brushed the top of his thigh. He tensed. “But,” Aledis said, drawling her words, “if they are staying here, I may have to spend the night sleeping in the garden whilst my mistress...” By now she was stroking his groin.

“This morning,” the lad stammered, “two gentlemen came asking for somewhere to stay.”

This time, Aledis smiled openly. For a moment she thought of leaving the boy, but then ... why not? It had been so long since she had felt a young, clumsy body on top of her, someone driven only by passion ...

She pushed him into a small hut. The first time, the lad did not even have time to remove his hose, but after that Aledis was able to take advantage of every thrust of this casual object of her desire.

When Aledis stood up to get dressed again, the youth was lying on his back on the ground. He was out of breath, and staring blindly up at the rafters on the roof of the hut.

“If you see me again,” Aledis told him, “whatever happens, remember you don’t know me!”

She had to repeat this twice before she could secure his promise.

“YOU TWO WILL be my daughters,” she told Teresa and Eulàlia as she gave them the dresses she had just bought. “I have been recently widowed, and we are in Barcelona on our way to Girona, where we are hoping one of my brothers will take us in. We have been left with nothing. Your father was a tradesman ... a tanner from Tarragona.”

“For someone who has just become a widow and has been left with nothing, you look very cheerful,” Eulàlia exclaimed as she took off her green robe and smiled at Teresa.

“It’s true,” the other girl agreed. “You need to avoid looking so pleased with yourself. It’s as though you had just met—”

“Don’t worry,” Aledis intervened. “When necessary I’ll display all the grief that befits a recent widow.”

“And until it becomes necessary,” Teresa insisted, “could you not forget the widow and tell us why it is you are looking so happy?”

The two girls laughed out loud at her story. Hidden among the bushes on the slopes of Montjuic hill, Aledis could not help noticing how perfect and sensual their naked bodies were ... such was youth. For a brief moment, she saw herself on the same spot, many years earlier ...

“Ow!” Eulàlia protested. “This... scratches.”

Aledis stopped daydreaming and saw Eulàlia wearing a long, washed-out smock that came down to her ankles.

“The orphaned daughters of a tanner don’t wear silk.”

“But... does it have to be this?” protested Eulàlia, pulling at the cloth with her fingers.

“It’s quite normal,” Aledis insisted. “Anyway, you have both forgotten something.”

Aledis showed them two strips of clothing that were as faded and shapeless as their smocks. They came to get a closer look.

“What is it?” asked Teresa.

“They’re girdles, and are used to ...”

“No, you can’t want us to wear...”