Cathedral of the Sea

“You don’t deserve any reprieve ... but Arnau might need you,” she said. “That’s the only thing preventing me killing you with my own bare hands here and now.”

The mule’s small, sharp hooves clopped their way along the track. Joan followed their rhythm, his eyes fixed on his feet. He had confessed everything to her: from his conversations with Eleonor to the hatred that had made him such a ferocious inquisitor. It was then that Mar had snatched off the blindfold and spat in his face.

The mule plodded on slowly and docilely toward Barcelona. To his left, Joan could smell the sea, accompanying him on his pilgrimage.

51

THE SUN WAS already beating down by the time Aledis left the Estanyer Inn and mingled with the people crossing Plaza de la Llana. Barcelona was wide awake. Some women, equipped with buckets, pots, and jars, were queueing at the Cadena well, next to the inn, while others were crowding round the butcher’s stall on the far side. They were all talking loudly and laughing. Aledis would have liked to have been out earlier, but donning her widow’s disguise—with the doubtful help of two girls who never ceased pestering her with questions about what was going to happen next, what was going to become of Francesca, if she were really going to be burned as a witch, as the noblemen had said—had taken her longer than she had anticipated. At least no one was staring at her as she walked down Calle Boria toward Plaza del Blat. Aledis felt odd: she had always attracted men’s attention and won scornful looks from women, but now, with the heat making her black robes stick to her, she looked all round and did not see anyone so much as giving her a second glance.

The noise from Plaza del Blat told her she could expect more people, more sun, more heat. She was perspiring heavily, and her breasts chafed against the coarse girdle wrapped tightly round them. Just before she reached Barcelona’s main market, Aledis turned right, heading for the shade of Calle de los Semolers. She walked up the street until she reached Plaza del Oli, where customers had come in search of the best olive oil or were buying bread at the stall. She crossed the square until she came to the San Joan fountain, where none of the women lined up gave her a second look either.

Turning to her left, Aledis soon arrived at the cathedral and the bishop’s palace. The day before they had thrown her out, calling her a witch. Would they recognize her now? The lad at the inn ... Aledis smiled while she searched for a side entrance; that lad was much more likely to have recognized her than any of the Inquisition’s soldiers.

“I’m looking for the jailer. I have a message for him,” she said in reply to the question from the guard at the door.

The soldier let her past, and showed her the way down to the dungeons.

As she advanced down the stairs, all light and colors gradually disappeared. At the foot, she found herself in an empty rectangular antechamber. It had a beaten earth floor and was lit by torches in the wall. At one end of the room, the jailer was resting his mounds of flesh on a stool; at the other was the beginning of a dark passageway.

The man studied her in silence as she approached him.

Aledis took a deep breath.

“I would like to see the old woman brought in yesterday,” she said, clinking her purse.

Without so much as moving or replying, the jailer spat close to her feet, and waved his hand dismissively. Aledis took a step back.

“No,” was all he said.

Aledis opened the purse. The man’s eyes greedily followed the gleam of coins that fell out on her hand. He had strict orders: no one was to enter the dungeons without express authorization by Nicolau Eimerich, and he had no wish to have to face the grand inquisitor. He knew what the grand inquisitor was like when he grew angry ... and the methods he used on those who disobeyed him. But those coins the woman was offering him ... And besides, hadn’t the official added that what the inquisitor really wanted to avoid was anyone having contact with the moneylender? And this woman did not want to see him; she was interested in the witch.

“All right,” he agreed.

NICOLAU THUMPED THE table.

“What can that idiot have thought he was doing?”

The young monk who had brought him the news started back. His brother, a wine merchant, had told him what had happened that same evening, while they were having supper in his house, with five children playing merrily in the background.

“It’s the best bit of business I’ve done in years,” his brother had told him. “Apparently Arnau’s brother the friar has given instructions to sell off commissions in order to raise money, and by God if he carries on this way, he’ll succeed: Arnau’s assistant is selling everything at half price.” At that, he raised his cup of wine and, still smiling, proposed a toast to Arnau.

When he heard the news, Nicolau fell silent. Then he flushed, and finally exploded. The young monk heard the orders he shouted to his captain: