Cathedral of the Sea

It was a very complicated affair, Jucef added. On the one hand, Arnau was a very rich man, and the Inquisition was interested in his fortune; on the other, he was in the hands of a man like Nicolau Eimerich. Sahat had a strong memory of the arrogant inquisitor, who had occupied the post six years before he himself had left Catalonia, and whom he had seen at some religious ceremonies to which he had been obliged to accompany Arnau.Ever since you left, Eimerich has been gathering more and more power. He has not even been afraid to publicly challenge the monarch. For years, the king has not paid revenues to the pope, and as a result Urban IV has offered Sardinia to the lord of Arborea, the leader of the rebellion against the Catalans. And after the long war with Castille, there is unrest again among the Corsican nobles. Eimerich, who depends directly on the pope, has taken advantage of all this to openly oppose the king. He insists the Inquisition should have the right to try Jews and other non-Christians, God forbid! But the king, who is responsible for all the Jewries in Catalonia, is strongly opposed to this. Eimerich is still trying to convince the pope, who has no great wish to defend our monarch’s interests.But in addition to attempting to attack the Jewries, against the king’s interests, Eimerich has also dared denounce the works of the Catalan theologian Ramon Llull as heresy. For more than half a century now, Llull’s doctrines have been treated with respect by the Catalan Church. Seeing this attack as a personal insult, the king has appointed jurists and philosophers to defend his work.In view of all this, I am afraid that Eimerich will try to turn the trial against Arnau, a Catalan baron and consul of the sea, into a new confrontation with the king in order to cement still further his position, while at the same time securing a considerable fortune for the Inquisition. I understand that Eimerich has already written to Urban IV to inform him that he will keep what the king is owed by Arnau to pay the revenues Pedro owes him; so that at one and the same time the inquisitor can wreak his revenge on the king through a Catalan nobleman, and also strengthen his position with the pope.I also think that Arnau’s personal situation is delicate, if not desperate. His brother, Joan, is known to be a cruel inquisitor; his wife is the one who has made the accusation against him; my father is dead; and the rest of us, given the charge of befriending Jews and for his own good, dare not show our subbort for him. You are the only one he has left.