Cathedral of the Sea

“Now go and play,” the woman’s voice suddenly said, and she withdrew her hand. “Good-bye, Arnau. Look after my boy: you’re older than he is.” Arnau tried to say farewell, but the words would not come out. “Good-bye, my son,” the voice added. “Promise you’ll come and see me.”

“Of course I will, Mother.”

“Go now, both of you.”

THE TWO BOYS walked aimlessly down the noisy streets of the city center. Arnau waited for Joanet to explain, but when the boy said nothing, he finally plucked up the courage to ask:

“Why doesn’t your mother come out into the garden?”

“She is shut in,” Joanet told him.

“Why?”

“I don’t know. She just is.”

“Why don’t you climb in the window then?”

“Ponc has forbidden it.”

“Who is Ponc?”

“Ponc is my father.”

“Why has he forbidden it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why do you call him Pone instead of ‘Father’?”

“Because he’s forbidden that too.”

Arnau came to a halt and tugged at Joanet until the two were face-to-face.

“I don’t know the reason for that either,” the boy said quickly.

They carried on walking. Arnau was trying to make sense of all this, while Joanet was waiting for his new friend’s next question.

“What is your mother like?” Arnau finally asked.

“She’s always been shut in there,” Joanet said, trying to force a smile. “Once, when Pone was out of the city I tried to climb in, but she would not let me. She said she didn’t want me to see her.”

“Why are you smiling?”

Joanet walked on a few paces before replying.

“She always tells me I should smile.”

The rest of that morning, lost in thought, Arnau followed through the streets of Barcelona the dirty-looking boy who had never seen his mother’s face.

“His MOTHER STROKES his head through a small window in the hut,” Arnau whispered to his father that night, as they lay side by side on their pallet. “He’s never seen her. His father won’t allow him to, and nor will she.”

Bernat stroked his son’s hair exactly as Arnau had told him his new friend’s mother had done. The silence between them was broken only by the snores of the slaves and apprentices who shared the same room. Bernat wondered what offense the woman could have committed to deserve such a punishment.

Pone the coppersmith would have had no hesitation in telling him: “Adultery!” He had told the same story dozens of times to anyone who cared to listen.

“I caught her fornicating with her lover, a young stripling like her. They took advantage of the hours I was at the forge. Of course, I went to see the magistrate to insist on proper compensation according to the law.” The stocky smith obviously took delight in citing the law that had brought him justice. “Our princes are wise men, who know the evil of women. Only noblewomen have the possibility of refuting the charge of adultery under oath; all the others, like Joana, have to undergo a challenge and face the judgment of God.”

All those who had witnessed the challenge remembered how Pone had cut Joana’s young lover to ribbons: God had little possibility to judge between the coppersmith, hardened by his work in the forge, and the delicate, lovelorn young man.

The royal sentence was carried out as stipulated in the Laws and Usages: “If the woman should win the challenge, her husband will keep her honor-ably, and will meet all the expenses she and her friends might have incurred in this case and challenge, and will make good any harm to her champion. But if she is defeated, she and all her goods will become the possession of her husband.”