Cathedral of the Sea

“Do you see those buttresses?” the priest replied, pointing to two of the ones being built as the back part of the ambulatory, behind the main altar. “In between them they are going to construct the first chapel, dedicated to the Lord Jesus. That’s where they will put the Virgin, together with the body of Christ and the sepulcher containing Saint Eulàlia’s remains. That way she will come to no harm.”

“Who will look after her?”

“Don’t worry,” said the priest with a smile. “The Virgin will be well looked after. The Jesus chapel belongs to the bastaix guild; they are the ones who will have the key to its railings, and will make sure she is looked after.”

Arnau and Joanet knew the bastaixos well by now. Angel had reeled off their names when a line of them appeared, bowed beneath their enormous stones: Ramon, the first one they had met; Guillem, as hard as the rocks he carried on his back, tanned by the sun and with a face horribly disfigured by an accident, but gentle and affectionate in his dealings with them; another Ramon, known as “Little Ramon” because he was smaller and stockier than the other one; Miquel, a scrawny man who did not look strong enough to carry the huge weights, but who succeeded in doing so by straining all the nerves and tendons in his body until it seemed they might explode; Sebastìa, the least friendly or talkative of the group, with his son Bastianet. Then there were Pere, Jaume, and a seemingly endless list of others, all of them men from La Ribera who had committed themselves to carrying the thousands of stones needed for the new church from the royal quarry at La Roca to Santa Maria de la Mar.

Arnau thought of the bastaixos, and the way they gazed at the church as they arrived bent double under the weight of a stone; the way they smiled when they were relieved of their load; the mighty strength of their backs. He was sure they would look after the Virgin.

THE OPERATION BERENGUER de Montagut had told them about took place within the next week.

“Come at first light tomorrow,” Angel had told them. “That’s when we’ll put the keystone in place.”

The two boys made sure they were there. They ran toward the workmen who had gathered at the foot of the scaffolding. Between laborers, bastaixos,

and priests, there must have been more than a hundred people present. Even Father Albert had taken off his robe and was dressed like all the rest, with a thick piece of red cloth tied round his waist.

Arnau and Joanet joined the throng, saying hello to some and waving at others.

“Boys,” they heard one of the masons say, “when we start to raise the keystone, I want you to stay well away from here.”

The two boys nodded in agreement.

“Where is the stone?” Joanet asked, looking up at the builder.

They ran over to where he pointed, at the foot of the first and lowest scaffold.

“Good heavens!” they both exclaimed when they saw the huge circular stone on the ground.

Many of the men stared at it as admiringly as they did, but said nothing. They knew how important this day was.

“It weighs more than six tons,” one of them said.

With eyes like saucers, Joaner looked inquiringly at Ramon, the first man they had seen carrying a block of stone.

“No,” he said, reading the boy’s mind. “We didn’t carry this one here.”

There was nervous laughter at his comment, but it soon died away. Arnau and Joanet watched the men file past, looking alternately at the stone and at the top of the scaffolding: they had to raise more than six tons some thirty yards in the air, by pulling on cables!

“If anything goes wrong ... ,” the boys heard one of the men say as he crossed himself.

“We’ll be caught underneath,” another man replied, twisting his lips.

No one was standing still. Even Father Albert, in his strange attire, kept moving among them, encouraging them, slapping them on the back, ralking animatedly. The old church stood there in the midst of all the people and the mass of scaffolding. Curious onlookers from the city began to gather at a safe distance.

Finally, Berenguer de Montagut appeared. He gave nobody time to stop and greet him, but leapt onto the lowest level of scaffolding and began to address all those present. As he did so, some masons tied a huge pulley round the stone.

“As you can see,” he shouted, “we have rigged up tackle at the top of the scaffolding so that we can raise the keystone. The pulleys up there and the ones round the stone are made up of three separate sets, each of which has another three coming off them. As you know, we cannot use capstans or wheels, because we need to move the stone sideways as well. There are three cables to each pulley system. They go all the way up to the top, and back down again.” He pointed out the path of the cables; a hundred heads followed his gesture. “I want you to form three groups around me.”