Cathedral of the Sea (20 page)

“I’ve got four sons,” Jaume told him. “I’ll find it hard enough to pay you for the business ...” Grau encouraged him to go on: “I can’t take on all the responsibilities you have: the slaves, the craftsmen, the apprentices ... I wouldn’t even be able to feed them! If I want to succeed, I’m going to have to manage with my four sons.”

The date for the wedding was set. At the urging of Isabel’s father, Grau bought an expensive mansion in Calle de Montcada, where many of Barcelona’s noble families lived.

“Remember,” his father-in-law warned him as they left the new mansion, “you are not to go into church with a potter’s workshop still on your hands.”

They had inspected every nook and cranny of his new house. The baron had nodded condescendingly while Grau was mentally calculating how much it was going to cost him to fill all those rooms. In the mansion behind the gateway onto Calle de Montcada there was a cobbled yard. At the far end stood the stables, which took up most of the ground floor, together with the kitchens and the slaves’ bedrooms. On the right-hand side of the yard was a broad stone staircase, which led up to the first floor of the house proper, with the principal chambers and rooms. Above that there was another floor, with the family bedrooms. The whole mansion was made of stone; the two principal floors had rows of Gothic windows that gave onto the yard.

“Very well,” Grau said to the man who for years had been his chief assistant, “you are free of those responsibilities.”

They signed the contract that very day. Grau proudly took it to show his future father-in-law.

“I’ve sold the workshop,” he announced.

“My lord baron,” the other man said, holding out his hand.

“What now?” Grau thought when he was alone again. “The slaves are no problem; I’ll keep those that are of use to me, and those who aren’t... can be sold. As for the craftsmen and apprentices ...”

Grau spoke to the other members of the guild and was able to place them all for modest sums. The only ones left were his brother-in-law and his son. Bernat had no official position within the guild: he was not even a certified craftsman. Nobody would have him in their workshop, even if it was not forbidden. The boy had not even begun his apprenticeship, but there was the question of the contract. Besides, how could Grau possibly ask anyone to take on members of the Estanyol family? Everybody would find out that those two fugitives were his relatives. They were called Estanyol, just like Guiamona. Everybody would discover that he had sheltered two landless serfs, and now that he was to become a nobleman ... weren’t the nobles the fiercest enemies of all runaway serfs? Wasn’t it they who were trying to put pressure on the king to abolish the laws allowing serfs to leave the land? How could he become a noble if the name of the Estanyol family was on everyone’s lips? What would his father-in-law say?

“You are to come with me,” he told Bernat, who for several days now had been worried by the new turn of events.

As the new owner of the workshop, and consequently free of any commitment to Grau, Jaume had sat Bernat down earlier and talked openly to him. “Grau won’t dare do anything to you. I know, because he told me as much. He doesn’t want people to hear of your situation. I’ve got a good deal here, Bernat. He is in a hurry; he wants everything settled before he marries Isabel. You have a signed contract for your son. You should take advantage of that, and put pressure on that rogue. Threaten to take him to the tribunal. You are a good man. I hope you understand that everything that has happened in these past years ...”

Bernat did understand. And, thanks to the former assistant’s support, he decided to go and confront his brother-in-law.

“What was that you said?” shouted Grau when Bernat answered him with a brief “Where and what for?” “Where I say, and for whatever I wish,” he went on, nervously flinging his arms in the air.

“We are not your slaves, Grau.”

“You don’t have much choice.”

Bernat cleared his throat, then followed Jaume’s advice.

“I could go to the tribunal.”

Tense, shaken, Grau raised his small, skinny body out of his chair, but Bernat did not back down, however much he would have liked to have run from the room: the threat of the tribunal worked wonders.

HE AND HIS
son would look after the horses that Grau had been forced to buy along with the mansion. “You can’t possibly have empty stables,” his father-in-law had commented in passing, as though talking to a slow child. Grau was busy adding up all the costs in his mind. “My daughter Isabel has always had horses,” the other man added.

But the most important thing for Bernat was the good wage he obtained for himself and for Arnau, who was also going to start working with the horses. They could live outside the mansion, in a room of their own, without slaves or apprentices. He and his son would have enough money to get by.

It was Grau himself who urged Bernat to annul Arnau’s existing contract as a potter’s apprentice and to sign a new one.

EVER SINCE HE
had been granted the status of a freeman, Bernat had seldom left Grau’s workshop. Whenever he had done so, it had been on his own or with Arnau. It did not seem as though there were any outstanding warrants against him: his name was registered on the list of Barcelona citizens. Every time he went out into the street, he reassured himself, thinking that they would surely have come for him by now. What he most liked was to walk down to the beach and join the dozens of men who worked on the sea. He would stand staring out at the horizon, feeling the sea breeze on his face and enjoying the tangy smells from the beach, the boats, the tar ...

It was almost ten years since he had struck the lad at the forge. He hoped he had not killed him. Arnau and Joanet were scampering around him, staring up at him bright-eyed, smiles on their lips.

“Our own house!” Arnau had shouted earlier. “Let’s live in La Ribera, please!”

“I’m afraid it will be only one room,” Bernat had tried to explain, but his son went on smiling as though they were moving to the city’s grandest palace.

“It’s not a bad area,” Jaume said when Bernat told him his son’s suggestion. “You can find a good room there.”

That was where the three of them were heading now. The boys were running around as usual; Bernat was carrying their few belongings.

On the way down to Santa Maria church, the two boys never stopped greeting people they met.

“This is my father!” Arnau shouted to a
bastaix
weighed down under a sack of grain, pointing to Bernat, who was some twenty yards behind them.

The
bastaix
smiled but continued walking, bent double under his load. Arnau turned and started to run back toward his father, but then realized Joanet was not following him.

“Come on,” he said, waving to him.

Joaner shook his head.

“What’s wrong?”

The little boy lowered his head.

“He is your father,” he muttered. “What will become of me now?”

He was right. Everyone they knew thought they were brothers. Arnau had not considered that.

“Come on, run with me,” he said, tugging at Joanet’s sleeve.

Bernat watched them approach: Arnau was pulling at Joanet, who seemed reluctant. “Congratulations for your sons,” said the
bastaix
as he walked past. Bernat smiled. The two boys had been playing together for more than a year now. What about little Joanet’s mother? Bernat imagined him sitting on the crate, having his head stroked by an arm that had no face. A lump rose in his throat.

“Father—” Arnau began to say when they reached him.

Joanet hid behind his friend.

“Boys,” Bernat interrupted his son, “I think that...”

“Father, how would you like to be Joanet’s father too?” Arnau said hurriedly.

Bernat saw the smaller boy peep out from behind Arnau’s back.

“Come here, Joanet,” said Bernat. “Would you like to be my son?” he asked, as the boy approached.

Joanet’s face lit up.

“Does that mean yes?”

The boy clung to his leg. Arnau beamed at him.

“Now go and play,” said Bernat, his voice choking with emotion.

THE BOYS TOOK Bernat to meet Father Albert.

 

“I’m sure he can help us,” said Arnau. Joanet nodded.

“This is our father!” the smaller boy said, rushing in front of Arnau and repeating the words he had been telling everyone on their way to the church, even those they knew only by sight.

Father Albert asked the boys to leave them for a while. He offered Bernat a cup of sweet wine while he listened to his story.

“I know where you can stay,” he told him. “They are good people. Now tell me, Bernat: you’ve found a good job for Arnau. He’ll earn a wage and will learn a trade. There is always a need for grooms. But what about your other son? What are your plans for Joaner?”

Bernat looked uncomfortable, and told the priest the truth.

Father Albert took them to the house of Pere and his wife. They were an old, childless couple who lived in a small, two-story house close to the beach. The kitchen was on the ground floor, and there were three rooms above it, one of which they could rent.

The whole way there, and while he was introducing them to Pere and his wife, then watching Bernat offer them payment, Father Albert held Joanet firmly by the shoulder. How could he have been so blind? Why had he not realized how much the little boy suffered? To think of all the occasions he had seen him sitting there, gazing into space with a lost look on his face!

Father Albert pulled the boy toward him. Joanet glanced up and smiled.

The room was simple but clean. The only furniture was two mattresses on the floor, the only company the sound of the waves on the beach. Arnau strained to hear the noise of the men working on Santa Maria, which was behind them nearby. They ate the stew that Pere’s wife prepared most days. Arnau looked down at the food, then looked up and smiled at his father. Estranya’s concoctions were a thing of the past now! The three of them ate heartily, watched by the old woman, who seemed ready to refill their bowls whenever they wished.

“Time for bed,” said Bernat, when he had eaten his fill. “We have to work tomorrow.”

Joanet hesitated. He stared at Bernat and, when everybody had got up from the table, headed for the door.

“This is no time to be going out, son,” said Bernat, in front of the old couple.