Cathedral of the Sea (87 page)

He stood close to Joan for a few seconds.

“By God, you stink!” he said, leaping away from him. He waved his arms in the air once more. “You smell like a peasant.” He paced the room muttering to himself, before he finally sat down again. “The Inquisition has taken possession of your brother’s account books. There will be no more selling.” Joan did not move. “I’ve forbidden all visits to the dungeons, so do not try to see him. His trial will start in a few days.”

Still Joan did not react.

“Didn’t you hear me, Friar? Within a few days I’ll sit in judgment on your brother!”

Nicolau thumped the table.

“That’s enough! Get out of here!”

Joan dragged the hem of his filthy habit across the shiny floor tiles of the grand inquisitor’s office.

JOAN PAUSED IN the doorway to allow his eyes to get accustomed to the bright sunlight. Mar was standing there waiting for him, the mule’s halter in her hand. He had brought her here from her farmhouse... How could he possibly tell her that the grand inquisitor had forbidden any visits to Arnau? How was he going to bear that sense of guilt on top of all the rest?

“Are you going out, Friar?” he heard behind him.

Joan turned, and found himself confronted by a widow in black. Her face was streaming with tears.

They looked at each other.

“Joan?” the woman asked.

Those big brown eyes. That face...

“Joan?” she asked again. “Joan, it’s me, Aledis. Don’t you remember me?”

“The tanner’s daughter ... ,” Joan started to say.

“What’s going on, Friar?”

Mar had walked up to the doorway. Aledis saw Joan turn toward the newcomer, then back at her, and once again toward the woman with the mule.

“A childhood friend,” he said. “Aledis, this is Mar. Mar, this is Aledis.”

The two women nodded at each other.

“This is no place to stand and talk!” The guard’s barked command startled all three of them. “Clear the doorway, will you?”

“We’ve come to see Arnau Estanyol,” said Mar, still gripping the mule’s halter.

The soldier looked her up and down. A mocking smile appeared on his lips.

“The moneylender?” he asked.

“Yes,” said Mar.

“The grand inquisitor has forbidden any visits to him.”

He went to push Aledis and Joan out of the doorway.

“Why has he done that?” asked Mar, as the other two stepped out into the street.

“You should ask the friar here that,” said the soldier, gesturing toward Joan.

The three of them moved away from the palace.

“I should have killed you yesterday.”

Aledis saw Joan lower his eyes to the ground. He said nothing. Then she studied the woman with the mule, standing there proud and erect. What could have happened the day before? Joan made no attempt to hide his battered face, and his companion wanted to see Arnau. Who could this woman be? Arnau was married to the baroness. It was she who had stood beside him on the platform at Montbui castle when he had renounced all his privileges ...

“Arnau’s trial is to start in a few days’ time ...”

Mar and Aledis came to an abrupt halt. Joan walked on a few paces, until he realized the women were no longer with him. When he turned back toward them, he saw they were looking intently at each other, as though asking, “Who are you?”

“I doubt whether the friar ever had a childhood ... and still less knew anything about girls,” said Mar.

Aledis met her gaze. Mar stood there proudly; her bright young eyes seemed to want to pierce her through. Even the mule appeared to be listening to her every word, its ears pricked.

“You are nothing if not blunt,” Aledis told her.

“That’s what life has taught me.”

“Thirty years ago, if my parents had given their consent, I would have been married to Arnau.”

“And six years ago, if I’d been treated like a human being rather than an animal,” Mar said, glancing at Joan, “I would still be at Arnau’s side.”

The two women fell silent as they again measured each other with their gaze.

“But I haven’t seen Arnau in twenty years,” Aledis finally admitted. “I’m not trying to compete with you,” she was trying to tell her, in a language only two women could understand.

Mar shifted her weight from one leg to the other and relaxed her grip on the mule’s halter. She rolled her eyes, and stopped challenging Aledis.

“I live outside Barcelona. Do you have anywhere to put me up?” she asked after a few moments.

“I live outside the city as well. I am being put up ... with my daughters, in the Estanyer Inn. But we could arrange something,” she added quickly when she saw Mar hesitate. “What about him?” Aledis pointed her chin at Joan.

The two women surveyed him, standing there with his bruised face and his filthy, torn habit hanging down from his stooped shoulders.

“He has a lot to explain,” said Mar, “and we might need him. He can sleep with the mule.”

Joan waited for the two women to set off again, then followed a few steps behind.

“‘WHY ARE you here?’ she will ask me. ‘What were you doing in the bishop’s palace?’” Aledis cast a sideways glance at her new companion; she was walking on serenely, pulling at the mule, and not stepping aside for anyone they came across on the way. What could have happened between Mar and Joan? The friar seemed completely crushed ... How on earth could a Dominican allow a woman to send him to sleep with a mule? They crossed Plaza del Blat. Aledis had admitted she knew Arnau, but had not told them she had seen him in the dungeons, begging for her to come close. “What about Francesca? What should I tell them about her? That she’s my mother? No. Joan knew who she was, and knows she wasn’t called Francesca. My dead husband’s mother? What will they say when she is brought in during Arnau’s trial? I ought to have an answer. And when they find out she is a whore? How could my mother-in-law be a whore? Better to pretend I know nothing: but then what was I doing in the bishop’s palace?”

“OH,” ALEDIS REPLIED when Mar asked her the question, “it was some business related to my deceased husband. Since we were passing through Barcelona ...”

Eulalia and Teresa glanced at her, but carried on eating out of their bowls. The two women had reached the inn and persuaded the innkeeper to place a third straw pallet in the room where Aledis and her daughters were staying. When she told him he had to sleep in the stable with the mule, Joan made no demur.

“Whatever you may hear,” Aledis whispered to the girls, “don’t say a thing. Try to avoid answering any questions, and remember: we don’t know anyone called Francesca.”

The five of them sat down to eat.

“Well, Friar,” Mar began, “why has the inquisitor forbidden all visits to Arnau?”

Joan had not touched his food.

“I needed money for the jailer,” he said wearily, “and since Arnau’s business had no cash, I ordered the sale of some of his commissions. Eimerich thought I was trying to get rid of Arnau’s fortune so that the Inquisition could not get hold of it ...”

At that moment, the lord of Bellera and Genis Puig came in. They both beamed when they saw the girls.

“Joan,” Aledis said quickly, “yesterday those two noblemen were bothering my daughters, and I have the impression that their intentions... Could you help me make sure they don’t trouble my daughters again?”

Joan turned toward the two men while they stood there ogling Teresa and Eulàlia, obviously remembering the previous night. When they caught sight of Joan’s black habit, their smiles vanished. The friar looked at them steadily, and the two nobles sat down quietly at their table, then stared down at the food the innkeeper had brought them.

“On what charges are they trying Arnau?” Aledis asked Joan when he turned his attention back to them.

SAHAT WATCHED AS the final preparations were made for the ship bound for Marseilles to leave port. It was a solid, single-masted galley, with a rudder at the stern and two at the sides, and with room for 120 oarsmen.

“It is a very rapid and safe ship,” Filippo told him. “They’ve had several scrapes with pirates and have always managed to escape. You’ll be in Marseilles in three or four days.” Sahat nodded. “From there you’ll have no problem finding a cargo vessel bound for Barcelona.”

As he pointed to the galley with his stick, Filippo clung to Sahat with his other hand. Officials, traders, and workmen alike greeted him as they went past, and then did the same with Sahat, the Moor he was leaning on for support.

“The weather is fine,” Filippo added, this time pointing his cane up at the sky. “You won’t have any problems.”

The galley captain came to the side of the ship and waved at Filippo.

“I have the feeling I may not see you again,” said the old man. Sahat turned to look at him, but Filippo clung to him even more tightly. “I’m growing old, Sahat.”

The two men embraced at the foot of the ship.

“Take care of my affairs,” Sahat said, stepping back.

“I will, and when I am no longer able to,” Filippo said in a shaky voice, “my sons will carry on for me. Then, wherever you may be, it will be for you to give them a helping hand.”

“I will,” Sahat promised in turn.

Filippo drew Sahat to him again and kissed him full on the lips. The crowd waiting for this last passenger to come aboard murmured at this show of affection from Filippo Tescio.

“Godspeed,” the old man said.

Sahat ordered the two slaves carrying his possessions to go on ahead, then went on board himself. By the time he had emerged at the galley’s side, Filippo had vanished.

The sea was calm. There was no wind, but the galley sped along thanks to the efforts of its 120 oarsmen.

“I didn’t have the courage,” wrote Jucef in his letter after he had explained what had happened following the theft of the host, “to escape from the Jewry to be with my father in his final moments. I hope he understands, wherever he may be now.”