Cathedral of the Sea полностью

Joan ran out of the house. As soon as he had gone, Arnau tried to stretch. He could not move a single muscle. They had all seized up, and he felt stiff from head to toe. Bit by bit, however, his young body came back to life, and after eating a frugal breakfast he went out into the sunshine. He smiled when he saw the beach, the sea, and the six galleys still at anchor in the port.

Ramon and Josep made him show them his back.

“One trip,” the guild alderman told Ramon before rejoining the group. “Then he can go to the chapel.”

Arnau turned to look at Ramon as he struggled to replace his shirt.

“You heard him,” Ramon said.

“But...”

“Do as you’re told, Arnau. Josep knows what he is doing.”

He did. As soon as Arnau lifted the first jar onto his back, his wound started bleeding again.

“But if it has started bleeding already,” he said when Ramon unloaded his jar of grain on the beach behind him, “what’s the problem if I make a few more journeys?”

“The callus, Arnau, the hard skin. The idea is not to destroy your back, but to let the hard skin form. Now go and wash, put more ointment on, and get down to our chapel in Santa Maria ...” As Arnau made to protest, Ramon insisted: “It’s our chapel—it’s your chapel, Arnau. We have to look after it.”

“My boy,” said the bastaix who had carried the jar with Ramon, “that chapel means a lot to us. We’re nothing more than port workers, but La Ribera has offered us something that no nobleman or wealthy guild has: the Jesus chapel and the keys to the church of Santa Maria de la Mar. Do you understand what that means?” Arnau nodded thoughtfully. “There can be no greater honor for any of us. You’ll have plenty of time to load and unload; don’t worry about that.”

Mariona tended his back, and then Arnau headed for Santa Maria. He went to find Father Albert to get the keys to the chapel, but the priest first took him to the cemetery outside Las Moreres gate.

“This morning I buried your father,” he told him, pointing to the cemetery. Puzzled, Arnau looked at him. “I didn’t want to tell you in case any soldiers appeared. The magistrate decided he did not want people to see your father’s burned body either in Plaza del Blat or above the city gates. He was frightened others might do the same. It wasn’t hard to convince him to let me bury the body.”

They both stood silently outside the cemetery for a while.

“Would you like me to leave you on your own?” the priest eventually asked.

“I have to clean the bastaixos’ chapel,” said Arnau, wiping away his tears.

For several days after that, Arnau made only one trip carrying a load, then went back to the chapel. The galleys had already weighed anchor, and the goods from the merchant ships were the usual items of trade: fabrics, coral, spices, copper, wax ... Then one day, Arnau’s back did not bleed. Josep inspected it again, and Arnau spent the whole day carrying heavy bundles of cloth, smiling at every bastaix he met on the way.

He was also paid his first wage. Barely a few pence more than he had earned working for Grau! He gave it all to Pere, together with a few coins he still had from Bernat’s purse. “It’s not enough,” the boy thought as he counted out the coins. Bernat used to pay Pere a lot more. He peered inside the purse again. That would not last very long, he realized. His hand still inside the purse, he looked at the old man. Pere grimaced.

“When I can carry more,” said Arnau, “I’ll earn more.”

“You know as well as I do that will take time, Arnau. And before that, your father’s purse will be empty. You know this house isn’t mine ... No, it isn’t,” he added, when the boy looked up at him in surprise. “Most of the houses in the city belong to the Church: to the bishop or a religious order. We have them only in emphyteusis, a long lease for which we pay rent every year. You know how little I can work, so I rely on the money from the room to be able to pay. If you can’t cover it... what am I to do?”

“So what’s the point of being free if citizens are chained to their houses just as peasants are to their lands?” asked Arnau, shaking his head.

“We’re not chained to them,” Pere said patiently.

“But I’ve heard that all these houses are passed down from father to son; they even get sold! How is that possible if they don’t belong to you? Are you not tied to them?”

“That’s easy to understand, Arnau. The Church is very rich in lands and properties, but according to its laws it cannot sell ecclesiastical possessions.” Arnau tried to intervene, but Pere raised a hand to stop him. “The problem is that the bishops, abbots, and other important positions in the Church are appointed by the king. He always chooses his friends, and the pope never says no. All those friends of the king hope to receive a good income from what they own, and since they cannot sell any properties, they have invented this system called emphyteusis to get round the ban.”

“So that makes you tenants,” said Arnau, trying to understand.