Ildefonso Falcones - Cathedral of the Sea

Bernat turned to look at his father, eyes wide open.

“I and many others, my son,” said Arnau, “many, many others.”

August in the Mediterranean, August in Barcelona. The sun was shining with a splendor hard to equal anywhere else on earth. Before it filtered in through the stained glass of Santa Maria and played on color and stone inside, the sea reflected the light back to the sun, lending its rays an unmatched beauty. Inside the church, the shafts of light mingled with the quivering flames of thousands of candles lit on the high altar and the side chapels. The smell of incense filled the air, and organ music swelled in the perfect acoustics of the central nave.

Arnau, Mar, and Bernat walked up to the high altar. Beneath the magnificent apse, surrounded by eight graceful columns and in front of a reredos, stood the small figure of the Virgin of the Sea. Behind the altar, which was covered in fine French lace that King Pedro had lent for the occasion (not without sending word beforehand from Vilafranca del Penedès that the cloths should be returned immediately after the celebration), Bishop Pere de Planella was preparing to say mass to consecrate the church.

Santa Maria was so full that the three of them could not get close to the altar. Some of those in the congregation recognized Arnau and stood back to let him through, but he thanked them and stood where he was among the crowd: they were his people, his family. The only ones missing were Guillem ... and Joan. Arnau preferred to remember his brother as the young boy with whom he had discovered the world rather than as the bitter monk who had sacrificed himself in flames.

Bishop Pere de Planella began the mass.

Arnau was troubled. Guillem, Joan, Maria, his father... and that old woman. Why whenever he thought of those no longer with him did he always end up remembering her? He had asked Guillem to search for her and Aledis.

“They have vanished,” the Moor told him.

“They said she was my mother,” Arnau said out loud. “Search harder.”

“I haven’t been able to find them,” Guillem told him again, some time later.

“But ...”

“Forget them,” Guillem had advised him, in a tone that brooked no argument.

Pere de Planella was still saying mass.

Arnau was sixty-three years old. He felt tired, and leaned on his son.

Bernat squeezed his father’s arm affectionately. Arnau bent his mouth to his son’s ear and pointed toward the high altar.

“Can you see her smile, my son?” he asked.

Author’s Note

IN WRITING THIS novel I have closely followed the Crónica written by King Pedro the Third, adapting it where necessary to the requirements of a work of fiction.

The choice of Navarcles as the site of the castle and estates of the lord of Navarcles is entirely fictional, but the baronies of Granollers, San Vicenc dels Horts, and Caldes de Montbui, which King Pedro offers Arnau as the dowry for his ward Eleonor (another fictional creation), did exist. These baronies were ceded in 1380 by the infante Martin, son of Pedro the Ceremonious, to Guillem Ramon de Montcada, of the Sicilian branch of the Montcada family, as reward for his good offices in support of the marriage between Queen María and one of Martin’s sons, who subsequently reigned and was known as “the Humane.” Guillem de Montcada held these estates for a much shorter time than the protagonist of my novel: no sooner had he been granted them than he sold them to the Count of Urgell and used the money to equip a fleet and dedicate himself to piracy.

According to the Usatges of Catalonia, a feudal lord did have the right to lie with the bride of any of his serfs on her wedding night. The existence of privileges in old Catalonia, compared to the new Catalan territories, led the serfs to rebel repeatedly against their lords, until the 1486 Judgment of Guadalupe abolished these privileges, although it did stipulate at the same time that the lords stripped of their rights in this way should be paid generous compensation.

The royal judgment against Joan’s mother, which obliged her to live enclosed in a room on bread and water until her death, was pronounced in 1330 by Alfonso the Third against a woman by the name of Eulàlia, consort of one Juan Dosca.

The author in no way shares the opinions about women or peasants expressed throughout this novel: nearly all of them have been faithfully copied from the book written by the monk Francesc Eiximenis, approximately in the year 1381, entitled Lo crestià.

As occurs with the marriage between Mar and Felip de Ponts, in medieval Catalonia rapists could marry their victims, even if the abduction had been a violent one, thanks to the Usatge “Si quis virginem.” This was not true in the rest of Spain, which was governed by the legal tradition of the Visigoths in the Fuero Juzgo, which prohibited it.

The violator’s duty was to provide the woman with a dowry so that she could find a husband, or to marry her himself. If she was married, she was treated as an adulteress.

No one is sure whether the episode in which King Jaime of Mallorca tries to abduct his brother-in-law Pedro the Third, which fails because a friar who is close to Pedro hears details of the plot during confession (helped in the novel by Joan), actually happened or not. It may well have been invented by Pedro the Third as an excuse for the legal action taken by him against the king of Mallorca, which ended with his requisitioning his kingdoms. What does appear to be true is King Jaime’s demand to have a wooden bridge built to link his galleys, anchored in the port of Barcelona, with Framenors convent. Perhaps this served to arouse King Pedro’s imagination to invent the plot mentioned in his chronicles.

The attempt to invade Barcelona by Pedro the Cruel of Castille is described in minute detail in Pedro the Third’s Crónica. The buildup of land along the Barcelona coast meant that its earlier harbors could no longer be used, with the result that the city was defenseless against natural phenomena and enemy attacks. It was not until 1340 that, during the reign of Alfonso the Magnanimous, a new, more adequate port was built.

The sea battle took place as Pedro the Third describes it, and the Castillian fleet was prevented from gaining access to the city because a ship—a carrack, according to the medieval chronicles of Capmany—was grounded on the offshore tasques (sandbanks) to halt their advance. It was during this battle that the first references are made to the use of artillery—a bricola mounted on the prow of the king’s galley—in naval warfare. It was not long before ships, which until then had been used chiefly as a means of troop transport, were equipped with heavy cannons, changing the whole concept of naval battles. In his Crónica, Pedro the Third delights in the way that the Catalan host ranged on the shore, or in the numerous small craft that set out to defend the capital mocked and insulted Pedro the Cruel’s army. He considers it, together with the effective use of the bricola, as one of the main reasons why the king of Castille was forced to reconsider his plans to invade Barcelona.

In the revolt of Plaza del Blat during the first so-called bad year, when the citizens of Barcelona demanded they be given grain, the leaders were given summary justice and hanged. For plot reasons, I have placed these executions in Plaza del Blat. It is also true that the authorities thought that a simple oath could help put a stop to the hunger.

Another person who was executed, in the year 1360, was the money changer F. Castelló. As stipulated by law, he was beheaded outside his countinghouse, close to what nowadays is Plaza Palacio.