Cathedral of the Sea

“This is madness,” complained Guillem when he saw everyone scrambling on board the boats. “Any one of those galleys can ram our vessels and split them in two. Lots of people will be killed.”

It would still take some time before the Castillian fleet reached the harbor.

“They will show no mercy,” Arnau heard someone say. “They’ll massacre us.”

Pedro the Cruel was not someone to show mercy. Everyone was aware of his fearsome reputation: he had executed his bastard brothers, Federico in Seville and Juan in Bilbao. A year later, after holding her prisoner all that time, he had beheaded his aunt Eleonor. What mercy could they expect from someone who did not shrink from killing his own family? The Catalan king had not put Jaime of Mallorca to death despite his constant betrayal and all the wars they had fought.

“It would make more sense to try to defend ourselves on land,” Guillem shouted in Arnau’s ear. “We’ll never do it at sea. As soon as the Castillians get beyond the tasques, they will overrun us.”

Arnau agreed. Why was the king so determined to defend the city at sea? Guillem was surely right; once the enemy had got beyond the tasques ...

“The tasques!” Arnau shouted. “What boat do we have in the harbor?”

“What do you mean?”

“The tasques, Guillem! Don’t you understand? What ship do we have?”

“That carrack over there,” said Guillem, pointing to a huge, potbellied cargo boat.

“Come on. We’ve no time to lose.”

Arnau started running toward the sea, in among the crowd of other people doing the same. He looked behind to encourage Guillem to follow him.

The shoreline was buzzing with soldiers and citizens of Barcelona, wading into the sea up to their waists. Some of them were trying to clamber on board the small fishing boats that were already heading out to sea; others were waiting for boatmen to come and pick them up and take them to one or other of the bigger men-o’- war or merchant vessels anchored farther out.

Arnau saw a boat approaching the shore.

“Come on!” he shouted to Guillem and plunged into the water, trying to make sure he reached the boat before all the others around them. By the time they got there, it was already full, but the boatman recognized Arnau and made room for him and Guillem.

“Take me out to the carrack over there,” Arnau shouted when the man was about to set sail.

“First to the galleys. That’s the king’s order ...”

“Take me to my ship!” Arnau insisted. The boatman looked at him doubtfully, and the others in the boat started to protest. “Silence!” shouted Arnau. “You all know me. I have to reach my ship. Barcelona ... your family depends on it. All your families might depend on it.”

The boatman gazed out at the big, lumbering ship. It was only a little out of his way. Why would Arnau Estanyol not be telling the truth?

“Head for the carrack!” he ordered his two oarsmen.

As soon as Arnau and Guillem had grasped the rope ladders thrown to them by the ship’s captain, the boatman headed off for the nearest galley.

“Get all your men rowing!” Arnau ordered the captain before his feet had even touched deck.

The captain gave the order to the oarsmen, who immediately took their places on the rowing benches.

“Where are we headed?” he asked.

“To the tasques,” Arnau told him.

Guillem nodded. “May Allah, whose name be praised, grant you success.”

But if Guillem understood what Arnau was trying to do, the same could not be said of the king’s army and the citizens of Barcelona. When they saw his ship begin to move off with no soldiers or weapons on board, one of them shouted: “He wants to save his ship!”

“Jew!” another man cried.

“Traitor!”

Many others joined in the insults. Soon, the entire beach was filled with angry cries against Arnau. What was Arnau Estanyol up to? Bastaixos and boatmen wondered, as they watched the heavy ship slowly gather speed when a hundred pairs of oars dipped rhythmically into the water.

Arnau and Guillem stood at the ship’s prow, staring at the Castillian fleet that was drawing dangerously close. As they passed the rest of the Catalan fleet, they had to protect themselves from a hail of arrows, but as soon as they were out of range they went to the prow once more.

“This has to work,” Arnau told Guillem. “Barcelona must not fall into the hands of that traitor.”

The tasques were a chain of sandbanks parallel to the coast. They were Barcelona’s only natural defense, although they also represented a danger for any boat wishing to enter the city harbor. There was only one channel that was deep enough to allow large ships in; anywhere else could mean they ran aground on the sands.

Arnau and Guillem drew ever nearer to the tasques, no longer having to hear the obscene insults of thousands of voices on the beach. Their shouting had even managed to drown out the noise of the bells.

“It will work,” Arnau repeated, this time under his breath. Then he told the captain to have the oarsmen stop rowing. As the hundred oars were raised out of the water and the ship started to glide toward the tasques, the shouts from the beach gradually died away until there was complete