joyfully in a way that made the hair on the back of Bernat’s neck stand on end. Despite the fact that Jaume still did not speak to him, his new position in the workshop (which Grau was too busy with his trading and other commitments to notice) gained him even more respect among the others. With Guiamona’s tacit assent, the Moorish girl brought him Arnau more frequently now. His sister was also much busier as a result of her husband’s new responsibilities.
There was no way that Bernat was going to risk his son’s future by going out into the streets of Barcelona.
PART TWO
Chained to the Nobility
6
Christmas 1329
Barcelona
By NOW, ARNAU was eight years old. He was a quiet, intelligent child with wavy, shoulder-length chestnut locks that framed a face in which his big, clear, honey-colored eyes shone.
Grau Puig’s house was decked out for the Christmas celebrations. The youngster who at the age of ten, thanks to a neighbor’s generosity, had been able to leave his father’s lands had finally triumphed in Barcelona. Now he waited alongside his wife to receive his guests.
“They’re coming to pay me homage,” he told Guiamona. “It’s unheard-of for nobles and merchants to come to a mere artisan’s house like this.”
His wife contented herself with listening.
“The king himself has backed me. The king himself! Our King Alfonso!”
That day no work was done in the pottery. Despite the cold, Bernat and Arnau sat on the ground in the yard and watched the constant comings and goings of slaves, craftsmen, and apprentices in and out of the house. In all those eight years, Bernat had never set foot again in the Grau mansion, but he did not care. He ruffled Arnau’s curls, and thought to himself: “I can put my arms around my son. What more could I ask?” His boy ate and lived with Guiamona, and even studied with Grau’s children. He had learned to read, write, and count at the same time as his cousins. Yet thanks to Guiamona he had never forgotten that Bernat was his father. Grau himself treated the boy with complete indifference.
Bernat insisted time and again that Arnau should be well behaved in the big house. Whenever he came laughing into the workshop, Bernat’s own face lit up. The slaves and all the craftsmen—even Jaume—could not help but smile at the boy when he ran out into the yard to wait for his father to complete one of his tasks, only then running toward him and hugging him tight. Afterward he would go off and sit down again, watching his father and smiling at anyone who spoke to him. On some nights, after the workshop had closed, Habiba let him out of the house, and father and son had time to talk and laugh together uninterrupted.
Things had changed, even though Jaume still adhered strictly to his master’s instructions. Grau paid no attention to the money brought in by the pottery, and had nothing to do with the day-to-day running of it. In spite of this, he could not do without it, because it was the basis of his position as guild official, alderman of Barcelona, and member of the Council of a Hundred. However, once he had achieved all this, Grau Puig dedicated himself to politics and high-level finances, as befitted a city alderman.
From the outset of his reign in 1291, Jaime the Second had tried to impose himself on the old Catalan feudal nobility. To do this, he had turned to the free cities and their citizens, especially Barcelona. Sicily had been part of the crown’s possessions since the days of Pedro the Great. Now, when the pope granted Jaime the Second the right to conquer Sardinia, it was the citizens of Barcelona who financed the enterprise.
The annexation of these two Mediterranean islands was in everyone’s interest: it guaranteed the supply of grain to Catalonia, as well as sealing Catalan domination of the western Mediterranean and, with it, control over the sea trade routes. The monarch kept for himself the silver mines and the salt on the island.
Grau Puig had not lived through these events. His opportunity came on the death of Jaime the Second and the accession of Alfonso the Third. In that same year, 1327, the Corsicans began to cause trouble in the city of Sassari. At the same time, fearing Catalonia’s commercial power, the Genoese declared war, attacking all ships that sailed under the Catalan flag. Neither king nor traders hesitated a moment: the campaign to stifle the revolt in Sardinia and the war against Genoa were to be financed by the burghers of Barcelona. And this was what happened, thanks largely to the efforts of one of the city’s aldermen: Grau Puig. It was he who, in addition to contributing generously to the costs of the war, succeeded by his fiery speeches in convincing even the most doubtful to take part. The king himself publicly thanked him for his efforts.
Today, as Grau peered anxiously out of his windows to see if his guests were arriving, Bernat kissed his son on the cheek and sent him back inside.
“It’s very cold, Arnau. You should go in.” The boy made as though to protest, but his father insisted. “You’ll eat a fine meal tonight, won’t you?”
“Cockerel, nougat, and wafers,” his son said enthusiastically.
Bernat gave him an affectionate tap on the behind. “Run inside. We can talk another day.”
ARNAU ARRIVED JUST in time to sit down to dinner. He and Grau’s two youngest children—Guiamon, who was the same age as him, and Margarida, a year and a half older—were to eat in the kitchen. Josep and Genis, the two older children, were allowed to dine upstairs with their parents.
The arrival of so many guests had made Grau even more nervous than usual.
“I’ll see to everything,” he had told Guiamona as she was preparing the feast. “You look after the women.”
“But how are you going to ... ?” she started to protest, but Grau was already giving instructions to Estranya, the cook, a plump, impudent mulatto slave, who kept one eye on her mistress while appearing to pay attention to what Grau was saying.
“How do you expect me to react?” thought Guiamona. “You’re not talking to your secretary, or in the guild or the Council of a Hundred. So you don’t think I’m capable of looking after your guests? So I’m not good enough for you?”
Behind her husband’s back, Guiamona had tried to restore order among the servants and to make sure that the Christmas feast was a success, but now, as their guests arrived and Grau fussed over everything, including their rich capes, she found she was pushed into the background as her husband had wished, and had to make do with smiling pleasantly at the other women. Grau meanwhile looked like a general in the thick of a battle: he was
