“Which one is that?” he insisted. For the first time, he seemed to have caught the woman’s attention.
“That is the San Just i Pastor. Why are you so interested?”
The boys said nothing, but walked away from the old woman, who watched them trudging away disheartened.
“All the churches belong to men!” Arnau said in disgust. “We have to find a church for women; that’s where the Virgin Mary must be.”
Joanet carried on walking thoughtfully.
“I know somewhere ...,” he said at length. “It’s full of women. It’s at the end of the city wall, next to the sea. They call it ...” Joanet tried to remember. “They call it Santa Clara.”
“But that’s not the Virgin either.”
“But it is a woman. I’m sure your mother will be with her. She wouldn’t be with a man who wasn’t your father, would she?”
They went down Calle de la Ciutat to the La Mar gateway, which was part of the old Roman wall near Regomir castle. It was from here that a path led to the Santa Clara convent, built in the eastern corner of the new walls close to the shore. They left Regomir castle behind them, turned left, and walked down until they came to Calle de la Mar, which led from Plaza del Blat to the church of Santa Maria de la Mar before splitting into small parallel alleyways that came out onto the beach. From there, crossing Plaza del Born and Pla d’en Llull, they reached the Santa Clara convent by taking the street of the same name.
In spite of their anxiety to find the church, neither of the two boys could resist stopping to look at the silversmiths’ stalls ranged on either side of Calle de la Mar. Barcelona was a prosperous, rich city, as was obvious from the array of valuable objects on display: silverware; jewel-encrusted jugs and cups made of precious metals; necklaces; bracelets and rings; belts—an endless range of fine objects glinting in the summer sun. Arnau and Joanet tried to examine them more closely, but were chased away by the artisans, who shouted at them and threatened them with their fists.
Chased by one of the apprentices, they ran off and eventually came to Plaza de Santa Maria. On their right was a small cemetery, the fossar Mayor, and on their left was the church.
“Santa Clara is down ... ,” Joanet started to say, then suddenly fell silent. What they could see in front of them was truly amazing.
It was a powerful, sturdy church. Sober, stern-looking even, it was windowless and had exceptionally thick walls. The land around the building had been cleared and leveled, and it was surrounded by a huge number of stakes driven into the ground, forming geometrical shapes.
Ten slender columns, sixteen yards high, were placed around the small church’s apse. The white stone shone through the scaffolding rising around them.
The wooden scaffolding that covered the rear of the church rose and rose like an immense set of steps. Even from the distance they were at, Arnau had to raise his eyes to see the top, which was much higher than the columns.
“Let’s go,” Joanet urged him when they had seen their fill of the men laboring on the wooden boards. “This must be another cathedral.”
“No, this isn’t a cathedral,” they heard a voice say behind them. Arnau and Joanet looked at each other and smiled. They turned and looked inquiringly at a strong man who was toiling under the weight of an enormous block of stone. So what is it then? Joanet seemed to be asking as he smiled at him. “The cathedral is paid for by the nobles and the city authorities, but this church, which will be more important and beautiful than the cathedral, is paid for and built by the people.”
The man had not even paused: the weight of the stone seemed to push him forward. Yet he had smiled back at them.
The two boys followed him down the side of the church, which was next to another cemetery, the fossar Menor.
“Would you like us to help you?” asked Arnau.
The man panted, then turned and smiled at them again.
“Thank you, my lad, but you had better not.”
Eventually, he bent down and deposited the stone on the ground. The boys stared at it, and Joanet went over to try to push it, but it did not move. At this, the man burst out laughing. Joanet smiled back at him.
“If it’s not a cathedral,” Arnau said, pointing to the tall octagonal columns, “what is it?”
“This is the new church that the La Ribera neighborhood is building in thanks and devotion to Our Lady the Virgin—”
Arnau gave a start.
“The Virgin Mary?” he interrupted the man, eyes opened wide.
“Of course, my lad,” the man replied, ruffling his hair. “The Virgin Mary, Our Lady of the Sea.”
“And ... where is the Virgin Mary?” Arnau asked again, staring at the church.
“In there, in that small building. But when we finish the new one, she will have the best church that the Virgin has ever had.”
In there! Arnau did not even hear the rest of what the man was saying. His Virgin was in there. All at once, a sound made them all look up: a flock of birds had flown out from the topmost scaffolding.
9
BARCELONA’S RIBERA DE Mar neighborhood, where the church in honor of the Virgin Mary was being built, had grown up as an outlying suburb of the Carolingian city, surrounded and protected by the old Roman walls. At the outset it was inhabited by fishermen, stevedores, and other humble workmen. It already had a small church, known as Santa Maria de las Arenas, raised on the spot where Saint Eulalia was said
