Cathedral of the Sea

the Pedralbes monastery, for the royal dockyards, for Santa Clara, for the city walls. Everything is being built or changed; and then there are the new houses for the rich and the noblemen. Nobody wants wood or bricks. They all want stone.”

“And the king gives them all this stone?”

Ramon burst out laughing.

“The only stone he gives free is for Santa Maria de la Mar ... and possibly for Pedralbes monastery too, because that is being built at the queen’s behest. He charges a lot for all the rest.”

“Even the stone for the royal dockyards?” asked Arnau. “They are for the king, aren’t they?”

Ramon smiled again.

“They may be royal,” he said, “but the king isn’t the one paying for them.”

“The city?”

“No.”

“The merchants?”

“Not them either.”

“Well, then?” asked Arnau, turning to face him.

“The royal dockyards are being paid for by—”

“The sinners!” the man who had offered him his wineskin took the words out of Ramon’s mouth. He was a mule driver from the cathedral.

Ramon and he laughed out loud at Arnau’s bewildered look.

“The sinners?”

“Yes,” explained Ramon, “the new shipyards are being built thanks to money from sinful merchants. Look, it’s very simple: ever since the Crusades ... You know what the Crusades were, don’t you?” Arnau nodded: of course he knew what they were. “Well, ever since the Holy City was lost forever, the Church has banned all trade with the sultan of Egypt. But as it happens, it’s there that our traders can find their best goods, so none of them is willing to give up trading with the sultan. Which means that whenever they want to do so, they go to the customs office and pay a fine for the sin they are about to commit. They are also absolved beforehand, and therefore they don’t fall into sin. King Alfonso ordered that all the money collected in this way should go to financing Barcelona’s new dockyards.”

Arnau was about to say something, but Ramon raised his hand to cut him short. The guild aldermen were calling them. He signaled to Arnau to follow him.

“Are we going before them?” asked Arnau, pointing to the muleteers they were leaving behind.

“Of course,” said Ramon, still striding ahead. “We don’t need to be checked as thoroughly as they do: our stone is free, and easy to count: one bastaix, one stone.”

“One bastaix, one stone,” Arnau repeated to himself when the first bastaix and the first stone came past him on their way down the mountain. He and Ramon had reached the spot where the stonecutters were cutting the huge blocks. He looked at his companion’s taut, tense face. Arnau smiled, but his fellow bastaix did not respond: the time for jokes and pleasantries was over. Nobody was laughing or talking now; they were all staring at the heap of stones on the ground. They all had the leather thongs fixed tightly round their foreheads; Arnau slipped his over his head. The bastaixos were coming past him now, one by one. They were silent, and did not wait for the next one. The group around the stones was growing smaller all the time. As Arnau stared at the stones, he could feel his stomach wrench. A bastaix bent over, and two laborers lifted a block of stone onto his back. Arnau could see him flinch under the weight. His knees were knocking! The man stood still for a few moments, straightened up, then walked past Arnau on his way down to Santa Maria. My God, he was three times as strong as Arnau, and yet his legs had almost given way! How was he going to...?

“Arnau,” called out the guild aldermen.

There were still a few bastaixos waiting. Ramon pushed him forward.

“You can do it,” he said.

The three aldermen were talking to one of the stonecutters. He kept shaking his head. The four of them were surveying the pile of stones, pointing here and there, and then shaking their heads again. Standing by the pile, Arnau tried to swallow, but his throat was too dry. He was shaking: he had to stop! He moved his hands, then extended his arms backward and forward. He could not allow them to see him trembling!

Josep, one of the aldermen, pointed to a stone. The stonecutter shrugged, glanced at Arnau, shook his head once more, and then waved to the masons to pick it up. “They’re all the same,” he had told the bastaixos over and over.

Seeing the two masons approaching with the stone, Arnau went up to them. He bent over and tensed all the muscles in his body. Everyone fell silent. The masons slowly let go of the block and helped him grasp it with his hands. As the weight pressed down on him, he bent still farther over, and his legs started to buckle. He clenched his teeth and shut his eyes. “You can do it!” he thought he heard. In fact, nobody had said a word, but everyone had said it to themselves when they saw the boy’s legs wobble. “You can do it!” Arnau straightened under the load. A lot of the others gave a sigh of relief. But could he walk? Arnau stood there, his eyes still closed. Could he walk?

He put one foot forward. The weight of the block of stone forced him to push out the other foot, then the first one again ... and the other one a second time. If he stopped ... if he stopped, the stone would crush him.

Ramon took a deep breath and covered his face with his hands.

“You can do it, lad!” one of the waiting muleteers shouted.

“Go on, brave heart.”

“You can do it!”