Cathedral of the Sea

pointed to the Framenors convent, then with his right hand drew an imaginary line out into the sea.

All the bastaixos, boatmen, ships’ carpenters, caulkers, oarsmen, smiths, and rope-makers stood silently as the magistrate finished his explanation and the master builder considered the problem.

The king gave orders to suspend all work on Santa Maria and the cathedral : all the laborers were transferred to building the new bridge. Berenguer de Montagut oversaw the dismantling of part of the scaffolding round the church, and that same morning the bastaixos started carrying material over to Framenors.

“This is nonsense,” Arnau complained to Ramon as the two of them were carrying a heavy tree trunk. “We break our backs carrying stones down to Santa Maria, and now here we are undoing our work on the church, and all at the whim—”

“Be quiet!” Ramon urged him. “We’re following the king’s orders; he must know what he is doing.”

The king of Mallorca’s galleys—still closely watched by the ones from Valencia—were rowed across to Framenors, where they anchored at a considerable distance from the shore. Workmen and carpenters began to put up scaffolding round the facade of the convent, then extended it down toward the shore. The bastaixos and anyone without a precise task to fulfill went back and forth carrying tree trunks and planks for the bridge itself.

Work ended at nightfall. Arnau came home exhausted.

“Our king has never demanded anything so crazy; he is happy to come ashore using the traditional bridge we build over the small craft. Why should we allow a traitor to do as he wishes?”

His protests and grumbling gradually ceased as he felt Maria’s hands gently massaging his shoulders.

“Your wounds are getting better,” said his young wife. “Some people use ointment with geranium and raspberry, but in our family we’ve always preferred heartsease. My grandmother treated my grandfather with it. My mother did the same for my father ...”

Arnau closed his eyes. Heartsease? He had not seen Aledis for days. That was the only reason his back was getting better!

“Why are you tensing your muscles?” Maria reproached him, interrupting his thoughts. “Relax: you need to relax so that ...”

He still paid her little attention. Why should he? Relax so that she could treat the wounds another woman had made? If only she would get angry with him ...

But instead of shouting at him, that night Maria gave herself to him again: she sought him out and gently embraced him. Aledis had no idea what it meant to be gentle. They fornicated like animals! Arnau let Maria wrap her arms round him, keeping his eyes tightly shut. How could he look at her? The young girl caressed his body ... and his soul. She brought him pleasure so intense it became a torment.

At dawn the next day, Arnau got up to set off for Framenors. Maria was already downstairs, by the kitchen fire, preparing his breakfast.

Throughout the three days that it took to build the bridge down from the convent, no member of the king of Mallorca’s court left their galleys, nor did anyone from the Valencian fleet. When the construction from the convent reached the water’s edge, the bastaixos formed into groups to transport the material for the rest of the bridge. Arnau worked ceaselessly: if he stopped, he knew he would only feel Maria’s hands caressing him, and that would bring back memories of how a few days earlier Aledis had bitten and scratched the same body.

Now their task was to lower piles into the water from small boats between the shore and the galleys. Berenguer de Montagut again took personal charge of the operation. He stood in the prow of a catboat, peering down over the side to make sure the wooden piles were set firmly in the sea bottom before any weight was put on them.

On the third day, a new wooden bridge more than fifty yards long filled the horizon of the port of Barcelona. The royal galley came alongside it, and a short while later, Arnau and all the others who had built the bridge heard the king and his court walking along the wooden boards; many of them looked up.

When they were safely installed in Framenors, Jaime sent a messenger to King Pedro to tell him that the rigors of the sea crossing had affected both him and Queen Constanza, and that in consequence his sister begged King Pedro to come and visit her in the convent. As King Pedro was preparing to do so, the infante Don Pedro appeared before him, accompanied by a young Franciscan friar.

“What do you have to tell me, Friar?” said the king, visibly annoyed at this delay of the visit to his sister.

Joan bent over until the fact that he was almost a head taller than the monarch lost all importance. “The king is very short,” he had been told, “and he never receives his subjects standing up.” The two men were on their feet now, however, and the king’s gaze was piercing.

Joan was lost for words.

“Tell him,” the infante urged him.

Joan broke into a sweat, and could feel the rough cloth of his habit sticking to his body. What if it were not true? The thought occurred to him for the first time. He had heard it from an old friar who had disembarked with the king of Mallorca, and had not hesitated a moment. He had come running to the royal palace, struggled with the guard because Joan had refused to give the message to anyone but the king himself, had relented when he saw the infante Don Pedro, but now ... What if it were not true? What if it were just another of the king of Mallorca’s ruses?

“Well, come on, out with it!” the king shouted.

“Your Majesty, you should not go and visit your sister Queen Constanza. It’s a trap laid by King Jaime of Mallorca. With the excuse that his wife is so ill and weak, he has instructed the usher at the door to her apartment not to let anyone but you and the infantes Don Pedro and Don Jaime in. Nobody else is to have access to the queen’s chamber; but inside twelve armed men will be waiting to seize you, take you down the covered bridge, and onto the king’s galley. Then you will be taken to the island of Mallorca and the castle of Alaro. The plan is to keep you prisoner until you set King Jaime free from his vassalage and grant him fresh lands in Catalonia.”

He had done it!