Cathedral of the Sea

from Sicily, under the command of Admiral Roger de Lluria. He ordered Viscount Ramon Folch de Cardona, the defender of Girona, to withstand the French siege until Roger de Lluria could reach Catalonia. Viscount Cardona mounted an epic defense of the city until at length King Pedro authorized him to surrender.

Roger de Lluria arrived and defeated the French navy. On land, the French army was swept by an epidemic.

“When they took Girona, they desecrated the shrine of Sant Narcis,” one of the soldiers at a campfire explained.

According to local legend, millions of flies had come buzzing out of the sepulchre when the French defiled it. It was these insects that spread the epidemic through the French camp. Defeated at sea, weakened by sickness on land, King Philippe the Bold called a truce in order to allow him to retreat without a massacre.

Pedro the Great granted him the truce, but only in his name and that of his nobles and knights.

Now ARNAU COULD hear the cries of the Almogavar company as they entered the pass at Panissars. Shielding his eyes, he looked up at the steep mountainsides off which the mercenaries’ bloodcurdling shouts echoed. It had been here, alongside Roger de Lluria and watched from on high by Pedro the Great and his nobles, that the Almogavars had slaughtered the retreating French army, killing thousands of men. The next day Philippe the Bold died in Perpignan, and the crusade against Catalonia was over.

The Almogavars kept up their shouting all the way through the pass, challenging an enemy that failed to appear. Perhaps they too remembered what their fathers and grandfathers had told them had happened on this very spot fifty years earlier.

Those ragged men, who when they were not fighting as mercenaries lived in the forests and mountains and spent their time plundering and laying waste to the lands ruled by the Moors, ignoring whatever treaty the Christian kings might have made, took orders from no one. Arnau had seen it during the march from Figueres to La Junquera, and it was obvious again now: of the four columns into which the king had divided the army, three advanced in formation beneath their banners, but the Almogavars swarmed in an unruly mass, shouting, threatening, laughing at their enemy, daring them to come and show themselves.

“Don’t they have any leaders?” asked Arnau when he saw how the Almogavars ignored Eiximen d’Esparca’s call for a halt and instead went on with their disorderly advance through the pass.

“It doesn’t look like it, does it?” said a veteran who had come to a halt beside him, as all the royal shield bearer’s personal guard had done.

“No, it doesn’t.”

“Well, they do have their leaders, and they are careful not to disobey them. They’re not commanders like ours, though.” The veteran pointed to Eiximen d’Esparca, then caught an imaginary fly in his fingers and waved it in front of Arnau’s eyes. The bastaix and several other soldiers laughed at his gesture. “They have real leaders,” the veteran said, falling serious all of a sudden. “In their company, it doesn’t matter whose son you are, if you have a name, or are some count or other’s favorite. The most important of their leaders are the adalils.” Arnau looked at the Almogavars, who were still swarming past them. “No, don’t bother,” the soldier said. “You won’t be able to pick them out. They all dress the same, but all the Almogavars know who they are. You need four things to become an adalil: skill at leading troops; to give your all and to inspire your men to do the same; to have the qualities of a born leader; and above all, to be loyal—”

“That’s what they say our commander has,” Arnau interrupted him, pointing to the royal shield bearer.

“Yes, but nobody has ever challenged his position. To get to be an Almogavar adalil you need to have twelve other adalils swear on pain of death that you possess all these qualities. There would be no nobles left in the world if they had to do the same in front of their peers—especially when it came to loyalty.”

The soldiers listening to him all nodded their agreement. Arnau looked at the Almogavars once more. How could they bring down a charging warhorse with nothing more than a spear?

“Below the adalils,” the veteran went on, “come the almogatens. They have to be expert in battle, to give everything for their cause, to be mobile and loyal. They are chosen in the same way: twelve almogatens have to swear that the candidate possesses all the required qualities.”

“On pain of death?”

“On pain of death,” the veteran confirmed.

What Arnau could not have imagined was that these mercenaries’ independent spirit was so great that they would disobey even the king’s orders. Pedro the Third had ordered that once all his army had successfully crossed the Panissars pass, they should head directly for Perpignan, the capital of Roussillon. Despite this, as soon as they had emerged from the pass, the Almogavars split off from the main army and headed for Bellaguarda castle, which guarded its northern entrance.

Arnau and the royal shield bearer’s guard stood and watched as the mercenaries rushed up the slope to the castle. They were still whooping and shouting as they had done all the way through the pass. Eiximen d’Esparca turned toward the king, who was also observing the attack.

But Pedro the Third did nothing. How could he stop them? He turned back and continued on his way to Perpignan. This was Eiximen d‘Esparca’s signal. The king had sanctioned the assault on Bellaguarda, but he was the one paying the Almogavars, and if there was any booty to be shared, he wanted to be there. And so, while the main force followed the king in battle formation, Eiximen d’Esparca and his men set off after the Almogavars.

The Catalans laid siege to the castle. That afternoon and through all the next night, the mercenaries took turns chopping down trees to make their siege weapons: assault ladders and a big battering ram mounted on wheels that was swung using ropes suspended from another, higher tree trunk, and was covered with hides to protect the men underneath.

Arnau stood guard below the walls of Bellaguarda. How were they going to storm the castle? They would be advancing unprotected, uphill, while the defenders could fire down on them from behind their battlements. He could see them up there, peeping out and observing the besiegers. On one occasion he even thought someone was staring straight at him. The defenders seemed calm, though his own legs shook at the idea of their watching him.

“They seem very sure of themselves,” he remarked to one of the veterans standing guard beside him.

“Don’t be fooled,” the man said. “Inside the castle they’re having a far worse time than us. Besides, they’ve seen the Almogavars.”