“I meant...”
“I know what you meant.” Grau buried himself in his papers once more. “Do as you see fit, but let me warn you: that peasant must never forget what his place is in this workshop. If he does, I’ll throw him and you out, and you’ll never become a master potter. Is that clear?”
Jaume nodded, but from that day on, Bernat helped the potters directly in their work. He was even promoted above the heads of the young apprentices, who were unable to handle the heavy fireproof molds used to bake the pots in the kilns. From the molds came big potbellied jars with short necks and small bases that could hold up to 280 liters of grain or wine. Previously, Jaume had needed to employ at least two potters to haul the molds around; with Bernat’s help, only one other person was necessary. They would make the mold, fire it, apply a layer of tin and lead oxides to it, then fire the jar again in a second kiln at a lower temperature so that the tin and the lead would melt together to form a clear waterproof glaze.
Jaume waited anxiously to see whether he had made the right decision. After a few weeks, he was satisfied with the result: production had increased noticeably, and Bernat still took the same trouble over his work. “More than some of the potters themselves!” Jaume was forced to admit when he went to put the workshop’s stamp on the neck of one of the storage jars.
Jaume tried to read the thoughts the peasant concealed behind his placid countenance. There was never any glimpse of hatred in his eyes, or any sign of rancor. Jaume wondered what could have happened for him to end up in this situation. He was not the same as the master’s other kinsmen who had shown up at the workshop: they had all been bought off. But Bernat... The way he fondled his son whenever the Moorish slave girl brought the baby to him! He wanted his freedom, and worked harder than anyone else to make sure he got it.
The understanding between the two men produced other results apart from an increase in production. One day when Jaume came over to imprint the master’s mark on a jar, Bernat narrowed his eyes and stared pointedly at the base of the piece. “You’ll never become a master potter!” Those words of warning came immediately to Jaume’s mind whenever he considered becoming more friendly with Bernat.
Now he pretended he was having a coughing fit. He moved away from the jar without stamping it, and looked at the place the peasant had been pointing out to him. He saw a tiny crack, which meant that the jar would break in the heat of the kiln. Jaume shouted angrily at the potter ... and at Bernat.
So the year and the day that Bernat and his son needed to become freemen passed. Grau Puig achieved his longed-for goal of being elected a member of Barcelona’s Council of a Hundred. And yet Jaume did not see the peasant react in any way. Anyone else would have demanded his citizenship document and gone off into the streets of the city in search of fun and women, but Bernat did nothing. What was wrong with him?
Bernat could not get the memory of the lad in the forge out of his mind. He did not feel guilty about him: the fool had tried to stop him from taking his boy. But if he had died ... Bernat might win freedom from his lord, but even after a year and a day he would not be free of the charge of murder. Guiamona had advised him not to tell his story to anyone, and he had followed her advice. He could not take the risk; Llorenç de Bellera had probably not only ordered his arrest as a fugitive, but as a murderer as well. What would become of Arnau if he were captured? Murder was punishable by death.
His son was growing strong and sturdy. He could not yet talk, but he was crawling everywhere, and gurgled 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.