“Why?”
“Because Grau is rich, and anyone who accompanies him is to be given mourning clothes,” said Joanet, showing him a long black tunic he was carrying. “Like this one,” he said with a smile.
By midmorning, when everyone had donned their black clothes, the funeral procession set off for Nazaret church. It was here that the chapel to Saint Hippolytus, the patron saint of potters, was to be found. The paid mourners walked alongside the coffin, crying, howling, and tearing their hair.
The church was full of the rich and famous: aldermen from several guilds, city councillors, and most of the members of the Council of a Hundred. Now that Guiamona was dead, nobody was concerned about the Estanyol family, and Bernat succeeded in pushing his way through people dressed in the simple garments Grau had given out, as well as others wearing silks, byssus, and expensive black linen, until he and his son reached his sister’s coffin. He was not even allowed to bid her a proper farewell.
STANDING AT BERNAT’S side while the priests conducted the funeral service, Arnau caught glimpses of his cousins’ faces, puffy from crying. Josep and Genis looked calm and composed, but Margarida, although she sat up straight, could not prevent her lower lip from constantly trembling. They had lost their mother, just like him. Did they know about the Virgin? Arnau wondered, looking across at his uncle, who sat there stiff as ever. He was sure that Grau Puig would not tell them about her. He had always heard that the rich were different; perhaps they had a different way of finding a new mother.
THEY CERTAINLY DID. A rich widower in Barcelona, and one with ambitions ... Even before the period of mourning had finished, Grau began to receive offers of marriage. In the end, the one chosen to be the new mother for Guiamona’s children was Isabel. She was young and unattractive, but she was a noble. Grau had weighed the advantages of all the candidates, but eventually chose the only one from a noble family. Her dowry was a title that brought with it no privileges, lands, or riches, but would help him join a class that had always been closed to him. What did he care about the substantial dowries that some merchants offered him in their anxiety to share his wealth? The important noble families in Barcelona were not interested in a widower who, however rich he might be, was nothing more than a potter: only Isabel’s father, who was penniless, could see that Grau’s character might help him make an alliance that would benefit both parties. And so it proved.
“You will understand,” his future father-in-law insisted, “that my daughter cannot live in a potter’s workshop.” Grau nodded. “And that she cannot marry a simple potter.” Grau tried to protest, but his father-in-law dismissed him with a wave of the hand. “Grau,” he went on, “we nobles cannot stoop to working as artisans. You surely understand that? We may not be rich, but we will never be craftsmen.”
“We nobles cannot ...” Grau tried to hide his satisfaction at being included as one of them. His father-in-law was right: which of the city nobles had a workshop? My lord baron: from now on that was how he would be known in his commercial dealings, and in the Council of a Hundred ... My lord baron! How could a Catalan baron have a workshop?
As alderman of the guild, he could smooth the way for Jaume to be made a master potter. They talked the matter over. Grau was in a hurry to wed Isabel, obsessed by the fear that the fickle nobleman might change his mind. The baron-to-be had no time to put his business up for sale. So Jaume would become a master potter, and Grau would sell him the workshop and the house, in installments. There was only one problem:
“I’ve got four sons,” Jaume told him. “I’ll find it hard enough to pay you for the business ...” Grau encouraged him to go on: “I can’t take on all the responsibilities you have: the slaves, the craftsmen, the apprentices ... I wouldn’t even be able to feed them! If I want to succeed, I’m going to have to manage with my four sons.”
The date for the wedding was set. At the urging of Isabel’s father, Grau bought an expensive mansion in Calle de Montcada, where many of Barcelona’s noble families lived.
“Remember,” his father-in-law warned him as they left the new mansion, “you are not to go into church with a potter’s workshop still on your hands.”
They had inspected every nook and cranny of his new house. The baron had nodded condescendingly while Grau was mentally calculating how much it was going to cost him to fill all those rooms. In the mansion behind the gateway onto Calle de Montcada there was a cobbled yard. At the far end stood the stables, which took up most of the ground floor, together with the kitchens and the slaves’ bedrooms. On the right-hand side of the yard was a broad stone staircase, which led up to the first floor of the house proper, with the principal chambers and rooms. Above that there was another floor, with the family bedrooms. The whole mansion was made of stone; the two principal floors had rows of Gothic windows that gave onto the yard.
“Very well,” Grau said to the man who for years had been his chief assistant, “you are free of those responsibilities.”
They signed the contract that very day. Grau proudly took it to show his future father-in-law.
“I’ve sold the workshop,” he announced.
“My lord baron,” the other man said, holding out his hand.
“What now?” Grau thought when he was alone again. “The slaves are no problem; I’ll keep those that are of use to me, and those who aren’t... can be sold. As for the craftsmen and apprentices ...”
Grau spoke to the other members of the guild and was able to place them all for modest sums. The only ones left were his brother-in-law and his son. Bernat had no official position within the guild: he was not even a certified craftsman. Nobody would have him in their workshop, even if it was not forbidden. The boy had not even begun his apprenticeship, but there was the question of the contract. Besides, how could Grau possibly ask anyone to take on members of the Estanyol family? Everybody would find out that those two fugitives were his relatives. They were called Estanyol, just like Guiamona. Everybody would discover that he had sheltered two landless serfs, and now that he was to become a nobleman ... weren’t the nobles the fiercest enemies of all runaway serfs? Wasn’t it they who were trying to put pressure on the king to abolish the laws allowing serfs to leave the land? How could he become a noble if the name of the Estanyol family was on everyone’s lips? What would his father-in-law say?
“You are to come with me,” he told Bernat, who for several days now had been worried by the new turn of events.
As the new owner of the workshop, and consequently free of any commitment to Grau, Jaume had sat Bernat down earlier and talked openly to him. “Grau won’t dare do anything to you. I know, because he told me as much. He doesn’t want people to hear of your situation. I’ve got a good deal here, Bernat. He is in a hurry; he wants everything settled before he marries Isabel. You have a signed contract for your son. You should take advantage of that, and put pressure on that rogue. Threaten to take him to the tribunal. You are a good man. I hope you understand that everything that has happened in these past years ...”
Bernat did understand. And, thanks to the former assistant’s support, he decided to go and confront his brother-in-law.
“What was that you said?” shouted Grau when Bernat answered him with a brief “Where and what for?” “Where I say, and for whatever I wish,” he went on, nervously flinging his arms in the air.