Arnau himself was now a tall, strong, and good-looking young man of eighteen. During those four years he had lived from and for the guild of bastaixos, the church of Santa Maria, and his brother Joan. He carried more than his share of goods and stone blocks; he gave money to the guild, and attended religious services devoutly. But he had not married, and the guild aldermen were worried that a lusty young man like him might fall into temptation, which would mean they would have to expel him from the brotherhood.

Yet Arnau would not hear of marrying. When the priest told him Gastó wanted nothing to do with him, Arnau stood staring at the sea, thinking of the women who had been part of his life: he had not even known who his mother was; Guiamona had shown him affection, but then turned against him; Habiba had vanished in a welter of blood and pain (at night Arnau often still dreamed of Grau’s whip lashing her naked body); Estranya had treated him like a slave; Margarida had laughed at him at his moment of greatest humiliation; and Aledis—what could he say about her? It was thanks to her that he had discovered the man inside him, but she had soon abandoned him.

“I have to take care of my brother,” he told the aldermen whenever they brought the matter up. “You know he has dedicated his life to the church, to serve God,” he would say while they thought of how to persuade him. “What better aim could there be in life?”

At this the aldermen invariably fell silent.

This was how Arnau lived throughout those four years: calmly, wrapped up in his work, Santa Maria, and above all, Joan.

That second Sunday in July 1339 was a historic day for Barcelona. In January 1336, King Alfonso the Kind had died in the city, and after Easter that same year, his son Pedro was crowned in Zaragoza. He became Pedro the Third of Catalonia, Pedro the Fourth of Aragon, and Pedro the Second of Valencia.

Between 1336 and 1339, the new monarch did not so much as visit Barcelona, the capital of Catalonia. Both the nobility and the merchants were concerned at this failure to pay homage to the kingdom’s most important city. They were all well aware of the new king’s dislike of the Catalan nobility: Pedro the Third was the son of Alfonso’s first wife, Teresa de Entenza, countess of Urgel and vice countess of Ager. Teresa had died before her husband became king, and Alfonso remarried, this time to Eleonor of Castille, an ambitious and cruel woman by whom he had two sons.

Despite his conquest of Sardinia, King Alfonso was a weak, easily led man: Queen Eleonor quickly won large tracts of land and honors for her sons. Her next goal was to pursue her stepchildren, the children of Teresa de Entenza who were the heirs to the throne. Throughout the eight years of Alfonso the Kind’s reign, Eleonor never missed an opportunity to attack the Infante Pedro, who was still a young boy, as well as his brother, Jaime, count of Urgel. Only two Catalan nobles, Pedro’s godfather, Ot de Montcada, and Vidal de Vilanova, the knight commander of Montalbán, supported the cause of Teresa’s children. It was they who warned King Alfonso and the two brothers to escape before they were poisoned. Pedro and Jaime followed their advice, and hid in the mountains of Jaca in Aragon before finally securing the protection of the nobles of Aragon and seeking refuge in the city of Zaragoza, where they were protected by Archbishop Pedro de Luna.

This was the reason why Pedro’s coronation broke with a tradition that had been upheld ever since the kingdom of Aragon had been united with the principality of Catalonia. While he ascended the throne of Aragon in Zaragoza, the right to rule Catalonia, which belonged to him as the count of Barcelona, had always been granted in Catalan territory. Until Pedro the Third, new monarchs first took the oath in Barcelona, and were later crowned in Zaragoza. Whereas the king took the crown of Aragon simply because he was the new monarch, as count of Barcelona he had to swear allegiance to the laws and customs of Catalonia, a ceremony that was regarded as essential before he could be crowned king.

As count of Barcelona, prince of Catalonia, the monarch was seen by the Catalan nobility simply as primus inter pares. This was evident from the oath that they swore him: “We, who are as good as you, swear to Your Majesty, who is no better than us, that we will accept you as our king and sovereign liege, for as long as you respect all our freedoms and laws; if not, not.” As a result, when Pedro the Third was to be crowned, the Catalan nobles went to Zaragoza to demand that he come first to Barcelona to swear the oath there as all his predecessors had done. When the king refused, the Catalans walked out of the coronation. However, the king knew he must receive their oaths of loyalty, and so, despite renewed protests by the nobility and authorities in Barcelona, he chose to do so in the city of Lérida. In June 1336, after swearing to respect the Catalan customs and laws, he duly received their expressions of loyalty.

So it was that on the second Sunday of July 1339, King Pedro paid his first visit to Barcelona, the city he had humiliated. Three reasons brought him there: the oath that his brother-in-law Jaime the Third, king of Mallorca, count of Roussillon and Cerdagne, and lord of Montpellier, had to swear as a vassal of the crown of Aragon; the general council of bishops of the province of Tarragona (to which Barcelona belonged); and the transfer of the remains of Saint Eulàlia the martyr from the church of Santa Maria to the cathedral.

The first two events took place out of sight of ordinary people. Jaime the Third expressly asked that his oath of allegiance be given not in front of the populace, but in the palace chapel, before a small group of chosen nobles.

The third event, however, became a public spectacle. Nobles, churchmen, and all the inhabitants of the city came out onto the streets. The most privileged among them accompanied the royal party as they first heard mass in the cathedral, then walked in procession down to Santa Maria, before finally returning to the cathedral with the martyr’s remains.

All along the way, the streets were lined with people anxious to proclaim their king. Santa Maria’s apse was already roofed over; work had begun on the second vault, but a part of the original Romanesque church still survived.

Saint Eulàlia was martyred during Roman rule, in the year 303. Her remains were kept first in the Roman cemetery and then in the church of Santa Maria de las Arenas, which was built on the pagan burial ground once Emperor Constantine had issued his edict authorizing Christian worship. When the Arabs invaded Spain, the men in charge of the tiny church decided to hide the martyr’s remains. In 801, when the French king Louis the Pious liberated the city, Frodoí, the then bishop of Barcelona, decided to search for the saint’s relics. Once found, they were laid to rest in a small coffer in Santa Maria.

In spite of being draped in scaffolding and surrounded by stones and building material, Santa Maria looked splendid for the royal visit. The archdeacon, Bernat Rosell, together with members of the commission of works, noblemen, beneficiaries, and other church dignitaries, all of them dressed in their finest robes, were there to greet the king. The bright colors of their garments were spectacular: the July morning sun poured in through the unfinished roof and windows of the church, glinting on the gold and metal adorning the vestments of those privileged enough to wait for the king inside.

The sun also glinted on the blunt tip of Arnau’s dagger: the humble bastaixos had taken up a place of honor alongside all the important dignitaries. Some of them, Arnau included, stood outside the chapel of the sacraments, the one they looked after. Other bastaixos stood guard at the front doorway to the church, which was still part of the old Romanesque building.

The bastaixos, formerly slaves or macips de ribera, enjoyed many privileges in Santa Maria de la Mar. As well as being responsible for the church’s main chapel and being the guardians of the main entrance, the masses for their celebrations were said at the high altar, the chief alderman of the guild kept the key of the Jesus chapel, and during Corpus Christi they were the ones who carried the statue of the Virgin, and also the lesser ones of saints Tecla, Catherine, and Macia. In addition, whenever a bastaix was close to death, the holy eucharist was carried to him, at whatever time of day or night, through the main doorway under its canopy.

That July morning, Arnau and his companions were allowed through the lines of soldiers protecting the royal party. He knew he was the envy of all the citizens thronging the streets in the hope of seeing the king. A mere laborer in the port, here he was striding into Santa Maria alongside noblemen and merchants, as if he were one of them. As he walked through the church on the way to his chapel, he found himself opposite Grau Puig, Isabel, and his three cousins, all of them decked out in silk, as haughty and condescending as ever.

“Arnau,” he heard someone call just as he was continuing on past Margarida. Was it not enough for them to have ruined his father’s life? Could they possibly be so cruel as to want to humiliate him still further in front of his colleagues, here in the church? “Arnau,” he heard someone call again.

He looked up and saw Berenguer de Montagut standing in front of him, only a yard from the Puig family.

“Your Excellency,” said the master builder, addressing the archdeacon. “May I present Arnau ...”

“Estanyol,” Arnau stammered.

“He is the bastaix I have often told you about. When he was only a boy, he was already carrying stones for the Virgin.”

The prelate nodded and held out his ringed finger, which Arnau leaned forward to kiss. Berenguer de Montagut patted him on the back. Arnau saw Grau and his family bowing to the prelate and the master builder, but neither paid them any attention, moving on to greet other nobles. Arnau straightened and strode away from the Puig family toward the Jesus chapel, where he joined his guild companions to stand guard.

Shouts from the crowd outside announced the arrival of the king and his retinue. King Pedro the Third; King Jaime of Mallorca; Queen Maria, Pedro’s wife; the infantes Pedro, Ramon Berenguer, and Jaime—the first two the king’s uncles, the last his brother; the queen of Mallorca, also a sister of the king; Cardinal Rodés, the papal envoy; the archbishop of Tarragona; other bishops and prelates; nobles and knights—they all headed in procession down Calle de la Mar to Santa Maria. Never before had Barcelona seen such a display of personalities, such wealth and pomp.

Pedro the Third, the Ceremonious, wanted to impress the people of Barcelona whom he had neglected for more than three years. He succeeded. The two kings, the cardinal, and the archbishop were carried on litters by bishops and nobles. At the provisional high altar, they received the chest with the martyr’s remains. The entire congregation looked on closely, and Arnau could scarcely contain his nervousness. The king himself carried the coffer with the holy relics from Santa Maria to the cathedral. He went inside and handed over the remains for burial in the specially constructed chapel beneath the high altar.