‘I agree,’ he said, moving a pawn carelessly. I captured it.

‘But I still do not understand.’ He drummed his fingers on the table. ‘Poley has a good position with Walsingham. I am sure he is well rewarded. He is an Englishman, and England will suffer if he betrays her secrets. What has he to gain?’

‘Money,’ I said grimly. ‘Power. He enjoys power over other people, and through betrayal he gains power.’

I narrowed my eyes, thinking of Poley and all I knew of him. ‘Revenge.’

‘Revenge?’

‘Revenge. He has been shut up in the Tower for more than two years. However comfortably he lived there, however politic it was to maintain a fiction, he cannot have taken it kindly. He might well want to take revenge on Walsingham by damaging his service, provided he can conceal his own involvement, acting by stealth. He will want to stay privy to its secrets. Do not underestimate his talents and his cunning.’

‘You hate him.’

‘I have my reasons. I think you will find – if ever the truth can be laid bare – that Robert Poley passed word to Parma, who in turn passed word to Coruña as to your identity.’

‘You are probably right,’ he said. ‘But in that case, why merely have me watched? Why not arrest and torture me?’

I smiled. ‘Well, you can be thankful for that.’ I moved a bishop to a strategic position.

‘Perhaps they trust Poley no more than we do,’ I said. ‘They had you watched, hoping to catch you out, but wisely you sent no more despatches after warning Walsingham.’

He nodded. ‘I stayed quiet and plied my trade. That kept me safe. Then the English fleet arrived and you sprang me from the trap.’

He moved one of his castles. A mistake.

I made my final move and smiled at him. ‘Checkmate,’ I said.

We had no proof of Poley’s involvement, of course, and probably never would have, but we agreed that when Titus got back to London he would give Walsingham an account of our suspicions. He did not intend to travel on to Portugal with the expedition but would return to England whenever the next ship was sent home with despatches. In the meantime he stayed on board the Victory and we had a few more games of chess. When we were not distracted, we found we were pretty evenly matched.

Although I was still troubled and in pain from my burn, which was gradually growing less, and somewhat hampered by my sprained ankle, it was nothing to what was taking place on land. During the following days more and more of our skilled soldiers died needlessly during the fruitless attacks on the citadel. Norreys’s own brother, Sir Edward Norreys, was desperately wounded, not as a result of enemy fire, but because, in the confusion and exhaustion of the siege, he tripped over his own pike and injured himself very severely, the blade burying itself deep in his skull. It was an injury likely to prove fatal. He was one of the most senior officers on the expedition, in command of one of the five squadrons, led by his galleon ironically called Foresight.

The first we knew of what had happened that day under the ramparts of the citadel was when we caught sight of a party of men proceeding slowly along the harbour road which led down from our army camp, located on the highest ground of the lower town.

Dr Nuñez called me over. ‘It looks as though someone is seriously injured, Kit.’

I shaded my eyes against the glare of the sun.

‘That is Sir John himself in the party,’ I said. ‘He is carrying someone. But – I can’t see very well – there are so many of them.’

The group of men all seemed to be moving together, step by step. As they reached the water’s edge, it became clearer why. Sir John was carrying the wounded man in his arms, but two other men walking close beside him also seemed to be holding something. More men were right behind them. The men with the injured soldier had great difficulty, clustered together, climbing down into the skiff. Even from a distance it was obvious that there was something seriously wrong. The skiff began to row slowly toward Sir John’s Nonpareil.

‘Someone is certainly badly hurt,’ I said. ‘Should we row over and offer our services?’

‘Aye,’ Dr Nuñez said. ‘Fetch our satchels.’

I limped to our cabin. With firm strapping around my ankle, I could now manage without a stick.

We reached the Nonpareil while they were still lifting the wounded man on board, and I could see now why the burden was so awkward. The blade of a pike was embedded in his skull and the two soldiers helping Sir John had been taking the weight of the shaft, to try to prevent its doing further damage. At least they had shown the sense not to try to drag it out until there was a physician at hand to stem the bleeding. And I saw now that the man was Sir John’s younger brother, Sir Edward Norreys.

Sir Edward was carried at once to the main cabin, and we followed closely behind. Sir John was wide-eyed with shock, for the wound looked mortal, but his brother was not dead yet. His eyelids fluttered and he moaned. He seemed barely conscious as he was laid carefully on Norreys’s own bed so we could examine him.

The next hour was a desperate time.

‘You will need to hold the patient’s head rigid for me, Kit,’ Dr Nuñez said, in the calm, impersonal tone he used when dealing with a medical crisis. There was no hint in his voice that this was a friend and a valued officer, as well as being Norreys’s much loved younger brother.

Two of the soldiers who were not supporting the handle of the pike lifted the bed and its occupant out into the middle of the cabin, so that there was room for me to stand at the top of the bed and grip Sir Edward’s head tightly on either side. It was difficult to hold it rigid as Dr Nuñez required, for on the side with the injury his hair was soaked with blood and more blood poured over my hand as I held him. Everything was slippery. I bit down on my lip, trying to keep my hands firm.

‘Now,’ Dr Nuñez said to the two soldiers holding the pike handle, ‘I want you, you nearest the patient’s head, to release the handle when I tell you – very gently, careful! – and take hold of the back of the blade. Whatever you do, you must not move it back and forth. That will enlarge the wound. And you,’ to the other man, ‘you must take all the weight of the pike as he moves his hands.’

The first man did as he was told, but he was sweating with the fear that he might cause further injury. The other soldier’s eyes bulged with the strain of holding the pike steady.

‘Good.’ Dr Nuñez took a deep breath.

‘Now you must both pull the pike blade straight out, along the same angle at which it entered. Do you understand? Not yet! I will count to three. On three you will do it. Straight and careful. Understood?’

They nodded. I am not sure which of us in that confined space was the most worried. Certainly I feared I would lose my grip as they pulled.

‘One. Steady now. Two. Three.’

They pulled the blade out of the skull. I managed to hold it firmly, but the blade did not come out easily, for it was buried deep in the bone. As soon as it came free, I laid Sir Edward’s head gently down and seized a handful of dried moss and the bandage cloth we had set ready and pressed it against the wound, for the blood spurted out like a fountain. If we did not act quickly, the man would bleed to death. Then Dr Nuñez took over with fresh cloths as I dug in my satchel for the salve of agrimonia eupatoria and achillea millefolium. These are the most efficacious coagulants. Even our troops call achillea ‘soldier’s woundwort’, for it has been used to staunch wounds since ancient times. Achilles was said to have used it during the Trojan War, which gave it the name of achillea. Country folk call it ‘yarrow’.

Still, despite the known properties of the two herbs, I wondered whether anything could possibly stop the bleeding from this terrible head wound. There was a great loss of blood. Examining the injury I could see that the skull bone itself had been cleft. It was a clean cut, without the shattering and fragments of bone that occur from shot, but it went deep and there might be damage to the brain itself. It was a fearful sight.