Although the taste of the food was real enough, as was the slight dizziness I experienced after three glass of exceptionally strong wine, yet the whole evening had about it the quality of a dream. After the horrors of Coruña, this eager, joyous reception seemed unreal. When I went to bed that night, in a proper bed with two feather mattresses below and sheets of the finest linen, I thought with wonder that all our misgivings since leaving Plymouth had been groundless. The people of Portugal were, after all, eager to welcome Dom Antonio back and to drive the Spanish out of the country. For the first time in many days, I dreamt peacefully. I thought I was at home again in Duck Lane, in the parlour with my father and Thomas Harriot, who had come to play music with us. As is the odd way with dreams, Harriot had brought his virginals – I know not how – and I was playing. When Harriot picked up my lute and my father raised his recorder to his lips, my dog Rikki began to howl, quite melodiously, in tune with the music. I woke up laughing.
The next day, success did not look quite so easy. I was invited to join the party of English Portuguese, if I may call us that, at breakfast. At once I noticed that although they were relaxed and cheerful, their conversation was not as optimistic as it had been last night.
‘Captain Aruajo,’ said Dom Antonio, ‘had one piece of bad news for me. Because we put in to Coruña for provisions, and stayed there two weeks, King Philip received word of our arrival before ever we sailed from there.’
We exchanged glances. We knew that Drake and Norreys had made serious mistakes over the Coruña affair. We knew all chance of surprise had been lost.
‘Because of this–’ The Dom hesitated, and I realised that something concerned him deeply. ‘Because of this, the Spanish king has ordered the execution, without trial, of every noble who is suspected to be of my party. Merely suspected.’
Dr Nuñez groaned in horror and Ruy Lopez covered his face briefly with his hands. I felt myself go cold. How many? Dear Lord, how many?
‘The nobles King Philip has managed to arrest and execute,’ said the Dom, ‘will not now be able to raise their own followers and bring them to join us.’
I felt a sudden swift stab of anger and gasped aloud at his calculating tone. Dom Antonio was indifferent to the deaths of these men, who had risked so much to remain faithful to him. He cared only for his lack of troops. It was the previous day all over again, a single-minded self-interest which set aside and ignored the tragedy of other lives, except as it affected his chances of claiming the throne.
Ruy sat up. As always he tried to persuade the Dom that all would be well.
‘Yet see how you are welcomed here in Peniche!’ he exclaimed. ‘We may lack the nobles, but the common people and the merchant classes only await your coming to rise up and follow you.’
At this the Dom looked more cheerful, and nodded his head. All those undeserved deaths, deaths brought about by our ill-conceived and ill-managed expedition, were forgotten at once.
I soon left them to their deliberations and set out to explore the town. It was a strange feeling to be speaking Portuguese, not amongst an exiled community, but here in the country itself. The place seemed prosperous enough, not as though it was suffering under Spanish rule. There were fishing boats in the harbour and some larger merchant vessels. I found a market where there was abundant food and other goods for sale – cooking pots and dishes, lengths of cheap fabric, even children’s simple toys. In a way this made it seem all the more surprising that the people had seemed so eager to welcome Dom Antonio.
The leaders of the expedition decided to remain for a short time in Peniche before advancing on Lisbon. They would wait for the Portuguese people to come in, to swell the ranks of our army, which was now heavily depleted by desertion before we left Plymouth (and since), by injury and death at Coruña, by the withdrawal of the Dutch vlieboten, and by the drownings here at Peniche. While King Antonio sat in state, blessing his people and settling disputes they brought before him, I sought out Dr Nuñez, whom I found at an apothecary’s shop in the town, replenishing his supplies. I took the opportunity to buy healing herbs myself – febrifuge herbs, and those for the treatment of sunburn, since most of mine had been exhausted, and a small amount of poppy syrup, which was inordinately expensive, in country where the poppies grew abundantly, as I knew very well. Perhaps the local people had begun to realise that they might do some very profitable trade with this sudden influx of strangers. Dr Nuñez and I walked back to the royal residence together.
‘Dom Antonio,’ I said, ‘I mean, King Antonio – he means to stay here at least a week, does he not?’
‘That is his intention at the moment.’
‘Do you think . . . might I be given leave to absent myself for a few days?’
‘Where would you go?’
‘There is business I need to attend to at home.’
He stopped in the road and laid his hand on my arm.
‘Do not suppose, because Peniche has declared for Dom Antonio, that it is safe to ride about the country, Kit. You might be known in Coimbra. You might be taken by the Inquisition.’
‘It is seven years, and I was a child then. I don’t think they would know me. But I do not mean to go into Coimbra itself. I want to visit my grandfather’s solar a short distance away, to enquire after members of my family.’
‘Kit, your grandfather will surely be dead by now. Your father is not much younger than I am.’
‘Nay, my mother’s father. She was twenty years younger than my father, and my grandfather was not much past twenty when she was born. So he would be, perhaps, only three or four years older than my father. Of an age with you, sir.’
‘I see.’ He thought for a moment, as we resumed our walk along the sea front. ‘If you will promise me to keep away from Coimbra, and take great care where you go and who you speak to, I suppose you might go. I feel responsible for you to your father.’
‘I will be careful,’ I said. ‘You need not fear on that score. I have no wish to fall into the hands of the Inquisition again.’
That evening I secured the loan of a horse from the Portuguese garrison, which had taken over sole control of the fortress at Peniche, and I packed my satchel with food. Walsingham’s purse, which he had thoughtfully filled with Spanish and Portuguese coinage, was hidden inside my shirt. I was tense with apprehension, laced with excitement. How I wished for a companion, someone with whom I could share both my hopes and my fears. Andrew had joined in more than one adventure with me. But, still haunted by those odd dreams, I knew Simon would have been the very companion of my choice. Bold, cheerful, he would have steadied my nerve and relieved my fears. But nay, with his fair English looks and his lack of Spanish or Portuguese, he would have drawn attention and suspicion at once. This was something I must undertake alone. Before dawn the next day I left Peniche and headed north through the Estremadura towards Coimbra. The last time I had seen the town of my birth it was rank with the smell of burning flesh.
Chapter Eleven
Coimbra , Portugal, 1582
The auto-da-fè took place at the end of November. By then Francesca had been taken away and we never saw her again. My mother had been put to the question six or seven times before they were satisfied that she was a penitent. We were dressed, my mother and I, in long yellow robes with a black transverse cross, the sambenito, and each given a lighted taper to carry. This is the dress which is appointed for penitents. I knew now that my mother and I would be allowed to live, for the moment at least, whatever pain and abasement still lay in store for us. They put a kind of mitre on our heads and led us out of the cell and up some stairs into the blinding light of dawn. I had managed to hide inside my breeches the purse with our few bits of jewellery in it. After so many weeks in the darkness of our underground prison, my eyes could hardly bear the light.