‘As for the Senhor, he didn’t want her.’ He shrugged indifferently. ‘Until her death five years ago my mother taught the girl to be useful. Simple cooking. How to milk the cow and grow vegetables. And she is my wife and not my whore.’

I did not believe him, with his loud voice and his shifty eyes. I knew he was lying.

How could this have happened? My grandfather would surely have come for Isabel as soon as it was safe, as soon as the Inquisition had given up their search of the area, even if her mind had been as severely damaged as the man said. But it could be that the search had continued. Perhaps he waited until the woman of the farm died, thinking her safe here from the Inquisitors, and then found it was too late. But our grandfather was dead, and now I would never know the reason. This foul villain must have got her with child when she was no more than twelve. And I did not believe he had married her, for there was something that had the ring of falsehood in his voice.

I went to the girl and put my arms around her, but she stood stiff in them, rigid as a wild animal about to run for its life. Oh, what had they done to her!

‘Isabel,’ I said quietly, crooning as if to a child, ‘Isabel, don’t you know me?’

I brushed the greasy hair back from her face, and kissed her gently on her dirty cheek. Her cheek that was still soft and childlike, though I saw that it was bruised below the eye, and there was more bruising on her neck, as if fingers had been tightened around her throat. I could make out the impression of fingers. It seemed to me that she relaxed a little as I held her, and for the first time she looked at me with eyes that had a mind behind them.

‘Don’t you know me?’ I rocked her gently, and began to hum a tune our nurse sang to us when we were sick or fretful. She opened her mouth as if she would speak, then she looked over my shoulder and caught the eye of the man, standing watchful behind me. Her face closed down again. She shook her head and tried to pull away from me. I put my lips close to her ear, that he might not hear, and whispered.

‘Isabel,’ I said, no more than a breath, ‘I am Caterina. Take no heed of these boy’s clothes, they are simply for safety’s sake. I’ve come to take you home.’

For a moment intelligence flashed into her eyes and she knew me. She put her arms around me and laid her head on my shoulder. So softly that it too was only a breath, she whispered, ‘Caterina.’

The man jumped forward and dragged us apart.

‘What are you whispering about? Leave her alone, she’s my wife. You, get back to your work!’

And he struck her a violent blow on the side of the head, which sent her staggering away from me, gasping for breath, but silent. It was the silence that wrenched at my heart. She only stopped herself from falling by catching hold of the edge of the table.

At once her head drooped, her eyes became dull, and she was again the wretched whore of a brutal farmer. Mechanically, she picked up the knife and began chopping the onions again, but I saw that her hands trembled and she nicked the side of her thumb so that blood ran, staining the onions and the table. She sucked her thumb, but did not lift her eyes.

The little boy began to cry, but quietly, as if he too had already learned to suppress the sound of his grief and pain. Even so, the man cuffed him and sent him sprawling across the room, where he crouched in a corner with his hands over his head, his shoulders heaving, but silent. Even so, the baby sensed something and began the thin gulping of breath that is the first sign of tears. Isabel laid down the knife and bent awkwardly, pregnant as she was, to pick the baby up off the floor. She was clearly still stunned by the blow, but she held the child against her shoulder, stroking her back with a hand that was shaking. Her thumb left a patch of blood on the baby’s back.

‘I have come to take Isabel home to her family!’ I shouted at the man. ‘You have no right to keep her here.’

‘She is my wife.’ He was sneering, sure of his power over her. ‘In law she is my property, as surely as my dog or my sheep or my cow or my chickens.’

‘Prove it. Show me some me some proof of your marriage. Who was the priest who married you? Did her grandfather give his consent?’

He swayed back.

Ah, I thought, I have you there.

‘Come, Isabel,’ I said, I am going to take you home.’

He stepped between us.

‘Show me your proof, then, Senhor Alvarez.’ He mocked me with the word ‘Senhor’, as though I had no claim to it. ‘How can you prove you have the right to take her from me? Has Senhor da Alejo commanded it?’

From the way he spoke, I realised he had not yet heard that our grandfather was dead.

‘Yes,’ I said boldly. ‘He has commanded it. And you had best do as he commands, for he is your master, and if you do not obey, I shall see that you lose this farm and your livelihood as well.’ My heart was beating fast and I spat out the words, so outraged that I was becoming careless.

‘Then let him come. He has not come for her these five years, since my mother died.’

‘The world is changing,’ I said, rash in my desperate need to rescue Isabel from this place. ‘King Antonio has returned, with Drake’s English fleet and army at his back. He has already been hailed as King of Portugal in Peniche. I travelled with them. Now we are on our way to Lisbon. We will drive all the Spaniards out of Portugal and it will be a free country again.’

He gaped at me. Clearly no word had come to this remote place from Coruña or Peniche. He shook his head.

‘You lie.’

‘It is true, and you will hear of it soon enough, even here in the forest.’

I saw that the conviction in my tone had convinced him, or at least made him pause to change his tactics.

‘You have not proved your right to take her. I do not know that you are even of her family.’ His face was twisted in a sneer. ‘Perhaps you want her for your own whore!’

I was so startled by this that I began to laugh, which angered him more. This was the last thing I had expected. My astonishment made me slip my guard. And then I did a foolish thing, and cast away all caution.

‘None has a better right than I to take her away!’ I cried passionately. ‘I am her sister, Caterina. She recognised me just now.’

Isabel had stayed cowering beside the table since he had hit her, trying to comfort the baby, but she looked at me now with frightened eyes and I realised I had taken one step too far. She opened her mouth to speak, then pressed her lips together with a look of despair. The little boy had crept on hands and knees to his mother and was clinging to the ragged hem of her skirt.

‘Her sister!’ He leapt at me, and before I could stop him had torn open my doublet and shirt. ‘A woman? You are a woman?’

I pulled away and tried to fasten my clothes. I was shaking. Oh, fool that I was!

‘I can handle a sword as well as any man, so keep your distance.’ I drew my sword a few inches from the scabbard and looked at him defiantly, but I knew that I had made a fatal mistake.

He stood back and folded his arms again. To my surprise, he smiled. Then laughed. It was a sound to strike fear, but I refused to show it.

‘A woman. Her sister.’ He gave another great hoot of laughter, then spat, so that a gob of spittle landed on the table beside the chopped onions. ‘Then you must be the heretic, Caterina Alvarez. They came searching for you at the solar when you escaped from Coimbra. That time they took your grandmother away, that old woman, another heretic. And killed her – good riddance. A true-blooded Portuguese like your grandfather should never have married a dirty Jew like that and got all this brood of heretics. He may be my master as you call him, but he brought that curse on himself.’

He was grinning in elation, all the long hatred of centuries distilled into the look he fixed on me.