He turned to the man. ‘Is it believed?’

He nodded. ‘By enough people to affect how they will behave. There are others who perhaps do not quite believe, but will find it more expedient to pretend they believe, so they need do nothing.’ He swallowed. ‘Is it true?’

‘Nay, my friend.’ Dr Nuñez smiled at him gently. ‘It is not true. Drake has a pet Irish wolfhound at home. I have seen it myself and it is as gentle as a babe. There are no wolfhounds, trained or otherwise, with us on the expedition. You may return and scotch the rumour.’

The young man’s eyes widened, showing the white, like those of a frightened horse. ‘I am not going back.’ His voice rose to a squeak. ‘I should be caught and killed at once. As it is, I have risked my life to come to you.’

‘Of course we welcome your good service.’ Clearly the Dom felt it was time he took charge of the meeting. ‘You will be rewarded for your courage, and amply too.’

I wondered at such self-deception. Dom Antonio had no money to reward anyone, nor overlordship of lands to be given away. I doubted whether, at this moment in Portugal, he owned much more than the clothes he stood up in.

‘Either way,’ said Dr Nuñez, ‘whether such a wild rumour is believed or not, Spanish and Portuguese alike will soon see that Drake is nowhere near Lisbon, but twenty miles away with his fleet as Cascais. Whether that will help or hinder us is any man’s guess.’

What had Drake been doing, all the time we had been labouring overland? I suspected that he might have been indulging in a little privateering to fill in the time. There was certainly no sign of him sailing up river to join us, despite Norreys demand.

The man from Lisbon also brought word that public executions were continuing to take place all day long.

‘Any who are suspected of supporting Your Majesty,’ he said, ‘are killed without trial. Men are being dragged to the gallows or garrotted in the street, merely on some anonymous informer’s whisper.’

The meeting in the royal tent went on for some while longer, but the man could tell us little more, save the number of the troops and the vast quantities of arms, gunpowder and food which had been stockpiled in the city while we lingered at Coruña, then made our slow way to Peniche and overland to Lisbon. It was nearing dawn by the time the meeting broke up.

‘I have heard,’ I said to Dr Nuñez the following day, ‘that the Dom has persuaded the local priests to slip into the houses round about and tell the people that he is God’s chosen ruler of Portugal, that they must come to his aid, and they will be richly rewarded, in this world and hereafter.’

We were sitting on the ground, leaning against our saddles, while our horses grazed nearby and we tore lumps out of a loaf of bread his servant had somehow managed to find for him. The bread was coarse, and I felt my teeth grate on fragments of grit, but it was fresh and I was too hungry to care.

‘Well enough,’ said Dr Nuñez, ‘but I have never heard that priests made good recruiting officers, except in the days of the Crusades, and then they were of a more fiery disposition than those we have seen here.’

I was aware all at once how tired and old he looked. When we had first set out from London, he had been so buoyed up, with hope and joy at returning to his native Portugal, that he seemed to have shed his age. Now it weighed down on him, the whole burden of his seventy years.

‘I also heard there was one priest,’ I said, in the hope of cheering him, ‘who has promised to find a way into the city and open the gates to us.’

‘Aye, I heard it too. But can one man alone accomplish such a thing? I doubt it, Kit, I doubt it.’

Later that day I met the priest, Father Hernandez. I was checking the wounds of the men who had been injured during the night attack by the Spanish. There was a risk, even with the lesser injuries, that they might still fester, for the men were so weakened and the conditions in which we had lived since Peniche so poor that there was a risk of serious inflammation or even gangrene. To my relief, there was no sign of gangrene, though all the wounds were slow in healing. There being no better place to treat them, my patients came one by one to lie on the ground under a single sheet of canvas, providing a makeshift shelter. When at last I was done, I sat back on my heels and wiped my face with a wet cloth. At least here we had water from the river.

‘You are over young to be serving as an army physician, my son.’

It was a priest, not more than thirty, who sat down cross-legged beside me on the ground. He had addressed me in English, but I replied in Portuguese.

‘No younger than many of the soldiers,’ I said. ‘Or not much. Though I think many of us have aged during the march here from Peniche.’

‘You are Portuguese? This march overland does not seem a wise course to have taken. Why were you not brought by ship?’

I shrugged. ‘It was the decision of those in charge of the expedition. I believe they chose that course because they believed that the local people would flock to King Antonio’s banner.’

‘But they did not.’

‘Nay.’

He held out his hand to me. ‘I am Dinis Hernandez.’

‘Christoval Alvarez.’ I shook his hand, where we sat, side by side on the ground, the last of my patients having left. In this ramshackle camp, there was no formality, except perhaps in Essex’s tents.

‘Are you not the priest who–’ I broke off.

‘Aye,’ he said quietly. ‘I have volunteered to make my way into the city and recruit good friends of King Antonio’s to help me open the city gates to his army.’

‘It is a very dangerous thing to attempt.’

He smiled ruefully. ‘Such times require desperate measures. I have little love for the Spanish. They killed my parents when they first invaded Portugal nearly ten years ago. My brother and my brother-in-law were amongst those executed without trial within the last two weeks. My sister and her children were in Lisbon, but there has been no word of them. They disappeared about the same time as my brother-in-law was killed. I want the Spanish driven out of Portugal.’

‘Do you think you will be allowed into the city?’

‘I am a priest. Why should they refuse me?’

‘If indeed you succeed in entering the city,’ I said slowly, ‘I know that there is an Englishman held prisoner there. His name is Hunter. I have no other name for him. Before I left London, I was asked to make sure that he was brought safely out of Lisbon, once we took the city. I do not know whether that will happen, or whether I shall be able to enter the city, but if you–’ I was uncertain how to continue. It seemed best not to mention Walsingham, or what manner of man Hunter was.

‘If I can find him, or help him, I will do so,’ he said, and smile reassuringly.

‘I am grateful, Father,’ I said.

Before we parted, I wished him success in his courageous attempt, and he blessed me, saying over my head a Catholic prayer.

My fears proved right. The following morning Father Hernandez’s head appeared on a spike, hoisted high above the walls of Lisbon so that everyone in our army could see it and take note. As indeed all the inhabitants of the countryside might have done also, and taken the lesson to heart, had there been any left to see. For we found, in searching the houses which had spread beyond the city walls as Lisbon had grown outside them, that none were left but the sick and the lame and ancient men and women babbling in terror and confusion. We promised to do them no harm, but they could no more help us than they could feed us. Every able-bodied man, woman and child had fled south over the Tejo, as far from us as they could.

As for myself, I turned from the sight of that terrible object above the wall, sickened and appalled at what had been done, not only to a man but to a priest. However much I tried to keep it out of my sight, it was always there, at the corner of my vision, and his voice speaking in my ear, blessing me. The dead face wore an expression of unspeakable horror, which I think will stay with me as long as I live.