If I had not been so weak, my words would have come out as a shout. Instead they were no louder than a vicious whisper. Tears were running down my face. I realised that I would have liked to kill Drake and Norreys at that moment. I had never felt such hatred and it frightened me.

‘If my grandfather had still been alive–’ I gasped. I must be careful what I said. I dashed the tears away angrily with the heel of my hand.

‘What of your sister Isabel?’ he asked quietly.

‘I found her,’ I said. ‘Oh, aye, I found her. Taken as a whore by the da Rocas’ loutish son,’ I spat out. ‘The parents, who were decent people, were dead. He got her with child when she was only twelve. Now, at barely seventeen, she has two children and another on the way. She would not come away with me, she would not leave the children. And he was violent, threatening me with the Inquisition. He tried to attack me with a knife. He beats her. She was terrified of him and begged me to leave. I had to ride away, like a coward.’

‘I don’t understand,’ he said. ‘Why was she not with your grandfather?’

‘I don’t know!’ I cried. ‘And now I will never know. Perhaps the man threatened to betray her to the Inquisition. Perhaps my grandfather did not know what had happened, thinking that she was safe in hiding, until it was too late and she feared for the children.’

I ran my fingers through my hair and sat clutching my head between my hands.

‘She had been very ill when we left, and developed brain fever, so the man said. She is very frightened of him, intimidated. He beats her,’ I said again. ‘I saw the signs. He struck her, and the little boy, while I was there.’

He said nothing for some time, but at last he spoke.

‘If our expedition had succeeded, and Dom Antonio had been made king indeed, he might have been able to help you.’

‘Aye, I said, ‘I had thought of that.’

He sighed. ‘I feel your grief, Kit, and I know there is nothing I can say to ease it.’

‘It will kill my father,’ I said in despair. ‘He thought at least the three of them had survived.’

‘Did you tell him what you planned to do?’

‘Nay. I feared I might not be able to make the journey to the solar.’

‘Then I think you should not tell him. What good will it do, except to ease your own mind by sharing the burden of the truth? I think this is a burden you must bear alone, Kit, to spare your father.’

He was wise, Dr Nuñez. I realised that it was the right advice. I would keep all these painful truths to myself and say nothing to my father, however much it hurt.

At the end of the fifth day out from Cascais, urged on with a slightly stronger wind, we finally reached Cape Finisterre, the last west tip of Spain. That was when the weather changed suddenly and the tempest caught us. As we rounded the cape and aimed north and east across the Bay of Biscay, the winds came howling down upon us and seized the ship and threw it almost over at the first blast, as if some giant’s hand had grabbed the Victory like a fragile toy. It seemed as though we might be crushed to splinters by that giant hand. I could not tell which direction the wind came from, for it seemed to come from all directions at once. A sailor up on the yardarms, trying to gather in one of the topsails and tie it down, was struck by the beating canvas and thrown out in an arc like a stone from a boy’s slingshot. We barely heard his cry before he plunged into the sea far in our wake and was lost at once to sight as the ship rushed first one way and then the other, at the mercy of the storm. Those of us who were still, almost, on our feet tried to drag and carry the sick men below decks, but despite our efforts three were washed, screaming, overboard in the first few minutes.

Out at sea long columns of flame, like the tongues of gigantic dragons, shot down from the sky and seemed to link earth and heaven in some devilish bond. Moments after, deafening thunder rolled over us, so that I felt the beat of it deep in my chest, and my ears were numb. Then the rain came, rain such as I had never seen before, hitting us like musket balls. As the bosun and I lifted the last of the injured men, to carry him below decks, the wind caught the awning we had erected for the soldiers, ripped it up till it stood on end and clapped and danced like the Dervishes of the Barbary Coast, then carried it away. It vanished into the solid wall of rain which was now so heavy we could no longer see the other ships of our dying fleet.

When we had deposited the last soldier down with the others on the gun deck, the bosun clambered hastily up the companionway to the main deck, and I followed after him, but I was not welcome there.

‘Get below!’ one of the officers shouted at me. ‘We want no landsmen on deck in a storm like this. Get out of our way!’

I did as I was told and retreated back down the companionway to the gun deck, then picked my way through the men lying there until I reached the companionway that led up to the poop and the cabins. I heard the faint sound of voices from Dom Antonio’s great cabin, but I did not want the company of my fellow Portuguese. Instead I let myself through Dr Nuñez’s empty cabin and into my cubbyhole. No larger than a clothes press, without porthole or any natural light, at least it was my own place. There I huddled on my bunk, weak now myself, and dizzy with lack of food for nearly a week, trying to blot out the memory, brought suddenly and vividly alive by the tempest, of my first journey north on these seas.

 

Chapter Eighteen

On Board the Santa Maria, 1582

When my parents and I were smuggled from the fishing boat aboard the merchant ship out of Porto, bound for London, I knew nothing more of Dr Hector Nuñez than his name, that he was the owner of the ship Santa Maria, and that he would help us when we reached England. I began to feel a little safer as we sailed west to gain sea room for rounding the Cape of Finisterre, and in the morning of the next day I ventured out of the cabin my family had been given, to explore the ship. During the few hours of the night that remained after we had come aboard, my parents had slept in the single bunk, and I had lain on the floor. After the months on the stone floor of the Inquisition prison it was no hardship.

My father had gone on deck before me. I followed him up the companionway and roamed about the ship, getting in the way of the sailors, and occasionally earning a cheerful cuff from one of them when I asked too many questions. I could hardly believe that my life was returning to some kind of normality. It was strange being at sea on this great ship. It was strange pretending to be a boy in the company of all these sailors. But we were free and alive, my mother, my father and I, with every hour taking us further from danger.

The previous evening, before we slept, I heard my father telling my mother what our plans should be. It would not be wise to travel on from England to Antwerp, as he had originally intended, for the Spanish King had turned his attention to his possessions in the Low Countries. Antwerp would not be safe for us. We would settle in England, where there was already a sizeable Marrano community, who would welcome us. I could not imagine what this place ‘England’ would be like, but I was beginning to feel hopeful. If only my sister Isabel were with us, I would almost feel happy.