The Portuguese Affair (3 page)

‘How could you, Father? You have gambled our future on this venture. What if it fails?’

Suddenly he looked frail and confused. ‘But Ruy has promised us all great profits from the voyage, and we could go home again, Felipe. I will return to my university once the Inquisition is driven out. We will live in our old house again; it’s so much better than this hovel, and your mother will have her garden that she loves so much!’

I felt chilled to the very bone. Felipe!
He thinks I am my dead brother. And Mama . . . Our old garden. Oh, Papa, I am losing you
. I could not berate him any more, but took his hand and stroked it, and said that perhaps all would be well in the end.

After this my father’s health grew worse, both in body and mind. He took it as agreed that I would sail with Drake and the others in his place, and do my part in freeing Portugal. I felt another trap closing about me. Portugal! The very name terrified me. I began to have nightmares again, the same dreams which had haunted me when we had first come to England. I was back in the prison of the Inquisition and could hear my mother screaming, but I could not reach her. The scars the scourges had raised on my back began to burn again with pain. I did not know whether this was a true physical pain, or some trick of my frightened mind, but it felt real enough. And I feared to leave my father. Some days he was brisk and eager, discussing plans for the expedition, then the cloud would descend over his mind and he would forget what he had just said, repeating it again and again, or wandering off into the streets until I fetched him home. Yet when I suggested that I should not go but stay with him, he grew angry and distressed. What should I do? Deep in my mind, a voice whispered that there was something I could do in Portugal, that my conscience would never be clear until I made the attempt. But I was mortally afraid.

Chapter Two

O
ne morning I woke early, still shaking from the horrors of the dark hours, but with the sudden gleam of an idea. I was still troubled by thoughts of what I might be able to do in Portugal that would ease both my father’s mind and my own evil memories. Although it was mostly dread that held me back, I knew that I could only join the expedition as one of those, like Ruy Lopez and Hector Nuñez, who went to keep a sharp eye on their investments, all of them aware that Drake would need watching, else he would turn the venture into yet another of his piratical raids. I would be regarded as a gentleman adventurer, not committed to any part in the fighting.

I might also be welcome for my medical skills. Like all naval expeditions, the ships would carry their own surgeons, but they were a class of unskilled butchers, whose main purpose was to hack off injured limbs too fearfully smashed to preserve. They probably killed more men than they saved. As a physician I was better qualified to help the men, both afloat and ashore, with the many illnesses that sailors and soldiers are heir to. However, as a physician I would have little freedom to carry out the plan I was tentatively forming in my mind. I would need a reason to leave the expedition at some point and venture into the interior of
Portugal on my own. I decided I must call on Walsingham.

Never before had I gone willingly to offer my services to Sir Francis. Originally, when I was but sixteen, I had been coerced into his service as a code-breaker and translator by the contrivance of Robert Poley, who had discovered my sex. For a woman to disguise herself as a man was regarded as heresy, and the punishment, as for any form of heresy, was burning at the stake. Threatened with exposure by Poley, I had entered Walsingham’s service in fear and resentment, yet gradually, working under the chief of his agents, Thomas Phelippes, I had found I enjoyed the challenge of breaking new and seemingly impossible codes. They were the most intriguing and exciting of puzzles, and yet they were not mere trivial entertainment. My work with Phelippes was aimed at the protection of the nation and the Queen against our many enemies, principally
Spain, France and the Papacy.

When Phelippes trained me in forgery, I was less happy, but many of the ‘projections’, as he and Walsingham called them, required slipping false reports and misleading information in amongst the enemies’ own intercepted papers, and I proved to have a useful skill here as well. When Walsingham had despatched me on other missions, first in
England and later in the Low Countries, I had survived and had some small successes – more through accident and luck than through skill on my part. A few times my own clumsiness had nearly cost me dear.

One skill which they had arranged for me to be taught – swordsmanship – I had chosen to improve for my own satisfaction. Since returning from
Amsterdam I had spent more time with Master Scannard at the Tower, who had undertaken my original training at Walsingham’s bidding. Although I would never be a master at the skill, nor wish to be, yet I hoped I would no longer fall over the sword Walsingham had provided for me. I did not carry it in London, preferring the simple dagger my father had given me, but if I was going on the Portuguese expedition, I would wear it. Scannard, a man scanty of words and even scantier of praise, conceded that I had made some progress.

To go now to Walsingham and willingly offer to serve him was contrary to everything I had felt before, but it seemed the only way to accomplish what I had in mind to try. He had agreed to see me, and I presented myself in good time at
Seething Lane, to be shown into Sir Francis’s office by his chief secretary, Francis Mylles.

‘We have not seen you since last autumn, Kit,’ Mylles said. ‘You are well?’

‘Aye, never better. And you?’

We exchanged the usual pleasantries.

‘Sir Francis will be here shortly,’ Mylles said. ‘If you would not mind waiting?’

As if I should take offence at waiting for the Queen’s Principal Secretary, her most senior advisor after Lord Burghley.

Mylles offered me wine, but I refused, wanting to keep a clear head. Indeed he was gone only a few minutes when Sir Francis appeared, apologising. He looked, as he so often did, tired and ill but resolutely indomitable. I never knew a man so determined to defeat his physical weakness by strength of mind.

‘Kit, my dear boy, it is very good to see you! Has Mylles not offered you wine?’

Before I could object, he was pressing a glass into my hand. As always, it was of the very best quality. He had his sources. However, I took only small sips.

‘The Portuguese expedition, Sir Francis.’

‘Ah.’ He gave me a knowing smile. ‘You are to sail with it, of course.’

It was no surprise to me that he knew. He always seemed to know my affairs before I did.

‘Possibly. Probably. If I can get leave from St Bartholomew’s. My father–,’ I paused. ‘My father has invested in it.’

‘And you are not happy about that.’

I suppose my feelings were writ large on my face.

‘Nay
, I am not, but it is done now.’

‘The Queen has invested twenty thousand pounds.’

So the Queen had been persuaded to increase her stake in the venture.

‘The Queen has rather more means than my father and I!’ I should not have said it, but the words were out before I could stop them.

He did not rebuke me, but I apologised quickly.

‘You are concerned, of course,’ he said. ‘And you will go with the expedition to ensure that all is well.’

‘There is little I can do, surely, to ensure that, but my father wishes me to go. Otherwise he would try to go himself, but he is not strong enough. I have no wish to return to Portugal.’

I swallowed hard and Sir Francis nodded. He knew a little of my history, but by no means the most dangerous part.

‘However, I do not want to be merely a passenger.’ I cleared my throat. ‘It would seem a fruitless waste of time. I thought I could perhaps serve you in some way, if there is any mission you want undertaken in Portugal? I know you have agents there already, so perhaps there is no need.’

My voice trailed away. My whole purpose in coming here suddenly seemed foolish. Yet Sir Francis looked at me thoughtfully, not at all dismissive of my suggestion.

‘I see.’ He got up and drew down a rolled-up sheet of heavy paper from a shelf and laid it out on his desk, weighing it down with books and an ink-pot and his little Roman statue.

‘You have probably not yet been told the detailed plans for the expedition, am I right? Yet I know I can trust your discretion. Look here at the map.’

I joined him at the desk. The map covered the area from the southern end of the Bay of Biscay to the Pillars of Hercules, showing the whole of Spain and Portugal, with all the major towns, cities and ports clearly marked, and the courses of the principal rivers. My heart jumped at the sight of the word ‘Coimbra’. My old home, where my father had been a professor of medicine at the university.

‘The Queen wishes the expedition to undertake three main tasks,’ Sir Francis explained, ‘all intended to weaken the power of Spain both in Iberia and abroad. The first I am sure you know: to install Dom Antonio on the throne of
Portugal and drive the Spanish from the country.’

I nodded. I had though that was the sole purpose.

‘Secondly, our fleet will destroy as much as possible of the remaining Spanish fleet. The merchant ships armed for war last year in the invading fleet were mostly destroyed, either by our navy or by storms in the Atlantic. Many of the largest warships, however, managed to return to Spain, though the majority were damaged and unfit for war without extensive repairs. Most of the repairs are being carried out here.’

He tapped his finger on
Santander, on the southern shore of the Bay of Biscay.

‘More of the ships, some needing minor repairs, are here.’

He pointed to Coruña, out near Cape Finisterre.

‘The route of the expedition, therefore, will be to cross the Bay of Biscay and invest
Santander, where the fleet under repair will be fired.’

‘Like the ships in
Cadiz,’ I said, ‘two years ago.’

‘Aye.’ He smiled grimly. ‘When Drake singed the King of Spain’s beard, as the common folk like to say.’

‘If they are being repaired, they will be immobilised,’ I ventured.

‘Exactly. It should not be a difficult task. Our fleet will then proceed to Coruña and repeat the attack on the ships there.’

He had shifted the map slightly so that one edge slid from under the books. It rolled shut with a snap, so I unrolled it again and held it down with my palm.

‘Next, the ships will sail down the coast of Portugal to Lisbon,’ he said, tracing the route with the tip of his finger, ‘where, so Dom Antonio has assured us, the citizens of Portugal will rise up in his support and join our own army to seize Lisbon and evict the Spanish.’

‘Sir Francis–’ I hesitated.

‘Aye, what is it, Kit?’

‘When Drake attacked Cadiz, I remember asking why he did not attack Lisbon, and you said it was because sailing up the Tejo to Lisbon would be like walking into an ambush.’

‘Aye, quite right. But that was Drake on a raiding expedition. This time it is different, with the next King of Portugal on board.’

‘Forgive me,’ I said. ‘Perhaps I am being stupid, but will the people of Portugal know that?’

‘His standard will be flown throughout the fleet. In addition, once the raids on the northern Spanish ports have been carried out, we will ensure that news is passed secretly to the Dom’s supporters.’

Sir Francis could probably do this. I believed he could do almost anything once he set his mind to it. Privately, I thought that the attacks on the fleet would be warning enough to the Spanish that Lisbon might be our destination. Would they not take the opportunity to strengthen their defences?

‘You said there were three goals for the expedition.’ I looked down at the map, trying to think what else might be meant. Surely not a voyage round into the Mediterranean and an attack on
Spain’s eastern ports?

‘The third goal, after Lisbon has been taken and the Dom crowned, is to sail south and west, to seize the Azores from the Spanish, establishing a permanent English base there, in order to hamper Spanish trade with her colonies in the New World. You can see how the three parts fit together, to weaken
Spain’s world power. Destroy her Atlantic fleet. Drive her out of Portugal and thus rob her of the excellent Portuguese harbours. And finally, take control of the route to the New World. The Azores are of vital importance as a staging post for ships making the Atlantic crossing, a final stop for water and provisions.’

He rolled up the map and restored it to the shelf.

‘There is an additional goal, if the timing proves favourable. To capture the returning Spanish treasure fleet.’

Drake would be glad of that. I did not speak aloud, but I saw from the gleam in Walsingham’s eye that he was thinking the same thing.

He motioned me back to my chair and poured us both more wine.

‘Now you understand the route and purposes of the expedition, Kit.’ He sipped his wine. ‘There is indeed a mission you could undertake for me. In fact there are two.’

I held my breath. What would he say? Could I even undertake what he had in mind?

‘You can pass for Spanish, can you not?’

I nodded. ‘I grew up speaking Spanish as well as Portuguese.’

‘I thought so. I know you have worked as a translator in that language. We have an agent in Coruña, Titus Allanby. In the most recent despatch we received from him, he said he feared that his identity might have been compromised. He did not say how. He needs to leave the town, but fears to make a move as he believes he is being watched. He is privy to too many secrets for us to risk his being taken and tortured by the Spanish. In our reply, we instructed him to send no more despatches and to behave like an innocent citizen. He has good Spanish and is working as a tailor.’

‘You want me to contact him, when we reach Coruña?’

‘I want you to do more than that. I want you to bring him out. And if you cannot, you will have to kill him.’

My head shot up and I gasped.

‘Oh, do not worry. I do not think it will come to that.’ He gave a bleak smile. ‘If it looks as though the Spanish authorities will take him, he is a brave enough man to take his own life, rather than fall into the hands of their torturers.’

I gripped my hands together until I heard the joints of my fingers crack. I had volunteered for this. I would simply have to ensure that this man Titus made it back to the ships with me. I knew I could not kill a man, an ally.

‘You said there were two things you wished me to do?’

‘Aye. The other is easier. When Lisbon is taken – if it is taken – there is a man of ours in prison there. Even from prison he has been able to send us valuable intelligence.’

‘Hunter?’ I said.

‘You remember. Aye, Hunter. I want you to make sure he is found and brought safely out of prison. He can return with the expedition.’

‘If we take
Lisbon.’