At last, to our great relief, the professional soldiers arrived from the Low Countries, long after they were due, and with their help Sir John Norreys rounded up such of the rioting men as could be found (some had grown tired of waiting and gone home). Once they were herded, most unwillingly, on board, we were able finally to set sail. I was still living aboard the Victory, with the rest of the Portuguese party, where I had remained all the time we were in harbour, scarcely setting foot on shore. We were relieved at last to be on our way, for we were already three weeks past our planned departure date. Yet once out of harbour and in the Channel our ships were met by head winds and could make no way against them. They blew us straight back into Plymouth Sound.

And back at Plymouth, anchored in the harbour, we found there was more bad news. It was Dr Nuñez who told me the story. I think he had grown a little tired of the company of Ruy Lopez and the Dom, sitting in state in their fine suite of cabins, for I often found him on deck like me.

The Queen’s favourite, the wayward Earl of Essex, had been forbidden to come on the Portuguese venture. This was common knowledge before we left London.

‘However,’ said Dr Nuñez, ‘the Earl of Essex has disobeyed Her Majesty and fled London. It seems he was traced to Falmouth, and there he took ship on the Swiftsure, which had been ready provisioned and armed and waiting for him. He made his escape from Falmouth, with winds more favourable than those we encountered.’

‘Her Majesty will be furious,’ I said. ‘And so soon after the death of the Earl of Leicester, she will not want his stepson to run into danger.’

‘Nay. But he is headstrong and accustomed to getting his own way. Drake and Norreys have received instructions from Her Majesty to send Essex directly back to London, but he has slipped past everyone, not only the men she sent after him but our own expedition, what with his more favourable winds. He set sail while we were kicking our heels, waiting for the troops from the Low Countries.’

For another twelve days we continued to kick our heels at Plymouth, with the provisions and the water dwindling away, until only a few days’ supply was left. And then, at last, the head wind abated, and under a threatening storm sky, which was as ill-omened as all that had gone before, Drake’s aptly named Revenge led us out to sea, and the Victory followed. Despite all the oaths I had sworn to myself, I was returning to Portugal, but nothing could drive away the memories of my final weeks there. As the fleet passed down the Channel and Plymouth Sound disappeared behind us, fear rose like vomit in my throat.

Chapter Four

Coimbra , Portugal, 1582

The darkness closed over me and I was blind. I groped for my mother’s hand and found it, as cold and clammy as my own. Somewhere, someone was whimpering. I could not tell if it was my mother or myself, or someone else in the blackness which stretched out ahead, where we huddled by the iron-bound door which had slammed behind us. My mother put her arms around me and we clung together, not daring yet to speak, straining for any sound which might penetrate from beyond that door.

‘Where are we?’ I whispered at last.

‘In the prison of the Inquisition.’

‘But where is Father?’

‘They will have confined him in a separate cell, so we cannot confer together about how we should answer their questions.’

‘Questions?’

‘You must be brave, Caterina. Your father and I have always known this might happen. Ever since the Spanish came two years ago, and the Cardinal-Archduke Albrecht was made both governor of Portugal and Inquisitor General. He is most zealous against New Christians.’

‘What shall we do? Oh, what shall we do?’ I wailed.

She held me tighter and put her lips to my ear. ‘Hush, Caterina. We will not choose martyrdom. We will swear our undying faith to the Pope and the Catholic Church. We will admit some small transgressions, that we donned clean linen on Friday evenings and forbore to eat pork, but we shall say that these were simply old customs in our families, and we do not know the reasons for them.’

‘But, Mama . . . ‘

‘Listen to me, Caterina.’ She took hold of my shoulders and shook me. ‘I do not know if they will put you to the question, but you must know what to say. You know that you are a baptised Christian.’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘We regularly attend the church of San Piero, do we not?’

‘Well . . .’

‘Caterina!’

‘Yes, Mama. We do attend church every Sunday, and make confession, and take communion. I took my first communion last Easter.’

‘As you did.’

‘Yes.’

She relaxed a little.

‘Good.’

I looked about me, for I found that my eyes had grown a little accustomed to the dark, and a ghost of grey light, no more than a strip half an inch wide, filtered under the door. The cell was about fifteen feet square, with a deep litter of dirty straw and rubbish on the floor and a heap of old rags in the far corner.

‘Come as close to the light as you can.’ My mother was fumbling in the purse she wore under her outer skirt, which the Inquisition’s men had not noticed in their haste to drag us from home and through the night-time streets.

‘It’s so cold,’ I said, rubbing my arms, for I was barefoot and wearing nothing but my night shift. ‘How can it be so cold in the summer?’

‘We’re deep underground here,’ she said absently. She had found what she was looking for and now seized a handful of my hair.

‘What are you doing?’ I tried to pull away.

‘I’m going to cut off your hair.’

‘My hair!’ I clutched my head with both hands and tried to pull away from her.

‘Keep still, Caterina. You are flat-chested still. In that shift you could be a boy, but for your hair. I’m going to cut it off.’

‘Why, why?’ I tried to push her away and she gave my hair a jerk.

‘Caterina, as a girl you are in far more danger here than a boy would be. Your hair will grow back.’

I stood still at last as she began to hack at my hair with the tiny pair of scissors she carried with her. I kept silent then, but I could not stop the silent tears rolling down my face as she threw handfuls of my hair into the litter on the floor and stirred it in with the toe of her shoe.

‘That’s the best I can do,’ she said. ‘Take off your earrings and put them in here.’ she held out her purse and I dropped into it the small gold pendants I had put back in my ears after I had taken off the heavy pearls I had worn at dinner last night. My mother took off her own earrings, still her jewelled ones, and added them to the purse.

‘We must find somewhere to hide this,’ she said, ‘for we may need to bribe the guards.’

She felt her way across the floor to the far corner, groping along the wall as she went, trying to find some hollow or loose stone where she could conceal the purse. As she trod on the pile of rags there was a sudden shriek and a curse, and she jumped back, her hand to her heart.

‘Leave me be,’ a whining voice came from within the rags. ‘Let me sleep, let me sleep.’

I crept up behind my mother and peered down. As far as I could make out, an old woman, her thin wisps of hair the colour of curdled milk, was curled up there, her arms clutched protectively around her head.