The Portuguese Affair (19 page)

‘Christoval Alvarez,’ I said automatically.

‘Alvarez? The master’s daughter married a Dr Alvarez. You are related?’

‘Yes.’

I roused myself. There was one more person I had come seeking. Surely they could not all be dead.

‘Your master’s granddaughter, Isabel,’ I said, hardly daring to ask, ‘my . . . my cousin Isabel. Is she here?’

‘Oh, nay
, Senhor Alvarez. To see her you will need to go to the farm of the master’s tenants, the da Rocas. Do you know the da Rocas? Their farm is through the forest. In the valley on the other side. I will give you directions.’ He was a kind man, still looking at me with concern. I could not tell how much my face had given away. ‘Will you take some food first?’

I refused the food, but listened to the directions, for I could not exactly remember the way. Why, I wondered, was Isabel still at the farm, where she had been placed all those years ago for safety? Why was she not here, in my grandfather’s house? But my sister was alive! I would see her again in less than an hour.

Chapter Thirteen

T
o reach the da Rocas’ farm by the quickest way, I took the half remembered path through the forest of Buçaco. As I child I had loved the forest, a place which always seemed to me an enchanted realm, full of mystery. I knew that it had become the custom, in our Prince Henry’s time, for his expeditions to strange foreign parts – to West and East Africa, to the lands of Arabia, to India and the spice islands far to the east, and later still to Brazil – to bring back saplings of exotic trees and to plant them here, in the native forest of Buçaco. So now our indigenous species of pine and holm oak and lesser trees were interspersed with these strange trees whose names I did not know, but which seemed to carry with them the cries of parrots and birds of paradise, the screams of monkeys leaping amongst their branches, cold-eyed snakes coiled about their feet, and predatory tigers lurking behind their trunks. In the century and more they had stood here, many of them had seeded young descendents, so that a great matriarchal tree would be surrounded by a cluster of daughters and handmaidens.

Although I had set off in haste from my grandparents’ home, the forest, as always, filled me with a sense of awe, so that I slowed my horse first to a walk, and then stopped under a tunnel formed by unimaginable trees whose trunks soared far above my head, and whose branches met and intertwined in the mysterious green light. My grandfather had told us this was a holy place, where monks and hermits had lived in times past, but secretly I had disagreed. To me it breathed an air much more ancient. It was a place where myth was born, a forest from Homer or Vergil, or from the strange jumbled folk tales our nurse used to tell us. Arthur’s knights might have ridden here, but in my imagination they were not the sanctified and cleansed knights of French chansons. They were primaeval. Demi-gods amongst mortal men, who haunted such places as the
forest of Buçaco still. Even now, I could not rid myself of these feelings. I dared not turn my head, for I could sense them breathing behind me.

I dismounted. There was a stream beside the path, running cold and pure down from the higher mountainside and murmuring over its stony bed with a sweet and musical note, like some voice out of those ancient tales. I led the horse over to drink from it and, pulling off my cap, plunged my head into the water. I gasped with the shock, for despite the heat of the day, the stream ran icy cold, having sprung from deep under ground. This was what I needed. A moment of chill clarity to gather my thoughts. I sat down on the bank and flung my wet hair dripping on to my shoulders.

Both my grandparents were dead. The cruel truth of it confronted me. I had clung to the hope that I would find them there, the beloved home unchanged, their arms held out to embrace me, just as they had been when I was a little girl. And even as recently as three weeks ago my grandfather had still been there. The thought of that was almost too much to bear. I laid my forehead on my up-drawn knees and at last allowed myself to weep.

I do not know how long I sat their, hugging my grief, while the horse tugged at a few sparse tussocks of grass amongst the tree roots. At last I drew breath. I rubbed my face with my sleeve and tried to gather my thoughts. There was still Isabel. My little sister would be seventeen now, but I could not understand why she was still at the farm, instead of living with our grandfather at the manor house. Unless the Inquisition was still active in this area, seeking out any person tainted with Jewish blood despite being converted Christians, so that my grandfather had thought it was safer for her to remain there with the da Rocas. But would he not have sought a good marriage for her by now? Perhaps he had been so overwhelmed by grief at my grandmother’s deat
h, that he had become senile. Nay, that made no sense. It was clear that the estate was in good order, the farmland cared for, the house immaculate, and the servants – though frightened by what had happened – were still carrying on with their duties. My grandfather had ridden on business to Lisbon, the servant had said. That did not suggest a man overwhelmed by age or infirmity of body or mind. And now he was gone. Who would inherit the estate now? Surely, it would be Isabel, for he could not have known whether my parents and I were alive or dead..

I must talk to Isabel. I had come hoping to take her back to
England, to join my father and me in London, but if she was heiress to this great estate, surely Dom Antonio would ensure that she took her place amongst the Portuguese aristocracy, if that was what she chose. The Spanish Inquisition would have no power in a Portugal ruled by a half-Jewish king. Aye, she might choose to remain here, however sorry I would be to lose her again.

I caught the horse and mounted once more. I had delayed too long, time was passing. I must hurry on to the farm and discuss these matters with my sister. I did not even know whether word had been sent to her about our grandfather’s death at the hands of the Spanish authorities in
Lisbon, since the news had only reached the manor yesterday. I should have asked the servant, but I had been too stunned by what he had told me to gather my thoughts.

My horse and I picked our way along the path, heavy with the forest’s sun-warmed spicy aromas, stirred up by his hooves amongst the leaf litter of centuries. At last the trees thinned and we emerged into the open again, where the heat struck me like a blow. I found myself looking down over a shallow valley, cleared of trees, where the tenant farm stood. Here in the north of
Portugal, expensive whitewash is reserved for churches and the homes of the wealthy. Common houses are grey stone, schist or granite, and sink into the setting of the surrounding rocks. Down below me I could see such a house, huddled low amongst its barns and outbuildings.

Despite my sorrow at the loss of my grandparents, my heart suddenly lifted at the thought that I would soon see my sister again. Isabel and I had always been close as children, friends as much as sisters. She had not possessed my passion for learning, but she had loved the countryside as I did. All three of us, Isabel and Felipe and I, had swum and ridden and played about the
solar
with a freedom not often granted to children of our class, certainly not to girls. I had never thought, as a child, to wonder why. Indeed, it was only now, looking back, that I realised that our upbringing was unusual. I must ask my father. Was it my parents or my grandparents who had slipped the reins and allowed us that freedom when we were in the country? In truth it had stood me in good stead in my masquerade to conceal my sex. I was not afraid to ride or climb like a boy. Had I always been reared as the demure daughter Caterina, a part I had sometimes played in Coimbra, then the boy Christoval would have found life difficult indeed.

I held my horse back to a gentle walking pace as we descended the steep path to the farm. I did not want to make a dramatic entry and alarm the inhabitants. Shut away in this remote valley, they must have few visitors. A stranger arriving thus on horseback might mean trouble – a tax collector, perhaps, or the forerunner of a troop of Spanish horse demanding food and quartering. I did not want to find a crossbow confronting me before I could explain my business here.

The farm was not prepossessing. Indeed it was not what I had expected from valued and respectable tenants of my grandfather. There were a few scrawny sheep in a dirty pen, some mangy chickens scratching listlessly in the dirt, and a vicious dog chained up, who would have had the leg off my horse if he could have come near enough.

The whole farm appeared deserted. Could this really be the place where my sister had been lodged for seven years, since that summer when she was ten? The summer when everything fell apart. It was here, we had been told, that she and Felipe had fallen ill, and Felipe had died. It was because of those few words of reassurance from Dr Gomez, as we crouched in the fisherman’s boat in Ilhavo,  promising Isabel would recover, that I had clung all these years to hope. It was those words which had brought me to
Portugal, to find my sister and bring her home with me. Yet I was appalled at the sight of the farm, a filthy neglected place. I had never been here before, but I knew that in the past the da Rocas had been considered excellent tenants and sound farmers. What I could see of the farm now seemed an outrage. This was no place for my sister.

I rode slowly down the last of the path, which led first to the farm, then continued on downhill past it, to the lower part of the valley, where I believed there were more tenant farms. Dismounting, I left my horse to stand at the far edge of the yard, and made my way warily in a wide circle around the dog until I could reach the front door of the house and bang on it with my fist. It hung askew, and the mean windows on either side were shuttered. Everything was very dirty, and the paint on the woodwork had blistered and peeled off long ago. No one answered my knock, but I saw a slatternly girl come out of the cowshed with a pail of milk and head towards the back of the house. She wore a ragged dress, with her hair hanging in lank tresses below her shoulders. Her feet were bare and filthy. I shouted at her, but she ignored me. I banged again on the door, beginning to grow angry. Was she deaf? Was there no one else here?

At last, when I was thinking of going in pursuit of the girl round to the back of the house, a man of about thirty emerged from one of the outbuildings and came slowly towards me, glowering. I saw him take in the sword at my side, and the quality of my mount, and my clothes, which (though far from elegant) were many degrees better than his. He wore loose dirty breeches, like the slops our sailors wore, and a sleeveless tunic which revealed thickly muscled arms, from which wiry black hair sprung. Unlike the girl, he wore heavy boots. This, then, must be the farmer, though I had expected a much older man. The girl must be a maidservant or kitchen skivvy. The man shouted at the dog to be silent, and kicked him in the ribs. The cur slunk back to a patch of shade and lay down, his eyes never leaving me. The man straddled his legs, folded his thick arms across his chest, and regarded me with much the same expression as the dog. I was relieved to see that he was not carrying a weapon.

‘I am looking for Isabel Alvarez,’ I said, without preamble. If this man intended to be aggressive, I could return like for like. I would not let him intimidate me, however aggressive he appeared. Like him, I stood with legs apart and let my hand rest casually on the pommel of my sword.

‘And who are you?’ he said, in a tone that did not reflect our clearly different social status.

‘Her cousin, Christoval Alvarez,’ I said. I had no intention of revealing my true identity to this man, even if he was one of the family caring for my sister. Isabel herself, of course, would know me.

‘Have you proof of that?’ He spat, narrowly missing my foot.

I clenched my teeth. It was not this man’s place to demand such proof, but I did not intend to come to blows with him. Not if I could avoid it.

‘Naturally. Though I see no need for it.’ I put into my voice all the scorn of a Portuguese aristocrat speaking to a labourer. I would
not
be intimidated by this fellow. My indignation was burning in my cheeks.

I produced the passport Dom Antonio had provided me with. If this man was a supporter of King Philip of
Spain, I was placing myself in great danger, but I must somehow gain access to my sister. However, here in this remote farm it was likely that the fellow took little interest in politics. If the Spanish invaders left him alone, he probably cared nothing, one way or another, who ruled the country. As my grandfather’s tenant, his obligations in rent and duty would be to him, rather than to the Spanish. He took the passport, stared at it in such a way that I knew he could not read, then handed it back to me.

‘You have read it?’ I said blandly, aware that he had not. ‘You can see that I am Christoval Alvarez, cousin of Isabel Alvarez, and I demand that you take me to her at once.’ I was pleased that my voice was firm, with all the authority I had a right to, as a member of his overlord’s family.

A look crossed his face which I did not like. A barely suppressed smile, a knowing smile. It gave me a brief stab of unease. With a jerk of his head he indicated to me to follow him round to the back of the house. We crossed the yard, which was no more than beaten earth, liberally scattered with dung. Broken farm tools, lengths of wood, dented buckets, and unidentifiable rubbish lay everywhere, so that I had to pick my way amongst the obstacles, though the way was so familiar to the farmer that he moved swiftly across the yard before halting before an open door. Like the front door, this one hung crookedly. It could be cold here in the mountains in winter. The January wind must find its way through the house, from the gaping front door to the back, with its icy fingers touching everything. My sister Isabel was living amongst this filth and squalor and misery?

The door on this side led directly into a kitchen roofed with beams so low the man had to stoop and I could only just stand upright. The girl I
had seen before was slicing onions and wiping tears from her eyes. She was cutting straight on to a scarred table of pine, so old that it dipped in the middle like a sway-backed horse. A child of about four, naked from the waist down, was playing on the floor with what I thought at first was a furry toy, before I realised that it was a dead rat. A baby was lying directly on the dirt floor, half wrapped in a filthy blanket, moth eaten and frayed. It had fallen open and the baby was naked underneath it, a girl child. She stared up at me with wide, vacant eyes. The girl by the table was visibly with child again. This must be the farmer’s wife, but where were the older couple, the da Rocas to whom my sister had been entrusted? Were they too dead?