The Portuguese Affair

by Ann Swinfen

  Once I had led my horse over the bridge and remounted, I turned up river and headed in the direction of my grandfather’s estate. Taking the road which led away from Coimbra and into the interior, I began to recognise landmarks I remembered from childhood journeys following this same road. There on the left was the farm which always looked tumbledown and uninhabitable, yet we would see a swarm of children playing around the ramshackle barns and wonder what their lives were like, so different from ours. A little higher up, on the right, stood the mill where part of the river was diverted into a mill leet. This was the mill owned by an abbey in Coimbra, where all the local peasant farmers were obliged to grind their corn and pay a tithe to the abbey, a tax they resented. I wondered whether the tax was more severe now, under a Spanish regime, when money was demanded to maintain the troops controlling the country. There was another mill on my grandfather’s solar, where all his tenants had the right to grind their corn. They paid no tax for the privilege. Their only responsibility was to contribute to the maintenance of the mill and the grinding, when it was necessary, of new millstones.

  As the familiar fields came into sight, my throat tightened and my eyes blurred with tears. Nothing seemed to have changed since that last summer I had come with my mother and with Isabel and Felipe, to spend the hot months away from Coimbra, here where the rolling lands of my grandfather’s estate rose up the gently sloping ground to the manor house. Suppose – the idea had never occurred to me before, and came to me suddenly now as if someone had struck me on the head – suppose the summons had never come from my father that summer, which fetched my mother and me back to Coimbra for a few days, so that I might be presented to his scholarly friend from Italy. How would all our lives have been changed?

  In the low meadow by the river two mares grazed with their foals, but I saw no sign of my grandfather’s favourite stallion. Even now he would still be in the prime of life, and I wondered whether my grandfather had ridden him off somewhere. As we climbed the hill, the morning sun was reflected from the dazzling whitewash of the main house, with its carved granite window embrasures and doorways. There was no smoke rising from the kitchen chimney, which puzzled me and stirred a faint sense of alarm. Usually there would be smoke from a cooking fire every day, summer and winter. I rode round the corner of the house to the front. At the grand double stairway that swept up to the main door, I slid from my horse and looped his reins through the hitching ring in the wall. For a moment I laid my hand against the old blue and white azulejos tiles that decorated the triangular wall between the two branches of the steps. They were as warm as a human hand, and I felt such a rush of sudden joy that for a moment I was dizzy with it. This was the home where I had been happiest.

  I mounted the steps and pulled the ornamental handle which, through a system of wires and pulleys, rang a bell inside the house. It was at that moment I suddenly realised I must decide what to say. I had not prepared my story. A servant would answer the door. It might be one I knew, or some stranger. I would not say who or what I was, but would need to pretend to be some passing friend or a distant relative, until I was able to speak to my grandfather himself and reveal who I was.

  The man who answered the great oak door was familiar to me, one of my grandmother’s house servants. I thought he might recognise me, but he did not, and instead stood staring at me, speechless, in a manner that was somehow disturbing. My stomach clenched.

  ‘Is your master at home?’ I said. ‘Senhor da Alejo? I am on my way to Lisbon, and bring news of his relatives in Amsterdam.’

  The man continued to stare at me, then he swallowed and shook his head. He still seemed unable to speak.

  ‘His wife?’ I said. ‘The Senhora?’

  He looked at me as if I were mad, and found his voice at last. ‘The mistress has been dead these seven years. She died in the Inquisitorial prison in Lisbon.’

  He squinted at me suspiciously. ‘How do you not know this, if you are a friend of the family?’

  I stared at him. Suddenly I was cold, and shaking. Remembering.

  That last time we had arrived here, when we three children had hung out of the carriage window, jostling to see who would catch the first sight of the house. Mama trying in vain to persuade me to behave like a lady, Felipe nearly tumbling head first over the side. Then my grandparents were there, welcoming us into the ancient stone-flagged hallway, so cool and welcome after our hot journey.

  ‘Come, Caterina,’ said my grandmother, ‘you are almost a young lady. You should not tumble about like a wild boy.’ But she laughed as she spoke.

  My grandfather kissed me on the forehead, then held me at arms’ length.

  ‘You have grown two handspans at least since last summer, Caterina. You will be as tall as I before you are done.’

  My grandmother had led us through into the high-ceilinged salão, with its floor inlaid with those same blue and white azulejos tiles. We had drunk fruit juice and eaten the fig pasties which were always Isabel’s’ favourites. And mine too, though I pretended to be too grownup to snatch at them as she and Felipe did.

  Standing here now, I looked beyond into the same hallway behind the servant, the hallway which led to the salão where we had eaten the fig pasties.

  Their voices sounded in my head.

  My grandmother concerned. ‘You are pale, my dear. Are you ill?’

  My mother. ‘It’s nothing but the heat. It came early in the city this year. I’m glad to be home here amongst the mountains.’

  Minha avó. Mama.

  I tried to hide my feelings, but I think I must have revealed something. So my grandmother had died at the very time that we, too, were taken.

  ‘We did not know,’ I said at last. ‘The . . . the cousins in Amsterdam have written, but received no reply for many years. It is sad news I shall have to take back to them. But your master, when do you expect him to return?’

  He shook his head again, and now I saw that his eyes had filled with tears.

  ‘He went to Lisbon on business three weeks ago. We knew nothing then of this English invasion and the return of Dom Antonio. Word came yesterday. The master has been taken by King Philip’s men and executed without trial. But we knew nothing here of Dom Antonio’s plans, nothing – he was no part of it!’

  The world seem to spin around me and I closed my eyes, leaning my forehead against the hot door frame to keep myself from sinking to my knees. I had thought, surely, that my grandfather, of all the family, would be safe. We had brought this death upon him. Dom Antonio’s expedition. Drake’s thirst for plunder. Our stupid blundering and delays at Coruña, our triumphal landing at Peniche. What had it accomplished but the deaths of Portugal’s finest nobles, whether or not they supported the Dom? Three weeks ago he was here, my grandfather. Only three weeks ago. While I sat idle on the Victory in the harbour at Coruña.

  And my grandmother had died all those years ago, when we had lain in the Inquisition prison at Coimbra.

  Taking me firmly by the arm, the servant led me into the house and made me sit in the cool salão and brought me chilled golden wine.

  ‘I am sorry to have distressed you with this news, Senhor,’ he said, ‘and the heat . . .’

  ‘Yes,’ I said dully. ‘The heat.’

  ‘May I know who you are, Senhor?’

  ‘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

  To 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 death, 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 P
ortugal, 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.