The Portuguese Affair

by Ann Swinfen

  ‘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.’

  ‘Indeed. I do not have quite the same confidence as Dom Antonio in the readiness of the Portuguese to rise up on his behalf. His birth, unfortunately, was illegitimate. There is another, legitimate, claimant to the Portuguese throne, Catherine Duchess of Braganza. At one time a man had always a better claim to a throne than a woman, even if his birth were questionable. Now our own great Queen has shown that a woman can be a mighty monarch. The Portuguese leaders, should they decide to rebel against their foreign overlords, might well prefer a woman with a more legitimate claim. The final decision could well lie with the Portuguese Cortes-Gerais, whether or not to support Dom Antonio.’

  ‘I knew of the Duchess of Braganza,’ I said thoughtfully, ‘but did not know she might make a claim.’ So much for Ruy Lopez’s dreams, I thought, and for my father’s life savings.

  ‘I do not know that she will, but it is a factor to bear in mind. Now.’ He rose briskly and took out the keys to his strongbox. ‘We must provide you with coin of the realm.’

  When he had unlocked his strongbox, Walsingham gazed for a moment out of the window. He had always been careworn, but
in the stronger light I saw now that his skin had the yellowish grey tinge of those consumed by some inward malady. His eyelids drooped heavily with lack of sleep and the whites of his eyes were reddened. I saw him, perhaps for the first time, as a man like other men, and not as a figure of power, the spymaster moving the pieces on the chessboard of his secret world. A sick man, anxious, vigilant, exhausted by his burden of care, worn out, body and soul, before his time. Had he been my patient, I would have said: Forget the Court and all your schemes; go home to Barn Elms and enjoy your garden this summer, for it may be your last.

  Before I left with my instructions and my well-filled purse, he took me by the shoulders and studied my face as if he too were seeing me for the first time.

  ‘You came to us originally, Kit, because Thomas Harriot recommended you to Robert Poley for your talent with codes. And I fear that during these last years I have used you simply as a tool come conveniently to my hand. But lately I have learned more of your history and the sufferings you have endured.’

  I lowered my eyes, fearing somehow that this shrewd man, fixing me with his sharp glance, might suddenly discover the truth about me.

  ‘You have worked well,’ he said, ‘and I hope that you find some peace or fulfilment in this journey to Portugal.’ He sighed, then added so softly I barely heard him. ‘Though I fear it is ill-conceived. When you return – if you return – I will always be glad to employ you.’

  I looked up at that, and opened my mouth to speak, but he forestalled me with a smile.

  ‘I know, I know! Your work as a physician is of far greater importance to you. But our work is similar, yours and mine. You care for men’s bodies. I care for the body politic.’

  I was astonished that he should rank me so highly and murmured some kind of incoherent thanks. I left soon after, without seeing anything of Thomas Phelippes or Arthur Gregory, the seal-forger. My purse was weighed down with Sir Francis’s heavy bag of Spanish and Portuguese coins, and tucked into the breast of my doublet was a plan of the town of Coruña. If I felt cold at the thought of what I must do there, I had no one but myself to blame.

  On my way down to Seething Lane past the disapproving portraits that lined the hallway and thence by the backstairs I came suddenly face-to-face with Poley. I stopped with a gasp. I had believed him still to be in the Low Countries. It was a shock, the way he could suddenly appear out of the blue, like the devil in a masquerade. Would I never be rid of him? Since he had been released from the Tower, doubtless he was once again busy about the darker side of Walsingham’s affairs. He would have had no scruples about killing the agent Titus Allanby. Indeed, he might have found it less inconvenient than trying to smuggle him out of Coruña.

  ‘So-ho!’ he cried, seizing me by both arms, so that I could not move. ‘It is our fine young gallant. Well met, Christoval Alvarez.’

  ‘I have no business with you, Robert Poley.’ I spoke coldly, keeping the fear out of my voice.

  ‘But I might have business with you.’ He stroked my cheek and I twisted away. ‘I’m off to Denmark. I could do with a fine young lad to run errands and share my bed.’

  ‘I too am away on Sir Francis’s business,’ I said, jerking myself free. ‘So you will need to find some other lad to suit your purposes.’

  I pushed past him and ran headlong down the stairs and into the street.

  On the final Sabbath before our departure I made my way to the Nuñez house to attend a service to bless the mission and pray for success. I went alone, for my father was weak and tired, and had taken to his bed. As I swayed to the hypnotic rhythm of the prayers, I wondered how many of those around me were saying their farewells, intending never to return if the attack on the Spanish garrison in Lisbon were successful. Sara’s father Dunstan Añez was there. He had invested heavily in the expedition, but would not be going to Portugal, for the Queen could not spare him from his duties as her Purveyor of Groceries and Spices. Dom Antonio, standing between Hector Nuñez and Roderigo Lopez, had come from Eton to attend the synagogue, though in Eton he was a regular Christian church-goer. The three of them were in a state of exaltation which turned me cold with apprehension. During the years since the Inquisition had come for us, I had grown fatalistic. Hopes too high, expectations of glory and triumph, seemed to me to invite a crushing blow from the hand of fate. I suppose my inherited Jewish pessimism had been further shaped by my own life and my education in the classics – a man who indulges in hubris must expect to incur nemesis.

  I had been lax in attending our hidden Jewish services in recent years. Like the others in our Marrano community I was also a baptised Christian, and my mother’s father was a great Christian nobleman. As I had grown older I had become more confused about my faith, not less. Like every citizen of England I was obliged to attend church every Sunday, or else pay a fine as a recusant. The Christian services of Elizabeth’s largely tolerant church had become comfortingly familiar to me. Even suspected Catholics who compromised and attended the Protestant services would not be examined too closely, provided they kept their Catholic masses private and did not aid the missions of militant priests sent over from France. Even William Byrd, our most eminent composer, was widely known to be a Catholic, but he was tolerated. On the whole, I found the English church accorded much with my own beliefs.

  Yet the services in our makeshift synagogue – the central hall of the Nuñez house – brought back memories of my childhood, before the Spanish came. Perhaps this expedition would help me to understand whether I was Portuguese Jew or English Christian. I had seen Anne Lopez climb the stairs to the women’s gallery with her mother. They would be here at Ruy’s urging, but from conversations I had had with her over recent months, I knew that she too was troubled by divided loyalties. For her the magnet of England was even stronger, since like her mother she had been born here. But for her father, she would hardly have counted as a Stranger any longer.

  I joined in the prayers and responses as dutifully as ever, but I felt a stranger here myself, and my thoughts took me elsewhere, to my work and friends here in London and the unforeseeable prospects which lay ahead.

  The night before we were to sail from London to Plymouth, on the first stage of our voyage, Simon appeared at our door, having somehow got word that I was leaving, though I had been careful to suggest to the players, whenever I saw them, that the likelihood of my joining the expedition was remote. I was half glad and half sorry to see him. I had come to value the friends I had made in these last few years, so his good wishes and prayers meant much to me, but I have never liked saying farewell. As for my most intimate feelings for Simon, I could hardly admit them even to myself.

  I brought him into our inner parlour, where my father was dozing beside a small fire. It was a warm day outside, the spring weather having brought early and unreliable sunshine, but he had begun to feel the cold more often, so I had lit a fire to comfort him. I motioned Simon to a stool while I tucked a blanket around my father’s knees, then I poured us each a tankard of small ale.

  ‘So,’ he said, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand, ‘you are off on this expedition against the Spanish in Portugal.’

  I nodded. I did not ask where he had heard this. Actors are such very demons for gossip.

  ‘But why should you go? What has it to do with you? I thought you were done with that past of yours.’

  ‘Sometimes the past will not let you go,’ I said, watching the bubbles which formed on my ale as I swirled it round and round. ‘Besides . . .’ I hesitated. I was reluctant to admit my father’s folly. ‘Besides, my father has put money into the expedition. I am going to keep a watchful eye on his investment.’

  ‘Ah, so it is to be a raiding expedition. The treasures Spain has looted from the Americas!’

  ‘No doubt that is part of it, since Drake is to command the fleet,’ I conceded, without needing to reveal my knowledge of the plans Walsingham had shared with me. ‘But for my father and his friends, the principal purpose is to drive the S
paniards out of Portugal and restore Dom Antonio to the throne.’

  ‘Will he make a good king?’

  I could tell by the expression on his face that he had heard something of Dom Antonio. I could say little in the defence of such a man. Indeed, the nearer the time drew to when we were to leave, the more absurd did it seem to commit so much money and so many men to put him on the throne. Would he benefit Portugal? I doubted it. But even Dom Antonio was better than the occupation of a hated foreign power and the imposition of the Inquisition on a previously more tolerant nation.

  ‘Perhaps not a great king,’ I said, as diplomatically as I could, ‘but we Portuguese are his people and he will rule as a Portuguese king amongst his own subjects. The Spaniards treat us little better than they do the savages of the New World. We exist merely to do their bidding and enrich them. If we resist, we are killed.’

  ‘Then why should you go back? Will you not be in danger?’

  I made much of drinking my ale and thought of the missions Walsingham had set me, and of my own private plans. I could not answer that. I set down my ale and poked at the fire, which did not need it.

  He gave me a troubled look and leaned forward to take both my hands in his.

  ‘Have a care, Kit. Your friends have need of you.’ There was something different about the way he looked at me, as though he were trying to peer into my very soul.

  I felt a foolish tightening of my throat and hoped he would not notice the tears blurring my eyes. He must not find me out. He must not. It would be too dangerous by far. I must not weep or I should give myself away.

  ‘I shall not be fighting,’ I said. I drew my hands gently from his and got up to fetch more ale, my back to him. ‘I go merely to see Dom Antonio crowned, to watch over my father’s investment, and to lend my medical skills if they are needed.’

  ‘Say rather: When they are needed.’ He drew a deep breath. ‘I can see that your role as a physician will be valuable to them. But remember, if your ships are fired on, as surely they will be, cannon fire makes no distinction between soldiers and gentlemen observers who come merely to see a puppet king crowned. And there will be fighting ashore as well. Will you stay aboard ship? I doubt it, for I know you. Nay, you will be in the thick of it, tending the wounded, and, like cannon at sea, cannon and crossbow and musket on land will make no distinction between soldier and physician.’