I pulled away and tried to fasten my clothes. I was shaking. Oh, fool that I was!
‘I can handle a sword as well as any man, so keep your distance.’ I drew my sword a few inches from the scabbard and looked at him defiantly, but I knew that I had made a fatal mistake.
He stood back and folded his arms again. To my surprise, he smiled. Then laughed. It was a sound to strike fear, but I refused to show it.
‘A woman. Her sister.’ He gave another great hoot of laughter, then spat, so that a gob of spittle landed on the table beside the chopped onions. ‘Then you must be the heretic, Caterina Alvarez. They came searching for you at the solar when you escaped from Coimbra. That time they took your grandmother away, that old woman, another heretic. And killed her – good riddance. A true-blooded Portuguese like your grandfather should never have married a dirty Jew like that and got all this brood of heretics. He may be my master as you call him, but he brought that curse on himself.’
He was grinning in elation, all the long hatred of centuries distilled into the look he fixed on me.
‘The Inquisition will be glad to know that you have returned,’ he said, triumph and glee mixed in his voice, ‘when I report you. A heretic, a Jew, and now masquerading as a man-woman. This time it is certain. It will be the fire for you.’ His face gleamed with salacious pleasure as he fixed his eyes on my gaping shirt.
It was checkmate. If he did succeed in reporting me to the Inquisitors before I could reach the safety of Peniche and the protection of our expedition, I was bound for the fire. I felt sick with terror.
‘Isabel!’ I cried, reaching out my arms to her. ‘Come with me!’ Tears were running unchecked down my cheeks. My sister.
Isabel too was weeping, but she shook her head slowly, making a helpless gesture with her free hand. Behind the man’s back she mouthed the words at me, ‘The children.’ It was unanswerable.
I was helpless. The children were clinging to her. Even if I could get her away, how could I rescue the children? And I knew, whatever I said, she would not leave without them.
At last she found her voice. ‘Go, Caterina! Quickly! Go!’ Her voice broke in a sob. ‘You cannot help me. Go!’
Then suddenly the man leapt forward and seized the knife from the table. He sprang for me, but I was expecting it. I grabbed a stool and flung it at his knees. It was a lucky throw. I heard the crack as it struck bone. He staggered and tripped, and before he could regain his balance I was out through the door and racing for my horse, who stood where I had left him at the other end of the yard, keeping well clear of the vicious dog. I had to weave my way through all the rubbish strewn about the yard and in my blind panic I fell over a broken rake, landing on my knees and scraping my palms on the hard and gritty soil. The man was already through the door and coming for me fast, the knife in his hand. As I scrambled to my feet, I felt a sharp stab of pain in the ankle which I had sprained.
Running lopsided, I reached the far side of the yard and threw myself across the saddle on my stomach, thanking all the stars in Heaven that the horse was smaller than Hector so I had no need of a mounting block. He was already moving as I caught the reins in my left hand and urged him back along the track to the forest, even before I was able to swing my right leg over his back and find my stirrups. He was rested now, and fear of the dog drove him all the faster. He had no need of my urging to break into his swiftest gallop.
Behind us, I could hear the sounds of the farmer unchaining the dog, and yelling curses and threats after me, but I counted on his having no horse. Nowhere about the farm had I seen any sign of one. Probably he managed with a draught ox or even just a donkey. He could never catch me on my army officer’s stallion. The horse could hear the animal behind us as well as I could, for it gave tongue like a trained hunting dog, so he flew down the track as if the very hounds of Hell were on his heels. Crouched low in the saddle, I left him to find his own way, for I was blinded and racked with sobs as the place that held my sister Isabel dwindled into the distance behind me, to be lost beyond the forest trees of Buçaco.
Chapter Fourteen
As my horse thundered up the hill, back the way we had come, his head was lowered and his ears back, and his gasping breath beat time to the drumming of his hooves on the hard ground. My own heart pounded in my ears to the same relentless rhythm. If we did not escape this evil man, I would be betrayed to the Inquisition. I was no longer a child, no longer under the protection of a mother who would do anything, anything, to protect me. I would be stripped and tortured and endure all that she had endured. No confession, no penance would save me now. Everything that she had suffered to ensure that I lived would all go for nothing. I would be for the fire. I crouched low over the horse’s neck, my fingers entangled in the reins and the harsh hair of his mane, which lashed against my face. My eyes closed, I could smell the stench of burning flesh.
I was only conscious of entering the forest when the heat of the sun on my back was suddenly replaced by a flood of cool air. I opened my eyes. The arms of the trees embraced me, welcoming. A soft green had replaced the harsh glare and the stony ground of the farm, beneficent as a blessing. I drew a long, shuddering breath. The horse was almost beyond control, terrified by the baying of the dog at his heels and his instinctive sense of my own terror. The dog had been left behind, but only after he had managed to sink his teeth briefly into the horse’s leg. I had been barely aware of that, and of the horse kicking out to free himself of the vicious animal.
I must get the horse under control.
I straightened in the saddle and slowly, slowly, eased the horse back from his panic-stricken gallop to a slow canter. He was still gasping and his neck was dark with sweat. I thought of how the piebald Hector could gallop effortlessly on and on, but then I had never ridden him when he was as frightened as this horse was. Slower. Slower. Down to a nervous, broken trot, then a walk. He was shivering now, partly from nerves, partly from the cool forest air on his sweat-drenched coat.
We had come to the place where I had stopped before, beside the stream. I drew back on the reins. There was no longer any sound of pursuit. The man had no chance of catching us and the dog had disappeared after the horse had kicked him away. I slid down off the horse and my legs buckled under me, so that I collapsed on the ground, the reins still in my hands pulling the horse’s head down with me. The ground was cushioned with the accumulation, year upon year, of leaf litter and pine needles, and for a few minutes I did not even try to get up or release the horse. We both needed time for our hearts to steady and our breathing to return to normal.
At last I clambered to my feet. My legs were still shaking and I leaned against the horse’s shoulder. He blew anxiously into my ear, leaving a trail of foam on my cheek.
‘Poor fellow,’ I said, as calmly as I could, running my hand reassuringly down his neck. ‘That was a bad moment, wasn’t it?’
I unbuckled the cheek strap and slipped the bit out of his mouth, then led him to the stream. He was anxious to drink, but I would let him take only a little at first, in case he did himself harm. Strong and enduring as they may appear, horses can be delicate creatures. When he had taken the edge off his thirst, I led him back a little way from the stream, where there was a patch of grass between the trees. As he relaxed and began to graze, I opened my satchel and found a salve for the dog bite. Fortunately it was not deep. The creature had drawn blood but had not been able to clamp his great jaws too tightly, so there was no serious harm. The horse’s skin twitched as I spread the salve over the wound, and he raised his head briefly from the grass, then returned to it.