Page 202 of The Pirate Queen

“Today,” he tells her. “Right now, if you like. I will even provide an escort to the docks and coin for your passage home.”

Grace leans forward and plucks a small cake off the silver tray. She eats it in three dainty bites, then washes it down with the last of her port.

“It cannot be so easy, Lord Deputy. You would simply let me walk away? Haven’t you just spent an hour telling me how dangerous I am?”

FitzWilliam pulls a sheet of paper from the bottom of his pile. He lays it on top and smooths a hand across. There are but a few lines of print and two places to sign. One for him. And the other for her.

“Precautions must be made for the both of us, of course. An understanding in legal terms, as it were. Your signature and mine. An agreement that you go free this day in exchange for knowledge gleaned while going about your maritime…activities.”

“I see you are still uncomfortable calling me a pirate?”

He sets paper and quill on the small table between them. Motions for her to sign. FitzWilliam calls it a choice, but it’s really another set of shackles. Only these are made of words. Words that could turn to rope. Rope that might be looped around her neck at the slightest misstep.

Grace O’Malley signs anyway. She wants to go home.

“There is only one pirate queen,” the Lord Deputy of Ireland tells her. “And she sits on the throne of England.”

Matriarch, 1593

“The English Queen”

Grace is sixty-three years old

The summons arrives on a Monday morning. Grace’s presence is required for an audience with Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth, the following day. Grace is tempted, for one moment, to dress the part of an English courtier. She has enough coin to buy a new gown and slippers, to pay for her long hair to be twisted up in the latest style. She could have her face powdered and rouged. Grace wants this meeting to succeed. But she decides against that plan. She needs to be memorable instead.

Thomas Butler is none too pleased with this choice as he stands beside her on Niamh’s deck. He looks her up and down as they glide toward the water gate at Greenwich Palace. He shakes his head.

“I wish you had tried, Grace. It would have meant something,” he mutters in her ear. “Do not blame me if you are sent home in shame. Or to the gallows instead.”

“You want me to be something I am not, Tom. I have beseeched her as an Irishwoman. And I will meet with her as such.”

Grace wears her best gown—green silk with gold embroidery along the hem and sleeves—and a red cloak affixed to her throat with a golden pin. Her neckline is open. No ruff or collar. The angled sweep of her clavicles is on full display. Her skirts are long, but not full. She wears no corset, no slippers. Her feet are shod in leather boots, and the only jewelry on her person is her rings: fede and aquamarine. Most appalling to Tom, however, is that her hair is down, curling over her shoulders and falling to her waist. Grace is unadorned and utterly wild, and if the Queen of England will not see her true self, so be it.

The Gentleman Usher and two Yeomen of the Guard step forward once Niamh is docked. Butler helps her onto the platform, then up the steps, while Ultan, Gutty, and the Murray twins hover nervously on deck. Once her feet are on solid ground, Grace gives them a single backward glance—noting their obvious unease at not being able to escort her any farther.

She nods.

I will be grand, the movement says.

“State your business,” the usher demands.

Grace hands him the summons and he looks it over quickly. Nods. “This way.”

She and Butler are taken up a graveled path that cuts through the wide expanse of manicured lawn and between a set of wrought-iron gates that leads them into the outer courtyard of Greenwich Palace. They are surrounded by redbrick and timber-framed roofs. Chimneys. Servants scurrying to and fro. Then they pass into the base court. There are fewer people here, though of greater importance. Grace can tell by their dress that they are lower-ranking courtiers, filled with self-importance given the tilt of their heads and the way their eyes slide across her appearance. The whispers.

With every step they take, the opulence grows and it is an effort not to gawk. Never has she seen such finery. Such pomp. Inside the palace proper now, they cross a wide marble hall and head up a grand staircase of such richly polished stone she fears her boots will slip.

How beautiful, she thinks, how impractical. An entire army could run up these steps, ten abreast.

“Her Majesty will see you in the presence chamber,” the usher says, then looks over his shoulder. “You will not be alone.”

“I did not suppose we would be,” she tells him.

Grace follows him toward the state apartments. Down halls lined with paintings and tapestries. By windows strung with drapery and across fine carpets. Every step makes her realize that she has never truly seen a castle in her life, much less lived in one. With every breath, she passes something gilded or carved or crested. Coats of armor. Crossed swords. Banners and balustrades. She can hardly decide where to look.

Finally, they come to a set of high wooden doors, carved with the royal crest at eye level. The usher nods and the doors are thrown back by two yeomen.

“The guard chamber,” the usher tells her with a wry grin. “Just a precaution. You understand, I’m sure?”