Page 21 of The Pirate Queen

“You bring my girl back alive,” his wife insisted just this morning.

“Maeve.” He spoke her name as though slamming a door. “I wouldn’t let her be hurt, would I? I only mean to scare her off this idea. But you’ll have to promise me something.”

“And what is that?”

“Sure, you cannot hate me if I make her cry. And I mean to. I will strip this nonsense from her head once and for all.” When Maeve looked at him with skepticism, he added, “The men believe that any woman on board a ship is a bad omen. The devil’s ballast. That she will doom us to storm and shipwreck.”

“Is a good thing, then, that Gráinne is not yet a woman, only a girl. You might yet avoid Manannán’s wrath—that greedy lover, keeping all the men to herself.”

“You know well enough that Manannán is a he. ’Tis there in the name itself.”

Maeve had smiled then and, God help him, Eóin still catches his breath at the sight. His wife is a beauty, no doubt. And she uses that beauty against him. Always has. And try as he might, Eóin cannot muster the energy to deflect the blow. And who would? So Maeve’s eyes—soft blue with a limbal ring around the iris—had crinkled at the corners and he’d taken it to mean that she was in accordance with this plan.

“Come, then, bird,” Eóin calls for his daughter.

Gráinne bounds lightly to his side, her feet barely touching the dark wet sand.

The galley waits, docked at the base of the rocky headland. Above them, the fat square tower house hunches like a gray toad. Old and angry. Three stories tall, with stone walls so thick they can endure any storm raging in from the Atlantic. Practically speaking, it is little more than an unadorned keep. Solid and mercenary, like the two generations of O’Malleys who’ve called it home. Maeve stands at the door waving goodbye, and once Gráinne catches sight of her mother, she grins, then flings her arm in the air, exuberant.

Eóin has never met a man who belabors a farewell. Most make do with a nod and a grunt, then head for the door. But he can never get away from these two without hugs and kisses, and waving that lasts until he’s out of sight. His crew makes no mention of the fact that he keeps an eye on his women, never turning his back to home until the galley rounds the point of the island and slips deeper into the bay.

Gráinne tucks her hand into Eóin’s warm grip, then skips. Just a few steps to catch up with him and match his pace. But it makes him smile every time. This girl has a way of wearing down his defenses. He is rock and she is water.

Already the hem of her dress is damp. She cannot escape the lapping waves, nor does she try, even though they’re gentler here on the beach than anywhere else on the island. Her feet are bare. Sand and kelp between her toes. Her hair is long once again, below her shoulders now, but the tight ringlets have stretched out into bigger looping waves in the hours since she’s been playing in the water. All summer in the sun and her hair is streaked with gold.

Loving a wife is one thing. Loving a daughter is something else entirely. How is he supposed to contain all this pride and fear in a single heart? He could burst from the pressure.

They trudge across the boulder-strewn beach hand in hand. He packed an oiled canvas bag for her this morning. Boots and a comb, ties for her hair—not that she’s likely to use them—and an extra dress. Gráinne asked for a pillow and blanket, but he refused.

“No pillows on a boat,” he’d said.

“You have a bed in your cabin. Pillows and blankets both.”

“I’m the captain. I can have whatever I want. You’re only crew.”

“When can I be captain?” she’d asked.

He frowned at her. A female captain? Nonsense.

Eóin lifts his daughter over the narrow gap between dock and galley so that her small bare feet rest on the wooden planks of the main deck. He watches her toes curl against the grain in greeting. Gráinne looks at everything all at once, drinking it in, and he gets the sense that she is trying not to look triumphant.

Niamh is the largest ship in Ireland. Named for the daughter of the sea god Manannán, she is Eóin’s pride and joy. She can carry three hundred men and thousands of pounds of cargo. The fact that she is the flagship of his fleet is the source of an unholy arrogance that he might repent for, if he were a man tempted by religion.

Eóin steps over the gap now, frowning, hands going to his hips. Gráinne is grinning so wide that he’s tempted to drop her over the edge and order her back to the tower. His dark brows pull together in resolve. Teeth clenched. He feels the muscle in his jaw twitch. It is time to end this foolishness.

“Sivney,” he calls, and the first mate shuffles across the deck.

“Dubhdara?”

The nickname, meaning “Black Oak,” is an honorific. A way for his men to show both respect and familiarity without bogging down a conversation with his title. It is used only by those who like him.

“Get us out of the harbor,” he says, then grabs Gráinne’s small, soft hand. There are ninety men at oars, watching them with expressions that range from incredulity to mystification to horror. Sivney begins shouting orders to the crew. But the only thing Eóin tells his daughter is “Choose an oar.”

Her hands are blistered in less than an hour. There are fifteen oars each side of the galley, and three men per oar. Forty-five men each, on port and starboard. There is, of course, no room for Grace on any of the benches. But her father ordered her to row, so she squeezed between two men near the prow on the starboard side. One is old, wizened like a piece of dried meat, all sinew and leather. She is alarmed to discover that most of his front teeth are missing. The other is a boy slightly older than Donal. Fifteen perhaps. He proudly displays fledgling whiskers and a perpetual scowl. She thinks his name is Ultan, but he’d been growling when he answered. He glares at Grace every time she looks at him.

Nonetheless, she had set her hands upon the oar and asked, “What do I do?”

The old man grumbled under his breath and Ultan looked at her like she was a great disappointment. Neither answered. Instead, the old one straightened on the bench as Sivney roared, “Eyes in the boat!”