Page 39 of The Pirate Queen

Richard turns to the boy. “What did you do?”

He throws his hands up. “Nothing!”

“He didn’t do anything, Richard. ’Tis what he saw my husband do.”

“That cunting piece of shite! What now? What has your useless fecking husband done this time?”

Richard looks to her, waits for her to apologize for the man he hates most in this world. But it isn’t Gráinne who answers him.

“He’s murdered your brother.”

“Don’t be stupid. I just beat him in a knife-throwing contest not an hour ago.”

“And what happened after that?” the boy asks. “Who fought next?”

Richard narrows his eyes. “O’Flaherty and Joyce. Her husband lost his arse and his temper.”

“And then?” the boy patiently prods.

Richard closes his eyes. Remembers the whiskey and the wink and thinking that maybe he should go after his brother but that he’d rather sit and stare at the woman he can never have.

“He followed Walter,” Gráinne says. “And have you seen your brother since?”

“No,” he admits.

“Well, I have,” the boy says. “And I saw O’Flaherty kill him.”

“Why would he do that?”

Gráinne takes a step closer. She puts her hand on his cheek and he feels the warmth of her palm. She takes a deep breath.

“Because your mother told him to.”

“You wrote to me four years ago at Bunowen,” Grace tells him.

“Yes. And you wrote back. We’ve been writing. What does that matter?”

“When my brother delivered your letter, he brought one to my husband as well. It was from your mother. And maybe I shouldn’t have read it. But I did.”

Grace tells Richard about Finola’s letter, what she’d instructed Donal O’Flaherty to do. She tells him everything except that she got pregnant with Eóin the night she read it.

“Walter’s name was never mentioned. And it’s been years. Nothing came of it,” she says. “I’d forgotten. Until a moment ago, when Gutty fell into my tent crying.”

“Didn’t fall,” he mutters. “Wasn’t crying.”

“You were.”

“You would be too if you’d seen all that blood.”

“I see more blood every month than you have seen in your life and I have never cried about it. Not once,” she snaps.

Richard shakes his head. “Why would my mother order him to kill Walter?”

These complicated families and their complicated bloodlines. They are a mess on the best of days. But at times like this, when entire dynasties rise or fall, she finds them positively feudal. Finola Bourke is Richard’s mother. But she is also Donal O’Flaherty’s sister.

“To clear your path at becoming The MacWilliam,” Grace answers. “Walter is the elected tánaiste. What better way to advance your future than to eliminate him? How old is Walter’s son?”

“Barely six.”