Page 6 of The Pirate Queen

The concept of stealing is foreign to Grace. As far as she has been taught, this is her home and therefore everything in it belongs to her. So it is no crime to reach up and take the bone-handled knife.

Swift feet propel her back to the garret, and when she passes the privy chamber, she wonders if her parents have fallen into bad dreams. Why else the moaning? Or maybe they are still afraid of storms? No matter. Grace crawls back into bed and tucks the knife beneath her pillow. The cat is on her blanket, as usual, and snuggles closer at her return. The girl listens to the tap-tap-tapping of water on the slate roof only a few feet from her head and smiles.

She is storm born.

Knives bring good luck.

The sea belongs to her.

It is mine, it is mine, it is mine. The refrain—as insistent as the storm—lulls her back to sleep. The sea is mine.

Mother, 1550

“Lady of the House”

Grace is twenty years old

Being a wife does not suit her. Nor does the role of Bean an Tí. She is young still—more than half wild—and Bunowen Castle is a strange place. Grace has not felt at home within its walls a single day since she arrived. The tower house was a gift to her husband upon his being named chieftain at Bunowen—a smaller part of his family lands. A tidy way of keeping him occupied until he replaces his father as The O’Flaherty. Grace spends most days alone, for her husband is often away. On clan business, she is told. But the truth is that he loves nothing more than marauding. And Grace is certain that he loves her not at all.

She is a prize that—now won—has been discarded.

But Grace is not idle.

Her duties make that impossible. There is an estate, and its people, to manage. The steward and the brewer. A cook. Attendants for cleaning the house and serving food. A young boy of twelve who has no job other than to keep the hearth fires going at all times. The boy has a real name, though she isn’t sure anyone knows it. He is called Gutty by everyone on the estate. A dirty child with a bright smile and a propensity for muttering curse words beneath his breath. And then there are the dairy maids. And the bakers. A weaver. A gardener. Herdsmen. And a small fian of soldiers pulled from the O’Flaherty ranks and assigned to guard the castle. Two of them—the Murray twins—have been assigned to guard Grace specifically. And then there is the clan itself, many thousands of men and women and children who live in the lands surrounding the castle, all of whom look to her for guidance. Two dozen towns that require her constant attention.

Grace has been sent off to a very pretty prison. Bunowen Castle is a fortress of stone, hemmed in on all sides by the rugged beauty of Ireland. The tower house sits on a rise overlooking the Bay of Bunowen and is sheltered from the harsh westerly gales by the Hill of Doon—a great mound of volcanic rock and scrubby Scots pine. To the east, the estate is cut off from the rest of Umhall by the treacherous fjord of Killary. The steep quartzite peaks of the Twelve Bens rise above the horizon to the north. And to the south is a short stretch of green meadow, then a perfect half circle of white-sand beach that dips into the blue waters of the bay.

It is to this beach that Grace retreats each afternoon. When she first arrived, the steward insisted she be accompanied by the Murray twins, but Grace informed him that—were they to follow—neither would return alive. When the steward laughed at her, Grace put the point of her knife beneath his chin. He had gasped. Then blinked hard as a trickle of warm blood ran down his throat. Grace allowed him to step away with his dignity—and his jugular—intact, and no one has intruded on her daily respite since.

Today she has brought bread slathered with butter, a hunk of cheese, and a skin filled with ale—the brewer told her just this morning that it is his best batch yet.

The beach is strewn with large, low boulders and she climbs atop her favorite—a knobby chunk of black volcanic rock that crouches halfway in the water like an old fat toad. It is warm from the sun and she lets the heat sink through her skirts and into her skin. October has brought cool winds and piles of seaweed to shore. It is the color of amber and has the soft smell of decay. Kelp flies buzz in happy circles, laying their eggs amidst the limp strands as seabirds swoop along the drifts, picking out a hearty meal of sandhoppers, mites, and rove beetles.

Grace has not cried since her first day at Bunowen. Since being married off and sent away. A single day was all she gave herself to mourn the life she had and the future she will never get. That day, she came to the beach and began the ritual that has grounded her ever since.

She takes a deep breath, closes her eyes, and lets the water speak to her.

It is a voice she feels in her bones, a Sense that keeps her company through her long, lonely days.

“What will you be today?” she asks the water.

The sea has ever-changing moods. Grace has felt them since childhood. But it never occurred to her that she might inquire directly of Manannán until she came to this place. And the sea god has yet to disappoint her.

The answer that Grace feels, rather than hears, today is: I will bring you joy.

When she opens her eyes, she sees only the distant horizon. She feels a breeze that is crisp rather than cold. Instead of being relieved at the Sense, she is enraged.

“The only thing that can bring me joy,” Grace says aloud, “is to be on the sea rather than simply looking at it.”

But look she does, until her hour has passed. It is only when she wipes breadcrumbs from her lap that she sees a familiar dark hulk and a trio of white sails on the horizon.

Niamh.

“You!” Grace shouts in delight. “A captain?”

“Only for today,” Donal says.

Her brother splashes through the water, a dark-headed toddler on his hip, and a very pregnant Nora lumbering through the sand at his side. Donal’s face is pallid as he watches Sivney drag the small rowboat to shore. Their father’s first mate looks both amused and irritated that Donal still hasn’t gained his sea legs.