Page 63 of The Pirate Queen

“Well, you wouldn’t have, would you? Gone now. Razed to the ground by the fecking English.” He heaves another body onto the gunwale, then pushes it over and frowns at the minimal splash.

There was a young man from Carrigglas!

Whose balls were constructed of brass.

When jangled together

They played Stormy Weather

And lightning shot out of his ass!

Grace laughs as her men hoot their approval while the O’Flahertys appear scandalized. Pig is the first to crack a smile, however.

Pig readies the next body.

“Why do they call you Pig?” she asks. “Surely you have a name?”

“Name’s Garron,” he tells her.

“So why Pig?”

He doesn’t look at her when he answers. “Because I’m so pretty,” he says, then begins to laugh.

And Grace understands then. It is so clear, in fact, that she must press her lips together and look away. His laughter is loud and high and unmistakably porcine.

There are only five bodies left on deck when Finn calls out, “Vessel on the horizon!”

Sure enough, a dark ship glides toward them.

“Merchant or military?” she asks.

“Looks like merchant. Is flying St. George’s Cross, isn’t it?”

Grace took a count of her men after the battle and found sixty still up and standing. Seven dead. Three wounded badly enough that they might never fight again. She left twenty of her most loyal to guard the castle, and the rest are with her now, rowing through the lough. Each has a wary eye turned toward the British vessel.

So, a decision to be made. Grace pulls the compass from her pocket and runs her thumb over the worn engraving on the lid. The weight is a comfort in her hand and she doesn’t even need to consult the needle to know what she will do. Not this time.

She points to the heap of remaining bodies on the deck. “Dump them. And be quick about it,” she tells Pig, then raises her voice. “The rest of you—keep your weapons close.”

Five loud splashes break the silence and then they are rowing hard to greet the ship. This time when she gives instructions, no one argues.

Ten minutes later they are within a stone’s throw of the large merchant vessel. Grace unties her braid and shakes it into the wind so her curls fly free. She dons a pretty smile as she reads the name emblazoned proudly across the bow.

“Well, hello, Mary Fortune.”

They reach Bunowen at nightfall. Instead of having her men anchor in the half-moon bay and row ashore, Grace docks Scian Catha in its protected harbor on the other side of the massive hill that shelters the tower house. Otherwise, she would have seen the lights burning in every window, the torches lit—not only at the doors but along the ramparts as well.

“Gráinne.”

It is Finn’s voice, thick with warning, that she hears once her feet hit the dock. But she pays him no mind. Her attention is on the twenty soldiers who move from the shadows, swords drawn.

“Who are you?” she demands.

“Clansmen. You’ll be coming with us.”

“You mean to escort me to my own home?”

“ ’Tis yours no longer.”