Page 92 of The Pirate Queen

“Mam,” he says, striding to where she sits, and kisses her cheek. If Bingham were not watching, she would shrink from the feigned affection.

Finn snorts loud enough for her to hear.

“You brought him here?” she whispers.

“I had little choice. He threatened to commandeer the Scian Catha otherwise,” Merrick tells her.

Grace pulls away from her son’s embrace and asks, “And what took you to Westport?”

Merrick shifts to stand by her shoulder, but it makes her uneasy. She pushes her chair back slightly so that she can see both him and Bingham.

“A shipment of salt and wine arrived at Galway Harbor last week for Margaret.” He looks at Bingham to explain. “My sister is fond of French claret. I give her a case every year for her birthday. And since I was going to be at Rockfleet, it only made sense to stop at Westport and deliver The O’Malley’s cargo as well.”

“And what has The O’Malley been importing?” Bingham asks.

Merrick hesitates for the length of one breath, then lies easily. “Silk and wine and spices, by the look of it. And ruby port, if I know my uncle. It wasn’t whiskey in those barrels.”

In fact, Grace and Donal have been buying raw iron from Flanders for the new forge Donal has had built in the village. And the barrels are filled with gunpowder, not rum. But that is information she doesn’t want Bingham to have. She had not expected Merrick to arrive with the cargo until later in the month—his presence here is decidedly unhelpful.

Bingham shifts impatiently, then changes the subject. “Where are they, Grace?”

“Who?”

“The crew of El Gran Grin? Where have you put them?”

“Put them? If you mean that great Spanish travesty that gutted itself on my beach yesterday, they are all dead. I have put them in the ground.”

He laughs. “Then you will take me to the wreckage. Show me the graves.”

“I will do no such thing. I have other matters that I must attend to. If you care to inspect what is left of that Spanish ship, you and your men are welcome to do so. You’ll find it three miles to the south. You can take the road through the village and past the old abbey. A mile beyond that you’ll see what’s left of El Gran Grin.”

“And the crew?”

“In a large grave above the tide line.”

Bingham snorts. “You expect me to believe that you buried almost two hundred and fifty men in less than one day?”

“To be precise, I buried no one. My men did. Though there were hardly so many on board that pitiful ship by the time it washed ashore. Over half the crew was lost at sea.”

“Were there any survivors when you came upon them?”

Grace finally stands. She moves to Bingham and takes no small amount of pleasure in looking down at his prim face, his neat clothes. “All drowned,” she tells him, “down to the last deckhand.”

“I expect you to prove it.”

“You may demand all the proof you like. But I have much to do and no time to escort you on your little excursion. By all means, go pick the bones of El Gran Grin clean. That’s why you’re really here? You think she carried some kind of treasure?”

“Her cargo has been claimed by the Earl of Ormond.”

This takes her aback. “What does Black Tom want with the cargo of a Spanish galleon?”

“Whatever he might want with it is his concern, and none of yours. All foreign shipwrecks in Burrishoole are his domain.”

“Clare does not fall within the bounds of Burrishoole. You know that. So does Thomas Butler.”

“I am the Governor of Connaught. It is my duty to report the happenings in this province. That ship has wrecked where I say it has wrecked. And if my report—the one I wrote and sent to Dublin yesterday—says that it has wrecked in Fynglass on the Corraun Peninsula, distinctly within the Barony of Burrishoole, then it has.”

Her eyes tighten. “If Thomas Butler is so eager to claim that cargo, he is welcome to come and get it. Or what’s left. The storm took most everything.”