Page 10 of The Pirate Queen

“More than Richard?” he asks, teasing.

“I am not allowed to miss him. So I don’t.”

“Liar.” Donal drops his mouth closer to her ear. “And I wouldn’t tell, even if you did.”

Grace leaves her brother and walks back along the deck, then climbs the steep narrow stairs to join Sivney atop the cabin at the rear of the ship. But once there, she hesitates.

There is a half grin on the old man’s face when he says, “You do not need my permission to captain this boat.”

“Then why did you just give it?”

“For them.” He nods to the crew, then makes a show of stepping away from the tiller. Curious glances follow his every move from the deck below. “G’wan. But you’ll have to mean it.”

The tiller is seven feet long and fashioned of smooth oak turned black by years of wind and water. Mounted to the starboard side and connected to the rudder by mechanical linkage, it is—to her at least—something of a miracle. To steer a ship this size across the ocean’s surface simply by maneuvering the tiller back and forth? What next? A vessel that will fly them to the moon? And wouldn’t Gutty love that!

Gutty. He is not gaping at her like the Murray twins. He smiles so wide she can see the gap between his teeth. More so than Donal, or even Sivney, he gives her the courage to reach out and take hold of the tiller.

“Are you sure?” she asks.

“Tá.”

“And if they refuse?”

Sivney nods at the tiller again. “Mean it.”

Her lungs fill like a sail, and Grace is startled at the sound of her own voice. It carries across the ship.

While pissing on deck, an old boatswain

Fell asleep, and his pisser got frozen.

It snapped at the shank,

And it fell off and sank

In the sea—’twas his own fault for dozin’.

Utter, stunned silence on the deck below.

Those who hadn’t seen her take the helm turn in astonishment. No one moves. Then, one by one, every crewman looks to Niamh’s boatswain. He has his hands up as though in surrender, but his head down staring at his own crotch. Laughter blooms in every direction at once.

“Now that I have your attention,” Grace shouts, “ready about!”

“You heard your captain,” Sivney orders. “Eyes in the boat, you lot of caw-pawed feckers!”

Ultan—Sivney’s son—stands at the main line. Head tipped to the side. Brows drawn. Finally, he nods. “Tá, Captain!” he roars, then nineteen other men echo him.

“Let them see you helm the lee,” Sivney tells her.

Grace pulls the tiller to change their westward advance, then looks to the crew and orders, “Let fly the sheets!”

And so Niamh begins a broad circle back to shore with Grace calling orders and making adjustments at the tiller. Twelve years since her first time on open water, and what once felt like a foreign language now seems a native tongue. The commands are nothing more than steps in an intricate dance, and she’s learned how to be led by the ship and how to lead in return.

Haul the sheets—Niamh’s crew tightens the sails on their new tack.

Trim the sails—Twenty men on deck make adjustments for their new destination.

On and on they go in this call-and-response as they approach Bunowen Bay. The closer they get to shore, the larger the lump in her throat grows, and the more she longs to slow their arrival.