Page 113 of The Pirate Queen

“The real question,” Finn says, “is are you going to tell her?”

“Depends,” Murray answers, echoing his brother’s response.

“On what?”

“Whether you can keep from going arseways, brother. Gráinne isn’t yours to love.”

He laughs. “Tá. I am too ugly.”

Murray’s turn to laugh now. “And ugly men never win.”

It is nearing midnight when Niamh glides into Blacksod Bay. It was a short trip north, back to Clare for reinforcements, then around Achill Island and into MacMahon territory. Located on Fahy Strand near Ballycroy, Doona Castle sits on the low sloping hill like a mother hen admiring her chicks. But there is no white plumage visible on Niamh tonight. This chick is invisible. Grace had her crew furl the sails in tight to the masts, then row into Blacksod Bay, as quiet as the oars can make them.

It is an indefensible position. Her father would have never allowed a fortress to be built in such a place. Easy water with no rock, and a long stretch of white-sand beach. Then grassland that leads right to the front steps of Doona. Grace is able to bring Niamh almost to the beach, a dark hulk on a dark night in dark water. Easy enough to anchor, and then they are all over the gunwale and traipsing through the shallow water, daggers in their teeth.

“How can they not expect us?” Finn asks.

“They’ve no reason to think we know it was them. And we wouldn’t, if not for the shepherds.”

His face twists into a happy grin. “Invisible, aren’t they, shepherds?”

“My father taught me that men of low birth, the ones who work in shite and mud, sweating all day, are the most valuable to our clan. I never knew what he meant, until they came to Clare with Hugh’s body.”

The night is quiet. Summer is almost upon them once again, and the only sound is the gentle lapping of waves and pipistrelle bats zipping through the warm air in hunt of midges—those fecking little biting beasties. There is no other creature in all of Ireland that Grace hates more. She hates them more than O’Flahertys and MacMahons both. So when the next bat whizzes by her ear, she doesn’t even flinch. Instead, she wishes it happy hunting and crouches lower in the tall grass.

They move forward like ghosts. Grace and her hundred men out for the last part of her revenge. She will leave the MacMahons with a story to tell, with a reason never to strike against her again.

There is nary a call from the parapet. No signal. No alarm whatsoever as they move toward the tower house. Nothing until Murray shoots his flaming arrow directly into an open window of the castle. She is almost disappointed by the lack of alarm. She had expected more from the MacMahons.

Finally, a shriek.

And then a clamor.

Too late. They are up the front steps and no one has bothered to bolt the door. There are but thirty men left to guard the tower—the rest are on Caher, and them stranded. The family, she is told—once she puts her dagger to a guard’s throat—is farther inland, at the clan stronghold.

“Do not pity them,” Grace had told Gutty as they left Caher. “There is enough timber on this island to fashion the rafts they’ll need. It will take a while to reach the mainland. Then longer to get home. But it’s a lesson learned for The MacMahon.”

It takes little effort to round up the remaining garrison and bring them onto the grass.

“Three men were sent to Achill Island earlier in the week,” she says. “They are dead now. Buried on Caher Island, I suspect. I have left the rest of your fellows alive, but I require this tower house as my price for the interference in my affairs. Ye may flee or ye may fight. But Doona Castle will be mine from this day forward.”

Matriarch, 1589

“Open Rebellion”

Grace is fifty-nine years old

Rockfleet Castle. Perhaps her favorite tower house in all of Ireland. Grace has loved it since her first day of fosterage. It is bigger than the O’Malley tower houses—four floors instead of three—though it boasts little in the way of adornment. Rockfleet is but a single stone tower topped by ramparts and a narrow walk. A curtain wall surrounds the fortress on three sides, and a small barbican provides the only point of access from land. The tower house sits at the end of a deep inlet in Rockfleet Bay, on the northern shore of the larger Clew Bay. It is an impressive stronghold for the Bourke clan. Well placed. Well fortified. The thing Grace has always loved most about Rockfleet, however, is that a ship can sail right up to the front steps during high tide. There is no trudging across a sandy beach or through brackish bog. So she ties off at the dock and watches as her grandson rushes out to greet her.

“Granny!” Young Richard shouts, almost slipping on the wet stone as he hurtles himself toward Niamh. She thinks it is joy in his voice at first, but then she sees his face. His features, so like those of Hook, his father, are streaked with terror.

Grace is on him in an instant. “What’s happened?”

“The sheriff. He was here this morning to give you notice. He had papers.”

She motions to her crew that they should finish docking without her. It is a sludgy day in February, though not intolerable. Mist instead of rain, but cold enough to need layers.

“What kind of papers?” she demands.