Page 174 of The Pirate Queen

“She thinks herself a chieftain!” one of them says, and they laugh harder.

What a miserable place, the Pale, supposed bastion of civility and manners. She has been treated better by poor men who live in squalid huts than by any person who resides in this stretch of coastland controlled by the English queen.

Grace turns on her heel, fist grasping the handle of her satchel, and begins the walk back to the pier. She is still hungry and tired and in desperate need of a bath. But now she is angry as well. In all her years of traveling, Grace has never been turned away in such a manner.

Niamh is docked along the inner side of the pier, close to a narrow stretch of beach called Claremont by those who live on Howth Head. Perhaps the small boy playing barefoot in the gentle surf would have escaped her attention if he were not so finely dressed. Or so blond. For a moment, when she passes him, she thinks it is Tibbot, bent over, pushing a miniature wooden boat in the tide pool. But then the boy looks up at her and holds his ship aloft, grinning for all the world like he is a captain himself. He has the deepest dimples she has ever seen on a child, but dark solemn eyes, like Nora. The combination makes him look both impish and studious.

The boy laughs, and that makes her smile. It almost makes her forget the rudeness she just experienced.

“Well, hello,” Grace says.

“This is my ship,” the boy tells her.

“And does it have a name?”

“I call her The Mary Rose.”

“Pretty. Is that your mother?”

He laughs again, and it sounds like a chime in the wind. His cheeks flush pink. “No. It is the name of my nurse.”

Grace points farther down the dock. “That is my ship. And her name is Niamh.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Why?”

“Girls can’t have ships. It’s bad luck.”

“And who told you such nonsense?”

“My grandfather.”

“What would he know about ships?”

The boy throws his arm wide. “He owns half the ones docked on this pier.”

Oh, Grace thinks, I see it now. This is no village boy, not in those fine trews cut to his size or that velvet jerkin.

“What is your name?” she asks.

“Christopher St. Lawrence.”

“Are you named after your grandfather?”

“I am!” he says. “He is the eighth Baron Howth and I am to be the tenth, because my da must come next. But his name is Nicholas and he is away just now, in England, with my mam.”

“And why are you not with them?”

The boy shrugs.

“Then why are you not at dinner?”

“Because I took three sweet rolls from the kitchen earlier and spoiled my appetite. Or that’s what my grandfather said. He told me to go play and not come back until I was well and truly hungry.”

“Are you?”

He flashes those dimples again. “No. I’ve a bellyache.”