Page 22 of The Pirate Queen

Utterly lost, Grace looked about.

“It only means stop skylarking,” Ultan hissed. “Pay attention to the captain.”

“What’s skylarking?” she whispered back.

He’d spat then, right on her bare foot, and muttered “Useless fecking girls” under his breath.

Neither has spoken to her since. Not even when she is yanked forward off the bench by the force of their rowing. Nor has Grace bothered them with any other questions. Questions make them angry. Talking makes them angry. Looking at them makes them angry. She isn’t just the captain’s daughter; she is the chieftain’s daughter. She shouldn’t have to ask; she ought to know.

So Grace watches and listens. All she can discern is that the rowing requires a call-and-response as they maneuver out of the rocky harbor of Clare Island and into the deeper waters of Clew Bay.

Let fall!

Give way!

Steady!

Pick up the stroke!

Hold water!

She tries to match the calls with the motion of the oars and the movement of the boat, but she has no luck. It all happens too quickly. But she can feel the forward lurch with every stroke, the spray of spindrift on her nose. Her hands are raw and an ache splinters across her lower back, but Grace doesn’t complain. She’s found that her feet can reach the deck if she scoots to the edge of the bench and presses her toes into the wood. For the first time since leaving the harbor, she’s controlling the oar. But the commands themselves still mean nothing to her, so she mimics the motions of the men beside her—albeit a breath late every time. Push. Pull. Lift. There is a sort of poetry to the motions once she recognizes the pattern.

It’s not yet noon, but the sky has a tinge of granite and the clouds are hard flat lines stacked on top of one another like slate tiles. A roof for the sky. Grace knows a storm when she sees one but cannot understand why her father would depart with a gale building out to sea. She can feel the wind coming straight across the deck, tossing her damp hair into her eyes. And she can feel her father’s gaze on her, even though she hasn’t looked at him once since choosing an oar. They are still close enough to home for him to change his mind, so she keeps her eyes on the shoreline.

Grace waits for the order to row inland, but instead Sivney yells, “Avast! Oars!” and all ninety men lift their sculls so that the blades are parallel with the water.

“Way enough!”

As though working with a single mind, their arms swing inward so that the oars lie on the gunwale, blades flat and pointed toward the prow. Within seconds they are latched into place.

“Ready the sails!” Sivney orders.

“Ready!” ninety men call in response.

And then a flurry of movement on deck forces Grace to scramble off the bench and onto the forecastle so as not to be underfoot. The three great swaths of canvas are unfurled and then Sivney’s order rings out.

“Make sail!”

Words are thrown around in a jumble. Halyard. Lines. Sheets. Braces, slacken, and haul. Similar to the rowing, there is a choreography these men use to dance across the deck, ropes in hand, moving, pulling, coiling, swearing. There is too much to see at once, and she doesn’t know where to look. But then the wind fills the sails with a sudden snap and Niamh glides forward in a rush, like she’s taken a boot in the backside. Grace stumbles, then grabs a taut line so she doesn’t crash to her knees. She feels the air move around her and now it comes from behind, out of the north, a steady hand at their back.

In all the commotion, the shouts and orders and braying of the sailors, she does not hear her father step up behind her. But then there is a warm hand on her shoulder and another over her fingers where she grips the sheet line so tightly that her knuckles are white.

“Do not be afraid, bird.”

Confused, she looks up at him, her smile wide and her eyes glowing. Why would she be afraid? This is the very thing she wants. Adventure! Danger! And though she says nothing, she sees the disapproval in his expression.

The mood on deck rises like the swell of a wave. Laughter rings out, followed by hearty cheers as they move into deeper water. To her left she can see Roonah Point falling farther away as they head into the North Atlantic, closer to the building storm. All she knows of her father’s trading expeditions is what she’s overheard him tell her mother. He usually navigates closer to the coast, keeping to calmer waters buffeted by the western Inish islands of Turk, Bofin, and Shark. Known waters with known allies, where they run less risk of encountering foreign vessels.

“Why this way?” Grace asks.

“There is something I want to teach you,” he says.

“What?”

“That the sea is not your friend.”

Grace lets her hand fall from the rope. She flexes her stiff fingers once, to get the blood moving again, then drops her hand to her side, where it lies flat against the thick wool of her skirt and the slight bulge where Cook’s knife rests in a scabbard strapped to her slender thigh. She won the scabbard from Donal in a game of chess three weeks after she stole the knife, and has worn them both ever since. She is comforted by their presence.