Page 26 of The Pirate Queen

“Maybe he won’t have a choice. Maybe the storm will swallow us whole.”

“It doesn’t seem like a bad storm,” she says.

“No. Not too bad. He wouldn’t sail in a terrible storm.”

“So you think I’m right, then? He’s doing this so I won’t argue anymore.”

“Probably.”

Donal pulls his feet up and stretches out in the hammock. Now that he’s reclined, it begins to sway with the rocking of the boat. This way and that. Back and forth. She listens to the rain lash the thick wooden strakes. Looks through the port window and watches the occasional flash of lightning in the distance. Maybe she should be scared. But mostly Grace wants to know what a terrible storm would feel like. She wonders whether it would send her flying or crashing. And maybe she shouldn’t want to know. But she does.

“I won’t let him make me hate it,” she tells Donal. “But if you want, I’ll help you find a way to stay at home.”

His eyes are closed now, and his voice is sleepy. “Won’t work.”

“Why?”

“The boats are meant to be mine one day. All of them. When Da is gone. I’m meant to be The O’Malley.” There is a long pause and she thinks that he has gone under. But then he adds, “Unless you have a brother one day. Then the title will probably go to him.”

“Why?”

“ ’Cause I’ll be dead. Kilt in my sleep, most likely. That’s what my mam says. That if Da ever has a son with your mam, I’ll be dropped into the sea”—he yawns—“or poisoned. Or maybe just have my throat cut. She says it always ends in blood when two sons fight for the same title.”

“Da would never!”

Another yawn, this one longer, and when he speaks again, his voice is very soft and sounds far away. “Never said it would be Da.” He laughs like a child in its sleep. “Maybe it will be you.”

Grace doesn’t answer because it is such a stupid thing to say, and then, within seconds, she can hear the change in Donal’s breathing. He’s been lulled to sleep by the rocking of the hammock. She thinks Donal’s mother must be a liar to scare him this way, to make everyone a potential enemy.

Twelve hours, maybe less. That’s how long Grace has been on Niamh. But the sleek galley already feels like hers. She wants it to be hers. Along with every ketch and sloop, every punt and yawl in her father’s fleet. Grace is startled to realize just how badly she wants not only the ships, but the title too.

I want to be Chief of the Name, she thinks. I want to be The O’Malley.

“Fecking Galway,” her father swears, yanking Grace from the path of an oncoming carriage. It thunders past, wooden wheels rattling along the cobblestones, horseshoes clomping in harmony.

She’s never been farther away from home than Westport, on the mainland. Town, as her father calls it. And that always seems immense. A full seven hundred people live in town. So many that it has a high street packed with shops and several alleys crowded with homes that stretch down to the Carrowbeg River. The O’Malleys have another tower house in Westport and a third on Achill Island. But she has never been anywhere so chaotic as Galway City.

Grace woke sometime in the night to find herself on the floor. Her father had moved her to a threadbare rug and covered her with his blanket. He kept the pillow for himself. She lay there awake, listening to Eóin and Donal snore. First one, then the other, taking turns filling the silence, a long rumbling through the night. She listened to the rain. Listened to Sivney call orders in the storm. She has no memory of drifting off to sleep again, only of waking. And when she did, Niamh was docked in Galway Harbor and she was alone in the cabin. A quick search revealed a bag that had been packed for her. So she changed into a clean dress and her boots—Grace does loathe shoes of any kind. There was no hand mirror on board the ship, but she didn’t need one to know that she looked like a drowned rat. So she ran the comb through her hair and, because she does not want this to be the last voyage with her father, tied it back with a bit of silk ribbon.

“Where are we going?” Grace asks, struggling to keep up with her father’s long strides as he pulls her through the fish market.

He keeps hold of her hand, seemingly unconcerned by whether Donal is following along. But twice she sees Eóin turn and look over his shoulder. Her brother does just fine, trailing a few steps behind. He’s been here before and easily dodges the people and carts and stray dogs that crowd around them.

“To see the merchant’s agent so we can be paid,” Eóin says, patting his breast pocket where the cargo manifest lies folded in thirds.

They’ve just come from the dockmaster, who inspected the crates and barrels, the bolts of fabric and various animal skins, then signed off that the numbers were correct. They are not alone. Sivney walks ahead, keeping an eye out for trouble, and Ultan, his son, walks behind. A ship’s captain with a signed manifest is always a target. So it doesn’t hurt to have extra men guarding them fore and aft as they move through the city. That’s what she heard her father explain to Donal when they left the docks, at least.

Galway smells of fish and sailors, of leather and rotting vegetables. Boats by the dozen are moored in the harbor and easily twice as many are anchored farther out in Galway Bay, either waiting their turn to unload cargo or preparing to leave for parts unknown. People everywhere. With their animals and their children and their wares. Children selling flowers from carts. Carts pushed by women selling bread. Bread eaten in chunks by the fishmongers as they wave fat mackerel and salmon in their dirty hands. The merchants are selling other things she has never seen before and speaking languages she has never heard. Grace is transfixed. She gives a little skip of delight, earning a glare from her father.

As they move away from the fish market toward the city proper, a massive seawall looms above them. Known as the Front Wall, it is made of thick stone and extends from the tower house to the end of the quay, a bulwark against the River Corrib and her mercurial tides. Eóin pulls Grace closer until they stand before the tower. There is an inscription carved near the top in deep slanted letters, and he points to it.

“Do you know what that says?”

Grace cannot read. Her father knows this. So she knows he does not expect an answer.

Donal has caught up to them now, and he also peers at the writing. Eóin scratches his chin. “ ’Tis in Latin,” he mutters, then quotes, “ ‘From the ferocious O’Flahertys, Good Lord deliver us.’ ”

“What does that mean?” Donal asks.