Page 29 of The Pirate Queen

Within moments, they are back on the high street, jostled about by other shoppers. Greenbottle flies buzz around the stalls, bumping into one another, their glossy fat bodies shining in the sun. She swats one away from her ear as her father buys them lunch. Hot meat pies straight from the oven. Grace takes a hasty bite and draws away as steam hisses up her nose and a blister rises on the tip of her tongue. She blows on her pie. Waits. Blows again. Takes a gentler bite, then licks the flaky crust from her fingers.

She thinks this might be the best day of her life.

It is late afternoon now, and the sun beats down upon them. But still she skips along, looking at everything, touching what she can, and asking so many questions that her father rubs at one temple with his thumb.

“Where are we going?” she asks.

He stops in the middle of the road and points to a large shop that takes up an entire corner at the end of the block. It is two stories tall with a bright red sign hanging out front, lettered in stark white. It dangles from three rusty chains and she can hear the squeak of metal against metal over the chattering crowd. A full wall of windows faces the street, and the goods within sparkle in the sun.

“There,” he says. “And I will let each of ye choose one thing if ye let me alone to finish my business.”

“Anything at all?” Grace asks.

Her father laughs then, and she is happy to hear the sound. “Within reason. Ye must be able to carry it home yourself.”

“Me too?”

It’s the only question Donal has asked all day, and when she meets her brother’s eyes, there is such a cautious hope in them that she is pained. Has their father never bought a gift for him before?

“Of course,” he says, setting his hand upon the boy’s head.

Perhaps it’s her imagination, but she thinks Donal leans into the touch, like a cat.

The air inside the shop is stuffy and the aisles are packed with men perusing the wares. Some of them she recognizes from her father’s ship; others are strangers.

“What is this place?” she asks.

“A chandlery. If it’s needed by ship or sailor, this is where you find it,” Eóin says, then leaves them to look around.

But there are other things as well. Clothing and wooden toys. Candy in buckets at the front counter. And foodstuffs all along the walls. Bags of flour and onions. Dried beans and strips of meat.

“Do you think he means it?” Donal asks. “That we can pick anything?”

“I don’t know,” she answers honestly.

Grace watches her brother chew the corner of his lip. His eyes are pensive as they drift to an aisle filled with musical instruments, where an assortment of fifes and tin whistles are arranged amongst a bodhrán drum, a set of rhythm bones, two expensive-looking fiddles, a tympan, and one set of elbow pipes. Donal goes right to them, and she can see the war raging in his eyes. He lifts a hand to touch the pipes, then pulls it away.

It is a bold choice, and one their father will no doubt question. But Grace finds that she wants Donal to have his pipes. There is a look of love in his eyes. And it occurs to her that the only way to ensure that her brother walks out of this shop with the prize he truly wants is for her to find something equally audacious, even if it means they must call their father’s bluff together.

She has only a moment or two before they will be summoned to the counter. No time to dawdle. So she spins in a circle, rotating on the heel of her boot, and leaves her choice to chance. Only it isn’t chance at all. Not really. Not when she stops her turn right before the window and sees the thing she did not know she wanted. Not until now, when it presents itself to her as if by fate.

It sits in a square wooden box lined with felt, resting in a beam of dirty sunlight. Metal casing. Glass face. She guesses the backing is ivory and the needle is silver. But it could be painted, for all she knows or cares. The symbols might be Latin or Pictish. Doesn’t matter. It is hers. She can feel it. So Grace reaches out and grabs the box just as she hears her father’s voice.

“Gráinne! Donal! Time to go.”

Her brother moves ahead of her down the crowded aisle, something bulky under his arm. He cannot seem to muster the courage to look their father in the eyes when he lifts it onto the counter.

But the thing wheezes horribly, like a cat being stepped on, and she knows he has chosen the pipes. Grace smiles at the back of her brother’s head.

Their father laughs.

“And I thought the merchant’s agent cut a harsh bargain,” he says, looking at the lump of bladder and reed. “This is what you want?”

Donal stares at the floor, nodding furiously.

“And this is mine,” Grace says, setting her box on the counter.

Not what she wants. What is hers.