Page 53 of The Pirate Queen

Something darker than the shadows rushes toward him. Donal plants his back foot, bracing himself as a wall of dog lets out one happy bark, then pounces.

The wolfhound knocks him backward, then nearly knocks him over. It takes all his weight and all his leverage to remain upright.

“Ssshhh, Bran,” he says. “Ssshhh. You’ll wake the dead.”

The dog is enormous. Entirely black. Fast. And clever, like a raven—thus the name. Bran. Other than Gráinne, this animal might be the only other creature alive that Donal loves without reservation.

Bran licks his face. Paws at his chest. Pants in delight at the sight of him. When Donal shoves the dog away, he is reminded that his tunic and trews are covered in those awful sticky cleavers. Tomorrow. He’ll pick them off tomorrow. Even if it means he has to be up before his mam. Donal is reaching for the latch, yawning, when he hears the grunting within. Éamon. At his mother again.

He drops his hand. Then his head. Takes a step back from the cottage.

Bran gives him a sympathetic look, then offers a low growl. Donal silences him with a pat to his bearded muzzle.

There is little moonlight. An occasional burst as the clouds drift away. Not much to work by. But still, he wanders off until he can no longer hear Éamon rutting; then he settles to the ground, his back to the cottage, eyes on the tower house below. Some minutes pass before a small dark figure emerges holding a lantern. He follows that dot of yellow light down the tower steps, onto the beach, across the dock. Then, in a minute—maybe five, he can’t tell—two dark figures walk back to the tower house together.

Donal sits in the dirt, picking cleavers off his clothes.

Mother, 1565

“Hen’s Castle”

Grace is thirty-five years old

Her brother has come and gone in the night. Just as she requested. Grace and one of the Murrays—he covered in another man’s blood—went out to greet Donal and the other twin as they rowed ashore. Still seasick, Finn sways where he stands, and if it weren’t so dark, she’d think his skin as green as his eyes.

It took Grace years to tell the brothers apart. In the end, it came down to syllables: one is freer with them than the other. So she has split their shared name in half and calls the more taciturn brother Finn and the other Murray.

Now the three of them watch Niamh slip safely back into Bunowen Bay.

The twins are quiet. It is a hard thing that Grace has done and time will tell whether she has saved lives or cost them. She stands at the edge of the water, the gentle waves licking the toes of her boots, and reaches out for that old familiar Sense. But Manannán is quiet tonight. She feels no dread, no peace. The sea god offers only enough darkness to mask the fear in her eyes.

A gentle breeze washes over her, heavy with the scent of honeysuckle and sweetbriar. The vines grow in creeping masses along the pasture fence, blooming all summer. She can be grateful for the season, at least. This task would be harder in the snow.

Murray—the bloody twin—turns to her and breaks the silence. “Are you sure that was wise?”

“If the messenger spoke truth, then yes,” Grace tells him.

“What has that to do with this?”

Grace watches the white tip of Niamh’s mainsail slip around the edge of Bunowen’s half-moon bay and disappear out of sight. When she turns back to the twins, her jaw is set.

“Our problems are one and the same tonight.” She squints up at the hulking stone tower house. The windows are dark, all is quiet. It would seem abandoned, if not for the torches burning on either side of the main door. “He’s awake?” she asks.

Murray nods. “Tá. Though none too happy about it.”

“I need to speak with him.”

The twins stand together, shoulders grazing. They’ve not exchanged a word in the half hour they’ve been reunited, but have drifted closer. This barest of touches seems to be all the proof they need that the other is well. She’d dispatched Finn to fetch her brother while Murray tended the messenger who had spoken all of three sentences before passing out from his wounds.

Grace lifts the hem of her damp skirt and marches up the beach, careful to sidestep a prickly clump of sea holly. “Let’s go see what he can tell us.”

Murray takes a torch from its place while Finn holds the heavy door open for her. All is quiet in the Great Hall as they pass through the cavernous room and descend the spiral stairs on the other side, first by the kitchen where Cook and her serving girls sleep beside the banked fire. Then into the cellar, a full floor belowground. The ceiling is low and the walls damp. It smells of straw and apples and salt pork. Of last autumn’s cabbage and this spring’s onions. They navigate a narrow channel between barrels of whiskey and wine until they come to another door guarded by one of her men. He keeps watch by candlelight and jumps to his feet as they approach.

The cell door is closed but not locked. Though guarded, the messenger isn’t a prisoner here. But he is injured and bearing news that might get them all killed if Grace cannot put her plan into action first.

Murray sets the torch in a bracket beside the cell door, then pulls it open. The guard moves aside but says nothing as they duck their heads and crowd into the small dungeon.

A man rolls over in the hay and squints. He seems startled by the light. And by the sight of them.