Page 68 of The Pirate Queen

“Thank you,” she mutters, and continues walking.

None of the O’Flaherty clan dares ask where they are going. They have been pulled from their beds or their watch posts. Ten walked out of the Great Hall behind Gráinne. Others ran down from the ramparts when they heard the news. At least two dozen have gone off into the hills to alert their families at home. A great many more promised to follow in the days to come. And here they are, walking toward the sea with nothing to eat, not a blanket or biscuit between them.

Gráinne has drawn her dagger. It swings loose at her side, ready.

“You do not think Rory will come after us?” Finn asks, just low enough that only she and Murray can hear.

“He wouldn’t dare,” she says. “His only option would be to kill us. And he would lose the respect of every man who voted for him if he did.”

Finn nods toward her hand. “Then why the blade?”

“It was a gift from someone I loved many years ago. It gives me comfort. And I think it gives them comfort to see me hold it.”

Finn swallows the pang of jealousy and hides it with a nod. “They are scared.”

She laughs quietly, though the sound is more frantic than he would like. “They should be. I am only one woman. And I can give them so little.”

It is hard, so hard not to let his voice betray his feelings. Finn thought that he’d mastered the art of talking to her these many years. But sometimes he slips, like now, as he says, “Whatever you give them is enough.”

Murray catches his eye and shakes his head in disapproval.

“Tell that to them in an hour,” she says.

The terrain finally levels out and they crest the hill. The wide expanse of the North Atlantic Ocean stretches before them. Above them is only sky, pricked by stars and a stingy moon, shrunken to a thin sliver. Light is sparse, but still the ocean glitters and rolls in the distance. Dark above and dark below, broken only by a stretch of white sand that splits the darkness in half. Downhill now, one hundred and fifteen stranded souls follow Gráinne to the beach. And there, bobbing at anchor, guarded by men who are loyal only to her, is their captured merchant vessel, loaded heavy with goods.

“Hello, Mary Fortune,” Gráinne says.

Matriarch, 1587

“Nurse to All Rebellions”

Grace is fifty-seven years old

Grace wakes to the sound of horses. They are one day out from Oban when she hears those distant hoofbeats. Even before Ultan’s gravelly voice shouting orders above her on the cabin deck, before the waves or the creak of Niamh’s old worn strakes rubbing against one another.

It is their third trip to collect Gallowglass since her release from Dublin Castle, and they have been at sea for almost a month. Finally they are headed home, and she would have woken glad for that fact if not for the faraway pounding of hooves.

“No,” she says, and sits up with a start.

Grace presses her palms to her ears.

Shakes her head to dislodge the improbable sound.

But it continues steady and clear, even though they are now deep into the North Atlantic. Hooves. The unmistakable rumble of a charging horse.

It takes a moment, but there, finally, a noise that makes sense. The trill of seabirds. Gull and swan and plover. The Hebrides are a riot of plume and wing this time of year. Yesterday, they had not been an hour into their voyage when she had mistaken a flock of godwits for a cloud. Now the chirps and squawks bring Grace back to a sense of reality—her dim cabin and the gently rocking ship.

Niamh is an old woman now, creaky in the joints. But she has also settled into the shape of herself, knows exactly who she is. Same as Grace. It’s one of the things she loves most about this ship. So she pats the wall above her head, like an old friend, before throwing back the soft wool blanket. Her back aches in protest when she stands. It is still not right after all those long months in the tower at Dublin Castle. Three steps bring her to the window, where she is greeted by the clear indigo of a predawn sky. She looks for red, but there is only a streak, one bloody band along the horizon—not the kind of sunrise that would typically trouble her. Certainly nothing her father ever warned her about. No red sky this morning.

But still, those thundering hooves.

Think of me, bird, her father told her as he lay dying, when you hear Manannán’s steed. She thinks of Eóin O’Malley often these days, and not just when it storms or when she misses him so badly that her bones ache. What a heavy mantle he carried, being Chief of the Name. She did not know then what it cost him. She has barely begun to pay the price herself.

Her hair is a mad cloud, billowing around her face. Her feet are bare. She wears nothing but her leine and the blanket yanked from her bed. It is far from the most startling appearance she’s ever made on this ship—not nearly so terrifying as the time she stumbled out drenched in blood. So her men only offer a brief glance as she throws back the door and marches toward the cabin deck. The Gallowglass, however, stare at her like some apparition—some kelpie—as she goes up the steps, leine whipping at her ankles.

There are three hundred Scottish mercenaries spread between Niamh, Caoimhe, and the Róisín Dubh. Some on deck to help with the sails and others below sleeping until their next shift. Always better with battle-axes than boats, these Scots, but still she is grateful for them. The Devil’s Hook will be more so—he needs every man at arms he can get to beat back the English soldiers sent by Bingham in recent months. This lot will bring his numbers to near two thousand.

These Scotsmen will bleed for anyone in exchange for a chance at killing the English. Earning a life they cannot have in the Hebrides is an added bonus. The Irish chieftains grant them cattle. Grazing rights. A shot at wooing some young pretty Irish cailín. They will build their bothies and grow their families, then answer the call when fighting is required. It is a mutually beneficial system, established centuries ago.