Page 98 of The Pirate Queen

Sivney turns the tiller abruptly and Niamh’s long reinforced bow angles into the other ship’s portside stern. It’s a glancing blow, but loud, and a hollow boom fills the air. A harsh warning that the next attempt will breech the hull.

“If they had cannon, we could not do this,” her father explains.

“We don’t have cannon either.”

“No,” he agrees. “But we do have a full crew. And we’re not weighted down with cargo. So we have the advantage.”

“Will this work?” Grace asks.

He offers his first smile since sighting the Portuguese ship. “It always works. As long as you’re willing to follow through.”

Eóin looks to the name emblazoned against the heavy dark boards, now less than ten feet away.

“Well, hello, Esperança,” he says.

“Keep an eye your sister,” Eóin orders Donal as the crew begins to board the Portuguese ship.

They are fully alongside the Esperança now, and grappling hooks secure the ships to each other. They also provide a means of climbing for Niamh’s crew. Within moments, all one hundred men have gone up the ropes, knives in their teeth and cutlasses strapped to their waist. They outnumber the crew of Esperança two to one.

Donal watches men he has known his entire life go from sailors to warriors in the blink of an eye. He watches as they take defensive positions on the other ship. No one attacks. Their father will parley with the Portuguese captain first.

“You may have the ship, the cargo, or your lives,” Eóin says, voice carrying across the water.

“That’s what he tells them every time,” Donal whispers to Gráinne. “He gives them an impossible choice so they’ll offer up part of their cargo as a fee to sail our waters.”

“Has he ever taken a ship?” she asks.

“How do you think he built the fleet?”

Donal can see by her expression that she never once considered where the ships came from. Like sun, moon, and stars, they simply exist. But now she glances across Niamh’s long body, her lips pressed into a thin line, and he answers the question before she can ask it.

“No. He had Niamh custom-built in Spain. That’s why he loves her most.”

“What will they do?” Gráinne asks, her gaze back on the negotiations happening on board the Esperança.

“Depends on how desperate they are. And where that cargo is headed. Their captain might feel he has better odds trying to fight us off than arrive with a lighter load.”

Their father does not speak Portuguese. Nor, it appears, does the other captain speak Irish. So they use rough Latin, a piecemeal negotiation that clearly leaves both frustrated.

There is shouting now. Gesticulating. Cursing as they revert to their own native tongues. The bartering has gotten serious.

“Da doesn’t want all their cargo,” Donal tells his sister. “Just enough to make a profit and be a deterrence.”

The caravel is taller than Niamh and from this angle on deck they can see only a fraction of their own crew. Eóin and the other captain have moved out of sight but have not lowered their voices.

Donal thinks it must be Gráinne’s hair. There is no other reason for them to catch the attention of the Portuguese sailor closest to Esperança’s gunwale. Her hair is whipping in the wind, a copper banner. The man’s eyes are fixed on his sister, his mouth open, like he’s just seen a selkie.

Then the sailor licks his lips and elbows the man next to him.

Unease settles in Donal’s stomach. “Go to the cabin,” he tells Gráinne.

“I don’t want—”

“Now.”

Niamh’s crew is so focused on the negotiations that none of them notice those two men slide over the gunwale and down the ropes secured by the grappling hooks. A few feet and they leap onto Niamh’s deck. Both men land quietly, then dart forward. The larger of the two heads toward Gráinne and then she is shuffling backward toward the cabin, never taking her gaze off him.

Donal doesn’t know what to do. If he shouts the alarm, he’ll draw attention from his father’s negotiations on the Esperança. But he must also protect—