If you had to die it was a fine day for it; even better for living. Shags stood along the spines of rock ledges in untidy knobbles, waiting their chance to dive. Spits of sand were white under the sun, the rocks had become grey-brown, green-grey, black-green, any colour as long as it was rock, the Sound was a downland of swell on which white heads grazed like sheep around the half-tide shoal.
Dick was becoming less easy as he eyed the spume along the shoreline. ‘Where’s this landing then, Barb?’
‘There.’ It was just in sight, a reef like a lower jaw of rotten teeth centring on the two pillars of rock against which the Atlantic dashed itself, furious at their impudence in daring to impede it.
‘Them? You got to get between them two rocks?’
Cull saw her pointing and leaned down to her. ‘Did you know? Are you yourself then?’
‘Yes.’ He’d treated her kindly ever since her outburst at Rockfleet. She’d heard him muttering to the stroke oar: ‘Threatened me, she did. And the spit of Herself as she did it.’
He nodded. ‘I thought when I saw the hair. I thought to meself: “It wasn’t from the wind she caught that.” But Herself won’t have it, and a bad day she’s chosen to prove it. Do you know the trick of it? I swore I’d not tell and she’d have the skin off me.’
She was beginning to gasp with fear. ‘I bloody hope so.’
The oars had come to rest and the two anchors were splashed overboard. ‘Herself’s in the haven waiting you.’ They lowered a small curragh over the side and opened the taffrail gate so that she could clamber down into it. It was bobbing like a leaf. The galley crew watched her, interested but uncommitted, though one or two of them called out a blessing. Only Cull’s face was worried. He handed down the oars. ‘May God open the gap for you.’
At the last moment there was a bump in the curragh and Cuckold Dick settled himself in the stern. ‘Get out,’ she shouted.
‘You need the ballast,’ he shouted back. She needed a lot of things, courage, skill, memory; what she didn’t need was the responsibility of drowning her dearest friend. But she was glad of him; the curragh was too light. Dick was peering over its side. ‘What’s it made of?’
‘Leather.’
His shoulders began to droop as if he had plumbed the depths of Irish madness. She began to row. ‘When we… get there… be ready. To shift. Where I tell you.’
He was looking over her shoulder to the rock pillars. ‘Can’t be done, Barb,’ he said, loudly and reasonably. ‘Let’s go home.’
She glanced behind her. From here the angle put the rocks so close as to preclude an eel. The sea lifted before the interruption so that the surface of the small bay beyond looked lower. Was she remembering right? Eve was the straight one to starboard, Adam leaned in a topple towards her. Both of them had spray skirts that shot up to their waists and back. ‘Bigger than… it looks,’ she puffed. ‘But don’t cough.’
They couldn’t talk any more. The clash of sea on rock was drowning all sound. A seagull flew past with its beak open to show the red of its mouth but its call was lost in the noise. The race that made this place murderous was tugging them faster and faster to the pillars and she let it take them, praying that she could get out of it at the right moment.
Shun Adam, hug Eve. Shun Eve, hug Adam. Christ, which was it? What had Tibbot said? She’d done this before, but her grandmother had been in the stern then, and the wind had been a light breeze. ‘Pull, young Barbary. Let’s see if you’re a true O’Malley with you.’ Where was the old besom now? Standing on the beach beyond the pillars waiting for her granddaughter’s body to come ashore in slices?
They were towed at increasing speed past a high shelf of rock on which an enormous seal was watching them with voluptuous indolence. Was that Herself? A seal-woman grandmother? More than likely.
Close now. The curragh was too light, resting on the water like a puffin. ‘Shun Adam, hug Eve,’ Tibbot had said. She could hear his whisper in the undertow. She was truly grateful to him; you could bank on Uncle Tibbot to put you wrong. Her trust was in the voice from the cherubims. ‘Hug Adam, shun Eve.’ She shook wet hair out of her eyes to glance back. They were lifted up. Down. Up Christ, they were above the rocks. NOW.
She tossed her head to the right and Dick leaned hard to port. She wrenched her arms, pulling, the water like a solid rock against her oar. Shun Eve. Eve, you bitch, who named you? Here’s Adam, a jagged piece of work, but what you saw went straight down to the bottom; it was Eve with vicious crinoline spread out beneath the surface in snags that shredded a boat’s bottom. Eve sucked you to her. They rose for the last time. Abandon hope. Abandon sanity. Abandon ship. She saw Dick screaming. Shun. SHUN the shame of Eve. Pull. PULL, young Barbary. She pulled obediently, desperately, and was in the friendly current that threaded them under the leaning Adam and into the bay’s calm water.
The thunder stopped. She could hear a curlew fluting and Dick being sick. Her head was on her knees, her arms gone; she couldn’t row ever again. She didn’t have to. The impetus of the current had carried them to the beach and somebody tall was dragging the curragh’s prow onto the pebbles.
‘Why didn’t you say?’ asked Grace O’Malley.
* * *
They sailed back to Clare in the flagship blasphemously called the Grace of God. The wind sang high inconsequential notes in the rigging and, as they glided into harbour, dropped, as if it had been summoned by Grainne O’Malley for the purposes of the ordeal and could now dispense with itself. The inhabitants of the white cottages around Clare’s harbour cheered her into it, as the inhabitants of Bofin had cheered her out of theirs. Hands reached down to Barbary to pull her up the steps to the quay, patting her. ‘There now, and welcome home, Barbary O’Malley.’ So she was an O’Malley. Would the O’Flaherties want to put her to an ordeal to prove she was an O’Flaherty? Well, they could stuff themselves: she wasn’t going through that again. She had completed herself. She’d never felt so complete in her life.
An old woman shook her fist at Grace. ‘And didn’t I tell you, Granuaile? Wasn’t she in me dream? Look at the hair on her. And you risking her dear life.’
Grace looked down at the crone, ‘Go sell yourself for dogmeat,’ and strode on up the slope to her castle. There had been barely a word of welcome from her, certainly no apology for having left her true granddaughter to die in a Wicklow hut.
Dick touched Barbary’s arm. ‘Overcome with emotion, eh?’
Barbary grinned back at him. ‘Broken up with it.’ She’d have felt insecure if Grace had been. Exhilarated, she had found the grandmother who was the substance of these bare, ungiving rocks. No lullabying pap had been fed to her by this woman; swim or drown, sail or wreck, grab or go under – the tenets Barbary had survived by all these years came from Grace O’Malley.
Cuckold Dick shook his head admiringly: ‘What an Upright Man she’d make.’
The castle overlooked the harbour from a rocky rise on its southern side. It was typical of the O’Malley castles, mainly a rectangular keep three storeys high, castellated, harmonious and uncomfortable. Again, Barbary experienced an exchange of familiarity, a hound on guard wanting to greet its young mistress but not daring to disobey the old.
There was a deputation at the door. Barbary’s feet left the ground as she was handed from hug to hug. ‘Will you be remembering Katty? Ach, the times you’ve piddled on my knees.’ ‘It’s Manus. Manus, that gave you the little puppy and the measles.’
Among the crowd was a Spaniard, a beautiful young man, Spanish from the crown of his hat to the stained but gilded pom-poms on his shoes, whose beard tickled Barbary’s hand as he kissed it and whose name he huffed at her in carefully enunciated but incomprehensible aspirates.
Bemused, Barbary watched him hurry up the castle stairs after Grace O’Malley. ‘That’s Don Howsyourfather,’ said Manus, Grace’s steward. ‘He was aboard a Gaulish ship, the Gran Grin, that foundered in the bay.’
Barbary stared at him. The Gran Grin had
been part of the Armada fleet. Rob had mentioned it in his letters. ‘Only him?’
‘Ah well, he was the best looking, and, do you see, Dowdarra Roe O’Malley, Herself’s kinsman, got to the rest of the crew first and he didn’t fancy any of them.’
‘So what happened to them?’
‘Ah well,’ said Manus, ‘they wouldn’t surrender, you understand.’ He brightened up. ‘But Herself saved Don Howsyourfather.’ He thought for a moment, then added: ‘And a fine chest with gold in it. And some doublets for Mass. Some good braid. Some goblets. And a grand little canary in a cage.’
She had stepped back in time to a kingdom of rock and sea centring on itself. Bourkes, Clanrickards, O’Connors, O’Flaherties made up the list of allies and enemies. Foreigners were men from Ulster and Munster. Other nationalities were just Gauls, that is, non Gaels, amorphous beings who were irrelevant except to be robbed or killed. That Spanish interest and theirs coincided meant nothing; Spaniards were Gauls and of no more value than fish. Don Howsyourfather had been lucky.
She would have to talk with her grandmother about the political facts of life.
There was no need for Clare Castle’s windows to command the sea; such a sophisticated system of signals and runners covered this part of Connaught’s coastline that if so much as an unaccountable rowing boat surfaced in the fifty-odd miles of passage between Blacksod Bay and Slyne Head, Grace would know of it in plenty of time to challenge it, demand ‘pilotage’ – a euphemism for protection money – or sink it. Instead the well-lit upper room of the castle had a view of the harbour, across Clew Bay to the shore and mountains of the mainland.
It had none of the style of Tibbot’s tower at Rockfleet; no style at all. It was a hotch-potch of furnishings. A fine, carved chair, a massive Spanish bed with Flemish hangings, an equally massive, brassbound chest, several lobster pots and coiled ropes, a rack of muskets, some eel glaives, a prie-dieu which was being used as a clothes-hanger, a canary in a cage. A huge, rusty iron chain was attached to the bedpost, running across the floor to the window where it stretched over the landing stage into the water, its other end being padlocked to the Grace of God out in the bay. If anybody tried to steal her flagship in the night, Grace was going to know about it.
Today it also had a monk hanging from his ankles by a rope attached to a hook in the ceiling. The canary was singing, the monk was swearing.
Grace O’Malley settled herself in the big chair. The rest wriggled their backsides into coils of rope. Manus remained standing and unhappy. ‘Can the Father come down now, Grainne Weale?’
‘How long’s he been up?’
‘Since this morning, poor man.’
Barbary studied the monk, a Cistercian, and decided Manus was lying; if the man had been hanging by his heels for that many hours he would be showing other signs of distress than anger. Somebody had taken care to put wadding under the ropes so that they would not chafe his flesh; a similar decency had tied his robe to his knees so that his saintliness was not jeopardised further than his bare legs.
Grace regarded him with disfavour. ‘Will you remember me now?’
‘I bloody won’t,’ shouted the monk.
Barbary watched her grandmother rise, take hold of the monk’s neck and raise him by it so that his arched head could look out of the window. ‘Who rules what you see?’
‘Am I denying it, you damned woman?’
She shook him. ‘Who rules the sea? Who took Doona Castle? Who escaped from the Saxons? Who is consulted by every chieftain from Clare to Donegal including the O’Neill? Who commands the biggest fleet the world has ever seen? Who pays your bloody wages?’
The monk sulked. ‘You do.’
She shook him again. ‘Then remember me.’
‘I won’t.’
Cuckold Dick’s mouth was open. ‘How can he forget her?’
Barbary shook her head. ‘I don’t think it’s that.’
Manus joined their whispering. ‘It’s the Annals of Clare. He’ll not write Herself into them. It has the history of the O’Malley area known as Two Owels, and the name of every O’Malley since St Patrick went up Cruachan Aigli, but he’ll not include Granuaile.’
‘Leave a bit of a gap, won’t she?’ asked Dick, fascinated.
‘Ah, but she has a bad right to remembrance, being a woman.’
Grace O’Malley swung the monk’s head round in Barbary’s direction. ‘Will you see it’s not going to end with me? There’s my tanaist.’
She had declared Barbary heir to her pirate empire.
Barbary closed her eyes and then opened them to see the monk beaming on her. ‘Did you pass the test then?’
‘Pleased to meet you,’ she said.
‘Delighted,’ said the monk. ‘Welcome with congratulations. And you’ll not be remembered either.’
‘Why not?’
The monk’s answer was firmly reasonable, though Grace had now let go of him so that his head was again swinging inches from the floor. ‘It’s against nature, do you see. There should be no women chieftains. God wouldn’t want it remembered that Eve could outdo Adam.’
It was impasse, and one likely, from the manner in which Grace O’Malley had just picked up a knife, to end in blood. Barbary made her first intervention as heir designate. ‘Grandmother, I can read and write. I’ll write whatever you want. I’ll remember you.’
There was a general intake of breath. Female literacy was obviously rare in these parts. ‘God bless the hearers,’ said Manus. ‘Your woman’s a scholar.’
There was a blur of steel as the knife cut through the rope and the monk tumbled onto the floor. ‘Out,’ Grace told him. ‘Cross me again and I’ll make you scratch where you don’t itch.’ The monk scrambled to the door and disappeared.
The feast to welcome Barbary was eaten at long tables outside on the quay and was what Manus described as a ‘flahoolagh’, meaning chieftain-like. It went on, and off, for two days. As each sheep, venison and ox were carved off the roasting spits, others took their place; the long tables were hidden by dishes of stirabout – oatmeal flavoured with honey and butter – a dozen types of fish, bowls of watercress, leeks and hazelnuts which were refilled as they emptied.
The food was less ornamented than on English boards, and Tibbot’s, but it was well cooked and fresh. There was enough wine, mead and ale to fill the harbour but it was the usquebaugh, light golden and smoky smooth, that commanded Cuckold Dick’s superlatives as he slid under the table for the last time, still begging Manus to tell him the secret of its manufacture. Even Barbary ventured a glass or two.
The sound of pipes over the water announced the arrival of ships carrying the great men of Connaught to the feast for Grainne Weale’s granddaughter. MacWilliams, Bourkes, O’Flaherties, Joyces, MacJordans, MacEdmunds, O’Connors, each full title was announced by their hereditary poets to the accompaniment of harps, as their golden-cloaked owners stepped ashore. It was an impressive gauge of Grace’s power, Barbary realised, that she could summon men representing septs and clans as anciently important as these, though undoubtedly curiosity had played as big a part in their coming as diplomatic expediency. They wanted to see if this new woman was big enough to fill the shoes of the old, or if, when Grace O’Malley died, they could move in on the kingdom she had carved out for herself. And how in hell had she carved it out? There were no rules of succession under which a woman could succeed to monarchy or chieftainship here as there were in England. Elizabeth’s path to the throne hadn’t been easy, but there had been precedent for it; there was none for Grace’s. Elizabeth had been supported by influential parties; nobody backed Grace, who had faced opposition, incredulity and that greatest of Irish obstructions, custom. Admittedly, her empire had been gained by battle, plunder and piracy. But so had Elizabeth’s.
As she watched her grandmother greet and be greeted by these great chieftains, Barbary searched for the resemblance that Philip Sidney had found between the amazing pair of women. They were about the same age, thoug
h Grace, who was taller and thick-bodied, looked the elder with her undyed, red and grey hair and her untouched, weathered skin. She was handsome in a way consistent with her sixty years, whereas Elizabeth could look forty in a flattering light and a raddled crone in a bad one.
Elizabeth had charm; Grace, as far as Barbary could see, had none, but then the barren Elizabeth constantly had to insist that she was feminine, whereas Grace had enough children to prove it for her.
Still, Philip had been right. There was something . They were racketeers. That’s what it was. Dick had seen it at once. If they’d been born to the Order, both would have risen to the top; if they’d been born to trade, they would be successful merchant venturers. If Elizabeth had been an O’Malley, she now would be where Grace was, and Grace, born to Anne Boleyn, would have made Queen of England, because they believed in their own right to power and had the huckster’s gift of making others believe it with them. They were manipulators, cony-catchers. They played the only game in town, the game men had invented, and beat men at it.
The chieftains at her grandmother’s board kept the same nervously appraising eye on Grace that courtiers kept on Elizabeth, and for the same reason: they didn’t know what she would do next. They were out for treaties, alliances, the use of her ships and men: The O’Connors wanted to move against the O’Donnells – would she help? The Lower MacWilliamship was unexpectedly vacant – which of the contenders to the title was she going to support? And Grace, to the contentment of her granddaughter’s cony-catching soul, wheeled and dealed for one person’s advantage, her own.
There was little exchange between the two of them. Apart from making sure that the chieftains did Barbary honour, Grace paid her hardly any attention, except to lean over from time to time and bark out matters she felt the girl should know.
The Pirate Queen Page 39