The Pirate Queen by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781788635103
Publisher: Canelo
Published: 2019-05-29T00:00:00+00:00

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‘It’ll take time,’ she told Cuckold Dick. ‘Even if O’Neill pays her for carrying his guns, Herself won’t leave Connaught just now with the MacWilliamship at stake. I’ll talk her round eventually. Until then, Dick, my old herring, it looks as if we’re in the pirate trade.’

Dick said nervously: ‘It can’t be that bad, can it, Barb? It’s only the Order with seaweed.’

But it wasn’t.

Chapter Seventeen

The Hollandish carrack was equipped each side with four demi-culverin, having sacrificed artillery for cargo space. What she lacked in guns she made up for in speed, manoeuvrability and sheer cheek. Probably because English patrols of the Channel had cramped her style, she’d arrived off Galway the previous week and crippled two merchantmen bound for Bristol, relieved them of their freight and sent them to the bottom. Now, having escaped the wrath of the English navy stationed at Galway, she was sailing north to find pickings in other waters. Grace O’Malley’s waters.

Barbary was ordered aboard the Grace of God. ‘It’ll be a grand experience for ye,’ said her grandmother. ‘I’ll mince those Dutchmen into dog vomit.’

‘Grand’ was not the word Barbary would have chosen. While appreciating the theory that Grace O’Malley’s credibility depended on reducing foreign piracy along her own coastline, she suspected she was not going to enjoy the practice. But at this stage she was less afraid of battle than of offending her grandmother. The deck lifted easily under her feet as Grace of God swept out of the Sound under full canvas into the sunlight of a fine, blowing day. For once Barbary’s spirits failed to rise to the ship’s joie de vivre.

She wished Cuckold Dick was with her, but two days ago his piratical career had ended before it started. They’d been aboard the galley, one hour out from Clare and bearing down on a naive little Scottish merchantmen whose captain had not seen the necessity to call in and pay ‘pilotage’ to Grace O’Malley. Dick was explaining to Cull why he, Dick, was not feeling so well. ‘Gawd, Cull,’ he said, ‘but I was foxed last night.’ ‘Fox-drunk’ was an Order phrase and Dick translated it literally. Grace, standing on the galley’s poop, froze. Cull swore. The stroke oars stopped rowing, and a ragged shock wave spread along the banked rowers so that oars struck out at all angles while the galley floundered.

Grace O’Malley turned slowly to Dick. ‘What did he say?’

Cuckold Dick moved to safety behind Barbary. ‘I only said I was drunk last night, Barb.’

Cull shook his head: ‘Your man said the word.’

‘What word? What’s he done?’

Grace rasped: ‘Return galley.’ The starboard oars dipped, turning the galley back the way she had come, her crew all the time looking fit to kill at Dick. ‘And indeed,’ Cull told Barbary later, ‘without he was a friend of yours, he’d have been over the side. It’s the Devil’s luck to mention the little red gentleman on board a Connaught ship.’

‘Fox, you mean?’ She knew sailors were superstitious but this was ridiculous.

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