The Pirate Queen Read online

  Contents

  Chapter One Bald and Bold

  Chapter Two Sea and Swords

  Chapter Three Rats and Ropes

  Chapter Four Whiskers and Warships

  Chapter Five Flag and Fall

  Chapter Six Richmond and Ruffs

  Chapter Seven Teeth and Tales

  Chapter Eight Freedom and Feathers

  Epilogue

  Chapter One

  Bald and Bold

  Ireland, 1593

  My ma was the greatest pirate that ever lived. My ma was the terror of the Irish Sea. My ma made strong men turn to water.

  My ma was Grace O’Malley.

  How do I know she was the greatest terror that ever turned water into pirates… I mean the greatest pirate that ever turned the Irish Sea into water… I mean… oh, you know what I mean.

  How do I know she was great? Because she told me. She told me every day she was back home.

  “Catherine,” she said. “Catherine, your ma is the greatest pirate that ever lived.”

  “Are you really, Ma?” I asked and looked up at her fine figure with her cropped, red hair. Her hair was so short they called her Granuaile in the old Irish language. If you’re not Irish, that means ‘bald’. (If you are Irish, it still means ‘bald’.)

  Most girls are proud of their mothers and think they’re as pretty as a shamrock in bloom. Now, even when I was too young to walk, I knew my ma wasn’t a beauty. Her face was blotched by the salty west winds and scarred with fifty fights. Her nose was broken and one eye was half blind.

  But I was still proud of my ma, Grace O’Malley. Of course I wanted to be just like her. I wanted to bring back riches to our castle in Connacht. If you’re not Irish, then you need to know that Connacht is the grandest county in Ireland. (If you are Irish, it’s still a grand county on the west coast of Ireland… and I don’t care how grand you think your county might be, I’ll fight anyone who says Connacht’s not the best.)

  As I say, I wanted to be just like my ma. I wanted to be a pirate. The problem was I could not wait. And that’s how I got into all that trouble.

  Mind you, it was just as well I did cause that trouble, because it was me who saved the life of Grace O’Malley, Pirate Queen of Connacht.

  I remember the night we sat in the great hall of the castle. The chill wind blew wild around Clare Island and all the shutters in Ireland couldn’t keep it out. Even the blazing log fire didn’t warm the room very much. My ma and her captains sat close to the fire. The poor peasants and the children like me shivered in the draughty dim corners with the dogs.

  The last crumb of bread was eaten and the last bit of mutton gristle spat on the floor and Grace O’Malley filled her wine cup. “Here’s good luck to the pirates of Connacht!” she cried. “And may the seas be full of treasure ships tomorrow!”

  The captains cheered and the sailors on the benches waved their hats. In the corners we coughed and sniffled.

  “Tell us a story, Queen Grace!” a sailor shouted.

  Of course she wasn’t a real queen, just the leader of the O’Malley clan, but the pitiless pirates of Clare Island would follow her to the death. That’s what mattered.

  “A story?” she smiled. “I don’t know any stories.”

  The men laughed. “Tell us about when you were a wee girl,” old Hugh O’Neil called out.

  “Aye!” the others cried. They settled down with their warm wine and turned to face their pirate queen.

  And so she began…

  Chapter Two

  Sea and Swords

  “When I was a girl,” Grace said, “my mother wanted me to be a lady. She taught me sewing and mending, painting and playing the lute, curling my long red hair in ringlets and making perfume from rose petals. I was so bored I could have jumped off the top of Clare Castle tower!”

  “Hurrah!” the pirates cheered.

  “I begged my father to take me with him on his next trip to Spain, but he said he wouldn’t dare… my mother would kill him!”

  “Haaaa!” the pirates laughed.

  “So I cut off my hair, stole clothes from a serving boy, and went down to the harbour. I walked over the gangplank to my father’s galley and told a sailor I was the new cabin boy.

  “I hid in a cabin till the ship was far out to sea and then I slipped away and found my father.”

  “Ooooh!” the pirates sighed, knowing what a fierce temper the old chief had.

  “First he said he’d throw me over the side to feed the fishes. But I told him I was too skinny to feed a minnow. He laughed and said I could stay, but if he attacked another ship, I had to go below deck. And so I sailed to Spain with my father’s fleet of four galleys.”

  “Hurrah!”

  “One morning the lookout sighted an English cog and the crew raced to clear the decks. Father was too busy to notice me on the forecastle. That cog was as slow as a donkey in the water and we soon caught up with her, threw grappling lines across and made ready to climb aboard.”

  “Ooooh!”

  “But what Father didn’t know was the cog had a troop of English soldiers aboard, and instead of us jumping aboard them, they jumped onto our decks.”

  “Ahhhh!”

  “Swords flashed and muskets blasted. I didn’t want to be trapped in a cabin with no way out. So I climbed the rigging ropes that hung from the main mast and watched them fighting down below. Slowly, the English drove back our crew, and my father was facing an evil English soldier…”

  “Down with the English,” the pirates muttered.

  “Then my father’s sword snapped. He was helpless. The English soldier raised his weapon to split my father’s skull in two. And that’s when I jumped from the rigging, landed on the enemy’s sword arm and saved my father’s life.

  “Father picked up the sword and gave a mighty scream. Aieeee! He led the men forward and drove the English into the sea.”

  “Hurrah!”

  “And from that time on I was a member of the crew. And now I am your leader.”

  The men roared and drank and others stood up to tell their tales. But it was the start of Ma’s story that I remembered. That’s what kept me awake that night under my sheepskin cloak… not just the cold. And that’s why I did what I did the next day…

  Chapter Three

  Rats and Ropes

  The October dawn was damp and drizzly. Most dawns are on the west coast of Ireland. The men in our pirate crew hurried to their ships with heads down and backs loaded with food sacks and water barrels, weapons and tools.

  The ship smelled of tar where the planks had been patched to keep the grey waters out. I stepped onto the shaking gangplank. Or maybe it was a steady gangplank and it was my legs that were shaking. No one tried to stop me. I darted into the cabin on the stern deck and waited in the dark with only a family of rats for company.

  At last, I felt the ship begin to move and the old oak timbers creak as they twisted in the waves. Feet ran over the decks, ropes and pulleys cracked and clacked in the breeze, and men shouted to one another over the crash of the waves against the hull.

  I rose stiffly and sent the rats scuttling into a hole in the cabin wall. I opened the door and cold spray hit me in the face like a slap with a wet fish. My ma was standing by the steering oar at the stern, looking at a yellowed chart and talking to the steersman.

  “When we’ve passed Lands End, head east-north-east,” she was saying.

  I said, “Hello, Ma!” and waited to see her scarred face burst into a smile like sunshine. She turned. Her face was as grey as a thundercloud and twice as dangerous. “What are you doing here, you idiot child?” she screamed.

  “Doing what you did, Ma! Going off to sea to be a pirate,” I said. I tried to sound cheerful, but my vo
ice was shaking.

  “I’m not having you eating the food or drinking the water that my crew need. I’m not having you getting under our feet when we fight. I’m not having you bring bad luck to this voyage,” she said sternly.

  “I won’t, Ma,” I croaked and I felt tears bubbling behind my eyes.

  Ma turned to a passing sailor. “Throw this child overboard.”

  “But, Ma –” I began to wail, as the man strode towards me. His hand touched my wet leather jerkin and I wriggled away.

  I jumped down onto the main deck and headed for the mast. The crew stopped work to watch the fun as the pirate stalked after me.

  Ropes hung down from the mainsail and I gripped one. I hauled myself up and felt the sailor’s hand on my shoe. I pulled upwards and the shoe came away in his hand, but at least I was free.

  I kept climbing till I reached a small platform – the crow’s nest – at the top of the mast. In the wind it swayed like a willow tree. I clung on tight.

  “You’ll come down when you’re cold or hungry enough,” Ma snarled. “Or you’ll fall asleep and drop into the sea.”

  “Ma-a-a-a!” I sobbed. “You wouldn’t throw your own daughter into the sea. You wouldn’t!”

  I don’t know if she really would. I’ll never know. Maybe she was just trying to frighten me, to teach me a lesson. But the mast shook in the wind, and I slipped off the platform. I reached out and felt a rope. I held it with hands as tight as a hare-hound’s jaws. As I flapped around like a fish in a basket, I looked out over the sea. “Sail!” I cried. “I see a sail. Another ship!”

  Ma ordered a small sailor, “Get up there and see what it is.”

  The man climbed like a monkey. He pushed me roughly back up into the crow’s nest and joined me.

  “English cog!” he shouted. “Trade ship. Slow and low in the water. Fully loaded, I’d say, Ma’am. North by north-west, I reckon.”

  “Crew to attack stations!” Ma roared.

  Men raced across the deck to haul out the cannon and collect weapons. The monkey-man helped me down to the deck.

  My cold swim was forgotten.

  Chapter Four

  Whiskers and Warships

  Ma had a black flag hauled to the top of our mast. It was a sign to the other ship to stop or die.

  The crew of the English ship lowered their sail. They knew it was no use trying to outrun us – they were too slow. They stood at the side rails and stared, sullen and afraid.

  “I’m Grace O’Malley,” Ma called across, “the greatest pirate that ever lived. We are coming alongside. We will take a share of your goods and not harm you,” she promised. “What are you carrying?”

  “Linen and woollen cloth. A little silk,” an English sailor called back.

  Ma grinned at me. “Silk, Catherine. You’ll have a new dress when we get home.”

  “So you’re not going to throw me in the sea?”

  She shrugged. “Only if the ship is too crowded,” she joked. At least, I think it was a joke.

  It took most of the morning to carry the bales of cloth across. Slowly, the English ship grew lighter and rose, and ours sank lower. When the last of the cloth was on board, the cog sailed back to Plymouth and we turned around slowly.

  Our ship was riding in the water like a fallen tree. “We’ll be in Dublin this time tomorrow,” Ma told the crew. “Our prize will fetch a good price in the market. And we didn’t even have to sail to Spain.”

  A small man with the face of a mouse and a thin, whiskery beard stepped forward. I knew he was Seaman Michael Paterson. “Three cheers for Captain Grace O’Malley, Pirate Queen of Ireland. Hip, hip – ”

  “Ship ahead!” came a cry from the crow’s nest.

  The cheer from the crew died in their throats.

  “We haven’t room below deck to take any more loot,” Ma called back. “Let it go.”

  “It’s an English warship, Captain Grace. And it’s heading this way,” the lookout called.

  “Set sail for Ireland!” Ma cried, and the crew raced to raise the sails. But now we were low in the water and heavy with that cloth. We were as slow as the cog we’d just robbed.

  The English warship drew closer and we could see her sailors loading the cannon on the decks.

  “What do we do, Captain?” Paterson moaned. “They have twenty guns, we have six. They’ll blow us out of the water.”

  Grace O’Malley wrapped a large arm around his shoulder and grinned. “No, they won’t, Seaman Paterson. No, they won’t. Gather round, crew – I have a plan. After all, I am the greatest pirate that ever lived.”

  “Gather round, crew!” Paterson shouted. “Captain O’Malley has a wonderful plan to save us all.”

  When the sailors gathered on the deck, my ma spoke quietly over the sound of the slapping waves. “Now, lads, we’re in a tight spot. But we’re still alive. If we stand and fight, we’ll probably die. So what I think we should do is surrender.”

  “No-o-o-o,” Paterson moaned. “They’ll take us back to Plymouth and hang us all. I’d rather die fighting.”

  Grace O’Malley shook her head. “These are English sailors, Michael. They have a way of doing things. It’s the way of gentlemen. If we raise a white flag, they won’t fire on us. Their captain will come on board and he will ask me to hand over my sword as a sign that we surrender.”

  “Then they’ll take us on their ship and hang us.”

  “That is the gentleman’s way,” Grace nodded. “But we are not gentlemen. At least, I’m not.”

  The crew chuckled. “So what do we do?”

  “When their captain climbs aboard our ship, we capture him. We say we’ll cut his throat if they don’t let us sail home to Dublin.”

  “Grace O’Malley, you’re not just the greatest pirate in Ireland,” Paterson laughed.

  “No, no, no, Michael,” grinned Ma. “I’m the greatest pirate the world has ever seen!”

  Chapter Five

  Flag and Fall

  Ma told me to climb the mast and fasten a white flag at the top. Then I was to climb back down and hide in the cabin while our crew fought the English.

  I tied the flag around my neck so my hands were free to climb. Before I reached the top, I saw the English sailors loading their cannon. The knot on the flag around my neck was tangled and my cold fingers were too numb to untie it.

  First I saw a puff of grey smoke from the mouth of an English cannon. Moments later, I heard the sound of the explosion and then the splash as it landed in the water just in front of our bow.

  “They missed,” I muttered and suddenly the flag came free.

  “Hurry up, child,” Ma roared at me. “That was a warning shot. The next one will hit the mast and it’ll be the end of you!”

  “Wait!” I cried to the English ship, but my words were whipped away by the wind.

  Ma waved a fist at me. “You, Catherine O’Malley, are a disgrace to the O’Malley name!”

  “Sorry, Ma,” I moaned, as I wrestled with the flapping flag.

  “You’re as much use as a comb on a bald man’s head.”

  “I know, Ma,” I muttered, as the flag at last flew free and fluttered in my face. I clung onto the crow’s nest and watched as an Englishman in a fine red coat with golden buttons stepped onto the deck of the enemy ship.

  “I am Captain Dudley of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth’s fleet,” the man shouted over the whipping water.

  “Good for you,” Ma snorted.

  “I’m going to cross to your ship and take your sword as a sign of your surrender,” he went on as the English frigate lowered its sails and let the wind drift it towards our side. I climbed halfway down the mast, till I was just over my ma’s head.

  I heard her speak softly to the crew, “He’ll get my sword all right – in the throat, if I have my way.”

  Old Hugh O’Neil stepped forward. “Kill Captain Dudley and they’ll blow us out of the water,” he warned. “We need to take him prisoner, then they won’t dare fire on us
.”

  “I know that, I know that, old man,” Ma snapped.

  Everyone on the ship seemed to hold their breath as the English sailors threw a rope with a hook onto our deck and fastened our ships together.

  They placed a plank between the ships and we watched as the English captain climbed onto our ship.

  The Englishman was so fat the buttons on his red coat were bursting. But I wasn’t looking at the gleaming gold buttons so much as the polished pistol he held in his hand.

  “We’ve been waiting years to capture you, Grace O’Malley,” he said. “Queen Elizabeth has heard of your evil robbing ways.”

  “Is that right?” Ma laughed. “What an honour for me to be so popular with old Queen Bess.”

  “Hand over your sword,” Captain Dudley said, and jabbed his pistol towards her.

  I could see Ma’s plan would never work. If she tried to jump at him with her sword, he would fire his pistol and kill her. Then I remembered the tale she’d told in the draughty hall of the castle. I was clinging to the mast, just above his pistol arm.

  I let go and fell towards him.

  At that very moment, Ma decided to make a grab for the captain’s pistol. She jumped forward. Dudley jumped back. I landed on Ma’s head. She fell forward and cracked her head on the deck. She gave a soft groan and the light in her eyes went out.

  Chapter Six

  Richmond and Ruffs

  The English captain had my ma carried across to his ship. Seaman Michael Paterson jumped forward and pushed his mouse face close to Captain Dudley. I thought he was going to fight and die for Ma.

  But he just whined, “Oh, Captain, sir, we are so very happy to be free of the pirate queen! We’ve been her slaves for years.”