The Pirate Queen Read online

  The rest of the black-hearted crew began to nod and agree to Paterson’s lies.

  “Let us go free,” the little seaman snuffled. “We’ll go back to our old mothers and our weeping wives. We’ll never set foot on a pirate ship again. If we do, you can cut off the feet that touch the decks. Isn’t that right, lads?”

  “Aye,” they agreed.

  Captain Dudley looked around and his long, fine nose sniffed the air as if he were smelling rats. He was. “It’s Grace O’Malley we want. I haven’t room on my ship to arrest the lot of you. Clear off back to Ireland.”

  The crew hurried across the decks to set sail for freedom. I ran after Captain Dudley. “I want to go with my ma!” I told him.

  The man just shrugged and nodded.

  Ma was fastened in chains and put in the captain’s cabin. She woke as we set sail along the coast of England. “What happened?” she muttered, rubbing her head.

  “Something fell on top of you,” I said.

  Before she could ask, the cabin door opened and Captain Dudley walked in. “Well, Grace O’Malley, Queen Elizabeth herself has asked to see you before we hang you. The Queen of England wants to meet the Queen of the Pirates.”

  “It’s a great honour,” Ma said coldly. “An honour for Elizabeth, that is,” she added.

  “We’ll be at Tilbury dock tomorrow morning,” said the man. “Here’s some bread and cheese for you and the girl.” Then he left.

  Ma grinned. “Not just bread and cheese, Catherine, my dear. But a knife to cut it with. A knife I plan to plunge into the heart of Queen Elizabeth, if the woman has a heart.”

  “No, Ma! They’ll kill you if you try.”

  “They plan to hang me anyway,” she argued. “I may as well take that Tudor witch with me.”

  And nothing I could say would change her mind.

  Ma had slipped the knife into her boot, and next day we rattled over the rutted roads of London to Greenwich Palace. Crowds were waiting at the gate.

  “They’ve come to see the greatest pirate in the world,” Ma laughed, and waved at the people.

  We were led across a courtyard and through a door that was big enough to make a Connacht ship. The hall was crowded with gentlemen in satin jackets of more colours than a rainbow and ruffs as big as cartwheels. The ladies were in silk but in dull shades of brown and black.

  Ma leaned towards me and whispered, “See? The queen doesn’t like ladies to shine brighter than her.”

  “No, Ma,” I said.

  We stood in front of an empty throne and Ma looked around. “Have you all had a good look, you English peacocks?” she shouted. “You can tell your children you’ve seen the greatest pirate in the world.”

  Suddenly, a door behind the throne opened and the people in the court bowed very low. The Queen of England walked in.

  Chapter Seven

  Teeth and Tales

  Queen Elizabeth walked slowly. Her ugly face was painted white, and red powder was brushed on her lips and cheeks. Her little black eyes glittered like wet coal an she hobbled under the weight of her dress, which was crusted with jewels.

  While everyone except Ma had their heads bowed to the floor, I dropped to my knees. With a quick flick, I’d raised Ma’s skirt and pulled the knife out of her boot.

  Queen Elizabeth frowned. “You should curtsey before your queen.”

  Ma gave a secret smile and bent her knees in a deep curtsey. I watched as she swept back her hand and felt in her boot for the knife. Her hand jerked upwards and she cried out, “Aieeee!”, her killing scream.

  She looked at the empty hand. She blushed. She gave a giggle. “Er… I… er… eeee… er… oh, my knees… my knees. The old bones hurt these days,” she mumbled, to cover her foolish cry.

  The English queen nodded. “I know, my dear, I have the same problem. My doctor gives me some good ointment made from goose grease. I’ll get my maids to fetch you some.”

  “It will be a great comfort when you hang me from the gallows tomorrow.”

  Elizabeth looked at Ma, curious. “So you’re the pirate I’ve heard so much about.”

  “And you’re the queen I’ve heard a bit about. You’re not very tall, are you?”

  I heard a gasp from the crowd at my ma’s cheek. The old queen smiled and showed black and broken teeth. “I haven’t got my father’s massive body, but I do have his huge heart, Grace O’Malley, and that’s what counts in a queen. You should know that.”

  Ma nodded. “That’s true, Bess,” she said.

  No one in the room seemed to breathe.

  “How did you get into the pirate trade?” the queen asked. She sat on her throne and patted her ginger wig straight. “Sit by my side and tell me.”

  Ma moved to the seat by the throne and began her old tale. “It all started with my father. A big, bullying brute of a man.”

  “Same as my father… King Henry the Eighth… though we used to call him Henry the Ate, he grew so fat!”

  For the rest of that morning, my ma told her tales of piracy and the fights she’d had. The queen asked some questions, but mostly she listened like a child at the feet of her nurse.

  When the midday sun shone high in the sky, we were led off to a small room at the side of the throne room to eat. And at the end of the day, the weary old queen said, “It has been a pleasure to meet you, Grace.”

  Ma sighed. “And it will be your pleasure to hang me in the morning.”

  “Hang you? Goodness me, no! The sign of a great queen is this – you should know when to be cruel and when to show mercy. And I am showing mercy to you, Grace O’Malley. Go back to Ireland and your family.”

  Ma blinked. “You’re setting me free?”

  “I am,” Old Queen Bess said with a smile. “Rest here tonight and I’ll have a ship sail you back to Connacht tomorrow.”

  Chapter Eight

  Freedom and Feathers

  Ma gave the queen a wide smile. “You really do have a heart as big as a horse.”

  The queen limped to the door, stopped and looked back. “Of course, if I catch you attacking any more English ships, I’ll hang you from the tallest tree in Ireland.”

  “Of course,” Ma said. “What about Spanish and Scottish ships?”

  “Oh, help yourself to those!” Elizabeth chuckled. She waved a pale hand wrapped in a cloud of jewels and was gone.

  Ma ruffled my hair. “She’s not such a bad old bird, after all.”

  “No, Ma.”

  “In fact, I’m rather glad I didn’t kill her when I had the chance.”

  “Me too, Ma.”

  “I wonder what in the devil’s name happened to that knife?” she muttered.

  I felt the blade hard under the back of my belt where I’d pushed it. “I wonder, Ma.”

  Servants led the way to a fine room in the palace and I climbed into the soft, goose-feather bed next to my ma.

  “I like this,” she said as she lay back sleepily. “Maybe we’ll rob a ship that has a goose-feather bed on board, eh, Catherine?”

  “No, Ma, you need to give up pirating,” I moaned. “If the Spanish catch you, they won’t forgive you like Queen Bess did.”

  Ma gave a long sigh. “You’re right, Catherine, you’re right. But it would be a terrible pity to retire when I’m the greatest pirate the world has ever seen.”

  “Yes, Ma,” I said, and fell asleep in the arms of the greatest ma the world has ever seen.

  Epilogue

  In this story Catherine is made up. Grace O’Malley (born around 1530) was real. She was the Pirate Queen of Connacht with three galleys and 200 warriors. She cut her hair short so she could sail with her father. That’s probably how she got her nickname Granuaile, which means “bald”.

  Her father always refused to let her sail with him, so she had to hide on one of his ships. Her first husband, Donal, was a pirate on the west coast of Ireland. When he died, she took over his fleet of ships.

  She was hated by the English, who ruled Ireland, and they
set out to arrest her.

  Grace also took over her second husband’s castle. She was trapped there by an English army. She took lead from the roof, melted it and poured the boiling lead on the English heads to drive them away. When her father died, she took over his fleet, too. She began to raid England and Scotland as well as Ireland.

  In 1593, she went to London to meet Queen Elizabeth. The two women were about the same age – around 60 – when they met at Greenwich Palace.

  Grace wore a fine gown, but had a dagger hidden on her person. Guards found it before she could attack the queen. Grace said she was carrying the dagger to defend herself. Queen Elizabeth believed her.

  Grace refused to bow before Elizabeth because, she said, Elizabeth wasn’t the Queen of Ireland. Still, Elizabeth liked Grace O’Malley and set her free. Grace said she would stop her rebel raids and Elizabeth said she would stop the English soldiers attacking Grace’s castles. But Grace broke her promise and soon went back to her wicked ways.

  Both women died in the year 1603.

  First published 2011 by

  A & C Black

  Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

  50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP

  www.acblack.com

  This electronic edition published in March 2012 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

  Text copyright © 2011 Terry Deary

  Illustrations copyright © 2011 Helen Flook

  The rights of Terry Deary and Helen Flook to be identified as the author and illustrator of this work have been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  eISBN 978 1 4081 8111 9

  A CIP catalogue for this book is available from the British Library.

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