Had I not been so carefully regarding Finula I would have missed the change in the angle of her eyes. She was gazing at my husband, sitting beside me. And turning ever so slightly, I could see he was gazing right back at her!
’Twas like a swift kick in the belly, seein’ that look pass between ’em.
’Twas collusion, pure and simple. Shortly thereafter Finula excused herself and left the gathering room. I slipped out quiet like and followed her.
She was headin’ for the keep, I figured, to relieve herself. She took the long climb to the top, and like I suspected, she entered the privy chamber off Donal Crone ’s living quarters. A small room, it jutted out a bit from the main wall and had a ledge with two holes cut in it for doin’ your business. The tide far below would wash it away.
I followed her up the stairs and marched into the wee chamber just as she was pullin’ up her gown and settlin’ herself over the hole. She looked up at me, her face the perfect picture of annoyance.
“Can you not give me a little privacy, Grace? ’Tis a terrible time for me after all. I’ve just lost a son.”
“Not a son, Finula,” said I, moving farther into the privy, crowdin’
her a bit. “A
step
son.”
“I brought him up from a boy and I loved him just as much as I love my Richard.”
“Really?”
“What are you sayin’, Grace?” Finula’s eyes were two slits in her face.
“With Tall Walter out of the way, your Richard would be one step closer to the MacWilliamship. Only one more brother to dispose of.” She came at me then, all fangs and claws, but she hadn’t counted on my strength, which was, from my work on the boats, far superior to her own. I slammed my sister-in-law up against the wall and pinned her there by her shoulders. She fixed me with the most withering look, one with which I’d seen her demolish many a strong man. But it had no effect on me.
“How could a woman take down a man the size of Tall Walter?” she hissed at me.
“You’ve got no blood on your
own
hands, Finula, and we both know why. Donal O’Flaherty came home last night covered in Walter Burke ’s gore. My question is, how in Jesus’ name did you get him to do such a terrible thing? And why? What was in it for Donal?”
Finula refused to answer me, just kept up the withering gaze. I could feel her squirmin’ beneath my hands, but I wouldn’t let her go. “You’ll tell me,” I finally said, “or I’ll bash your head up against this stone wall till it’s nothin’ but pulp.” I gave her shoulders a wee jolt then, so she ’d know I was able to carry out my threat.
Then her eyes went cold and dead, and the sight of ‘em chilled me through and through. I almost wished in that moment that I’d not forced the truth from her, for clearly that was what I was about to hear—and it could not be less than horrifying.
“You think you’re so smart, Grace O’Malley,” she said. “Well, the truth is, you know nothing. You think your husband is a fearsome warrior, that your son Murrough takes after his da. You’re wrong. Donal is
my slave
and always has been. He killed his mam in childbirth and never had a mother besides myself. When he was small he was a weakling, scared pissless, with no spirit of fight in him whatsoever. Our father was always away at sea, and so it fell to me to care for the poor child. I was there for his every need. Changed his shite-filled nappies, dried his tears, held him when he was scared—and he was scared of everything. Finally I grew disgusted with him. What would become of such a boy? Surely with such a nature he ’d be passed over for
tanaist
to the O’Flaherty clan.
And a girl like myself was much more highly thought of with a strong brother at her side. This child would only bring shame to the family.
“So I took Donal in hand. I hired Sean, the toughest young O’Flaherty I could find, to help me. Donal’s little body needed hardening, so Sean would take him on long runs up and down the hills, climbin’ trees, leapin’ across streams. Donal’d come home exhausted, in tears, his skinny legs cramped and aching. But there was no stoppin’. I found him a teacher of the sword who was a great believer in harsh treatment makin’ a man strong. So Donal suffered, was beaten mercilessly by his tutor until he began to do things right. It took years, but finally Donal began to come around. He had learned to fight, indeed, he had learned to
love
fighting. And his teacher was the first to feel Donal’s wrath. ’Twas meant to be a practice, as they’d done so many times before, but on this particular occasion the man received so great a wound to his throat—an accident, Donal claimed—that he was drained of all his blood and died in agony without a word. Of course by then Donal didn’t need a teacher.
He reveled in violence, and his reputation for fierceness began to grow.
Before long he was named
tanaist
to the O’Flaherty title. I was well contented. I’d done my job, and my reward was a good marriage.”
“Fine,” I said, “so you’re the one who made him into a monster, but what possessed him to kill Walter Burke?”
“He wasn’t keen to do it at first. But I pressed him. Because of me, I said, he would one day be elected The O’Flaherty. All I wanted was
my
blood as a clan chief as well—my son, Richard. Donal owed me that. I swore to him that once Richard became the Burke MacWilliam, and with Donal chief of the O’Flaherty clan, they’d be allies like no others, that together they could repel the English from their borders forever. Still he refused me. Oh, don’t look at me that way. You’re no angel, Grace O’Malley.”
“Just finish the story, Finula,” said I with continuing threat.
“Well, I could see there was no movin’ Donal on my present course, so I threatened him. I said if he didn’t do my bidding, I would tell the world what a weak child he ’d been, afraid of his own shadow. How it
really
was that he ’d come to his present condition. How it had taken a young girl to make a man of Donal O’Flaherty. The stories would spread, I told him—as stories do in Ireland—and everyone would know and laugh behind his back, and he would die of shame. All I was askin’
was a small favor, me—his sister—the one person in the world he owed his very life to. That was how he agreed to the murder, but I swear I had no idea he would make such a mess of the man. He told me today he ’d drunk a good bit beforehand, and almost didn’t do it a’tall. But he hid in the shadows, thinkin’ of the shame I’d bring down on his head, and he grew wild with fury. By the time Walter passed in front of him, he ’d gone a bit mad, or so he said. He claims no memory of the deed itself, which is a good thing, I suppose.”
I have to say I was struck speechless by Finula’s confession. What can one say to such a cold-blooded fiend? I was wracked with equal measures of horror and pity, and knew no way to make the world right again. All at once I realized Finula was tryin’ to pull from my grip. I let her go and she quick settled on the hole to relieve herself. She seemed completely at ease, as though she ’d just given me a new recipe for oatcake and not the details of an outrageous assassination.
I suppose I was starin’ at her with a dumbfounded look, for she said,
“What do you want now?” I didn’t answer, still speechless. “Oh no,” she said. “You don’t really think you’ll repeat what I’ve just told you. Think again, woman. That Brehon judge will impose the steepest of penalties, and on whom? I ask you. Donal could be named an outlaw, and banished. Where would that leave you and the children? Or if he levies fines against Donal, it’ll ruin him, and you. I’m a woman. I have next to nothing in the way of possessions myself. They’ll fine our father instead, take away Gilleduff ’s boats. Make the O’Flahertys pay the Burkes for their loss. So in the end, David, my husband, will be the richer, and you the poorer.” Finula rose like a queen from her throne. I had still not uttered a word, nor did I move to lay another hand on her. With a final look of disdain, she turned her back and left the privy.
I stayed for a bit longer to calm myself, order my disordered mind. I walked very slow down the stone stairs and back to the gathering room where I found the judge consulting with David Burke and Finula, while all else sat in respectful silence. Clearly the inquest had proved nothing. I gazed at Donal, who was slouched in his seat, and looked at Gilleduff O’Flaherty, tall and proud, doin’ his best to hide his pain. Me speaking the shameful truth about his son would probably kill him faster than the wasting disease, and Finula was right. The fines they would levy would be too heavy for Donal to pay alone. They would take Gilleduff ’s ships—how many I did not know. Could I open my mouth and do it to him? Could I do it to my own family?
The Brehon judge sent David and Finula back to their seats. He had taken his long staff in hand and was moving to the center of the chamber to make his pronouncements, which, of course, would be inconclusive.
He ’d struck the staff on the floor three times and had opened his mouth to speak when I stepped forward. I could see Donal sit up straight in his seat, and feel Finula’s brimstone eyes burnin’ a hole in my back. “I have somethin’ to say,” I began. “Evidence to bring to this inquest. I wish to be heard.”
And so it was that I accused my own husband and sister-in-law of the murder of Tall Walter Burke. There was outrage, to be sure, and Finula tried to weasel out of her part in it. But Donal, miserable for what he ’d done, tearfully confessed in the end. For the crime, we were made to pay a full half of our herd to David and Finula Burke. Donal was spared out-lawry, by virtue of his sincere confession. Gilleduff, whose two wicked children had conspired so appallingly, was forced to sell six of his ships to pay David Burke for the loss of a son who was
tanaist
. But after the inquest, when everyone had left the hall, my father-in-law, great man that he was, took me aside and pulled me close to him.
“That was a brave thing you did, Grace. And I thank you for it.”
“How can you thank me?” I said. “You’re poorer six galleys than you were yesterday.”
“And I also know that my grandchildren have at least one honorable parent. And besides, it ’s not me that’s poorer six galleys. It’s you.” Gilleduff died within the year, and he left the whole of his fleet to me, Grace O’Malley, a woman. When all was said and done, Donal and I survived with no real trouble with half our wealth taken, but it did gall me, as Finula said it would, that all the fines paid the Burkes made her richer in the end. She was shameless, and so the truth about her part in the crime, comin’ out as it did, affected her not in the least. The Fates took her side as well, and her other stepson John Burke died of a pox. Richard, her blood, was named
tanaist
to the MacWilliamship, after his father, and more will be said of him, but later. Strange as it may seem, the murderer Donal O’Flaherty was not relieved of his title of
tanaist
which, I suppose, says more about the Irish and their Brehon law than I can do in a thousand words.
I could scarce believe I had a fleet of my own and crews of men loyal to myself. Sometimes I would lie awake, torn by strange thoughts—that I was in truth a madwoman merely dreamin’ this life. That I’d wake to find myself an Irish wife and a household drudge. But the joyful existence had kept on for too long to be a dream. I came to see that I’d been blessed since earliest childhood with a rare existence, protected by angels in the flesh—my father, and my father-in-law after him. So I thanked Jesus and all the goddesses of old who I knew must have had a hand in such a fate.
In gratitude for my blessings, I showed great kindness to my men.
Like my father I was strict but fair, and brooked no complainin’. My sailors had the best I could afford—daily comforts and decent victuals.
Ships were clean as they could reasonably be, trapped out with spare sails and anchors and masts. Drunkenness onboard was forbidden, though gambling—for it was my weakness too—was always encouraged.
As I’d inherited the fleet, so too had I inherited that tiny green terror.
It nearly killed that parrot that Gilleduff was gone, and she glared at me so fiercely it was clear she thought that
I’d
done away with him. I left a wide berth round her when I came into my cabin, that which had been her beloved owner’s before me. But the place was small, and several times she leapt at me, and once or twice sank her beak into the flesh of my arm. It took all my gumption not to murder her, but the truth was, I felt sorry for Molly. She ’d lost the love of her life, and sat for hours puffed in a ball of green fluff, muttering, “Duff, Duff, Duff, Duff.” Months after his death she sulked so inordinately, refusin’ to eat, that she grew very skinny, her long breastbone stickin’ out like a knife blade, and I thought she might herself croak. Much as I despised the bird, I owed my life to Gilleduff O’Flaherty, who’d put her in my charge. So I babied the little demon, holdin’ out tidbits of food I knew she liked. Of course she took every opportunity to chomp down on my poor fingers, but before long she deigned to take the food, holdin’ it in her strange clawed foot, nibblin’ at it very delicate like. Soon she grew fat again, but she never showed me any signs of gratitude, and we existed side by side very warily indeed.
Me and my crews fished when the fishing was good, but I preferred traveling to foreign ports. First time out on my own I called on all my father’s Spanish and Portuguese factors who, when told a woman merchant was at their door, refused to see me. When I sent the servant back to tell their master ’twas little Grace O’Malley grown up, with wares as fine as they could buy from any man, they saw me—most of them did—
and once recovered from their shock, did business with me. At first they tried to cheat me, thinkin’ I’d be too shy to drive a hard bargain, but they found out soon enough their mistake.
For my onshore jaunts to Lisbon and Cadiz I had, at first, surrounded myself with a party of sailors, for safety’s sake. We ’d visit the market squares and plazas, take in festivals. These were very frequent events, as the Spanish would find any reason a’tall to take to the streets with processions and public feasting. But it soon became clear that the men all longed to be gone to the whores and their drunken revels, and who was I to stop them, for they had earned it. So one by one I’d give them leave to leave me to my own devices.