Read The Wild Irish - Robin Maxwell for Free Online Page A

are an unfathomable people,” she said, looking away, then added, almost to herself, “I worry they’ll be the death of me.
    “My treasury is hemorrhaging money. If I continue raising taxes, my people will come to hate me. I cannot afford this war, Robin! And I cannot afford your ignoring it any longer. If you wish to be my most trusted adviser—and I know you do—then you will henceforth educate yourself on this matter, interest yourself in it, because it means very much to me, and will in the future mean even more.”
    “Yes, Majesty.” Essex was humbled, knowing her altogether right, and grateful that she understood him so well. She tutored and directed him in the affairs of state, was so forgiving.
    “Go along now,” she said, as if he were a mere page and not a New Man of the Privy Council. “See to the audience. And pay attention in this lady’s presence. She may be a traitor to England, but she has much to teach us both.”
    Essex exited as Robert Cecil returned bustling with importance. He had a rolled parchment tucked beneath his arm. As the doors closed behind him, Essex could see him spreading on the long table what must have been the pirate O’Malley’s answers to Elizabeth’s interrogatory. He chided himself for allowing the Gnome to best him on Elizabeth’s most pressing foreign affairs. He ’d kept abreast of the war in the Netherlands, of Scotland and France, and Spain’s continuing crusade to convert to Catholicism every man, woman, and child who lived. But he had dismissed Ireland. The queen’s attempts to colonize it, and the great rebellion it had spawned, had escaped him. But no longer. He would make it his business to understand that strange hellhole of a country.
    And he would begin with Grace O’Malley.
     
    THE GOWN WAS long out of fashion, Grace thought, staring at herself in the glass that hung on her tiny cabin wall. It was English in cut, a fine lady’s dress. She ’d plucked it from its owner’s shipboard cupboard whilst the woman, cowering and bug-eyed with amazement, gaped at the female pirate brandishing a pistol and looting her room. Sweet Jesus, how long ago had that been? Ten years? Fifteen?
    ’Twas surprising that the garment was not chewed up by moths or mold—a pretty thing, the blue velvet, trimmed with green and with a low square-cut bodice that the English had favored for so many years.
    ’Twas equally surprising, thought Grace, turning to view herself from the side, that it fit her much the same as it did when she ’d lifted it from the bug-eyed captain’s wife. She was fit at sixty-three, the same as all Irish women who managed to survive to that ripe old age. If you weren’t hardy, she thought, you were dead, and that was that. She ’d taken more time with her hair today than she had in years, braiding the dark tresses, now streaked with silver, into long, thick plaits, and pinned them up in a style she had once admired on a Turkish girl.
    Shite! She looked ridiculous. What in the name of God was she doing in an English gown? Grace grabbed her wool chieftain’s cloak from its peg and threw the long, sleeveless garment over one shoulder. The brat was a soft sea green and well worn, but the brown fur that trimmed it was still thick and beautiful. And it was Irish, by God. Traditional. With a sudden inspiration she flung open the studded leather chest on the shelf above her narrow bed. The solid-gold brooch she removed from it filled her entire hand and was heavy as a rock. The design, she thought with satisfaction, was clearly Spanish. It shouted out its origins—King Philip’s Treasure Fleet from the New World. Aye, thought Grace as she fastened the cape together at one shoulder, leaving her bodice partially exposed, let Elizabeth be reminded of the Spanish presence in Ireland. Let her squirm a bit.
    She reached again into the chest and considered a pair of Egyptian gold ear bobs. There was something pagan about the style—to the stilted English