The Wild Irish - Robin Maxwell (9 page)

“Most of the other chieftains in Connaught have succumbed already,” said Gilleduff, and Henry calls himself ‘King of Ireland.’ ”

“King Henry is a buffoon,” Owen snapped. “He could’ve been a great man, comin’ as he did from good Welsh stock, but he ’s so addled with women he has no time for important things.”

“The way I see it,” Gilleduff said, “is that England—no matter how bloody or ignorant its king—will conquer Ireland in the end, for one reason and one reason alone.”

“And what is that?” demanded my father.

“Centralized government. Loyalty from all—or most—of the great lords of the land to one ruler. What have we got here? A hundred chieftains who think of themselves as the ‘High King’ of a valley, four hills, and a lake. And every one of ’em, ’cept you and me, are murderin’ and thievin’ and pillagin’ one another year after bloody year. We ’ve weakened ourselves so miserably, it’s no wonder that when the chiefs are offered the English titles, they take ’em.” 

“Well,
you
don’t mean to surrender, do you?” my father said, glaring.

“It’s only a name,” argued Gilleduff, trying to provoke my father to passion.

“So why submit? I know this as sure as I’m sittin’ here across the roast from you. They’re tryin’ to bury our law and eradicate our language. And once they take your name, they’ll take your freedom too.”

“No one ’s goin’ anywhere with my freedom. And don’t worry yourself, Owen. If I do accept myself a fine English title, I promise I won’t insist that
you
call me by it.”

“That’s very kind of you, you feckin’ idiot.” Gilleduff laughed and punched my father in the shoulder. Owen laughed too. I myself was too young to know how right my father had been, or how the English army would one day, in the not so distant future, somehow make it across those impenetrable forests and bogs of Ireland, and smash our sea defenses, all in the name of murderin’ the old Gaelic order, our very way of life. But it was a warm summer night, and we were booleyin’, and the bard was settling down by the fire to begin his telling of histories and generations back through the mists of time.

And we soon forgot about the English and their titles and their fears of the “Wild Irish” out beyond the Pale.

By my fourteenth year, despite my attempts to forestall it, I was showin’ all the signs of womanhood. My head of thick black hair was my one concession to femininity. Even I had to admit it was gorgeous. But never, I believed, did a child loathe the prospect of adult life as much as myself. My mother, on the other hand, could not contain her glee, for my impending maturity meant that my unrepentant wildness and irresponsi-bility were soon to be history.

Then one afternoon in March my father returned home from inspect-ing his fleet and announced he ’d be sailin’ with three ships for Cadiz in a week’s time. My mother and I were simultaneously rooted to the spot like a couple of elms, and struck just as dumb. Her mind was clearly racing as fast in one direction as mine was in the other, and we both stood starin’ at my father with such silent ferocity he concocted some lame excuse, and got the hell out of there.

Then the screamin’ began.

I would accompany my father to Spain over her dead body.
I would
throw myself off the peak of Crough Patrick if I couldn’t go.
I was a young woman preparin’ myself for marriage and childbearing and had no business on a stinking ship with a hundred horny sailors sniffin’ round me.

She was a foul-tempered, wild-arsed bitch who knew nothin’ about nothin’.

She struck me for that, of course, and I deserved it. Such language, she announced haughtily, was the best argument for my not goin’. Where else would I have learned such crude oaths besides on my father’s ships?

I rushed away in tears, with her screamin’ after me that I was not the only one who would feel her wrath. This was all my father’s fault, and he would reap the whirlwind of her displeasure the next time he showed his hairy face to her.

I ran, my face streamin’ with tears, down to the beach past the men caulking their curraghs and mending their sails. When I could go no farther, I fell to my knees and wept inconsolably. Had I sailed my last voyage with Owen? Was that blessed freedom I had always known from this time on only a memory? I cursed my mother. I cursed her goddesses and I cursed Jesus, all to pretty much the same degree, which was substantial.

And I even thought for a brief moment of carryin’ out my threat about leapin’ off Crough Patrick. For what would my life be without the sea?

Then I thought to myself,
Christ, I’m a freak of nature, a woman who
hopes never to marry or bear a pack of squallin’ brats. All I want is to sail
round the world with my father and a crew of brawny Irishmen.

But my fate was sealed. Even my father was set on my marryin’

Donal O’Flaherty. The truth was, a young woman of marriageable age had no business workin’ and livin’ amongst all those manly sailors. Then all of a sudden it hit me:
I’d not go to Cadiz as a girl. I’d go as a lad
.

I ran back to a beach shack that held the fleet’s various tools and ropes and netting and extra sails, then quick pulled out my knife and cut a long, thin strip of canvas from one of the ragged old sails. Unlacing my bodice and chemise I pushed them down so I was standin’ there stark naked from the waist up, then began wrapping the cloth round and round my breasts, pushin’ ’em flat, bindin’ ’em tight as I could manage and still be able to breathe. That done, I grabbed a shank of my mane and, gripping the knife in my hand,
chopped it off,
down to within an inch of my skull.

I took another handful and hacked that off too. Back, front, and sides—

I cut ‘till I was shorn altogether. I saw some clothing somebody had left hangin’ on a peg and donned it. Finally pulling a wool cap over my head I left the shack and started down the beach, finding to my delight that none of my father’s men workin’ there recognized me as I passed. I lurked near the keep ‘till Owen returned home and went in. Climbin’ the stone stairs like a condemned man on his way to execution, I managed to pull myself up to my full height, stick out my chest—what was left of it—and stride into the room.

Margaret and Owen stared at me openmouthed, first as if I were an intruder, then an apparition, perhaps the ghost of some long-dead relative drowned in a shipwreck.

“Grace?” ’Twas my father speakin’, actually a whisper was more like it. He recognized me first, as he ’d seen me dressed as a boy before.

“What’s goin’ on here?” my mother said in a highly suspicious tone.

Her eyes were fixed on my head. Clearly there should’ve been lumps and bumps where my thick mop was stuffed under the cap, but it was layin’

awfully close to the skull.

“Grace. What have you done?” Owen said, very quiet like.

“I’m goin’ with you, Da, to Cadiz. One last time. Mam said a young woman didn’t belong on your ship.” I reached up and pulled off the cap.

My mother gasped, even though she knew in her heart what was comin’.

Suddenly, and to my complete surprise, my father snorted quite loudly, a sure attempt at stiflin’ a laugh. My mother turned and glared at him venomously, but that was all he needed. He began to roar laughing.

Doubled over he was, tears runnin’ down his face and into his beard. He wouldn’t stop, or couldn’t, and his laughter was so rollicking that my mother started too. ’Twas me, shocked that I hadn’t been killed by the pair of ’em for my outrageousness, who laughed last. They both hugged me, and my mother cried, and I cried, and finally when my brother Donal came home and found us in this condition, and me with my chopped hair, he nearly shat himself. In honor of the occasion, he gave me a new name, “Granuaile,” which is Gaelic for “Grace the Bald.” And the funny thing is, it’s stuck with me all my life.

So in the end I traveled with my father to Spain one last time. ’Twas a grand journey, the memory of which I’ll always treasure. Owen was so gentle with me, makin’ sure the crew’s teasing about my hair was kept to a minimum, and that I had my privacy on the days I bled. Though I looked more that voyage like a boy than I ever had, my father treated me more like a woman. God, he was a dear man. When the sailin’ was smooth, we ’d stand together gazing out over the horizon and he ’d talk to me about the things I would need to know in this life, once I was far from his house and protection. The way of the world was extremely harsh, he said, even for a woman of my standing. He told me what made for a good man, a good husband, the virtues of honesty and kindness first and foremost. There were other things as well, easy laughter being one of ’em.

And he said the one thing a man could under no circumstances do without was respect for himself, for such a lack would poison his life, and every other person’s around him. He wasn’t sure what kind of husband Donal O’Flaherty would make me, for the boy had a temper on him that was troubling, but Donal’s father, Gilleduff, was a rock, and would be a good friend to me should I need one.

Finally we sailed into Cadiz. Oh, ’twas the grandest city of southern Spain. Most of the town was built on an island just off the coast and it, together with a portion of the mainland, enclosed a fabulous harbor. This was always filled with great ships from every part of the world, for Cadiz was the gateway to the Mediterranean Sea, the Barbary Coast, and to the east, the land of the Turks. The city itself, with a great fortress at the head of the bay, was astonishing in its variety. There were markets filled with exotic goods, and faces in the crowds the likes of which I’d never seen. Turks, and Blackamoors—some who were slaves and others who were masters—

Indian traders and Mongols, even Chinamen. And there were, of course, the Spaniards and Italians, French and German, so every language in the world was spoken there, like the Tower of Babel, it sometimes seemed.

Of course I was desperate to go ashore with him, but I had the problem of my hair, and though he ’d offered to buy me a proper lady’s wig I said no thank you—the thought of wearin’ somebody else ’s cut hair gave me the willies. So he brought me a suit of clothes fit for a young grandee—a suit of blue satin, silk stockings, and fine blue-leather shoes.

Gloves and a feathered hat finished the picture. When I presented myself thus to my father, he smiled, stifling his laughter, for he knew I’d be mortified if he laughed. Instead he strapped to my waist a sword that clanked heavily at my side when I walked, and together we climbed down to the dinghy and let ourselves be rowed across to the city.

On Cadiz Island Owen took me to see the fort at the mouth of the harbor and said ’twas a splendid ediface, one of the strongest he ’d ever seen. He took especial note of the artillery—
huge
cannon facing out into the harbor, set into the walls which, he claimed, were twenty feet thick.

He coveted those guns. A direct hit from one of ’em would blow a ship to Hell and back. ’Twas lucky for the enemies, he said, that the Spanish were such notoriously terrible shots.

We strolled the streets and plazas of the city for the rest of the afternoon and night. He, to my great dismay, bought me fine Egyptian sheets for my wedding chest. Finally, after supper at the city’s best inn, we made our way back toward the dock where our three ships lay at anchor.

We had no warning of our attackers, for they jumped from the shadows on either side of us. ’Twas fortunate there ’d been only two of them.

Surely they’d meant to rob us in the dark alleyway, and they must ’ve been desperate in the extreme to attack a man the size of my father, even if he were accompanied only by a slender young “lad” like myself.

The moment they were on us I felt a rush in my blood and a strange taste of metal in my mouth. My hand found my sword and I drew it as easy as an intake of breath. My father had done the same, and without a word spoken we took our stance—back to back—as he had taught me to fight. There was no time to think, for the robbers were armed with swords as well, and as I said, desperate. The man I was fighting was terrible to behold—filthy, with a fresh scar across half his face, still red, stitched badly and oozing pus. He fought without grace but powerfully, his slashing wild. But my training had been better than his, and besides, I had my father’s encouragement being shouted in my ear. Owen was fightin’ for his life as well, but with enough confidence in his own victory to urge me on. “Slash to the neck!” he cried. “Keep his eye!” Metal met metal time and again. “Hang on!” he shouted. “I’ll have this bastard dead in a moment!” And let me tell you, ’twas not a moment too soon, for the man I opposed, though not as agile or skilled as I, was certainly stronger, and this was takin’ its toll. His crashing blade had pushed me to one knee, and I was forced to fend off his blows from below. Then it happened. His hideous face was sneerin’ down at me one second, and the next . . . ’twas
gone,
replaced by a fountain of spurting blood. My father, having vanquished his own attacker, had swiveled round and with one sweep of his sword, had deprived mine of his head. Strangely, the man did not fall immediately, the body shocked to be suddenly headless. So Owen gave him a wee shove. He toppled like a felled tree. My father quick pulled me into his arms. He was trembling and he held me so tight I thought I’d be crushed. “Da,” said I, “I’m all right, really. You can let go of me.” He did this and then raced away, leavin’ those two dead carcasses in the alley.

I can tell you, it was quite a scene on the ship that night, my father tellin’ the men the story of our fight to the death, with great relish and not a little exaggeration. He was as proud as any father of a son. For myself I was one half proud, the other half sickened to have witnessed such a gruesome sight not three feet in front of me. But the men were delighted. Their little Grace—a fit fightin’ partner for the great Black Oak O’Malley. One of ’em even wrote a song about it, and though ’tis long forgot, I think ’twas that story told over and over again for years, every time embellished a little more—till it was
me
who’d whacked off the robber’s head—that proved me in those sailors’ eyes. It brought me a measure of esteem from them, and more important, my own self-respect.