1 - Gráinne
Gráinne sat on the stoop, drinking up the swirling sun patterns through her closed eyelids, her skin open to the direction of the breeze, her nose and ears open to the scents and sounds it carried. Her green kirtle tunic was bramble-torn, stained with berry juice. Her wooden clogs were caked with mud and were kicked carelessly onto the straw-strewn cobbles to reveal two matching holes at the big toes of her madder-red worsted tights. Her thick chestnut hair was spread out over her shoulders, gleaming in the light, and studded with burrs, twigs, lichen, sea moss and kelp, all caught up in the tangles.
‘By Lugh, wean, ya Daide’ll be home any week now, and what’ll he say to me, “Maev, now have ya changed our only sweet girl for a scarecrow?!”’
Gráinne opened her eyes to see the figure of her Ma bearing down upon her, brandishing a hair brush. Maev’s own appearance was rather more stately: her linen smock was spotless from neck to ankles, and over it a tunic and laced bodice, amber bead necklace and a rolled linen headcloth from which hung down impeccable golden braids.
Gráinne dodged into the courtyard as her older brother Donal, not her mother’s son, entered it leading a black billy goat by a rope. Ever the opportunist, Gráinne capitalised on the power shift without hesitation or remorse, by changing the topic altogether.
‘Will ye let me slaughter the billy, Donal?’
‘No, wee savage, but you can watch me to learn. Bring yer skeyne to scrape the hide and I’ll let y’keep the knuckle bones for play after you bring yer Ma the best of the meat.’ Gráinne didn’t need a second bidding, and her skeyne knife was always ready and strapped to her waist. Maev had no rejoinder to that and retreated back inside.
A Gaelic week was three days and four nights, and in another three or four of these Black Oak would likely return. So much to do to prepare. The weather was fair, and the wind clear and strong: he could blow in any day, and so could the rain: the top meadow needed scything before the clover came into full bloom for the hay to dry in the sun while it held. Maev set about preparing the meal and dispatched a team of men to the meadow. She knew the girl and her brother would be off to the tanners in the village with the fresh hide, and from there part ways – him to the tavern and Gráinne to her currach, a coracle she made herself with the hide of Maev’s old ox when he was slain. From there she would be gone till who-knows-when, hopping from island to atoll and drumlin, making camp, cooking the meat her brother gave her on open fires she set herself. Maev knew from experience the girl would be gone long hours, even days, running wild with the enthralled children of her father’s light infantry and under lords. Bossing them around, thrashing them at knuckle bones, padding her lair down by the water with spoils and alerting her father’s men when any fishing boats strayed into their waters that needed taxing.
Exactly a week later Gráinne returned, running up the hill, her voice carrying to the barbican long before her firm legs carried the rest of her there: ‘He’s come, I seen him on the horizon! Ma he’s home!’
This time Maev was ready and collared her wayward progeny as soon as she entered the bawn. ‘With me then, to make ye civil looking outa respect for your Da’s eyes!’
She dragged her off and assaulted the wild nest of hair violently with the boar bristle brush and wooden comb, wrestling it into a semblance of order as best she could in the short time available to her. Time she could’ve spent beautifying herself for her man, but such was the lot of a mother, and in truth she was effortlessly radiant most of the time, especially now all flushed with excitement.
The big man came in, wife and daughter ran at him, laughing and hugging and clamouring for attention, as his men brought in the spoils. Eventually everyone settled down and the celebration feast began, dish after dish was brought, fish, beef, mutton and boar. Beer and wine flowed freely, buttermilk for the children, and towering heaps of oat cakes. Gifts were given by the men returned from the sea, including crates of oranges; songs were sung, and stories told.
One of the travelling musicians had arrived overland from the Pale, way over in the east at the same time Black Oak and his men had come ashore from Clew Bay in the west. They compared tales of Henry, how the Tudor monarch had crowned himself king of Ireland in Dublin. Of how – shockingly - the Upper Mac William himself, Ulich na gCeann Burke was present. Rumours abounded about Henry’s Surrender and Regrant policy. The world was in flux.
Summer passed pleasantly, the whole household went booleying as usual, taking the cattle to the mountains to graze and taking their ease on the green rushes in the long, thatched hall together.
The summer was drawing to a close, and they headed back down to Belclare. Gráinne was very attentive to her father’s moods, biding her time to ask the one question of any import to her. Would he take her now to sea? She knew her knots, she read the waves and the weather well, she could climb and handle a currach. She thought she’d timed it well, but he belly-laughed right in her face, said her hair would get all caught up in the rigging and No, she couldn’t come with him to sea. But he let her aboard and she took careful note of where everything was, especially in her father’s cabin. She saw a grappling hook and made her first important decision.
Later, after supper when everyone was in bed and they thought she was too, she slipped into a leather jerkin, tied her skeyne belt round her and padded silently out to the bawn. She took a pair of shears down off a hook in the wall, and a good length of rope off another. With one snip she cut off her long plait and hung it up where the rope had been. As an after thought she cut herself a glib fringe, just like her Da. She had bread, cheese and the jar of sugared confection her Ma had made with the Spanish oranges in a knapsack. Down to the bay she went, untied the currach and paddled out to the great ship. She tied on the rope and threw the stolen grappling hook up, climbed nimbly onboard, stowing away in a trunk.
When they were almost to France she emerged, standing before Black Oak, arms akimbo. He roared his belly laugh again – ‘Gráinne Mhaol!’ Bald Gráinne!
