Chapter 5
Spanish Town, Jamaica
Anne awoke from a dream with a jolt. The verdant green disappeared, replaced by impenetrable black.
Sweat dripped down her face, and her bulging stomach felt wet with it.
Damn heat—like the hell this truly was, as if a dog panted unceasingly in her face.
She longed for fresh air. A salty gust and the sound of a sail flapping.
Or relief in the form of an autumn breeze through the heather.
What she wouldn’t give for a cold compress like the kind she used to apply to Mam’s forehead.
From her cell, Anne could hear the mutter of voices and the shuffle of irons somewhere down the corridor that must have disturbed her sleep. A new prisoner? It certainly wouldn’t be that blithering Captain Johnson at this hour.
Mary?
Anne’s heart leapt. She listened closely with a spike of hope that they were moving Mary nearer. But she did not hear her friend’s voice from among the sounds.
Anne heaved her body up, pissed for the thousandth time that day, then returned to the cot.
She rubbed her temples, where a headache pounded, and scanned the slit in the wall.
No moon. It had to be after midnight, but what did time mean to her?
Here, she slept more than a cat. There was little else to do, little motivation to stay conscious.
She lay on her side, her oversized shirt sticky as it clung to her skin. Mother of God, the smell. The white cloth of the shirt had grayed since her capture. Every muscle in her body ached, but her lower back throbbed.
The faraway voices remained vague and distant.
Closing her eyes, Anne tried to recall her dream. Kinsale. Sleep always carried her to that happy place. Never to those unremarkable years of toil in England.
Anne wrapped her arm over her belly. The corner of her lip tugged up, remembering more than just a dream.
Remembering Mam. Each night after a successful lesson with Da, she’d clutch a coverlet to her chin and listen as Mam’s voice—deep for villains, vibrant for heroes—took her mind to wondrous heights. But Anne had a favorite.
“Tell me the story of Grace O’Malley.”
“Not that one again,” Mam said with mock exaggeration. “Lord have mercy.”
“Please,” Anne begged.
And so Mam began: the story of the infamous Gráinne Ní Mháille, who traveled and traded with her father, Black Oak, training as chieftain and learning the laws of the land and sea.
How a rival clan had slaughtered her husband, Donal O’Flaherty, snatching up his land until Grace took back his castle with a force only love could explain—the same force she showed when, only an hour after giving birth to her son on the deck of a tossing ship, she swaddled the child and stood tall on the ship’s bow, her head shaved, leading her loyal crew and admiring followers as they seized an enemy ship.
How she later met face-to-face with Queen Elizabeth, prepared with a list of demands for her clan—demands the English queen ignored, unsure whether to see Grace as a heroine and equal or as an unruly thief and threat.
“And she was real?”
“Real as strong ale after a long day.”
Anne would then sink deeper into the bed—a soft bed, a real bed—her eyes half-mast. “I want to be brave like Grace O’Malley.”
At this, Mam always laughed. “A bald lass to embarrass your old da?” Kissing her on the forehead, she reminded Anne to say her prayers before wishing her a peaceful, dreamless sleep.
Anne rolled onto her other side. The baby did not stir, though she felt its heat like a bonfire.
According to the court, she wouldn’t live long enough to pass on Mam’s stories.
But curse the child all she might—for its foolish father and all the discomforts of being in the family way—Anne knew her situation was not the baby’s fault.
How Anne could know this fact clear as the Caribbean Sea but still blame herself for Mam’s hardships and fate, she didn’t know.
She snorted and might have laughed if she hadn’t been so parched.
After weeks of rotting in this gaol, how had it never occurred to her?
Like Mam, she too was a woman proved with child, tossed into a filthy cell.
Different circumstances, Anne rationalized. Her belly had saved Anne’s life.
For now.