Bertrice Small - Skye O’Malley

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The first book in the Skye O'Malley series, 1980

“What the hell do you mean she can have no more children?”
demanded Dubhdara O’Malley of his brother. The O’Malley,
chief of Clan O’Malley, was a big man, six-foot-four, arms
and legs like thick tree limbs; ruddy, sunburnt skin, snapping
blue eyes, and a mop of dark hair that was just getting a sprinkling
of silver. “You priests are always prating that the purpose of marriage
is to procreate. Well, I’ve done what the Church wanted, I’ve gotten
children on her, and not one of them a living son! Now you tell me
I must stop? But I don’t suppose you’ll be granting me an annulment
so I can wed with some fresh and healthy blood? Faugh! You make
me sick!”

Father Seamus O’Malley, looking almost his brother’s twin
though not quite as dark of skin, viewed Dubhdara with genuine
sympathy and understanding. He knew how he felt, but there was
just no help for it. His sister-in-law couldn’t take another pregnancy.
The midwife had been quite certain about that. Another child would
take Lady O’Malley’s life. That would be outright murder.

The priest drew a deep breath. “You’ve been married ten years,
brother, and in that time Peigi’s been pregnant ten times. She’s
miscarried three. This birth nearly killed her.”

The O’Malley whirled, bitterness flooding his rugged face.
”Aye,” he said. “She’s miscarried thrice-and all boys too! The only
one of my sons she managed to birth lived barely long enough for
you to baptize, God assoil his wee soul. And what am I left with?

Girls! Six girls! Five of whom are as plain of face as their mother.
Faugh! Damn! I thought surely this time…”

He paced the room angrily, caring nothing that his harsh words
were overheard by the woman who lay, half dead and weeping with
bitter disappointment, in the next room. She had prayed so hard for
a son. She had made a novena every month of her confinement. She
had fasted and sacrificed, giving to those less fortunate than herself.
And what was the result of her piety? Another girl, and the knowl-
edge that she would now never be able to bear her husband a son.

Unknowing and uncaring, Dubhdara O’Malley raged on and on.
”Why could she not give me sons, Seamus? Why? I’ve gotten a
brace of healthy lads on lasses about the countryside, but my own
wife can give me nothing but girls! I wish to God she had died and
the female brat with her!”

“God forgive you, Dubhdara!” exclaimed Seamus O’Malley,
shocked to his soul.

O’Malley shrugged. “At least I might start anew, but wait and
see, Seamus! You wait! She’ll outlive me yet! No! I’ll not stop
trying. I must have a legitimate son! I must!”

“You get Peigi with child again, Dubh, and she dies, I’ll have
the Church on you! It’d be deliberate murder, for I’ve warned you
what will happen if she conceives again. The midwife said she almost
bled to death. The wee lass she’s borne is healthy and strong though,
thanks be to God.”

O’Malley made a derisive noise.

“What will we baptize her, Dubh?” encouraged the priest.

O’Malley thought a minute. “Call her Skye after the place from
which her mother came. Her oldest sister, Moire, can stand her
godmother.”

“She needs a godfather too, brother.”

“You be her godfather, Seamus. Six daughters is too many to
provide dowries for, so I intend Skye O’Malley for the Church. The
Church’ll take a smaller portion, and ‘tis fitting that the future nun’s
godfather be a priest.”

Seamus O’Malley nodded, satisfied. It was high time his brother
singled out a daughter for the Church. But then the priest looked
closely at his new niece for the first time, and was quickly certain
that this was not the daughter Dubh would send to a convent. His
five older nieces were, as their father had said, plain as pikestaffs.
With their ordinary brown hair, their pale gray eyes, they were like
little sparrows.

This child, however, was a bird of paradise. Her skin was gardenia-fair, her eyes a wonderful blue, like the waters off Kerry, and
she already had a thick headful of black curls like her father’s. “No, said Seamus O’Malley softly to himself, “you are definitely not
convent material, Skye O’Malley!”

He smiled down at the babe. If she fulfilled her promise, her
beauty could be bartered for a powerful match. The Church would
be delighted to accept a less spectacular O’Malley, one whose dowry
could be enriched by sister Skye’s good fortune.

On the following day, Skye O’Malley was baptized in the family
chapel. Her mother, still weak from childbirth, was not present, but
her father and five older sisters were. Moire, aged ten, and the eldest,
became Skye’s godmother. Looking on admiringly were Peigi, nine,
Bride, seven, Eibhlin, four, and Sine, eighteen months.

When Seamus O’Malley poured the holy water on the child’s
head, Skye did not cry out as custom decreed, thus allowing the
Devil to depart her. Instead, to everyone’s shock, she made a sound
very much like a giggle, and for the first time Dubhdara O’Malley
looked at his new daughter with interest.

“So,” he chuckled, his blue eyes narrowing with speculation,
”it’s not afraid of water, is it? Well, she’s a true O’Malley at any
rate. Maybe I’ll not be giving you to the Church after all, Skye
O’Malley. What do you think, brother Seamus?”

The priest smiled back. “I think not, brother. Perhaps one of the
others will be better suited, and even has a true vocation. Time will
tell, Dubh. Time will tell.”

The O’Malley took his new daughter from his brother and cradled
her in the crook of his big arm. With his startingly bright blue eyes,
shoulder-length black hair, and bushy black beard, he very much
resembled a pirate. Indeed, his sea-roving activities bordered on
piracy. However, his fierce appearance did not frighten his new
daughter at all. She gurgled contentedly before closing her eyes and
falling asleep.

As the O’Malley left the chapel with his brother, his five older
daughters trailing in their wake, he did not relinquish his hold on
the infant. The bond between Skye and her father had been formed.
And when Peigi O’Malley’s milk refused to come in, he chose the
wet nurse himself-a healthy, pretty farmgirl whose bastard had
been strangled by its umbilical cord.

Six months later Dubhdara O’Malley departed on a seagoing
expedition which would keep him away from Ireland for several
months. To his priestly brother’s outrage, he took baby Skye and
her wet nurse, Megi, with him. “You’re a disgrace to the family,
Dubhdara O’Malley! What the devil will people say about Megi?
And if that’s not bad enough, you’re endangering the child! I’ll not
have Skye harmed,” roared the doting uncle.

The O’Malley laughed. “Stow your gab, Seamus! I’m not endangering Skye. She’s already gone sailing with me for a day or so.
She likes being on my ship. As to Megi, I would be endangering
Skye if I did not take her along. Megi’s milk is better for Skye than
a goat’s, which is the only alternative.”

“And I suppose you’ll deny you’ve been fucking with Megi.”

“No, I’ll not deny it. You know I like all the comforts.”

The priest threw up his hands in despair. There was nothing he
could do with his brother. Dubh was the most carnal man he knew.
Well, one good thing would come of it. At least poor Peigi would
be safe from her husband’s lust for the time being.

In the summer of 1541 the O’Malley of Innisfana sailed out of
his stronghold on Innisfana Island, into the western seas. It was the
first of Skye’s many voyages. She took her first tottering steps on
the heaving deck of her father’s ship. Her small baby teeth cut marks
into the ship’s wheel. While her wet nurse, Megi, cowered in her
bunk, fighting seasickness and praying she wouldn’t drown, Skye
O’Malley clapped her fat baby hands and laughed at the storms.

The baby became a toddler, and the toddler a little girl. Dubhdara
O’Malley was the lord of the seas around Ireland. He had many
ships and several hundred men who answered only to him. Skye
soon became his acknowledged heir and a favorite among the rough
sailors. She was spoiled and cosseted by them all. She barely knew
her mother and sisters, and had no time or patience for them and
their silly lives.

In the spring of 1551 Skye’s mother died. Soon, her uncle Seamus
urged that Skye stay home and learn some woman’s ways, to sustain
her in marriage. As the priest pointed out to his brother, Skye’s
husband was more likely to appreciate a wife who could run his
home than one who could navigate a ship through the fog. Reluc-
tantly, O’Malley sent Skye home to Innisfana to learn how to be a
lady.

Angry at being taken from her beloved sea, Skye set about making
her older, married sisters’ lives miserable. She quickly learned,
however, that Dubhdara O’Malley’s mind was made up. She must
learn womanly arts. So, as her father wished, Skye set about making
a good job of it. When her next oldest sister, Sine, was married a
few months later, Skye had become accomplished in the household
arts and was scheduled to be wed next.

But though Skye had learned the womanly arts, she had not
become a biddable female. Not Skye O’Malley!

Ireland

It was a perfect early summer day in the year 1555. Innisfana
Island, its great green cliffs tumbling into the deep and spar-
kling blue sea, shone clear at the mouth of O’Malley Bay.
English weather, the Irish inhabitants of the region called it,
and it was nearly the only English thing they approved of. There
was a slight breeze, and in the skies above the island the gulls and
terns soared and swooped, their eerie skrees the only counterpoint
to the breaking surf.

Standing tall against the horizon was O’Malley Castle, a typical
tower house of dark gray stone. Rising several stories high, it com-
manded a view of the sea from all its windows. It had a wide moat,
and beyond that moat was-of all things-a rose garden, planted
by the late Lady O’Malley. After her death, now four years past,
the new Lady O’Malley kept the garden up. Now in full bloom, it
was a riot of yellows, pinks, reds, and whites, a perfect background
for the wedding of the youngest daughter.

Inside the tower house, in the main hall, the five older daughters
of the O’Malley family sat happily gossiping with their pretty step-mother while they sewed and embroidered the bride’s trousseau. It
had been a long time since they had all been together. Now, each
had her own home, and they all met only on special occasions.

They were as similar now as they had been as children. Medium-
tall, they all ran to partridge plump. It was the kind of comfortable
figure that kept a man warm on a cold night. Each was fair-skinned with soft peach-colored cheeks, serious gray eyes, and long, straight,
light-brown hair. None was beautiful, but none was ugly, either.

The eldest, Moire, was twenty-five, and had been married for
twelve years. She was mother to nine living children, seven sons.
Moire stood high in her father’s favor. Peigi, at twenty-three, had
been married ten years and was mother to nine sons. Peigi stood
even higher in her father’s favor. Bride, twenty-one, had been mar-
ried eight years, and had only four children, two of whom were
boys. Dubhdara tolerated Bride, and constantly exhorted her to
greater productivity. “You’re more like your mother than the others,”
he would say ominously.

Eibhlin, eighteen, was the only one with a religious calling. She
had been such a quiet little thing that they hadn’t even suspected her
piety until the boy to whom she was to be wed succumbed to an
attack of measles the year Eibhlin was twelve. As O’Malley con-
sidered a possible replacement bridegroom for his fourth daughter*
Eibhlin begged to be allowed to enter a convent. She genuinely
desired that life. Because her uncle Seamus, now bishop of Muirisk,
was present for the talk, Dubhdara O’Malley was forced to give his
consent. Eibhlin entered her convent at thirteen, and had just recently
taken final vows.

Sine O’Malley Butler was sixteen, wed three years, and the
mother of one boy. She was eight months pregnant but she would
not have missed Skye’s wedding.

The married sisters were dressed in simply cut, full-skirted silk
dresses with bell sleeves and low, scooped necklines. Moire was in
a deep, rich blue, Peigi in scarlet, Bride in violet, and Sine in golden
yellow. The lacy frill of their chemises peeked elegantly up through
the low bodices.

Eibhlin struck the only somber note. Her all-covering black linen
gown was relieved only by a severe white starched rectangular bib,
in which was centered an ebony, silver-banded crucifix. About her
waist the nun wore a twisted silk rope, also black, which hung in
two plaits to the hem of her gown. One plait, knotted into three
knots, symbolized the Trinity. The other, knotted in the same man-
ner, symbolized the estates of poverty, chastity, and obedience. By
way of vivid contrast, her sisters wore chains of wrought gold or
silver about their waists, and each woman had attached to her chain
a rosary, a needlecase, a mirror, or simply a set of household keys.