Born to a former mercernary turned tavern keeper, the wild Irish rose learned early that life isn't fair. Her mother died with her birth leaving her to be raised by a gruff but practical man with little knowledge of females. He treated the bit of a thing like a boy, dressing her like a boy, letting her grow up wild, running the streets with the boys. And while it may not have been the proper way to raise a girl, it did well with marycatherine. She grew up tough and street smart. Good training for a wee slip of a lass soon to be orphaned.

It was the summer she turned 16. Her father stepped in to stop a fight between two drunken mercenaries and was knifed in the the action. The knife had been poisoned.

He lingered for a week. The wound putrifying, he rambled out of his head most of the time. Others he was lucid but worried about the child.

The tavern earned a living but not enough to save anyting for the girl's future. Worse, she was too young to run the place on her own. Greedy men out there would take the tavern away from her. Worse they would take her virtue and her self respect and seek to subject her to their lusts, never bothering to woo her with words of love and forever after.

He called an old friend to his death bed. A man known well and not known at all. He had once been the best thief in all of Ireland. Mayhap the world. But he claimed to be retired now. Some claimed he would never retire, but no one could prove he was still in the business of relieving others of 'unwanted' items. Either way, he was still a feared and respected man.

He struck a deal with marycatherine's father. He would take over the tavern, rename it maybe, but he would keep the girl with him, protect her, maybe even teach her his art.

He moved into the tavern after the funeral and began to change things to suit him. Some changes were subtle. Others were blatant like the huge diamond set into the shape of a spider that dominated the wall behind the bar and gave the bar its name - The Diamond Spider Tavern.

A new chapter began in the girl's unconventional life.