The Pirate Queen

Part 1 - Chapters 1 to 7

The steel is sharp because Cook put it to the whetstone that morning, and even so, the girl's hand trembles as she severs her braid in one swipe. She shakes it in her father's face and hopes her fear looks like anger. Five-year-old Grace, storm born, has decided knives bring good luck and the sea belongs to her. She repeats it like a refrain.

Her father is Edin O'Malley, The O'Malley, her mother is Maeve, and on this night they lie in their bedchamber on Clare Island while their daughter sits at the base of the stairs, listening to the story of her own birth. She has been pushing hair from her eyes for three days, ever since she took the knife to her braid. She cannot tie it back. Even if her mother had not made her promise, she would never cut it again. But now she is grateful for her rash behavior. It got his attention. Maybe knives are not such dangerous toys after all.

Her father has a son, older than Grace, born to Aisling, the woman who walked into the tower house during Edin and Maeve's wedding celebration seven years ago and presented the boy before an audience. To his new bride. Aisling drove a wedge that Edin still cannot pry loose. The words tumble out now because he is tired. He tells Maeve that Donal does not look at Niamh that way, that he is afraid of every boat he sets foot on. Maeve turns to stone, then turns away.

Edin was young when he lay with Donal's mother on that knoll above the village. He learned early that the chieftain's son does not have to beg. They all want the man, the title. Aisling went without promises. But he cannot say he did not know what might happen. He was seventeen and she was lifting her skirts and that was as far as his thoughts had gone. Now he has a son and a wife and a daughter. In that order. And he cannot do right by any of them.

He asks Maeve to speak. She says she wishes she had known about Donal. He asks if it would have changed her mind. She says it would not have mattered, the decision was arranged between their fathers. But it would have been nice to know what she was coming here to manage. They had arrived at Clare Island besotted with each other seven years ago. Both clans strengthened, with the added bonus of attraction. Then Aisling walked into the tower house during their celebration, leading Donal by his chubby hand, and presented his son before an audience. To his new bride.

He tells her he should have told her. Telling his wife he is sorry will not make Donal any less real. Nor will it give him the chance to go back and turn away when Aisling took his hand. All of it happened years before he ever went to Liscannor or saw all that glorious red hair of Maeve's. Her blue eyes. Her smile wide as the horizon.

Maeve tells him she did not realize she had married a liar, and she could not cut him more cleanly had she taken a knife to his throat. He whispers that it is not fair. She asks if it is not. He lied to her. And he lied to their daughter. He asks what she would have him do. She tells him to make it right. He asks how, thinking of Donal. Would she have him reject the boy? Though he does not love Aisling, he does love his son. She tells him to take Grainne with him. He lifts onto his elbow. Take her to sea. It is all she wants.

Edin cannot imagine it. Edin O'Malley has never been to sea with a woman. He takes his family through the bay on Niamh often enough. But open water? It is the worst kind of luck. He is silent so long that Maeve laughs. She asks if he is a coward as well. His chest fills with righteous indignation. But his voice catches when she speaks again. She asks if he remembers the night Grace was born.

Of course he does. When her pains started, he said their child would be storm born, that it was a good omen. She says she did not think so at the time. He hears the bitterness in his own words when he asks who told her that, the midwife. There is a single midwife on Clare Island and she happens to be Aisling's mother. He had insisted on being in the room with Maeve as she labored. He would not trust the life of his wife and unborn child into the hands of a woman who had every interest in seeing them die in childbed. The old bitch had sulked from sunset to sunrise, but Grace was born alive and Maeve was breathing too.

Maeve says it was her own mother who told her that, though he hears the humor in her voice. Said no woman ever despairs more than in the hours before pushing a child into the world. He tells her he has never seen a worse storm than the one their daughter was born into. Hours of pelting rain and shattering thunder. Maeve sits up and leans over him, her eyes almost black in the dim light. She asks if, after all that, he really thought the sea would not call to her.

He has not once thought about the circumstances of her birth since the moment Grainne was put into his arms. Finally, to his relief, Maeve reaches out and lays a hand against his cheek. She asks what color her eyes are. He hears the surrender in his own voice when he answers: gray. She asks gray like what. Like the sea. She smiles at him. He asks if she thinks her eyes are gray because she belongs to the sea. She answers no, lowering herself so that her head rests upon his chest. She thinks they are gray because the sea belongs to her.

It does not occur to either of them that the girl might not be in bed. In fact, Grace sits at the base of the stairs, listening. She shivers with anticipation. There is silence in the bedchamber, so she assumes they have fallen asleep. Though she yawns, Grace does not return to bed. Instead, she glides down the stairs on the balls of her feet. One floor. Two. She is swift and quiet, like the byre cat she sneaks into her room every night. She comes to a stop in the middle of the kitchen. Checks that Cook is asleep. The concept of stealing is foreign to Grace. As far as she has been taught, this is her home and everything in it belongs to her. So it is no crime to reach up and take the bone-handled knife.

Swift feet propel her back to the garret, and when she passes the privy chamber, she wonders if her parents have fallen into bad dreams. Why else the moaning? No matter. Grace crawls back into bed and tucks the knife beneath her pillow. The cat is on her blanket, as usual, and snuggles closer. The girl listens to the tap-tap-tapping of water on the slate roof and smiles. She is storm born. Knives bring good luck. The sea belongs to her. The refrain lulls her back to sleep.

Fifteen years later, Grace is twenty years old and being a wife does not suit her. Nor does the role of Bean an Ti. She is young still, more than half wild, and Bunowen Castle is a strange place. She has not felt at home within its walls a single day since she arrived. The tower house was a gift to her husband upon his being named chieftain at Bunowen, a tidy way of keeping him occupied until he replaces his father as The O'Flaherty. Grace spends most days alone, for her husband is often away. On clan business, she is told. But the truth is that he loves nothing more than marauding. And Grace is certain that he loves her not at all. She is a prize that, now won, has been discarded.

But Grace is not idle. There is an estate, and its people, to manage. The steward and the brewer. A cook. Attendants for cleaning and serving food. A young boy of twelve who keeps the hearth fires going. He is called Gutty by everyone. A dirty child with a bright smile and a propensity for muttering curse words beneath his breath. And then there are the dairy maids, and the bakers, a weaver, a gardener, herdsmen. And a small fian of soldiers assigned to guard the castle. Two of them, the Murray twins, have been assigned to guard Grace specifically. And then there is the clan itself, many thousands of men and women and children who look to her for guidance. Two dozen towns that require her constant attention.

Grace has been sent off to a very pretty prison. Bunowen Castle is a fortress of stone, hemmed in on all sides by the rugged beauty of Ireland. The tower house sits on a rise overlooking the Bay of Bunowen and is sheltered from the harsh westerly gales by the Hill of Doon. To the east, the estate is cut off from the rest of Umhall by the treacherous fjord of Killary. The steep quartzite peaks of the Twelve Bens rise above the horizon to the north. And to the south is a short stretch of green meadow, then a perfect half circle of white-sand beach that dips into the blue waters of the bay.

It is to this beach that Grace retreats each afternoon. When she first arrived, the steward insisted she be accompanied by the Murray twins, but Grace informed him that, were they to follow, neither would return alive. When the steward laughed, Grace put the point of her knife beneath his chin. He gasped. Then blinked hard as a trickle of warm blood ran down his throat. Grace allowed him to step away with his dignity and his jugular intact, and no one has intruded on her daily respite since.

Today she has brought bread slathered with butter, a hunk of cheese, and a skin filled with ale. The beach is strewn with large, low boulders and she climbs atop her favorite, a knobby chunk of black volcanic rock that crouches halfway in the water like an old fat toad. It is warm from the sun and she lets the heat sink through her skirts and into her skin. October has brought cool winds and piles of seaweed to shore. It is the color of amber and has the soft smell of decay. Kelp flies buzz in happy circles as seabirds swoop along the drifts, picking out a meal of sandhoppers, mites, and rove beetles.

Grace has not cried since her first day at Bunowen. A single day was all she gave herself to mourn the life she had and the future she will never get. That day, she came to the beach and began the ritual that has grounded her ever since. She takes a deep breath, closes her eyes, and lets the water speak to her. It is a voice she feels in her bones, a sense that keeps her company through her long, lonely days. She asks the water: What will you be today? The sea has ever-changing moods.

The answer rises in her not as sound but as certainty. I will bring you joy. She opens her eyes and finds only the distant horizon, feels a breeze that is crisp rather than cold, and instead of gratitude she feels rage. The only thing that can bring her joy, she says aloud, is to be on the sea rather than looking at it. She watches until her hour has passed, and it is only while wiping breadcrumbs from her lap that she spots the familiar dark hulk and trio of white sails on the horizon. Niamh.

"You!" she shouts in delight, and her brother shouts back that he is a captain, only for today. Donal splashes through the shallows with a dark-headed toddler on his hip while very pregnant Nora lumbers through the sand beside him. His face is pallid as he watches Sivney drag the rowboat ashore, and the first mate looks both amused and irritated that Donal still has not found his sea legs. Grace points out it would have been easier to sail around to the harbor, then throws herself into her brother's arms the moment he sets the little girl down. He asks what fun there would be in that, and adds that this child is just like her aunt and loves nothing more than getting wet.

Grace crouches for a closer look. The girl is unmistakably Donal's daughter, but she has Nora's wide brown Spanish eyes. Nora names her Grainne, an old family name they wanted to keep alive, and Grace blinks hard to hold back sudden tears. She runs a thumb through the girl's soft curls, tells them she is glad they have come, and asks how many they are. Four, Donal says, nodding to those in the rowboat, and another twenty as crew. Grace promises them all a fine dinner, then extends her hand to the child and is stunned when a chubby palm is set in hers. She asks whether there is a reason for the visit. There is, Donal tells her. He carries a message for her husband.

In the Great Hall, Grainne says her husband is away, and Donal does not miss that she cannot quite meet his eyes or that her smile sits stiff on her face. Someone behind them spits that her fecking husband is always away; Donal thinks it might be the dirty boy who tends the fires, but the boy's back is turned and he is already speeding from the hall. Grainne offers to take the message and relay it to mo fhear, and Donal snorts. Four years, and she still will not say his name. She tells him she only has room for one Donal, and then her brother comes through the door.

Part 2 - Chapters 8 to 9

Edin O'Malley stands on the deck of his galley, watching his daughter with pride and dread. Grainne is eight years old, half wild, and prettier than she ought to be. She has her mother's Scottish nose, a full mouth prone to impudence, and eyes that alarm him: gray at rest, tinged with green when fury takes her. She has not allowed anyone to braid her hair since the day he severed her braid three years ago.

He has finally agreed to take her to Galway. The city he hates most. He has charted the hardest route and ordered the crew to show her no mercy. The men scowled at him. Grainne is their favorite. Her greatest gift is making people like her, and Edin is certain she is quietly winning the crew over to her side.

Maeve made him promise not to let their daughter be hurt. He assured her he only means to scare Grainne off this idea once and for all. He warned Maeve that he intends to make her cry. The men believe any woman on board a ship is a bad omen. The devil's ballast. Maeve countered that Grainne is not yet a woman, only a girl.

Now Grainne bounds to his side, her feet barely touching the dark wet sand. The galley waits, docked at the base of the rocky headland. Above them, the tower house sits squat and gray. Maeve stands at the door waving goodbye, and Grainne grins and flings her arm in the air. Edin has never understood long goodbyes, but he can never get away from these two without hugs and kisses and waving that lasts until he's out of sight.

Edin lifts his daughter over the gap between dock and galley. She watches her toes curl against the wooden planks, then looks at everything all at once, drinking it in, trying not to look triumphant. Niamh is the largest ship in Ireland, named for the daughter of the sea god Manannan. She can carry three hundred men and thousands of pounds of cargo.

Edin calls for Sivney, the first mate, and tells him to get them out of the harbor. Then he grabs Grainne's small, soft hand. Ninety men at oars watch them. Sivney begins shouting orders, but the only thing Edin tells his daughter is to choose an oar.

Her hands are blistered in less than an hour. There are fifteen oars each side of the galley, three men per oar. There is no room for Grainne on any of the benches. But her father ordered her to row, so she squeezed between two men near the prow on the starboard side. One is old, wizened like dried meat. The other is a boy slightly older than Donal, perhaps fifteen, with fledgling whiskers and a perpetual scowl. His name is Ultan. He glares at Grainne every time she looks at him.

Neither speaks to her. Questions make them angry. Talking makes them angry. Looking at them makes them angry. She isn't just the captain's daughter; she is the chieftain's daughter. She shouldn't have to ask; she ought to know. So Grainne watches and listens. She tries to match the calls with the motion of the oars and the movement of the boat. Her hands are raw and an ache splinters across her lower back, but Grainne doesn't complain. She mimics the motions of the men beside her, albeit a breath late every time.

It's not yet noon, but the sky has a tinge of granite and the clouds are hard flat lines stacked like slate tiles. Grainne knows a storm when she sees one but cannot understand why her father would depart with a gale building out to sea. She hasn't looked at her father once since choosing an oar, but she can feel his gaze on her. They are still close enough to home for him to change his mind, so she keeps her eyes on the shoreline.

Sivney yells for them to avast and all ninety men lift their sculls so the blades are parallel with the water. Within seconds they are latched into place. Sivney orders them to ready the sails, and ninety men call back their readiness. The three great swaths of canvas are unfurled and Sivney's order rings out to make sail. The wind fills the sails with a sudden snap and Niamh glides forward in a rush. Grainne stumbles, then grabs a taut line so she doesn't crash to her knees.

In all the commotion, she does not hear her father step up behind her. But then there is a warm hand on her shoulder and another over her fingers where she grips the sheet line so tightly that her knuckles are white. He tells her not to be afraid. Confused, she looks up at him, her smile wide and her eyes glowing. Why would she be afraid? This is the very thing she wants. Adventure. Danger. And though she says nothing, she sees the disapproval in his expression.

The mood on deck rises like the swell of a wave. To her left she can see Roonah Point falling farther away as they head into the North Atlantic, closer to the building storm. She asks why this way. He tells her there is something he wants to teach her: that the sea is not her friend.

Grainne lets her hand fall from the rope. She flexes her stiff fingers once to get the blood moving again, then drops her hand to her side, where it lies flat against the thick wool of her skirt and the slight bulge where Cook's knife rests in a scabbard strapped to her slender thigh. She won the scabbard from Donal in a game of chess three weeks after she stole the knife, and has worn them both ever since. She looks up at her father and tells him it doesn't have to be her friend for it to be hers. It could be the motion of the boat, but she thinks Edin stumbles back a step in surprise.

Grainne never asks to go to the cabin. Not when the wind howls in earnest or when the rain begins to hammer the deck like stinging needles. Not when Niamh lists portside or when sheets of water stream off the sails and down the back of her dress. She doesn't cry and she doesn't beg, even though Edin sees her small body shiver in the cold and her lips turn blue. She holds to that rope as though it is the only thing tethering her to this world. But she does it with a wild grin on her face.

He has never been more afraid in his life. Edin O'Malley, Chief of the Name, is afraid because his daughter is not. He's wagered everything on this. He needs her to be a noblewoman. He needs her to stay ashore and build his family name, to give him grandchildren. What he doesn't need is for her to take after him. That he wants from Donal. But the boy sits five rows back, crying like a pup. The boy is weeping and the girl is laughing and Edin has only one option left.

He tells Sivney to make it worse for her. The first mate spits his disgust, pointing out she's only a wee thing. Edin calls her a stubborn wee thing who is not scared enough. Sivney roars at the men that Manannan is in a foul mood today and must be in want of a song. Laughter and hooting follow. Somewhere midship, a deep baritone voice rises above the wind with a bawdy limerick about a rooster in Spain.

But still, it's not enough. Edin says they're holding back. Make it worse. One after another, the men on board Niamh call out the dirtiest limericks they know. But Grainne never cries, not when the sky darkens to a menacing slate, or when the chalk-tipped waves crash against the bulwarks. She does not turn from her place in the prow as they race into the dusk.

Edin promised not to let his daughter die. And she's not been in any real danger since they set out from Clare. But she is freezing and hungry and shaking like a reed in the hissing, spitting wind. So he picks her up and carries her toward the cabin. He grabs Donal on the way for good measure, and neither of them argues.

Edin yanks open the door to his cabin and pushes the children in, not gently. Grainne is silent, her gray eyes large and filled with an unnerving light. Donal, too, is wide-eyed, but his are glazed with fear. It had not occurred to Edin that this would be his first storm as well. The poor boy looks stricken. Edin had only Grainne in mind, and now he could curse himself. Donal, an afterthought, as always.

He tells them it's dark and they will not leave this cabin. There is bread and fruit and water. Leave a loaf for him, but they have the rest. Donal takes the hammock. Grainne gets the bed. Either of them steps one foot outside this cabin and he'll whip them within an inch of their lives. He's not so much as laid a hand to Grainne in all eight years of her life. He couldn't. But she cannot know that. So he shuts his children inside the cabin and leans against the door.

There are three loaves of oat bread on the sideboard, along with a bag of apples and a skin of water. Donal tears off half of one loaf, grabs an apple, and climbs into the hammock. He tells her to drink, then he'll go. Grainne doesn't argue. Her lips are chapped from the salt and she is thirstier than she's ever been. She takes several long gulps, then wipes her mouth and hands the skin to her brother. The children stare at each other for a moment, each realizing this is the first time in their lives that they have ever been left unattended. She is startled when he laughs at her. He points out the wind has given her elflocks, tangles like it's been plaited by fairies. He tells her she looks a fright and to tie it back next time.

Donal is dark like their father, hair black and skin tanned from long hours on deck, but his eyes are different. A younger version of the same green. Brighter. Less hardened by time and circumstance, and always ready to smile. Grainne doesn't know what to do with this boy they call her brother, doesn't know how to speak with him, if she's even allowed. So she surveys the small dim cabin instead. A map of Ireland hangs on the portside wall, and a blunderbuss sits in a wooden rack on the starboard side. She has never seen a firelock before, so she moves to the wall and reaches for it.

Donal shouts at her not to touch that, nearly tumbling out of the hammock as he tries to swat her hand away. Her face must show hurt and alarm, because he adds that it's loaded. Da always keeps it loaded. Could kill them both. Her cheeks burn as she lets her hand drop. The cabin is swallowed in silence again and she finds herself wanting to flee. So Grainne says the first thing that comes to mind: she doesn't hate him.

Donal blinks at her. Why would she? He's the one who's supposed to hate her. She says no one hates her, certain it's the truth. He tells her of course they do. She demands he name one person. His mam, he tells her. Grainne has never met Donal's mother, has never even seen the woman. So he may as well be saying that his frying pan hates her. She demands he name another. He shrugs and says his granny also hates her. She asks why his granny hates her. Grainne doesn't have a granny. Both of hers are dead.

Because their da married her mam and not his, Donal tells her. She says that isn't her fault. No, but it makes him a bastard and her an heir. It's why she lives in the castle and he doesn't. She argues that it's not a castle, it's a tower house. Donal laughs and she thinks it's a pleasant sound. She's heard mean laughter before. She knows the difference. He tells her everyone on Clare calls it a castle. Hasn't she seen where he lives? She guesses a house. He says that's a polite word for hut. It's one big smoky room with a cooking pit in the floor for them. Thatch roofs and dirt floors too.

Every trip to the village has been with her mother or father or Cook. And never once has she been invited into a home, so she doesn't know what to say. It sounds like he is accusing her of something. Grainne picks an apple from the bag and tears off a chunk of bread. She sits on the edge of the bed to ponder this new information. The apple is soft and wrinkled and doesn't have much flavor. But now that she's taken a bite, her stomach declares its hunger and she takes three more, chewing slowly and swallowing quickly. Donal watches her finish the apple, core and all, then start on the bread.

She finally says it doesn't matter, wiping breadcrumbs from her skirt. She bets his house smells like peat smoke, same as hers. He considers this for a moment, then nods, acknowledging her point. Grainne passes the waterskin when he reaches for it. He gulps and gulps, then finally hands it back, significantly lighter.

He asks why their father brought her this time. She says because she keeps asking. He shakes his head. That's not it. He keeps asking him to stay and he never lets him. She asks if he doesn't want to sail. He tells her he hates it. Makes him sick. Most times Da leaves a bucket in here for him. He'd rather be home with his mam. Playing with his dog. Working in the garden or watching the sheep. Anywhere but here. Donal's confession gives Grainne the chance to ask something she's been curious about. She asks if he has any brothers or sisters besides her

Part 3 - Chapters 10 to 12

Grace stands in the upper yard of Dublin Castle, watching Sir Richard Bingham hang another of her husband's kin. Every week until mid-September, he kills them. Men, mostly, but a handful of boys. Always after church, when he is dressed in his Sunday best. Bingham claims martial law, as though half-starved men in dungeons pose any risk. There are no hearings. No trials. Just a parade through Dublin and a long drop at the end of a rope.

Grace looks each of them in the eye before the trapdoor falls. She tries to give them courage. None cry. None beg. Every week she is marched into the upper yard expecting to see one of her children. But it never happens. The longer Bingham takes to find them, the better her odds.

The smells of summer have been replaced with the hint of turning leaves. It rains most afternoons. There is a creeping chill in her cell, an unwelcome dampness to the stone. Her lungs feel wet. She coughs at night. There is a new persistent pain in her back. There are bars on her window, but no glass. She is at the mercy of the elements.

It is Sunday again, and Grace wonders who Bingham intends to hang today. She worries her time has run out. When the knock comes, she does not have the heart to look. The scrape of a key and the groan of old hinges, and there he is, smiling as usual.

"You have a visitor," Bingham says. "I believe you know Richard Bourke?"

Her heart should not leap the way it does. She knows better. But her body responds to that name and her eyes shift to the doorway nonetheless. Too many Donals. Too many Richards. Why is her life plagued by men who share the names of those she loves? This one is welcome, though not the man she wants to see.

"I do not know this man as Richard Bourke," Grace answers as she rises. She is ashamed to be found in this condition. So dirty and unkempt. She brushes the filth from her dress. Tries to smooth her hair.

"But you do know him?" Bingham asks.

She sighs. "Yes, though I have always called him Hook."

The man beside Bingham is young. Not yet forty, and not nearly so handsome as his namesake. But every bit as dark with all that black Bourke hair, that wild beard. He is dressed the part of The MacWilliam too, and she knows that must hurt his pride. Hook prefers warrior's garb.

"Richard"—she motions to Bingham—"meet Richard." Another sweep of her hand to Hook. "Too many fecking Richards on this fecking island."

"I thought they called you the Demon of Corraun?" Bingham asks.

"They?"

"Your enemies."

"You'll have to specify which ones," Hook answers with a disinterested drawl. "I have many."

Bingham is not a man familiar with smiling, and he doesn't now. It's more a twisting of his features. A polite grimace. "The ones that answer to me."

"Ah. The English, you mean? Devil. Demon. Isn't much difference between the two. And chorrdin means 'sickle,' is all."

"He was cutting barley," Grace explains, "when his family's lands were raided. He killed three English with a scythe."

"Only because a sword wasn't handy. It would have been six otherwise."

"I am not interested in these vainglorious exploits," Bingham snaps. "Another word and I'll consider it a confession and throw you in with her."

Hook appears neither alarmed nor uneasy. "Well?" he asks Grace. "Are you coming? I didn't travel all this way to chat."

There is a line of red along Bingham's cheekbone that she had taken for a shaving rash. But now she sees it for the anger that it is. She also notes the papers wadded in his fist. There's a bit of wax seal, but nothing left of the stamp to read.

"This man has secured your release," Bingham says, barely stopping himself from grinding his teeth.

When Hook steps forward, he is careful to keep one big foot outside the cell so that Bingham and the guards cannot shove him inside. He holds out a hand to Grace. "Her Majesty agreed that you were kidnapped, not captured, and she ordered Bingham to release you forthwith," Hook says.

Her mouth falls open. "You don't mean..."

"The English queen? Yes. She understands that there is an immediate threat to your life, given these weekly hangings. That bit of confetti in Bingham's fist is a royal warrant ordering your release. I would have gotten you sooner, but Bingham refused to have you escorted from the castle, and it took a second order from the local magistrate to let me in."

Hook takes hold of her wrist. Cool and calloused, his grip is iron, and he pulls her from the cell and into the short hallway. They are moving then, toward the narrow spiral staircase that descends the Bermingham Tower. Hook does not speak again until they are outside in the courtyard.

"Do not look back," he whispers. "The guards are gathered, waiting for any excuse."

"How?" she asks, her voice low enough that no passerby can hear.

"It would seem that the Queen's spymaster has come to your aid." He crooks an eyebrow. "Again."

"You sent word to Walsingham?"

"Surely you didn't think we'd leave you in that tower to rot?"

"You would risk your position as The MacWilliam? You've only just earned it. This is a dangerous game to play, Hook."

"No more dangerous than dancing on the gallows," he tells her. "And how did you get to the magistrate?"

"How do you think?"

"Bribery?" she asks.

"Blackmail is easier. And cheaper. Took a week for Gutty to learn that the magistrate keeps a room reserved at a brothel on Winetavern Street."

Grace walks faster to match Hook's speed as they approach the castle gates. "Am I right to assume that this particular School of Venus specializes in the kind of flesh that would end the magistrate's career?"

"I'd. But please do not ask what kind, Grainne. You are the only person I have time to liberate today."

Grace wants to look back at the tower. But no. She has been locked up in that cursed Norman fortress twice already in her life and is determined not to endure a third stay. So she keeps her eyes on the gate and the rusted portcullis that hangs above the opening. It feels like walking toward a gaping, toothy maw. They'll be dead if anyone releases the chains and drops that spiked barrier on them.

"I did not take you for a superstitious man," Grace says as they pass beneath. Hook turns that big scowling face at her in question. "You're holding your breath."

He lets it out in a huff. "Superstition has kept me alive this long. No point fighting it now."

Once they are beyond the portcullis, Grace braves a glance behind her and finds Bingham standing just inside the gate, watching them leave.

"He followed, didn't he?" Hook asks.

"He's stopped now."

"Bingham will try again, you know? It was foolish to go after his brother."

"And what would you have done if he'd your son killed?"

Hook nods, considering. "I would have let the scythe rust before I used it to cut his throat."

Beyond the walls, Hook does not let go of her wrist and she does not pull away. He is tense. Waiting for an ambush. Or an arrow. Or shouts demanding that they stop. Downhill now as the ground shifts from smooth cobbles into a muddy lane that leads north. Past St. Werburgh's Church, its stone walls proud and defiant amongst the smaller wooden structures that surround it. Hook pulls her this way and that, guiding her around the carts and cattle and merchants that crowd the lane. East on Skinner's Row, then by Christ Church Cathedral.

"Where are we going?" Grace asks, hoping he will say an inn, hoping a proper bath is in her future.

"Niamh. She lies at anchor."

That had not even occurred to her. "Ultan?" she asks.

"And Gutty. And those damned twins you're so fond of. Ugliest fecks I have ever seen in my life."

Small thatched houses and open gutters and the smell of river where the Liffey and Poddle converge. Fish and manure and leatherworks. It smells of city and people and sewage, and Grace only now allows herself to remember the scent of open ocean and green grass. She might actually get out of here. She might finally be free.

When they reach Winetavern Street, Hook turns north again and heads downhill toward the river. Grace scans the doorways of each building they pass, looking for the telltale signs of women lingering out front, advertising the bawdy house within.

"Don't even think about it," Hook says. "Not if you want to get out of this city alive. I told you, we don't have time. The brothels aren't our concern."

Ladders and carts and cranes. The merchant district bustles and everything is for sale. Goods and people. Grace will never understand cities. Nor could she ever live in one. There, in the distance, she can finally see the Pale—that great stone wall surrounding Dublin City. Everything within is civilization, they say, and everything without is barbaric. Grace has seen the world they call civilized. She would take a life beyond the Pale over that any day. Woods and waters and endless skies. The road is steeper now. Rutted. Her left knee aches from the descent.

"And how is my daughter, then?" she asks. "I assume you're treating her well?"

"I'd." Hook laughs at this sudden change of subject. He smiles and the affection transforms his face. "I know well enough that you'd cut my throat if I didn't. She's another bdb on the way. Two more months, I'd guess, based on the size of her."

Grace has ten grandchildren already. This will be the eleventh. She hopes her daughter is getting a girl. She wants her daughter to have a child who takes after her, someone who will understand the parts of her that a son never could.

They reach the Liffey a few minutes later and he leads her toward the wooden quay, then beyond, where she recognizes two ships anchored farther out near the river's mouth, ready and waiting.

"You brought Saoirse?"

"I've a pregnant wife to get home to. And I'd no idea where you'll be headed after this. I sail home today."

Grace knows exactly where she's going, but doesn't tell him. Not after he's gone to all that trouble with the Queen's spymaster. Hook notes her expression. Snorts. "Nowhere good, I see."

"You will give her my love, though, won't you? Margaret?"

"She misses you," he says. "You should visit your daughter more often so I don't have to hear the same stories over and over. I'm tired of 'Hen's Castle' and 'The Dark Lady of Doona' and 'Corsairs from Algeria.' I'll sleep better, myself, if I never again have to hear the story of how you stole Rockfleet Castle right out from under my uncle's nose. These are the bedtime stories she tells our son! No fairy tales for my Richard. Nooo. And did you really kidnap a child from his own doorstep?"

"Of course not!" she argues. "I took him from the beach."

Hook looks at her, scandalized. "Why would you brag about such things to your own daughter?"

"Perhaps I wanted her to consider her other paths for her life?" Grace says. "She was awfully young when you came courting."

"I'm starting to think I saved her from a life of debauchery," Hook laughs.

It smells of marsh now. Of low tide. Reed and salt. Thick mud and wet grass and the gentle rot of once-living things. She can fully inhale for the first time since July. Grace fills her lungs and tilts her face to the sky.

"There's Gutty," he says.

Hook points to a rowboat pulled to the river's edge and the man who waits impatiently, bouncing on the balls of his feet. When Gutty sees them, he raises an arm in greeting, then pushes the boat a bit farther into the water so they can be gone the moment they're on board. Grace wants to hug Gutty, but doesn't. She is always delighted to see him alive, always surprised he hasn't gotten himself killed this time. Though only eight years younger than Grace, he will forever be a boy to her. But he is not shy about grabbing her and pulling her tight.

"Gutty. I'm pleased to see you too." She laughs.

"Captain." He motions for her to get into the rowboat, then clears some emotion from his throat with a growl. Grace moves to a narrow bench to make room for Hook, then lets them take up the oars.

"Thank you," she says. They both shrug but say nothing more.

There is no feeling in all the world like being on water. And once they are away from the riverbank, Grace lets herself relax. Finally. Somewhere in Dublin Castle, on top of that hill, Sir Richard Bingham is standing at a window cursing himself or God or whatever it is he actually believes in that he did not hang Grace when he had the chance. The Queen and her spymaster might have been angry to lose the carefully curated information that Grace has provided all these years, but it would have been too late.

They are quiet as they row toward Niamh. Quiet until the small rowboat bumps up against the smooth wood strakes and a rope ladder is tossed over the edge.

"I am glad my daughter married for love," she tells Hook. "I am glad it was you."

"And I am glad you let her."

"You'd have done it anyway," she laughs.

"I'd, we'd have run off and been handfast. But it would have been a mistake, and we both knew it."

Part 4 - Chapters 13 to 15

The night is dark above and dark below, cut in half only by a stretch of white sand, and Finn is losing the one battle he has spent years winning: keeping his voice from betraying him. Whatever she gives them is enough, he says. Murray catches his eye and shakes his head. Tell that to them in an hour, comes the answer. They crest the hill, and the North Atlantic stretches before them under a sky pricked with stars and a stingy moon. One hundred and fifteen stranded souls follow Grainne downhill to the beach, where a captured merchant vessel bobs at anchor, loaded heavy with goods, guarded by men loyal only to her. Hello, Mary Fortune, Grainne says.

One Day Out from Oban

Grace wakes to the sound of horses. They are a day out from Oban, their third trip to collect Gallowglass since her release from Dublin Castle, almost a month at sea and finally headed home. She presses her palms to her ears, but the sound goes on, steady and clear, deep in the North Atlantic. Then a noise that makes sense: the trill of seabirds, the Hebrides a riot of plume and wing this time of year.

Niamh is an old woman now, creaky in the joints. Grace pats the wall above her head like an old friend before throwing back the blanket. Her back aches, still not right after the long months in the tower at Dublin Castle. Three steps bring her to the window: clear indigo, a predawn sky, only one bloody band along the horizon. Still those thundering hooves. Think of me, bird, her father told her as he lay dying, when you hear Manannan's steed. She thinks of Edin O'Malley often, and of the heavy mantle he carried as Chief of the Name, a cost she did not understand then and has barely begun to pay herself.

She comes out in her leine and a blanket, hair a mad cloud, feet bare. The Gallowglass stare like she is some apparition as she climbs the steps. Three hundred Scottish mercenaries are spread between Niamh, Caoimhe, and the Roisin Dubh. Better with battle-axes than boats, these Scots, but she is grateful for them: the Devil's Hook needs every man at arms to beat back the English soldiers Bingham has sent, and this lot will bring his numbers near two thousand. They will bleed for anyone in exchange for a chance at killing the English. The Irish chieftains grant them cattle, grazing rights, a shot at wooing some young pretty Irish cailin. A system established centuries ago.

Ultan takes his wordless assessment of her disheveled state. Can they beat it, she asks. Beat what. The storm. He scowls at her bare feet, calls the cold a fairy's curse, and tells her she will not see a grander day in February. She insists foul weather will be on them in an hour. They spent the week in Oban collecting Gallowglass, then went by Kerrera and Mull into the Inner Hebridean seas, much of it rowing, before making for open water past Oronsay. Last night she felt confident enough to give Ultan the helm and go to bed. She slept deep and long.

Between Islay and Ulster, he tells her. They will turn west once the shoreline is in sight. Worst possible news: deep at sea, vulnerable to sinking in violent weather. She proposes turning back for Port Charlotte and anchoring in Loch Indaal until the storm passes. Ultan squints at the pewter sky, says he has felt more threatened by a bad day than by this weather, then thinks. Southeasterly wind, clear skies, mild seas, tidal streams pushing east and slowing them a few knots. Twelve hours back to Islay. Six to Ulster, where they could find anchorage if foul weather crops up, closer to home and saving a day of travel.

It is wise, and how is she to explain that it feels wrong, that her instincts are never wrong, that the hooves are always the first sign of a deadly storm? That conversation she has only ever had with her father, dead over twenty years. Ultan would think her addled. And Bingham's threats still ring in her ears; she has already lost one son to his hatred and will not lose another. Every Gallowglass delivered to Hook is another sword to hold Bingham at bay. One breath is all it takes to decide. She tells him only that the day doesn't feel right, then orders the signals: hoist all sails, make for Ulster.

The Storm

Grace is wrong. It takes less than an hour for the storm to develop. The sun is swallowed by a wall of boiling black cloud that forms out of nowhere, the wind shifts, and the sea churns and heaves like an upset stomach. A shudder runs along Niamh's spine as ocean and wind push them hard and fast toward Ulster's northern coastline. Ultan shouts into the wind, bent at the waist, one hand on the tiller and the other at his brow against the driving rain. He wants to know what devilry this is, how she knew it would go manky. It is her curse, she shouts back. That is not an answer.

She stands beside him fully dressed now, trews cinched, boots on, hair braided, one hand on the rail and the other on her compass, watching its bouncing needle and the sheets of rain. The ivory backing is yellowed, the silver case patinaed. She and the compass have both aged, hopefully with some grace, and at least they are both still in working order. Ultan glares as if she is keeping some great secret, and perhaps she is. He asks again. It doesn't matter now, she says. They would have been caught no matter what.

Lanterns swing wildly across the ship, stern, both masts, and bow, the only way for Caoimhe and the Roisin Dubh to keep them in sight, though the waves obscure both the shore and the fleet. When the storm shifts again and deepens like a growl, she realizes her grave error. Turning for Islay had been their only chance. It would not have saved them entirely, but at least the storm would not be at their back, pushing them toward Ulster as if Manannan himself wanted them dead. Perhaps he is angry with her for ignoring the Sense.

Strike the sails, she orders, and Ultan's eyes flash alarm before he relays the command. Men scatter to lower and secure the sails, cutting wind resistance, for if the masts break they will be at the mercy of an angry ocean. Ultan signals the other ships, throwing his cloak over the cabin deck lantern once, twice, thrice, and the signalmen repeat the sign in unison. Grace can only hope Caoimhe and the Roisin Dubh catch the warning. Keep her bow to the sea, she orders, so the waves cannot catch them broadside and capsize them; better to drive into the waves, to drop and be thrown skyward, than to be rolled under like a barrel. All men to stations or below, and tie the lifelines. The crew rigs ropes across the deck so they can move between stations when Niamh rolls and drops, instead of scrambling like crabs through the water washing over them.

Ultan curses and spits, blaspheming the English queen, his own mother, every saint in the canon, six different chieftains, and her as well, using the worst epithet he can think of for his own captain, her English name. He hates the fecking ocean, he says, a right merciless bitch. Liar, Grace shouts. He loves this more than any woman he has ever bedded. He laughs, wild and unguarded, and says he would not be the first man to love a thing that wants to kill him. There is a reason they name ships after women, she tells him. If that was meant to encourage, he says, she will be worse at it than fog on a wet day. She laughs, then shouts to the crew to bind themselves if needed.

Onward an hour, then two. In their third hour she loses all sight of the fleet, though that means little when she cannot see stern to bow on Niamh and her own lanterns are drowned by the rain. The storm has swallowed them whole. Grace ought to be afraid, and she is, in the mortal sense; she knows she might die this day. But something else stirs her soul, awe and wonder and a wild thrill, a feeling no one can ever experience unless they find themselves in the grip of something far greater than themselves. Something decides whether the fist will close and crush her or whether she will feel a breeze at her neck, dandelion fuzz blown to safety. She feels the power, the might of the entire ocean, no gentle breeze but the raging breath of God. It will be what it will be. No man leaves his post, she shouts, fearing the wind has stolen her words. Arm yourselves with courage.

When Niamh runs aground, it is with the sound of breaking bones. Terror grips her throat at the thought of all those Gallowglass belowdecks gasping for air as the sea rushes through a broken hull, but the impact throws her forward, headfirst, into the rail. It is the kind of pain you can see, a strike of lightning that turns you blind and makes your teeth scream. After that, only darkness.

On the Sand at Culdaff

Is she dead? It is one of the Gallowglass, big and bearded, who had not liked the idea of sailing with a woman and had been mouthy enough to need shutting up before they left Oban. The bruise blooming under his eye is all purple and angry, and if Ultan's left knuckles are sore, it only means he has executed his duties as first mate. Grainne lies on the sand, pale as the inside of an oyster shell, her hair a bloody matted heap, sand in her trews from being dragged across the beach. The cut on her scalp will not stop oozing. Ultan grunts and shakes his head: she is out cold but breathing steady. If not for the tiller he would have gone flying too; instead he flipped over the heavy wooden beam and landed on his back with the wind knocked out of him.

The Gallowglass asks whether it bothers him, sailing under a woman. Ultan laughs. That right there is more banshee than woman, touched by Manannan himself, and he would sail under her before ten men who call themselves captain. Unconvinced, the Scot spits into the sand beside Grainne's head, pleased with himself. Ultan's punch lands exactly where the one in Oban landed, and this time the skin splits along the tender cheekbone. The man stumbles onto his knees; Ultan catches him by the hair, yanks his head back, and sets his blade to the thick bearded neck. Does he know what they say about the banshee, a harbinger of death? He shoves the Gallowglass closer until his head is a foot from Grainne. Best pray she doesn't open her eyes, or it is his death she will foresee. Grainne's eyes do not flutter open. They snap, dark and intense, fixed on the Gallowglass, and he screams and swats at Ultan's hands. Ultan shoves him face-first into the sand and orders him off to help salvage the cargo, since he will need every bit of food he can carry for the march to Mayo.

Only when Grainne laughs does Ultan turn from the retreating man. How did he know she was awake? He saw her clutching the sand, and remarks that the fecker likely pissed himself and deserved it. He pulls her to sitting. She sways, then makes a slow assessment of her own body. Her fingers come away bloody from her head and she holds them up in question; he shrugs. She bled something awful, but there is no real damage. She was out an hour, maybe a bit longer. She went into the cabin deck rail when they ran aground, and the worst of the wind and rain was gone soon after; the whole thing went as quickly as it came. Niamh has a torn hull but no other structural damage, and the crew has been unloading the hold. Three Gallowglass dead. Both Caoimhe and the Roisin Dubh ran aground farther down the beach, Caoimhe on sand but with both masts snapped, the rigging cut loose or she would be on the ocean floor, and Roisin with a broken hull after being thrown onto the rocks. Both lost a few Gallowglass. Eleven between the three ships, which is no small miracle. They should all be sunk.

Ultan clears his throat once, twice, until she looks up. He is tired of asking. How did she know? He cannot name a single time she has ever lied to him; she has often been silent, or defensive, but never dishonest. It is a thing she got from her father, she says. Like that compass? No, like an eye color. His were blue. She glares at him. Her father gave it to her and called it the Sense, a way of knowing when a storm is coming, something passed through generations by Manannan himself. Ultan sailed with her father for ten years and never heard a word about it, and he has been with her for twenty, and today, after being thrown onto the rocks, she finally tells him about this gift. Curse, she corrects, stretching her jaw as if it aches. They have never been through a storm like that. They have been through plenty. It isn't every storm, only the worst ones. They should have turned back for Islay. She Knew it, ignored it, and now there are men dead. Those same men volunteered to bleed and die for her on land, he points out. What difference does it make if it happens at sea? It would not have been her that killed them. She is the most stubborn woman he has ever known, he tells her, but even she does not command the sea, nor its God.

He helps her to her feet.