Page 43 of The Pirate Queen

“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 chorráin 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?”