Page 116 of The Pirate Queen

Her men show no mercy.

As for Grace, she marches into the camp looking for the sheriff. He was asleep, of course, tucked into his bedroll, but now he’s scooted up against the bristly trunk of a pine tree, eyes wild.

“I am the sheriff of Mayo!” he screams at Gutty. “I am on official business.”

Young Richard is there as well, his scythe held close to the sheriff’s bare throat. Grace can see his Adam’s apple bobbing in terror.

She approaches them, giving little mind to the shouts and curses and clanging of metal all around her. She has almost seventy men to his twenty-five. Hers will barely break a sweat.

Grace crouches at the sheriff’s feet. Tilts her head to the side. She rests her elbows on the knees of her sailing trews and enjoys the look on his face when he realizes this war party has been led not just by a woman, but by her.

“O’Malley,” he snaps, “call your men off.”

“No.”

“This is treason. You’ll all be hanged.”

She makes a show of looking around the camp, at the sparks flying as men fight through the fires, at the bodies lying all around them. “By who?”

“Bingham.”

“Much to my disappointment, he is not here. I have been waiting most of my life to get him at the pointy end of my blade.”

“I’ll tell him. And he will come for you.”

“You will be dead in a few minutes, Sheriff. You’ll tell him nothing.”

He sees then that he has lost. Grace watches the thumping of his pulse, right at the base of his throat. She knows it would make a bloody spray if she were to stick her knife right there.

“I had my orders!” he screams.

“Did those orders include killing babies in Mulranny? Did they include raping its women? Burning its homes? Because I have never seen an official order—English or otherwise—that allows such a thing.”

Another hard swallow. “That wasn’t us.”

“We were rather close behind, Sheriff. And you took no great pains to hide your tracks. They led us straight here. So you will find no sympathy with me. Now show me these orders that Bingham gave you.”

He points to his satchel. Grace unlatches it and pulls a piece of parchment from within. She unrolls the letter and holds it out at arm’s length so she can read the thing.

“It’s in English,” she says.

“What did you expect, you stupid bi—”

Gutty’s knife at his throat silences him.

“It isn’t long. Read it. Out loud.” She holds the paper in front of his face.

The fool still thinks he might get out of this alive, so he nods, then blinks hard, focusing on Bingham’s neat script. There are a few seconds of greetings and salutations, then he gets into the meat of the letter.

“I give you charge to prosecute and follow all and every of the said traitors throughout Mayo. It shall be lawful for you and your said companies to prey burn and spoil if they do not cooperate, giving them notice of the danger thereof beforehand—”

Grace hits him with an open palm, knocking his face to the side.

“Did you give that girl notice of the danger before you bent her over a wagon and raped her? Did you give her the chance to explain if she had seen a single Spaniard in this territory?”

“I didn’t…that wasn’t—”

“Kill him,” she tells Gutty.