Page 147 of The Pirate Queen

He sniffs the acrid scent of burning thatch. “What have you done?”

“Made my point.”

“You would burn my lands in front of me?” His face leaches of color and those muddy eyes—so like his father’s—turn violent, pinched at the corners. “You fecking bitch.”

“I know you were too young to remember, but these were my lands once. Not yours. And certainly not your father’s. It was I who led his people, who managed his territory, who collected rents and paid them to that woman across the sea.”

Merrick lunges at her and is brought up short by the tip of Ultan’s sword. “Come closer,” Ultan says with a grin. “By all means come closer, boy.”

Her son trembles with rage. “You have never known your place. Wearing trews and taking to the sea. No wonder Da hated you.”

“I see you’ve been speaking with Rory’s men,” she says. “How did you kill him anyway?”

“While he slept. Face down in bed.”

Her words are sour when she says, “That sounds like something your father would have done.”

Merrick spits at her, a scattered spray of droplets without any force. Weak, like him. “What a fecking useless mother you are. Gone half my life roaming the sea, when you should have been tending the hearth.”

She points at the castle. “That hearth? Or the one on Clare? Or Achill? Or maybe Rockfleet or Doona or Burrishoole. Castlekirk perhaps? Or one of the others? Which hearth exactly do you mean? I have so many of them. What a terrible mother I have been, to have acquired so much territory for my children.”

“You sent me away,” he says. “I was only ten years old and you sent me off to foster with my father’s people. Is it any wonder that’s where my loyalty lies? It confused me at first. Until you married again. That fucking Bourke. What you really wanted was a new husband and a new family. A new heir. But you couldn’t have that unless I was out of the way, could you?”

It’s a low blow. An unhealed wound. And Grace winces when he presses against that bruise. It is the curse of motherhood to lie awake at night and wonder what you did wrong. She could find a dozen different reasons why she might be at fault for the gaping holes in Merrick’s character. Why she might bear the guilt for the tumbling cascade of his terrible life choices.

The thing about O’Flahertys, she has learned, is that they are all fury but no wit. Brute force without the benefit of a sharp intellect. So when he turns to his men and gives the order, she isn’t surprised.

But she is saddened.

Merrick throws one arm into the air and orders, “Kill her.”

Finn holds his breath as Murray looses the arrow. One heartbeat. Two. Then the archer atop the castle rampart drops his bow and scratches at his bloody throat. He teeters on the wall. Falls with a gurgled scream. The men around him let out a cry, then duck behind the rampart walls.

For near an hour Finn has been crouched behind the stone pasture fence between the beach and tower house. He watched Gráinne’s reunion with her son. He watched the lazy guards shrug at her arrival. But when swords were drawn, he turned his attention to the ramparts. The moment Merrick’s archer drew back his arm, Finn’s brother let the arrow fly.

A crack shot, his brother.

“We’ve taken the garrison too,” Murray says as he creeps up beside him. “Ten kerne within, and a few more scattered around. Mostly fat and slow. None of them put up a fight. We’ve got them all shut inside.”

Finn nods. “Good. Now let’s have our fun.”

“Surrender,” Grace tells her son.

Again Merrick spits at her. Without his archer, they have lost the advantage.

“Is this worth your life?” she asks.

“It’s worth my honor,” he says behind gritted teeth.

“Last I checked, you had none, O’Flaherty.” He winces at the sound of his surname, eyes flashing with irritation, and she adds, “This is over. Call your men off, lest any more of them die.”

“And how many have you lost, Mam?”

“ ’Tis your village that’s burning. Your garrison taken. I have lost nothing.”

“Oh, not here—you’ve made your point sure enough. But this isn’t where the real battle is happening, is it?”

When he was younger, Merrick used to torment Edmund and Tibbot. He’d scare them in the dark corners of Rockfleet Castle, throw stones at them while they played outside. He was a cruel stepbrother. Grace had always thought him jealous of the younger boys, unhappy to live under another man’s roof. Grace convinced herself that this piece of him was broken because he’d lost his own father so young. But now she sees that this is who Merrick has always been. Angry. Conniving. Envious.