Excerpt from The Ballad of Jacquotte Delahaye by Briony Cameron, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

The executions were already underway. The crowd was in a frenzy. They shoved at each other and the guards, fists pumping in the air, their bloodlust still unsated despite the two bodies that already hung from the gallows.

She held her head up high. She would face her death with dignity. Captain Delahaye would stand tall, shake her hair from her face, and smile as the noose was tied around her neck. That would show them she wasn't afraid. But when she went to shake out her beautiful soft red curls, she found they were grimy and knotted, matted to her head and choked with lice. They'd taken away her gold teeth, and her brown skin was filthy; grime clung to her like a hard shell, and what was left of her clothes hung about her in tatters. Jacquotte looked like a beggar, not a woman to be feared or adored.

The gallows loomed over the courtyard, a huge wooden structure affixed with three nooses, three stools, and three hanging pits. After she was hung, they would gibbet her. The iron cage awaited, and once she danced the hempen jig, they would put her on display. A warning to all pirates that they too would be carrion for the crows one day.

Lightning flashed above, and rain whipped her face. With all her remaining composure, Jacquotte ascended the stairs to the gallows. Her knees were weak as the guard dragged her up onto the stool. She rocked back and forth, trying to keep still. She looked down. Beneath her the floor of the pit was stained with excrement from when those before her had loosed their bowels in fear.

A young man, face scarred by the pox, stood beside the gallows. He was dressed in the finest red and blue French livery.

"Before us stands a woman condemned," he said, his voice booming across the courtyard. "Jacquotte Delahaye, notorious pirate captain of Dayana's Revenge. Delahaye has been found guilty of treason against our beloved king, His Most Christian Majesty, the King of France, Louis Dieudonné de Bourbon XIV."

As the boy spoke, a murmur rose amongst the crowd. Jacquotte looked at them, unable to stand the sight of the pit any longer. Far fewer of them were French than she expected, and the crowd was even larger than she had first thought. Most seemed to be mulattoes like her, and there were maroons and freed slaves amongst them. Many of the French were not fond of their freedom and tensions had been strong between them for as long as Jacquotte could remember.

"The punishment for her crimes most heinous has been decreed thusly," the crier said. The crowd's voices had grown so loud that he had to shout to be heard. "Delahaye shall be hanged from the neck until dead."

The noose was placed over her head. It was thick and heavy and scratched at her skin.

The crowd bellowed. The guards called for silence over the hammering rain, but it was for nought. They moved forward as one, pressing so close to the gallows that the guards had to restrain them. Jacquotte could no longer hear the boy as he decried her various treasons. The crowd shouted and yelled, shoving the guards, and some even threw refuse. Did they want her dead so badly?

The guard put his foot on the stool. Her legs quivered. The pit taunted her.

A crash. A man in the crowd struck a guard over the head. Everything descended into chaos. The crowd threw themselves at the guards. For what reason she could not tell. Rage? Joy?

Jacquotte's heart pounded. She could have sworn she saw a face she recognized. Long dark hair. Honeyed brown skin. Was it her? Or was Jacquotte merely imagining the face she yearned for more than anything? The face she most wanted to be her last sight on this earth.

A man pulled himself up onto the gallows. In his hand was a machete. He charged the guard beside her and, with one swift motion, cut a notch from his head. While the two men became locked in battle, she strained to get another look at the crowd. She tried searching for the familiar face, but the crowd was unrelenting. Each person blurred into the next. As the mob surged toward her, the guard fell backward into the hanging pit, and knocked the stool out from beneath her.

Excerpted from The Ballad of Jacquotte Delahaye by Briony Cameron. Copyright © 2024 by Briony Cameron. Excerpted by permission of Atria Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.