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“Hold.” I put a palm out before he could turn around. “Let’s not waste the opportunity to make certain.”
Robin nodded.
Three soldiers dressed in Nottingham colors exited the carriage as it stopped at the holy house. Two priests appeared to greet them, including one I recognized as Abbot Emery.
My brow furrowed as they engaged in a lengthy conversation. At one point, the abbot’s arms flew up wildly in apparent exasperation.
From our distance we couldn’t hear what they were saying—we didn’t want to give ourselves away—but the priest’s body language spoke volumes.
Two of the guards went to the back of the carriage, opened it, and three girls dressed in threadbare clothes shakily walked out. He growled and hit one of them when she moved too slowly.
My instincts flared, muscled tightening, when I saw him backhand the leading girl. “Bastard,” I growled.
“I hate it, too,” Alan responded. “Sadly, it’s not our business.”
Of course it was our business. It was my business, anyway, to make sure orphans and homeless children got the help they needed. It was my calling.
These three looked on the cusp of adulthood, yet carried themselves like beaten-down youths. It tugged at my heart.
It wasn’t the girl at the front, who had been slapped, that received the most attention. That distinction belonged to the final lass of the trio.
Robin sat up rigidly in her saddle, hands gripping the reins as she let out a sharp gasp.
“What is it, little heathen?”
Her voice was strained. “Is that . . . Emma?”
Chapter 14
Robin
Ikicked Mercy into action and barreled out of the tree line before Alan or Tuck could stop me. Before I could stop myself. My mind shut off when I noticed Emma as one of the girls shuffling sadly toward the front door of the abbey.
Guilt and fury sank deep into my bones. Guilt at not keeping closer track of Emma’s whereabouts after my father and mother’s deaths, and fury at seeing her so disheveled and frail looking.
This was all my fault. After losing my parents and essentially losing my estate, I’d kept Wilford on the outskirts of my mind, trying to forget my life before the Merry Men.
Life had a strange way of springing up when you least expected it. How could I be so negligent with Emma and all the workers employed by my mother’s business? How could I be so selfish?
Well, I would rectify that now.
I didn’t try to hide my approach. Mercy’s hooves thudded on the road, shaking the earth. The three guards spun around, the priests and girls staying behind them at the abbey’s doors.
The guards kept their hands near their hips and hilts, studying me, Alan, and Tuck as we neared.
Then a fourth rider burst out of the trees from a different trajectory—Will Scarlet—and it spooked the soldiers enough that they drew their weapons, thinking they were under attack from different angles. The men held their swords, eyes moving from us to Will. Their arms were stretched and tight.
Elbows unbent. Fools. They could benefit from Will’s tutoring in swordplay.
“That’s far enough!” one of the guards shouted as we crested the hill toward them.
“What is the meaning of this?” the head priest called, shoving the girls behind his lanky body as if he was going to protect them from the devil’s hands.
I gritted my teeth, and imagined I looked quite fierce and feral as I dismounted Mercy. Tuck joined me quickly, while Alan and Will got off their horses at a more leisurely pace, eyeing the soldiers the whole time. I knew if the soldiers made one wrong move, this could swiftly become a bloodbath.
I was growing used to that ever-present possibility.
As I approached with my hood drawn, I tossed it down to free my hair and face.
