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“Hail, soldier.” I tried to make my voice cheery.
This was an obstacle I didn’t need. These men looked like the dead ones from the field. Not soldiers, exactly, but with rough-and-tumble garb and expressions that said they’d seen battle. Mercenaries and bounty hunters, perhaps.
I was a warrior at heart, yet I doubted I could take three at once. I held the reins loosely in my grip, sitting straight-backed. “Can I help you men?”
“Aye. Been sightings of an outlaw on the loose. A fugitive. We’ve been tasked with bringing her in.”
“Her?” I said, tilting my head in mock confusion. With a small smile, I added, “A lass doing criminal deeds? Color me surprised. Times must really be tough if a girl is doing the dirty work.”
“Aye, Father,” the man said with a bark of a laugh. “Vagrants these days, eh?”
I smiled tightly at him.
“Goin’ to have to ask you to step down, sir.”
My smile faltered. “What’s that?”
“Goin’ to have to check your carriage bay, Father.”
I chuckled. “There’s no fiery lasses in there, sir. I assure you that.” I gestured at my habit, as if to make the point that a monk would not typically be accompanied by a woman, much less a criminal.
It didn’t work.
His gaze narrowed on me. “Even so.”
With a sigh, I slowly dismounted. “Here, I can show—”
“I’ll do the showing, Father. Just step over here.” He pointed to the front of the carriage, next to the horses’ heads.
I did as he said, tucking my hands into the sewn pockets of my habit. My fingers ghosted over iron bands, which I called Atonement and Discipline. They were knuckle-guards—handholds I could wrap around my palms, with an iron cross stretched sideways over the knuckles of each hand.
I didn’t wear my holy symbol around my neck, like most men of the cloth. I wore it on my fists.
My eyes flicked to the two men behind me, watching their captain inch toward the door of the cart.
I tapped my foot impatiently, eager to get back on the road. Being a traveling monk, I never had problems in these situations. It was a useful disguise, especially in the face of highwaymen or the authorities. It was one of the reasons I could appear in Nottingham—somewhat protected by my status as a benefactor for the homeless—and not get arrested.
There was a bounty on each one of the Merry Men, but no one had deduced I was the bald-headed man in their crude drawings. To them, he was just another criminal. Certainly not a friar.
“Really, sirs, I’m late for a confessional in—”
The captain swung the door of the carriage open.
The bottom half of his head exploded as a crossbow bolt slammed into his mouth from an arm’s length away, shearing off his jaw, sending teeth, brain, and bone blasting into the air behind him.
I jumped, mind tilting from being startled by the loud, grotesque sound and visual of plopping brain matter and raining blood.
I was just as confused and shocked as anyone else.
Before the captain had collapsed to the ground, one of the mercenaries shouted, “Christ above!” and their swords rasped out of their scabbards behind me.
I spun, wrapping my fists around Atonement and Discipline, pulling the metal knuckles out of my pockets.
The first man swung his sword and I punched it wide in a shower of sparks. The second soldier attacked my other flank and I punched low, slapping it out of the air at the same time.
I spun, using my fists like shields—protected by the cross-covered iron band wrapped over my knuckles.
“What kind of fucking monk are you?!” the leftmost mercenary cried. “You killed Captain!”
