No noble who wanted to keep his life traveled the Old King’s Road without a half-dozen guards and a man-at-arms.
But Lord Fredrico Bernoulli refused to wait to muster the soldiers nor to match pace with their sluggish marching. Instead, as the sun rose, he’d hurried his daughter into a fast carriage and hired a pair of mounted condottieri as guards, trusting that they’d dissuade any bandits along the way. Then they’d set off with his bodyguard, Alphonse. The Old King’s Road would shave twelve hours off their journey to Highmarket, and though they’d arrive at dusk, it only meant he’d be fresh to argue with Lord Merici in the morning, not worn out from a roadside hostel and two days’ travel.
He’d regret his haste and lack of caution for the rest of his life.
As pistol shots rang outside and swords clattered, his daughter screamed in terror. Alphonse fired the heavy blunderbuss, splintering a window’s shutters. The carriage filled with powder smoke. It stung his eyes and pierced through the handkerchief he held to Caterina’s trembling, shrieking lips to filter the smoke.
“No good, milord! It’s him!” Alphonse shouted. He grabbed a pre-rolled blunderbuss ball and began packing it into the still-smoking barrel, coughing. “I’ll keep trying, but the Highwayman leaves no survivors, and he can’t be killed!”
“Do…do your best,” Lord Bernoulli coughed. His head spun—whether from the smoke choking the air, the two condotieros’ screaming and moaning in agony outside, or Alphonse’s panic over who’d attacked them, he couldn’t say. He’d been a fool before. He’d lost money and prestige, but he’d seen a way out every time. His agreement with Lord Merici had become one of those times. For three long years, he’d been paying off the debt the lord of Highmarket had saddled him with, but the enterprise to the north had almost paid for itself, and when it did…
When it did, Lord Bernoulli realized, he’d be dead.
He’d been so stupid. If only he’d taken the New King’s Road. If only he’d begged off of meeting Lord Merici in Highmarket. If only…
He stopped pondering his failures as a chill ran up his spine.
The Highwayman left no survivors. He hadn’t for over a century—far longer than any man should terrorize one road. And if he left no survivors, it wasn’t simply that Lord Bernoulli had signed his own death warrant. He’d also signed his daughter’s.
He had to fix this, if not for his sake, then at least for hers. He just needed a moment, maybe two, to devise a way out. There’d be something.
Alphonse pulled the trigger, the blunderbuss roared, and fire spat out from the window. Caterina screamed again as their bodyguard threw the gun aside and reached for his sword.
Alphonse’s door jerked open, a flintlock pistol vomited smoke across the cabin, and Lord Bernoulli lurched into action. He kicked his door open, lifted Caterina in his arms, and started running.
He made it ten paces before pain blossomed along his back in a thin, sharp line. As he fell, he landed on his daughter, driving her into the soft dirt below. Her brown eyes shut, and her screaming stopped. Her chest rose and fell under the thin, bloodstained dress she’d picked for traveling. Thank the gods, she wouldn’t have to see what came next. She wouldn’t have to watch her father’s final failure.
He rolled over, shielding her with his body, and faced his soon-to-be murderer.
The Highwayman ignored him. Instead, he walked back to the carriage, drew another pistol, and fired once into Alphonse’s body. He reached down, pulled off a glove, and placed his hand on the unfortunate bodyguard’s neck. Satisfied, he donned the glove again and stalked back toward Lord Bernoulli.
The Highwayman loomed tall, a tattered black cloak covering blackened mail, leather boots, and gloves worn until their sable surface was cracked and shiny. The leather-clad fingers reloaded one pistol, then another, sliding shots into each barrel and packing powder into each pan. The villain—Fredrico could think of no word more fitting—tucked one flintlock into the harness across his chest, then stepped closer. As he did, his sword flicked out from its sheath and hovered inches from Fredrico.
“You know who I am?” The Highwayman asked. The steel mask that covered his face except for his clean-shaven jaw looked down, and there was no pity in his cold blue eyes.
“Yes,” Fredrico said. Noble titles meant little when faced with death. The back of his shirt, all the way below where The Highwayman’s saber had cut, was soaked with blood. So, he imagined, was Caterina. He could feel it pulsing out with each too-loud heartbeat, even through the sudden chill that made him shiver. He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, gasping for breath. He wasn’t ready to die. It was too soon. And worse, no one would know what had happened to his child. That—he opened his eyes, feeling a spark inside—he couldn’t accept that. He had to try. “Please.”
“’Please?’ If ‘please’ was enough, I wouldn’t be the gods-damned Highwayman, would I now?” The Highwayman’s voice grew cold and deep. “The Highwayman leaves no survivors. Never has, and never will for the rest of time.”
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The sword glinted, but Fredrico only had eyes for the two fallen condottieri a dozen yards away in the ditch. He shivered, not ready to join them but unable to save himself. He sputtered out words, forcing breaths from his pain-riddled lungs. “Mercy, not for myself. My daughter. She has to live. She didn’t choose to travel the Old King’s Road this morning. I did, and I accept my fate, but she’s innocent. Spare her. Please.” Panic seeped into his voice, though he tried to hold it back. Then it broke through his pride, and tears flowed freely. He opened his mouth to say something—anything. To offer the man a reward to spare his life.
But his breath caught in his throat, and all that came out was an agonizing cough that tore against his wound.
Fredrico’s eyes shut for a moment. Then, the Highwayman’s foot gently pushed against his back, rolling him to the side. Fredrico watched as his doom approached again, trying to lift his arm. It wouldn’t move. Nothing would move. The sword tip wavered an inch from Fredrico’s eye, but the Highwayman wasn’t watching him. No, the villain’s eyes were locked on Caterina.
As Fredrico held his breath, waiting for the end, the Highwayman spat three words, sounding like they’d cost him more effort than killing three men had. “I’ll consider it.” He lifted his sword, putting it in line with Fredrico’s neck. His pulse pounded in his head, and he opened his mouth to scream.
The sword flashed.
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Antonio Romano knelt beside the girl—the bastard lord hadn’t even mentioned her name—and checked her breath. Satisfied she was alive and that she wouldn’t be getting up any time soon, he prodded the two mercenaries. Both were dead, just as he’d left them, and he’d checked the bodyguard’s pulse earlier. He wiped his sword clean on one of the mercenary’s surcoats. Dirty weapons could fail, and the Highwayman always took his quarry.
He wasn’t ready to handle the dilemma the dead man had left him, so he did what he did second-best while he mulled over his options.
The coins went in one pile, promissory notes, letters, and paper in another, and the few weapons the mercenaries and bodyguard had carried in a third. He unhitched the surviving horses and tied their reins to his mount’s saddle; after the war, horses of this stock were worth their weight in silver. In all, it was a good take. As always, he’d spend the coins slowly doling them out in the dozen villages nearby. The horses could be sold across the border, where no one asked questions. And as for the notes? They could rot in his hideaway. A noble’s word and seal weren’t to be trusted.
And the whole time he worked, he kept an eye on the unmoving, blood-covered girl.
Damn him, he thought. Damn him to Hell for this!
Antonio knew the right thing to do, but the right thing and the correct thing weren’t the same.
The correct thing to do was put a pistol shot in the girl. The Highwayman had done worse, and he never left survivors behind. And she was a noble brat—not a commoner whose story wouldn’t be believed, but someone who, even as a five-year-old, could kill his legend with a few words. If the legend died, it wouldn’t be long before he did, too. Men fought poorly when their fight felt hopeless, and he ‘couldn’t be killed.’
So, the correct thing to do was kill her. The pistol was in his hand and leveled at her barely-breathing body before he realized what he was doing. Even once he did, he consciously pulled the hammer back over the powder in the pistol’s pan. It’d be easy, and this would be done.
But he hesitated.
It wouldn’t be right.
“Fuck,” he muttered to himself. The right thing to do was to let her live. He lowered the hammer and sat down a dozen feet from her. Curly, dark-brown hair. Skin that’d darken to a near-brown in the sun. A noble girl’s dress, formerly white but now mud-spattered and stained pink and red with her father’s blood.
He kicked a cobble, watching it bounce across the Old King’s Road and roll to a stop against the wagon’s front wheel. Then he started dragging the bodies into a line next to it. The Highwayman made sure every victim was accounted for.
He couldn’t let her live. If word got out that the Highwayman had gotten soft, it’d only be a matter of time before the Old King’s Road crawled with soldiers, and the last hundred years’ crusade would be for nothing.
He couldn’t kill her. The gods-damned fool of a lord was right. She hadn’t come here of her own will, and she probably hadn’t even heard the legends. And though he’d done worse, the fighting was over now.
Antonio walked through the lord’s plea. ‘Mercy,’ he’d asked for. But he’d never asked for himself, and though his blood-sodden clothes showed the arrogance of old wealth, he’d never offered a silver for his life—never begged or made threats, as so many the Highwayman attacked did. And somehow, that mattered. That mattered a lot.
He looked at the girl. Her breathing had steadied, and she slept on the cobbles, though she whimpered in her nightmares every so often.
In the end, it was the gods-damned ‘please.’ That one word.
He made up his mind, standing. The girl weighed nothing—less than a sack of grain—and he draped her over his horse’s saddle. Her hair hung down almost to the beast’s knees. That would have to change. Long hair was a danger.
Much would have to change for her. The hair would go. So would the dress; no one on the Old King’s Road wore finery like that. He snapped a locket off her neck with a jerk, opened it to reveal a faded, tiny portrait of a beautiful noblewoman, and pocketed it. It’d be best for her to cut all her ties to her old life so she could start over.
Some things would change for him, too. If he couldn’t kill her, he certainly couldn’t let her go, either. But she could be, perhaps, an adopted daughter. Antonio had been the Highwayman for so long that he wasn’t sure he could do it, but no one else could. Letting her go, even to live with one of the village widows, would be too much of a risk. So, Antonio would be the girl’s father, and the Highwayman would stay away from her. They’d never cross paths.
He couldn’t treat her like an apprentice. She could never be the Highwayman—not as long as she was a woman, and certainly not after he’d murdered her true father. He’d have to walk a sharp knife’s edge to keep that secret from her.
Then he piled the bodies in the carriage, poured out the blunderbuss’s powderhorn, and flicked one of the mercenary’s pistols next to it until sparks caught. As he pulled himself up into the saddle, the girl shifted slightly in her sleep. He smiled a joyless smile. The inferno would hide the body count, and everyone knew the Highwayman left no survivors.