“Sacrilege!” Martyn trembled with fury. “You dare?”

“Easy on, old man,” Clement called, aiming his bow at Martyn while Urban and Innocent flanked the wagon.

“Mockery of he who rules on earth?!” Phlegm rained down on the bored horses.

“Can’t very well all have the same name!” said Urban. “So let’s say those who have ruled, what?”

“We’re the Road Popes,” Innocent said from the other side of the wagon, “and as a priest, you’d best defer to our wisdom.”

“Or face excommunication!” Clement hooted, his arms shaking from the strain of holding his bow notched.

“Death,” raged Martyn, “death has come for you, blasphemers!”

“We’ll just have the coin you’re carrying and not worry about any of that, if you aren’t opposed,” Innocent responded.

“The other two are inside,” Urban called over the wagon to his allies, and then to the wagon itself, “Come on out now, hop quick or we’ll set you on fire!”

Innocent stayed with Clement near the front while Urban moved to the rear, training his bow on the tarp-covered entrance and waiting for Benedict, who had just gained the bridge. The last pope ran toward them, but something about his hunched-over gait prompted Urban to glance back. He did so just in time to see Benedict stop, his robe falling open and a crossbow stabbing out. Only then did Urban notice the copper beard jutting from under the mask.

Disguised in the costume of the man he had just murdered, Hegel shot the pope staring at him directly in the gut. Urban slipped backward and toppled off the bridge, dropping his weapon and howling as he fell the short distance to the river. Innocent turned to fire at Hegel but the bolt Manfried issued from the shallows beneath the bridge struck the bandit under his armpit, tearing through muscle and spearing his heart. Innocent’s arrow took wing as his corpse fell, Providence guiding it to strike the half-empty barrel beside Martyn on the bench. The already teetering stash of booze toppled onto the bridge and rolled toward the edge.

With Clement left alone on the road, the Grossbarts’ plan became complicated when their passenger’s song emerged from the wagon. Martyn screamed at Clement, who responded to the chaos by shooting the priest. Hegel charged around the side of the wagon, clumsily withdrawing his pick from the baggy robes. Manfried saw the beer barrel splash into the water beside him and dove after even though he could not swim.

Slumped on the wooden seat, Martyn moaned and bled, the arrow riveting his previously good arm to the back of the bench. Through watery, squinted eyes he saw Pope Stephen the Sixth-or was it the Seventh?-drop his bow and draw a sword, then Formosus leaped from under the horses and they did battle. Stephen went defensive but Formosus’s charge was too quick, and the papal imposter fell to the road under the force of the attack.

His sword arm under Hegel’s boot, Clement screamed for mercy. Hegel gave it to him in the form of his pick, skewering the bandit’s elbow thrice in quick succession. The third time Hegel left the pick embedded in the mangled arm and snatched Clement’s wrist, tugging until the pope’s forearm came free and blood misted their faces. Clement went mad with pain and Hegel simply went mad.

“You goddamn heretic!” Hegel shouted, stomping the dying man’s jaw. “What you get! What you get, you mecky asshole! Think we’s gonna let some fuckin popes keep us out a Gyptland?! Speak that blasphemy now!”

His mask bright red and dripping, Clement lunged up as if to bite Hegel’s boot, which impressed the Grossbart enough that he hefted his pick and drove it into the pope’s chest, putting a wet, thrashing end to his agony. Tearing off his own ridiculous mask and hat, Hegel turned to his brother, but to his surprise saw only Martyn limp on the bench. An instant later he noticed the music flowing out of the wagon and a horrible, cold sensation soaked his soul.

Manfried had floundered a bit before his feet found mud and he righted himself, wading after the barrel. Before he moved out from under the bridge the barrel reached the center of the current and was whisked away downstream, vanishing around a bend. Manfried splashed toward the bank with the goal of freeing a horse and riding along the bank until he caught it. He had battled a demon for that barrel, and would fight another to keep it. Before he gained the shore, though, he saw the first pope to plunge off the bridge crawling out of the water down the bank.

Manfried knew that the barrel had not jumped off the coach of its own volition. Grinning, he advanced on the half-drowned, perforated Road Pope. Urban’s mask and hat were gone, displaying a mildly ugly countenance twisted in agony. Manfried had faith Mary would catch the cask on a sandbar or inlet, granting him the time to twist the bastard’s face a little more. Dragging him back into the river, Manfried held him under and wiggled the bolt protruding from his stomach until his mouth stopped bubbling. Only then did Manfried calm enough to hear the music, and his cruel smile became innocent.

Hegel watched Manfried pause over the drowned man, then drop to his knees, the water rushing over his shoulders. Then Manfried slumped forward, his long-haired pate resembling a mossy gray stone in the river. When he did not surface Hegel scrambled down the bank and ploughed into the current, fell, righted himself, fell again, then seized hold of his brother.

Seeing the man’s face shimmer and vanish, replaced by her playful countenance, Manfried misplaced his usual wisdom. Her lips felt warm in the cool water, and he felt no shame or reluctance in his actions, even when he jabbed his tongue into hers. He felt a pressure rising in his chest, no doubt his heart swelling with joy, and he pressed harder against her. How she kept singing with her mouth thus occupied did not weigh on his mind.

Snatching a handful of silver, Hegel jerked his brother’s head above water. Manfried struggled against him for a moment before blinking stupidly at his savior and vomiting water all over the both of them. His stomach jostled and sour, Hegel returned his brother’s volley with his own rush of hot sick. Together they extricated themselves from the river and lay panting on the bank, neither noticing the song had ended.

“The Hell?” Hegel demanded, watching Manfried’s victim bob away.

“Eh?”

“What was you doin?”

“What you think? Killin that bitchswine.”

“Yeah? Needed to get a closer look?”

“Gotta make sure.” Manfried blinked. “Others done the same?”

“Yeah. That priest got stuck though.”

“Badly?”

“How should I know? I was fishin you out.”

“I’s fit, let’s see bout the priest.”

The arrow had embedded in Martyn’s forearm, blood pooling on the bench, and the priest moaned vengeance in his ill-gotten sleep. Hegel’s search of the two bodies not given to the river yielded nothing, but Manfried fared better down the road where four horses were tethered in a copse of trees. In a saddlebag he discovered a small wheel of cheese wrapped in the same yellow cloth as the wheel he had gotten from the inn that very morning. He led the horses back to the wagon to strategize with Hegel.

“Think we got ratted?” Hegel asked.

“Possible.”

“That dingy cricket under the bridge did bear resemblance to most a them townies.”

“I say we hoof on back, sniff round and see if we been cowarded out,” said Manfried.

“Yeah, can’t suffer no traitorous churls to keep on bein traitorous. And sides that, priest needs that barber or he’ll bleed out by the look a his wound.”

“True words.”

They reached the town gate before shut-in and immediately went to the barber’s, the newly acquired horses tethered to the back of the wagon. The man’s son answered their knocking, and the scrawny teenager’s attempts to keep them at the door were thwarted. The Grossbarts carried the groaning priest inside and laid him on the table where the startled barber sat eating his dinner. The memory of their ring shone in his memory, though, so he went straight to work.