No sooner had Yughi safely returned Marian and Emma to Bess's lodgings than Marian defied expectation again.
"I think it would be better," said Yughi. "If you were to stay here."
"Yes," Marian responded, her tone cold. "I find that men often think that it would be better if women just shut their mouths and did as they were told. It's one of the reasons why I love to disappoint them."
"It's very dangerous-" Yughi tried to reason with her.
"Life is very dangerous at the moment," Marian replied. "Or had you not noticed?"
"All I'm trying to do..." Yughi felt he had liked it better when Marian was hitting him and poisoning him, at least he'd won that fight.
"I don't see why you're even bothering to argue," Bess chipped in. "You know she's right."
"I don't!" Yughi protested but even in its vehemence, the lie was plain. The truth was that Marian was an able warrior, better at hand-to-hand combat than the majority of the outlaws. If they should be allowed to roam Sherwood Forest taking their lives into their hands then why shouldn't she also?
The obvious answer to the question was, of course, that all the regular outlaws were men. For a woman to join the outlaws would be... well, unusual. Little John had a tendency to get upset at unorthodox strategising, he was a married man with a particular view of the world. Yughi could only imagine what he would think of Marian.
The Brotherhood, generally, did not admit women into its ranks, but there were a few who had grown up in Masyaf, generally orphaned. The female assassins were treated just like the male ones, they dressed similarly, Al Mualim had no problem with casting a Brother of the order as sexless. All assassins were assassins first and whatever else afterwards. That was what was expected.
This was probably why Yughi's resolution was so weak in this matter. Taking Marian as a potential assassin recruit she was easily as strong as Will Scarlet, she was probably better than John, Alan or even Tuck, and the latter was England's only Rafik.
"Very well," Yughi said, to the credit of the assembled womenfolk only Emma instantly looked a little smug, Bess and Marian affected an air of peevishness that it had taken Yughi so long to come round. "I will warn you, however, that your presence in the outlaw's camp will be treated as... highly unusual."
"I will deal with the outlaws," said Marian. "You just lead the way."
Yughi and Marian entered the tunnel network via an entrance nearby. The cave network, being composed of soft lime, was easily expandable. Yughi was taking careful note of the positions belonging to his allies' premises, he thought some extending might be in order to make meetings more accessible.
They emerged, a short while later, to the north of the city in a graveyard just on the edge of Sherwood Forest. When they reached the tree line Yughi turned to Marian.
"Do you know tree-running?" he asked.
"I do not," she replied, terse and defensive.
"I didn't either when I arrived," Yughi tried to reassure her that he was not trying to trick her. "There are not many forests in the Holy Land. You should learn."
Not allowing time for another argument to start Yughi spotted a suitable tree, ran to it and scaled it. He ran out onto a branch in the canopy and beckoned Marian to follow.
"Boys!" Marian complained. "Always climbing trees and scraping knees." Even so, she followed Yughi's lead, clambering up to join him.
"I'll go slow," Yughi said. "Follow where I go."
"Don't do me any favours," Marian replied.
Despite her rebuke, Yughi did go a little slower than he usually would have as he began his run. Not trying to match some imagined standard set by Scarlet Yughi found that he noticed a few things in his technique that were probably contributing to his own performance problems.
This was one of the joys of the Brotherhood for Yughi, you were taught by a master but you practised with peers. The perfect practice came from a balance between trying to improve and relaxing as confidence in one's own ability grew.
After a short distance Marian herself began to understand the shifts in balance, application of power and transfer of focus between upper and lower body required to run through the trees. She sped up to a remarkable degree in a short time. She caught up to Yughi and then began to prod him, trying to throw him off balance.
"What are you doing?" Yughi cried out. "I could fall!"
"You could," Marian replied. "Or you could just stop dawdling and outrun me."
She was challenging him. This was not a surprise, but Yughi was sure it was a foolish thing to do after all she had only just begun to learn how to move through the canopy. Even with only a few week's training, Yughi should be the superior runner.
Like all new recruits finding their own new abilities, perspective could be lost. It was the duty of the senior assassin to teach recruits to view the world and their place in it, even if that entailed a little humiliation and hurt pride.
Yughi sped up, determined to put into practice the new improvements to his own technique. He would show Marian what it meant to have learned to run through the branches.
To his amazement, the lithe young woman almost matched his pace. Where he expected to race ahead leaving her calling out for him she made ground and then lost it but never gave up. Yughi had to admire the girl's determination.
As they came close to the camp Yughi began to recognise the layout of the canopy. This was his own training ground. He had discovered not just the optimum route through the trees but also alternative and even hidden routes through the canopy.
Marian might be strong, athletic and able to pick up the basics in a matter of minutes, but there was no hope for her against someone in an environment they knew. Yughi sped up, pushing himself hard to break line of sight with Marian.
When he heard her cry out in frustration he knew he had succeeded. If he wasn't focused now she would surely catch up. He ran along to a particular place he had spotted and jumped straight upwards, catching a branch that looked too far up due to a trick of the light. He pulled himself onto this branch and ran along its length, circling back the way he had come at a higher level.
Just in time, too, he heard Marian run underneath him, completely unaware that he was even there. Like all beginners at tree-running, she was concentrating more on balance and rhythm than focus and stealth. Each component of the effective runner had to be worked on in turn.
Yughi followed on behind Marian, he wanted to see how she would cope with confusion and frustration, not well was his guess. Sure enough, after pelting along the main branch route for another half minute or so, she stopped, cursing under her breath.
Crouching in the upper canopy, Yughi took some satisfaction from the knowledge that he could remain hidden from her, at least. Marian stopped moving and tilted her head. A strange cast came over her features, Yughi shifted uncomfortably. Her head suddenly twitched in the direction of Yughi's hidden location. She looked straight at him and opened her mouth to speak.
Then her head jerked downwards, coming level once more. She put one foot behind her and drew her dagger.
"Who's there?" she demanded as she pulled the covering over her head.
In that instant, Yughi understood what had just happened. Marian, somehow, had the eagle sense. Yughi had met others who possessed it, one of the star assassins of the Brotherhood, Altair ibn L'Ahad, possessed it. Yughi was used to being the student, however, those assassins he had met who possessed it had learned to use it far more effectively by the time he met them. She was still at the stage where you could see that she was accessing it.
At that moment Yughi was immensely pleased that she had insisted on accompanying him into the forest. Someone else who had the same potential as him for development would doubtless be an asset. He shifted, instantly, from allowing her to take care of herself to confidence that he should vouch for her with the outlaws. At least he had an in with Tuck now.
He activated his own eagle sense and detected the same approaching figure as Marian. Unlike her, he could tell just from the way the man moved through the canopy that it was Scarlet. He shifted forward, ready to drop down and get in between the two of them. Then he shifted back.
If he was going to lay odds on the victor in a fight between Will and Marian he knew which side he would back. Now was the time to find out if he was correct. After all, he could always get involved if things started to go wrong.
Will came up on the masked Marian, his own dagger drawn. In the treetops, daggers were the only viable weapon for a stand-up fight. Will grinned at his opponent, presuming his own level of skill to be greater.
"You, boy," he said. "What you doing out here in the woods? Don't you know there are dangerous outlaws here?"
Marian stood her ground and said nothing, waiting for Will to stop talking.
Will bounced a couple of steps forward and swiped with the blade. It was a double attack intended to shift the branch under the opponent's feet and force them off centre. In one move Will could send most people falling down to the forest floor.
Marian did shift, dropping off her feet and onto her hands. Gripping the branch as the point of the blade sailed over her head she swung her hips and kicked Will's legs out from under him, reversing the move.
Will lost his footing but grabbed the branch himself. Now they both hung down kicking at one another with loose feet. The hanging fight became a grapple. Marian was quick to exploit her physical advantage, she was shorter than Will, so her legs were not as long, but in a leg grapple she could pull tighter and had more control. She wrapped her legs around the thief's hips and twisted hard.
Will's hands came off the branch and he dropped his dagger. He fell from his perch only managing to swing himself around at the last minute and find a handhold in the intersection of two branches.
"I'll kill you!" Will roared, all attempts at grace forgotten he prepared to spring out at Marian. If she couldn't dodge he would knock her to the ground, at the very least causing serious injury. Yughi very much believed she could dodge, that would surprise Will and he would be the one in trouble.
Yughi decided, then, that the fight had gone on for long enough. He dropped from his perch onto the branch and called out:
"Will, stop!"
Caught in a moment of shock Will did not launch himself into the air.
"Yughi?" he said. "What's going on? Who is this fellow? One of yours?"
Marian pulled herself back up onto the branch. Once there she sat herself down and pulled back her cowl.
"Not one of his," she said. "Nor one of yours, thief."
Seeing that he had been put on the wrong foot by a woman Will Scarlet's eyes widened and his jaw dropped.
"Will Scarlet," Yughi said. "May I introduce the Maid Marian. She has expressed an interest in joining with our cause, and with it, we get the support of the courtesans of Nottingham."
For a few moments more, it seemed, Will Scarlet was going to be speechless, for, hanging from his tree like a monkey, jaw agape, he said nothing.