The money that Robin had taken paid off Stephen Malebys mortgage. It also bankrolled the mercenary a loan to build up his own band of men. There was money to buy the King's Rest, so Hal Scathelock could reinvigorate the thieves' guild. The rest of the money Robin donated to orphanages, hospitals and left in caches with Bess and Hal to be distributed piecemeal to those in need.
Everyone understood where the money to pay these fees had originated and, word had it, that the Sheriff was beside himself with fury. The fact was that neither Malebys's residence nor the King's Rest was of any actual value to him. The money the Sheriff had stolen Robin had stolen right back. Then that stolen money was returned on condition that thieves and mercenaries be allowed to operate once more.
The Sheriff tried to strong arm the location of the outlaws out of various vulnerable parties but the whole thing happened so fast that his old tactics quickly proved useless. People apprehended in the night would vanish from custody. The sheriff's men ended up dead if they interfered in outlaw business. Worst of all Robin Hood and his band of outlaws backed off actually interfering in the Sheriff's acquisition of power and wealth in other areas.
The message was clear. Tangling with the outlaw's resources wasn't worth the effort. The Sheriff was throwing good money after bad.
Of course, the Sheriff suspected that it was worth it. He suspected that allowing the outlaws to help the poor and the needy would probably lead to trouble down the line. The problem was that the liberation of the thieves, mercenaries and courtesans was lumped in with a lot of other social change.
Most of the money still flowed into the coffers of Nottingham Castle anyway. The difference was that the people were generally happier this way. Robin Hood had become a local legend remarkably quickly, even a folk hero. Another thing the Sheriff learned was that people who believed in a saviour were much harder to terrorise.
Word came back to the outlaws that someone pulling the Sheriff's strings had told him to stop ripping apart Sherwood Forest looking for the outlaws and to concentrate on other business. As the new year slowly turned into a blustery springtime a new status quo began to make itself felt in Sherwood Forest.
Yughi spent his time training, patrolling and involving himself in minor skirmishes at Robin's behest. Both the thieves and the courtesans had instructions to pass on news of artefacts or Templar schemes directly.
It was the latter that came through the grapevine first. The news came to Will Scarlet through Hal that a Norman knight and Templar had come to Lincoln Cathedral to meet with the current bishop.
Since the killing of Thomas de Say the Templar activity in the region had been pretty quiet. There was little doubt that the Sheriff was a Templar but he appeared to be acting on his own.
Not only that but de Say had represented ecclesiastical power, where the Sheriff wielded political power. For there to be two such high powered Templars nearby was a definite indication that something was going to happen, and soon.
For this reason, Yughi needed to get closer to the situation, to make an assessment of the threat. One day in early March he made the journey to Lincoln to see for himself what was happening. Robin had offered to send outlaws with Yughi but the assassin had chosen to go alone.
Since Yughi had arrived in Britain many things had changed. He had trained hard, helped Robin to take control of his outlaws, turned them into something like a miniature Brotherhood of assassins. Yughi had worked on his own skills also, learning the bow from Robin, new hand to hand skills from Marian and perfecting his tree-running by Scarlet's instruction.
In addition, Tuck had schooled the assassin thoroughly in flattening his accent, now he could pass for an Englishman as long as he did not speak too much. He still sometimes exhibited an odd cadence to his speech but this was barely noticeable.
Despite all of this progress, Yughi was about as close to locating the scarab as he had been when he arrived. Robin had allowed Yughi the liberty to carry on his own investigations but they had yielded nothing.
Yughi might have suspected that Robin was hiding information from him if it were not for that. It appeared as if the scarab was not in Nottingham at this time. If the Sheriff knew about the artefact then he had not let on to even his most trusted advisors that this was the case.
It was true that all Al Mualim had known was that the scarab had left the Holy Land, intended to be delivered to the Sheriff of Nottingham. What had happened to it en route was not known by anyone. If a new Templar was here, a Norman Knight no less, it was highly possible that he would know something about the scarab's location.
Getting to Lincoln Cathedral was fairly easy. A tunnel brought Yughi to the northern edge of Lincoln and from there Yughi made his way into the centre of the town. Once he was close between the castle and the Cathedral some problems became obvious.
Both the Cathedral and the Castle were heavily guarded, neither of which was odd. However, their close proximity to one another appeared to multiply the number of soldiers on the streets to unreasonable amounts.
As Yughi took refuge in a tavern on the hill leading south from the Castle Square he felt suspicious eyes upon his back. Not only was the place heavily guarded but those guards were alert for anything out of the ordinary.
This bothered Yughi, not just because he did not like the feeling of being watched. There did not appear to be any good reason for the atmosphere of fear on the streets. Yughi had visited Acre once in the Holy Land, that place had a similar atmosphere. As a major Crusader stronghold, and bearing in mind the religious tensions prior to the arrival of the Christian hordes, that was entirely understandable.
Lincoln, on the other hand, was the most English of English towns, wealthy and prosperous by the look of it, leafy and green, well defended and sufficiently north and west of Nottingham to be out of the recent trouble.
Of course, an increased military presence did mesh tidily with the idea of an important Templar being in the area. That didn't explain why all the soldiers appeared so edgy. This was no war zone and the outlaws had not ever been here. It made no sense.
Yughi had trouble with things that made no sense. He paid the tavern keeper a coin for a small meal and sat at a table. If truth be told Yughi was not actually hungry but if he was eating it made him blend in better, roving eyes were likely to wander over him.
When the meal arrived it came with a small tankard of pale brown beer. Yughi did not drink alcohol so he poured the liquid away surreptitiously, replacing it with water from his flask. When he came to look at the plate that too bore a problem. The plate was a stew that looked to contain a meat Yughi believed to be pork.
Now he had a serious problem. He couldn't sit not eating a meal in front of him. That would reverse the blending effect that having the meal was designed to create. Even the gravy in which the vegetables swam was not free from the meat. Essentially the meal was useless.
Yughi downed his water and stood. His only option was to slip away while no one was watching. Unfortunately, it was too late for that. A big man sat adjacent to Yughi's position stood to block the exit.
"Where you going, fella?" the man asked. "Don't you want your stew?"
"I... realised that I am not hungry," Yughi said.
"It's good stew," the man said. "I have been known to eat a bowl of that myself."
"I'm sure it is delicious," Yughi replied. "I am just not hungry."
"You saying that I like to eat shit," the man said, leaning in towards Yughi. The smell of his breath did leave a question mark over that, but Yughi did not say anything.
"Thing is," the man said, his voice a low rumble, "I know what's in that stew that some might not want to eat. A bit of pig meat, not a problem for a proper English man, but it would definitely trouble the weak stomach of a Jew."
Yughi was caught by surprise. The last thing he expected anyone to think was that he was a Jew.
"I am not a Jew," the assassin said simply.
"You say that," said the big man, "but I heard that Jews are liars, excellent liars. That's what I heard."
"I don't want any trouble," said Yughi, but it was already too late. Two other men had circled around their huge companion and were looking about ready to pounce in the assassin's direction.
"I really don't think you want to be doing this," Yughi said.
"No," the big man replied. "You don't want me to be doing this."
The man's two companions took this as a cue. They darted inwards attempting to grab Yughi's arms. They could not have been anything other than too slow.
Yughi stepped back and casually grabbed their outstretched hands. Shifting his weight he pulled on the arms causing the men to stumble into one another bashing their heads together with a sickening crunch.
"You pig!" the big man roared and reached out intending to rip Yughi's head straight off his body. Yughi feinted to one side letting the man blunder past on his right side. He tripped the man with his right foot and bashed in the back of his skull with a well-placed elbow.
Hoping to escape Yughi stepped over the tangle of bodies, heading for the entrance. It was too late. Three soldiers appeared in the doorway, swords drawn. This was the last thing Yughi needed if he killed anyone and there were survivors his face would become known in Lincoln. That was something he couldn't afford to happen.
Yughi spun on the ball of his foot. The big man's two accomplices were now getting to their feet. Yughi grabbed them both by their collars and pulled them toward him.
Changing his grip he used their shoulders to support him as he flipped over them onto the bar. Skidding across the surface Yughi landed running and headed out towards the back of the tavern.
There were yelps of alarm as Yughi crashed through the tavern kitchen and out into their backyard. He scrambled up a wall onto the rooftops.
A hue and cry had been started and Yughi could hear a bell ringing, as he bounded over the rooftops Yughi couldn't help but think that the situation was insane. He had been accused of being a Jew, gotten embroiled in a bar fight and now all of the city guards could hear that something was happening.
He had broken the line of sight with the guards in the tavern. There was really no purpose to him being on the rooftops other than to show that he was the reason for the alarm. He hopped down onto a low roof, turned and dropped. He walked slowly up to the nearest corner and ducked into an alley.
He hadn't got halfway down the cut through when a voice called out:
"Ho there! Stranger!"
Yughi hunched his shoulders and walked faster.
"You! Stop!" the voice persisted.
Yughi was extremely confused and now a little frightened. He had done nothing suspicious and he believed he had escaped the site of the first trouble, yet here he was, pursued. He turned and stepped up onto the alley wall, using it as a jump-off point he hopped up a couple of times to the lower of the two available building roofs.
He could hear the soldiers follow him as he ran. He had to break their line of sight again, get to a safe hiding place. He hopped from rooftop to rooftop looking for a place where he could hide. Eventually, he found a storage bin out the back of a large house where he waited until the signs of commotion outside had died away.
Hesitantly he climbed from his hiding place and made ready to slip away into the streets once more.
"Let me guess," said a voice from the house behind him. "You did something to upset the guards and now they want to hunt you down for no apparently good reason. Am I correct?"
Yughi looked over to the doorway from which the voice had come. A short, stocky man with close-cropped black hair and a thick beard was smirking at him.
"You don't need to tell me, brother," he said. "It's the story of my life. Maybe I could offer you a moment's rest. My name is Baruch and this is my brother's home."
Looking out at the street Yughi considered declining Baruch's invitation. The problem was that Baruch had information about the situation that Yughi needed, so he turned back from the road and followed Baruch into the house.