"Bloody, bloody, fucking arsehole bastards!" shouted Tuck. After the events of the morning, Yughi could understand the need for his companion to let off steam. Even so, the small party were a long way from home yet, a cooler head might serve better in what remained of the day.

Yughi had met Tuck at the rally point in the woods South of Lincoln. When he had arrived Tuck was alone, Marian had not yet returned.

"I think it is safe to say that the Templars are willing to be aggressive in their move to make England a templar nation," Yughi said. "Now you have seen the lengths they will go to."

"Blood and misery! Fire and chaos!" Tuck thundered up into the canopy of the trees. "I ran from the Holy Land but the apocalypse followed. I hid in the forests but the devil still came!"

"The Templars are not the devil," Yughi said. "They are corrupt and evil men, but they are men. At least now we have a target."

"You don't get it, do you son?" Tuck demanded, furious. "Once upon a time Miles Godfrey was the target. Then a few months ago you told us the Sheriff of Nottingham was the target. Then we decided Thomas De Say was the target. That's why I ran from the assassins Yughi, when is there an end to this madness, this mayhem, this murder?"

"Freedom must be preserved," Yughi said.

"Must it?" Tuck asked. "I would have been with you all the way there once. There comes a time, though, there comes a time when you're too tired to care any more. What's the worth of freedom if it's always about war?"

"What's the worth of peace if it only comes with death?" Yughi responded. "What else have you to do than fight for your own liberty?"

"Drink an ale," Tuck said. "Fuck a whore. Tell a dirty joke. Live today as if it would be your last, for one day you'll be right."

"Can you turn to the feeding of your own appetites when others are crushed beneath a Templar boot?" Yughi asked. "Could I abandon myself to self-indulgence knowing that the Jews of Lincoln were being massacred?"

"Jews?" Tuck demanded, incredulous. "Don't get me wrong I don't hold with all that Christ-killer bollocks but seriously, Yughi. I'm a man of the Christian cloth. There are people all over want to put a blade through the members of my flock. When have any of us got time to worry about these other people? They're strangers."

"To me," Yughi said. "Christian and Jew are as strange as each other. However, I am a man. You are a man. We are all people Tuck. We cannot turn a blind eye to the suffering of other people, or we are monsters."

"You learn that at the knee of your precious Al Mualim?" Tuck said. "I don't believe you did. If you think that crafty bastard has much compassion in his heart you are mistaken. He's no less a pirate and a murderer than any of those Templar cocksuckers, make no mistake."

Yughi felt a spark of anger at Tuck's words. Here was a Rafik, abusing the name of Al Mualim. In the Holy Land, he would be punished for expressing such views. He would certainly be stripped of the title of Rafik.

The concept of being punished for criticism struck a different chord in Yughi's heart. Surely if nothing was true and everything was permitted Al Mualim should be above showering retribution down on critics. Of course. Yet, in the Holy Land, he did this, naming those who opposed him as traitors to the cause.

The line between Templar and Assassin, viewed from a distance, was dangerously thin.

"Where is that bloody girl?" Tuck demanded. "She should be here by now."

"You're sure she's safe?" Yughi asked.

"I saw her, running off over the rooftops after that Asheby fellow," Tuck said. "She got away from the church. She was only supposed to find out where the slippery coward was headed. That was what we agreed."

"She's not so good at following orders," Yughi said. "I don't like it."

"These weren't orders," Tuck said. "This was a plan, mutually agreed. Mind you, however nimble she is she's a woman with a woman's sense in her head. Who knows?"

Yughi got the impression that Tuck didn't really care whether Marian made it back or not. The man seemed to have preferred the game back when it was smaller and hopeless. Since Yughi had grown the outlaw band, since Marian had begun training them, Tuck had started to bristle. It appeared to Yughi that Friar Tuck was a man short on faith with no love for hope. A paradox in a spiritual leader.

"I will have to return to the city," Yughi said. "See if I can find her, or word of her."

"And I shall sit on my arse here," Tuck said. "Until one or other of you shows your face. I would never have come if I'd known how fucked the situation would get."

Yughi left Tuck to his complaining. He climbed a nearby tree and set out back towards Lincoln.