“Nay, my lady,” I replied. “As you see, I’m a young man yet, and hope burns bright. Still, young or old, a man needs a bit of wherewithal to keep even one small wife.” I smiled and gave her a wink to let her know I meant it lightly. Unamused, she pressed her lips together primly. “Ah, well, I was just scraping some of that wherewithal together when the troubles began. Most lost more than I did, to be sure, but I lost all the little I had.”
“I am sorry to hear it,” said Bran. “But we are hard-pressed here, too, what with the care of ourselves and the folk of Elfael as well. Any man who would join us must earn his way and then some if he wants to stay.” Then, as if he’d just thought of it, he said, “A good forester would know how to use a longbow. Do you draw, William?”
“I know which end of the arrow goes where,” I replied.
“Splendid! We will draw against one another,” he declared. “Win and you stay.”
“If I should lose?”
His grin was sly and dark and full of mischief. “If you would stay, then I advise you not to lose,” he said. “Well? What is it to be? Will you draw against me?”
There seemed to be no way around it, so I agreed. “That I will,” I said, and found myself carried along in the sudden rush—the people to the contest, and myself to my fate.
CHAPTER 6
Obviously, you won the contest,” says Odo, raising his sleepy head from his close-nipped pen.
“You think so, do you?” I reply.
“Of course,” he assures me smugly. “Otherwise, you would not be here in Count De Braose’s pit waiting to be hung for a traitor and an outlaw.”
Brother Odo is feisty. He must have got up on the wrong side of his Hail Marys this morning. “Now, monk,” I tell him, “just you try to keep your eyes open a little while longer, and we’ll get to the end of this and then see how good you are at guessing.” I settle myself on my mat of mildewed rushes and push the candle a little closer to my scribe. “Read back the last thing I said. Quick now before I forget.”
“Siarles? Iwan? Your bows,” says Odo, in rough imitation of my voice.
“Oh, right.” And I resume . . .
The two foresters, Iwan and Siarles, handed Rhi Bran their longbows and, taking one in either hand, he held them out to me. “Choose the one you will use.”
“My thanks,” I said, trying first one and then the other, bending them with my weight. There was not a spit of difference between them, but I fancied winning with Siarles’s bow and chose that one.
“This way, everyone!” called Bran, already striding off towards the far side of the settlement. We came to the head of a miserable patch of barley. They were about growing a few pecks of grain for themselves, but it was a poor, sad field, shadowed and soggy as it was. The people ranged themselves in a wide double rank behind us, and by now there were upwards of sixty folk—most all of the forest dwellers, I reckoned, saving a few of the women and smaller children. The grain had been harvested and only stubble remained, along with the straw man set up at the far edge of the clearing to keep the birds away. The figure was fixed to a pole some eighty or a hundred paces from where we stood—far enough to make the contest interesting.
“Three arrows. The scarecrow will be our mark,” Bran explained as Iwan passed arrows to us both. “Hit it if you can.”
“It’s been that long since I last drew—” I began.
“No excuses,” said Siarles quickly. “Just do your best. No shame in that.”
“I was not about making excuses,” I replied, nocking the arrow to the string. “I was going to say it’s been that long since I last drew, I almost forgot how good a yew bow feels in my hand.” This brought a chuckle or two from those gathered around. Turning to Rhi Bran, I said, “Where would you like this first arrow to go, my lord?”
“Head or heart, either will do,” Bran replied.
The arrow was on its way the instant the words left his mouth. My first shaft struck the bunched tuft of straw that formed the scarecrow’s head, with a satisfying swish! as it passed through on