And now this . . . this unmitigated disaster. She felt Will’s hand on her shoulder and she looked up. His eyes were very warm and gentle – like those of the Uncle Will she had known as a little girl.
‘Maddie, you made the effort and that’s the main thing. And while you might not have given me the world’s best breakfast, you did something else for me – something far more important.’
She cocked her head to one side curiously. ‘What?’
‘You made me laugh. And nobody’s done that in a long time.’
After breakfast – in Will’s case a hastily revised one of bread, some slices of a ham hanging in the larder and a cup of properly brewed coffee – they stepped out into the small clearing in front of the cabin for Maddie’s first session with the weapons she would be using for the next twelve months.
She watched eagerly as Will unrolled an oilskin to reveal them. He selected the double scabbard mounted on a thick leather belt first.
She had seen the peculiar double rig worn by Rangers before, of course. But she’d never had occasion to inspect the two knives that it held.
The saxe was first. It was the larger of the two, almost the length of a short sword. She’d had a saxe for some years, of course, but it was lighter and shorter than this. This was a Ranger’s everyday weapon for close fighting – heavy-bladed and razor-sharp. She rested her forefinger lightly on the blade, testing the edge.
‘It’s sharp,’ Will said, watching approvingly as she treated the weapon with respect and care. ‘And it’ll be up to you to keep it that way. If I ever inspect it and find traces of rust or a dull edge, you’ll be running back and forth to Foxtail Creek for the rest of the week.’
She nodded dutifully. The saxe was a plain-looking weapon. It was unadorned and unornamented, made from plain steel and leather with a brass pommel and crosspiece. But as she held it, she felt the perfect balance in the weapon that made it feel light and easy to wield – in spite of the fact that the thick blade gave it considerable weight. She sensed that it had been made by a master craftsman and Will’s next words proved her right.
‘Our saxes are specially made for us,’ he said. ‘The steel is treated and worked so that it’s tremendously hard. Parry a sword stroke with one of these and you’ll leave a notch in the sword – while there’ll barely be a mark on the saxe. Except your father’s sword, of course,’ he added.
She looked at him curiously, all the while working the blade of the saxe back and forth, getting the feel of it. ‘My dad’s sword? What about it?’
‘It was crafted for him by the swordsmiths of Nihon-Ja. They use a similar technique to our weapon makers. Horace’s sword is a masterpiece. It’s harder and sharper than any blade in Araluen or the continent.’
‘I didn’t know that,’ she said. Her father had never mentioned it to her.
Will dismissed the subject, gesturing for her to re-sheathe the saxe. She did so and he drew the smaller knife from its scabbard.
The blade was around twenty centimetres long. It was narrow where it joined the hilt, but widened rapidly, then angled in sharply to form a razor-sharp point. The tapering shape of the blade added weight at the point, which was balanced by the weight of the hilt – constructed of leather discs and with a small brass crosspiece. Again there was a brass pommel at the end of the hilt.
‘You’ll be learning to throw this,’ he told her.
She pursed her lips. ‘I’ve never thrown a knife,’ she admitted.
Will shrugged. ‘The principle is simple enough. You throw it so that it spins in the air just enough for the point to be facing the target when it reaches it. The further the target, the more times you spin it.’
He showed her how to vary the rate of spin by holding the blade further up or closer to the tip.
‘Close to the tip and it’s going to spin faster. Set your grip further up the blade towards the hilt and it’ll turn more slowly through the air,’ he said. She nodded, trying the different positions, miming throwing the knife. She could feel how the position close to the point would impart greater spin on the blade.
‘That doesn’t sound too easy,’ she said doubtfully and he nodded at her.
‘It’s not. I said the principle was simple. The practice is definitely something else. Like everything a Ranger does, it requires practice, practice and . . .’ He paused, raising an eyebrow for her to complete the statement.
‘More practice?’ she asked.
‘Got it in one. That’s the secret of most of our skills. When it comes down to it, throwing a knife is like cooking a perfect egg. The more you do it, the better you get – although the techniques are quite different.’
She replaced the throwing knife in its sheath. She weighed the double scabbard in her hand for a few moments, admiring the matched look of the two weapons and the plain, practical design. Deceptively plain, because, having examined them, she now knew that hours of painstaking, expert work had gone into their construction.
She set the knives down and looked expectantly at the oilskin wrap. There was another item hidden in its folds, a longer, slender item. And she thought she knew what it was.
‘What’s next?’ she asked. She tried to keep her voice neutral, but Will heard the tone of expectancy in it. She was enjoying this session. She was interested in weapons. That was no surprise, considering her penchant for hunting. But that interest was a good thing and it would serve her well in the months to come, during the constant, repetitive actions of practice. A person needed that core of interest to keep practising and keep improving.
‘What’s next is our principal weapon,’ he said. ‘The bow.’
HER EYES WERE riveted on the bow as he unwrapped it. She frowned. It was like no other bow she had ever seen.
To begin with, it was short, perhaps only two-thirds the length of a normal longbow. And the shape was bizarre, to say the least. The centre section, comprising approximately two-thirds of its overall length, was a thick, dark piece of wood, with little apparent curve. In the centre of that was a grip made of soft leather, padded and shaped to fit the hand. But at either end, two spurs of wood were set, so that they stood out an angle to the front of the bow – projecting forward.
Will handed the weapon to her and she examined it closely. The two reverse spurs had been carefully shaped to fit flush to the ends of the centre section – which had also been carefully planed and angled. They had obviously been glued into place, then bound tightly with cord, which had been reinforced with more glue and several layers of varnish to prevent fraying.
At first glance, it seemed that the bow, which formed a wide, flattened W-shape, should be strung simply from one spur to the other, bending the bow into something that resembled the continuous curve of a normal longbow or shortbow. But as she looked more carefully, she could see the notches that would hold the string in place were shaped so that the bow would have to be bent back away from the direction of the two spurs. That way, she could see, the centre section of the bow would form one curve, with the two spurs curving back in the opposite direction at either end.
‘It’s a recurve bow,’ Will said, after letting her study it for several minutes. ‘The Temujai use them. I used one in my first few years as an apprentice. The recurved limbs give you a higher arrow speed for a lower draw weight. This one is about fifty pounds. You should be able to manage that after you build up your strength.’
He traced a finger down the outside edge of the bow. ‘It’s reinforced with deer sinew here to provide extra flex and recovery.’
‘Who made it?’ she asked. She was still turning the bow this way and that in her hands, admiring the workmanship that had gone into it. The wood had been shaped carefully and planed smooth. She could see the layer of sinew now that he pointed it out. But the whole bow had been varnished with a dark lacquer so that it had an overall dark brown tone. The lacquer was a matt finish, she noticed, so that there would be no reflections of light coming from it. The leather grip sat comfortably in her hand,
although when the bow was unstrung, with the two recurved sections pointing outwards, it felt a little unbalanced.
‘I did,’ he told her. ‘Halt showed me how to make one when I was an apprentice.’
‘Could you show me?’ she asked eagerly, and he nodded approvingly at her, once again noting her obvious interest in, and appreciation for, a good weapon.
‘Time for that later. First you need to learn to shoot this one. Have you shot a bow before?’
She nodded dubiously. Archery was practised as a social sport by the ladies at Castle Araluen and she had joined in occasionally. But the bows they used were nothing like this one. They were simple longbows – made from lightweight staves with a draw weight of twenty pounds or less, for the less muscular frames of the women who shot them. From what he had said, this one would be more than twice as difficult to draw back.
‘Nothing like this one,’ she said. She turned it around, trying to work out how to string it. With the bows she had used previously, she had simply grounded one end and used her body weight to bend the stave, sliding the string up into its end notch. But she didn’t like the thought of forcing one of those carefully constructed recurve ends against the ground. ‘How do I string it?’ she asked.
He reached out and took the bow from her.
‘There are two ways you can do it. The first way is with a bow stringer, like this,’ he said. He took a length of thick cord from his jerkin’s side pocket and unrolled it. There was a small leather cylinder at one end and a wide loop, padded with leather, at the other. He slid the cylinder over the end of the bow where the string was already set in its notch, then placed the loop over the other limb, some thirty centimetres before the recurve began. The other end of the bowstring was already looped over the limb of the bow, with the string itself hanging in a loose curve.
Holding the bow with the string hanging down, he stepped onto the long loop of the heavy cord, pinning it to the ground, then began to force the bow upwards, using his back, arm and leg muscles to bend the limbs. The leather pad on the end of the bow stringer prevented its slipping down the limb as he applied increasing force. The bow creaked as the limbs bent further and further and, as they did, he slid the small loop of the bowstring up the limb, past the recurve, until it settled into the notch cut at the end of the bow.
‘Always make sure it’s properly seated before you release the pressure,’ he said. ‘You don’t want it slipping out and the whole thing coming unstuck.’
He studied the string, satisfied that it was seated properly, then released the pressure on the bow stringer. He slipped the wide, padded loop over the end of the bow, removed the cylinder from the other end, and presented her with the weapon, now properly strung and ready for use.
‘That looked kind of difficult,’ she said doubtfully. She had seen the effort he had to make to bend the bow.
He shrugged. ‘It’s not easy. But you’ll learn how to do it.’
She liked the way the bow felt now that it was strung. It was definitely balanced better than before. Tentatively, she pulled back on the bowstring and raised an eyebrow at the resistance. She’d heard archers talk about draw weights before, but it had meant little to her. Now she could feel how difficult it was to draw back a fifty-pound bow. She had a sudden spasm of doubt. She’d never manage this.
‘It’s a matter of technique,’ Will told her, as if he’d read her thoughts. ‘You’ll need to use the big muscles in your back and shoulders and arms. I’m guessing that when you’ve shot before, you just pulled the string back with your arm?’
She nodded and he gestured for her to take up a shooting position with the bow. She held it at arm’s length and he moved to correct her.
‘Start with the bow hand close to your body, not extended. Then push with your bow hand and pull with the other. That way you’re using the muscles of both arms, not just the string arm.’
She nodded thoughtfully, and brought the bow back close to her body. Then, with a co-ordinated effort, she pushed out and pulled back. The string came back almost two-thirds of its maximum draw before the increasing resistance defeated her. She let it down with a grunt of effort.
‘I can’t do this,’ she muttered.
‘Yes you can.’ Will’s reply was terse and left no room for argument.
She looked at him. If she was expecting any sympathy, there was none to be found. She realised then that if she tried, if she made an honest effort, Will would be understanding and helpful. If she simply decided to give up, it would be a different matter altogether. She took a deep breath and set herself to draw the bow again.
As she began, she heard him say: ‘Think of pushing your shoulder blades together as you push and pull. That gets your big back and shoulder muscles involved.’
She did as he said and this time, she felt the string come back a little further, until her right thumb was a few centimetres from her nose.
‘Good,’ he said. ‘Now try again and see if you can bring your thumb back to your nose.’
She did, exerting all the strength she could muster in her arms and her back. Fleetingly, her thumb touched against her nose. Then she let the string down again.
She shook her right hand. The string had cut painfully into her fingers as she hauled it back. Will noticed the movement and took something from his pocket, handing it to her.
‘Can be painful, can’t it? Try this.’
‘This’ was a patch of soft leather shaped rather like a small mitten. At the narrow end, a hole was cut in the leather, about the width of a finger. The patch widened out then formed into two pieces – one small, the other larger – with a notch cut between them. He showed her how to slip her second finger through the hole, so that the patch lay along the inner side of her hand. The smaller section corresponded to her first finger. The wider part covered her second and ring fingers. The gap in between separated them.
‘The arrow goes here,’ Will said, indicating the gap. ‘The rest of it protects your fingers from the string.’
She tried it again, pulling the string back part way to experiment. He was right, the leather protected her fingers and she could see how the arrow would sit between them in the gap – with her forefinger above the nock and her other two fingers below it.
‘Do you use one of these?’ she asked.
He shook his head. ‘They’re a bit fiddly if you’re in a fight. I have the tips of my gauntlets reinforced. We’ll get some made up for you. But in the meantime, that tab will do nicely. Try it again. Remember, shoulder blades together.’
She raised the bow. Push, pull. Shoulder blades forcing together. Her thumb touched her nose fleetingly and she let the string down.
‘I’m glad to see you know enough not to just release it without an arrow on the string,’ he said gruffly.
She gave him a wan smile. She knew that dry-shooting a bow that way could cause damage to the limbs. ‘Master-at-arms Parker always threatened the direst consequences for any lady who did.’
Will nodded. ‘Good for him. And of course, the more powerful the bow, the more damage can be done. Let’s see how you manage with an arrow.’
There were several arrows in the fold of oilcloth. He took one and handed it to Maddie, nodding with approval as she found the cock feather and set it out from the bow. He remembered how Halt had to teach him even the most basic facts about bows. She clicked the nock onto the string just below the marked nocking point and looked critically at the arrow.
‘It’s a little short,’ she said.
He inclined his head. ‘It’ll be about the right length for you to draw back to your nose. No point in shooting a longer arrow than you can draw. All you’re doing is adding weight without increasing the thrust behind it.’
She thought about that. It made sense. She took up her stance again, then hesitated.
‘What’s the target?’
Will indicated a hay bale some twenty metres away from them.
‘That should do the job,’ he said. She studie
d it, nodded and turned side on to it, bow down, arrow nocked to the string. The tight nock held the arrow in place, and the gap in the shooting tab fitted neatly where the nock was, with her index finger above it and her middle and ring fingers below. Much better with the leather to protect her hand, she thought. She began to raise the bow, then stopped.
‘Do you have an arm guard?’ she asked. She saw a slight look of disappointment cloud Will’s face, then it was gone as he turned to rummage among the equipment in the oilcloth. He found a leather cuff and handed it to her. She slipped it over her left arm.
‘A bow like this would hit like a whip without an arm guard,’ she commented.
He grunted and something in his attitude attracted her attention. She looked at him closely.
‘Don’t tell me,’ she said. ‘The first time you shot one of these, you didn’t wear an arm guard, did you?’
He glared at her and she felt a wicked sense of delight.
‘You didn’t, did you?’ she repeated.
He gestured stiffly at the target. ‘Just get on with your shooting.’
She shook her head in mock disbelief. ‘Boy, you must have been so dumb.’
‘Any time you’re ready to shoot will be fine.’
She set herself into the shooting position and raised the bow. As she did so, she couldn’t resist one more sally.
‘Bet you had one for your second shot.’
‘Get on with it!’ Will snapped at her.
She flexed her shoulder and back muscles, drew the bow as far as she could, sighted quickly and released. The arrow skimmed into the ground a metre before the hay bale.
She frowned, reloaded and shot again. Same result. She looked sideways at Will.
‘What am I doing wrong?’
He inclined his head at her. ‘Oh, do you think someone as dumb as me might be able to tell you?’ he asked in a mock-sweet tone.
She sighed and rolled her eyes. There was no answer to that and she resigned herself to letting him have the last word. When he spoke again, his tone was brisk and businesslike.