‘Have you decided that you no longer wish to learn the way of the arrow?’
‘You know that’s not true,’ she said. ‘Why are you being mean? Why are you all so mean?’
Valiana called from the carriage, ‘Come in here with me, Aline, and leave the silly men to their toys and games.’
Aline started to go, but Brasti stopped her. ‘Last chance,’ he said without a trace of humour in his voice.
‘You know I want to,’ she said miserably.
‘Say it,’ Brasti demanded. He still held his arms out in front of him as if a bow rested on them.
‘I want to learn the way of the arrow.’
‘Say it again.’
‘I want to learn the way of the arrow.’
Brasti knelt on one knee in front of her. ‘Then take this bow,’ he said.
She hesitated.
‘Take it.’
Gingerly she reached forward and pretended to lift the bow from his outstretched arms.
‘Now swear, Aline: swear that you will follow my lessons, always aim true, and above all, treat this bow as if it were the last you will ever own.’
She looked confused but she stammered out, ‘I swear it.’
Brasti rose. ‘Good. Go and put the bow away for now and then come back. You won’t need it for your first lesson.’
Aline ran off to one of the wagons and did a very good job of pretending to place the bow carefully amongst the supplies.
Kest looked at Brasti. ‘I must confess, I’ve never studied archery,’ he began.
‘Well, it’s a bit too sophisticated an art for your kind, Kest.’
‘Perhaps – but I admit to being confused as to the purpose of an imaginary bow.’
‘If you can aim and shoot with perfect form with an imaginary bow, you can do it with a real one.’
‘So this really is how you learned to shoot?’
‘My master did the very same thing to me when I was about her age. An archer needs to trust his form, not the feel of the bow. The archer is the true weapon; the bow is just a long piece of wood.’
A couple of the men snorted at that, but it was hard to question Brasti’s words when he never seemed to miss.
Aline returned and looked up at Brasti. ‘Could you teach me about the wind?’ she asked. ‘How can you tell how much it’s pushing?’
‘Well, you use your eyes first, of course, but then you have to close them so that you can use your ears.’
‘Your ears?’
‘Close your eyes,’ he said.
She did and so did I, and then I felt a little foolish.
‘Now listen. What do you hear?’
‘I hear you, and I hear the men moving around.’
‘Good. What else?’
‘One of the horses is snorting, and I think something is creaking – his bridle, maybe.’
‘Keep going,’ Brasti said. ‘Deeper.’
‘I hear the wind picking up the leaves.’
‘That’s right. You’re doing very well. Now try to listen past it. Try to listen to the sound of the wind coming up again. What does that sound like?’
‘It sounds like – it sounds like a cat, stepping on leaves.’
‘That’s right, like a cat, it’s— Oh shit!’
I opened my eyes and saw Brasti jumping on top of the forward wagon and pulling out his bow and arrows. The real ones.
‘What is it?’ Feltock asked.
‘Cats stepping on leaves,’ he said. ‘At this distance the only thing that sounds like cats stepping on leaves is a group of men trying to move quietly.’
Feltock didn’t hesitate. ‘Arm up – now, damn it! Get the horses back, get the wagons circled, carriage in the centre. Protect the Lady.’
As the men jumped to obey, Feltock asked, ‘Can you tell me how many?’
Brasti shook his head. ‘I can’t be sure, except it’s a lot more than us.’
It didn’t take long to find out, for as soon as the brigands realised that we were pulling out weapons they began to rush towards us. I could see movement in the forest on either side of us.
‘Damned trees,’ Feltock swore. ‘Can’t see a bloody thing – and we’re sitting ducks out in the open road like this.’
The men were forming up, using the cover of the wagons to prepare for a charge, if the right moment came. Brasti was looking for targets, sighting along his bow.
I saw Aline rushing to the wagon where she had put her own ‘bow’ and shouted, ‘Aline! Go to the Lady Valiana and stay there!’
I had to turn because a flurry of arrows hit the ground in front of me.
‘Do you have any more pistols?’ I asked Feltock.
‘They’re rubbish,’ he said. ‘They have to make a dozen of the damned things to get one that shoots straight. Besides, they’re single-shot; they take too damned long to reload.’
Brasti let fly an arrow and I followed its path into the forest where it hit a man in the shoulder.
‘I wouldn’t do that,’ called out a voice from the trees.
‘Yeah? Why is that?’ Feltock called out.
Arrows rained down, lodging in the dirt in front of our feet. There must have been thirty of them.
‘Damn, Feltock – why didn’t you bring more men on this journey if it’s this bad up here?’
‘Her Ladyship’s orders: ten men, counting me, and no more.’
‘Why would Valiana do that when she knew she would be in danger?’
Feltock looked me in the eye. ‘It wasn’t her – it was her mother, the Duchess. She gave the orders.’
Kest and I exchanged glances; he looked as confused as I was – maybe even more so, in fact, because he was still planning on killing Valiana.
The brigand leader shouted out again: ‘Leave the wagons and be on your way. There’s no need for bloodshed here.’
An arrow flew out of the forest and lodged itself in Blondie’s shoulder.
‘Except for him. That’s for my man you took in the shoulder. Fair’s fair, after all.’
‘We can’t leave the wagons,’ I called out. ‘The road ahead is too long and too dangerous. We’ll starve.’
‘Better you than us,’ the leader answered. ‘Every man has the right to eat and to take a measure of comfort.’
‘Says who?’ Feltock muttered.
The brigand leader had good ears. ‘Says King’s Law, my salty old friend. You can look it up yourself if you can find someone to teach you how to read.’
‘Well, isn’t he well spoken for a bandit?’ Feltock said to me.
Well spoken indeed, and right on King’s Law. Interesting.
‘Negotiation,’ I called back. ‘Every man or woman has the right to negotiation before blood.’
There was a pause.
‘Very well,’ the leader said. ‘We’ll come out, twelve of us for twelve of you, but mark that I have more than enough archers here to put you down if you try anything, and we’ll have our weapons at the ready.’
‘Marked and fair,’ I said.
They came out of the forest: rough men, mostly, with ragged clothes and beaten iron swords or wooden spears for weapons, followed last by their leader. He carried a longsword that shone when the sun hit it: no rust on that weapon. On his head he wore a brown broad-brimmed hat, weather-beaten and worn. On his back he wore a Magister’s greatcoat.
‘Bloody hells,’ Brasti said.