“Yes! I found this.” Thaddeus stepped back out the doorway and returned with a longbow. “And I thought Emmaus might be able to show me how to string the thing. You’d be surprised at all the things Emmaus knows.”
Actually, he was well-aware of Emmaus’s competence.
And still unsettled that Emmaus had elected to remain on land. Emmaus could catch danger’s scent quicker than an owl could spot a mouse. And if he had chosen to remain, that could only be because he sensed innocents in danger.
Innocents like Thaddeus.
Chev’s gaze settled on the bow, recognizing the craftsmanship right away—one of the first bows he’d ever made. Deceptively simple looking, the bow had taken two years to make. Yew sapwood formed the back two thirds of the wood and heartwood, the belly.
“I’ve tried everything I can think of,” Thaddeus said. “I haven’t been able to get it to bend in the least.”
“Have you asked the other guests at Ithwick to help you?” he asked, drawing out Thaddeus’s position on his mother’s suitors.
“Pah!” Thaddeus made a sound of disgust. “I would not let any one of them even touch my father’s bow.” He set back his shoulders. “Food wasted. Servants seduced. Beggars turned away. If I were older, I’d kick the idle trespassers out on their bums.” He stopped abruptly. “Oh, I apologize. I didn’t mean to shock you.”
Impressed, more like. “May I try stringing the bow?” he asked.
After a moment’s hesitation—and a brief glance to Chev’s arm—Thaddeus handed him the bow.
How sweet the weight and feel! “I can help you.”
“Can you?” Thaddeus’s expression turned hopeful. He stuck his hand into his pocket and pulled out a string.
Cheverley sat on the chair, rested the bow against his shoulder and instructed Thaddeus how to fasten one end of the string. The boy’s rapt attention was rain on parched earth.
“Now,” Chev stood, “there are many ways to bring the string to the other side, but with a longbow of this size, this is the method I’d recommend.”
He placed the bow at the corner of his left foot. He stepped over the bow and hooked the top of the bow in his right arm.
“Would you mind handing me the string?” he asked.
He took the string, and, using his body weight, bent the bow while simultaneously stretching the string and then securing the string to the top of the bow. He tested the tautness of the string.Perfect.
“Ha!” Thaddeus laughed aloud. “You made it look easy.”
“The trick”—he winked—“is steady movement.”
Thaddeus grin faded. “It must be awful to be an archer and not be able to shoot.”
“Who says I cannot shoot?” He nodded toward the door. “Come outside.”
Chev retrieved his bow from his pack. He allowed Thaddeus to handle the bead and the mouthpiece before he strung the yew. Then, Thaddeus handed him an arrow from his quiver.
He aimed the arrow at a distant tree. He drew the string to maximum tension.
Muscles strained through his jaw and neck, banding tension that reached all the way to his spine. He shot. The arrow struck a leaf from a branch, bending back the branch and pinning the leaf to the trunk.
“Brilliant!” Thaddeus’s jaw dropped. “Your neck popped out when you did that.”
“So I’ve been told.”
“Can you teach me?”
Something softened in Chev’s chest. He indicated Thaddeus’s bow. “Why don’t you try again?”
Thaddeus ran his finger down the string. “Stiff as a switch.”
“Stiffer, actually,” Chev replied.
