Steph Swainston - Dangerous Offspring

The crowds waited. There was not a breath of wind. Cyan took the string in a pinch grip, the horn draw-ring on her thumb. She drew the string, tilted the bow high for a distance shot, and loosed. Her arrow looped high above the lake, seemed to pause at the top of its arc, turned and came down, easily clearing the grassy far bank. It clattered on the avenue.

One of the reeves went to place a flag where the arrow had fallen. The crowd gave a polite round of applause, which we joined in while Lightning stepped up to the pennon. He held the arrow across the grip, already nocked. He crafts his tournament arrows himself, for perfection; each has azure fletchings and a gold cresting band.

The crowd fell silent. It is an awesome thing to see Lightning shoot. He raised his bow and tipped it back, drew it fluidly full compass until it formed a perfect semicircle and the tang-less pile point drew back into a groove cut into the massive grip. His powerful shoulders and back muscles took the eighty-two-kilo strain. Eleonora looked avariciously at the angle of his shoulder blade.

He loosed-and the arrow sped from his bow, so high it disappeared. It started coming down way past the point where Cyan’s arrow had fallen. It passed the avenue, the grass behind it, and fell silently into the beech woods. The crowd applauded and Lightning acknowledged them. Well, he made that look easy.

Minutes passed before the official result could be returned. The Bitterdale reeve came running and announced, ‘Seven hundred and thirty metres! Three times the Challenger’s distance!’

Cyan was pale. I wondered whether her intermittent self-control could stand such a test.

‘Now,’ Lightning said. ‘We have the speed contest. One minute to shoot as many arrows as possible into these targets.’ He gestured at some archery butts scarcely a hundred metres away. ‘Reeve Tambrine will time the minute.’

He put his great compound bow on a rack and picked up a smaller one, much like Cyan’s, faster to draw than a longbow. He stood beside her and they both pushed a row of arrows into the ground in front of them. The Tambrine reeve lowered his arm and Cyan started plucking up the arrows and shooting them as fast as she could.

Lightning dawdled. He picked an arrow, loosed it, looked in its direction, chose another and turned it over, fitted it to string.

There was a great hiss of indrawn breath from the crowd. We rose to our feet, staring at him. Tern touched my shoulder. ‘What is he doing? Why is he doing that?’

‘I don’t know.’

When the minute was up, Cyan had shot fourteen arrows and Lightning had shot ten. Cyan was panting, then she looked at Lightning’s target and her eyes and mouth went wide.

There was silence, then a sudden uproar as everyone turned to their neighbours and started asking what it meant. The reeve was looking, concerned and frightened, at his master but Lightning wasn’t meeting anybody’s eye. He turned to Cyan and said, ‘The heft of that bow of yours warps left at a distance. See, your arrows are tending left on the target? You should shoot a little right for the next round.’

He came over to us and took a drink of water. I said, ‘What are you playing at? You lost! Deliberately. Obviously deliberately!’

He smiled at me and the ladies. ‘Don’t worry. I needed to give Cyan some sop to her pride. There’s one round left.’

‘You’re playing with your life!’ Tern shrieked.

‘I just don’t want to show my daughter up too much. I know what I’m doing. I’m unbeatable at accuracy.’ He didn’t say it as a boast, it was a plain fact.

Lightning gave me the compound bow and took his customary longbow from the rock. He carried it as fluidly as if it was part of him, an extension of his body. An accuracy target was set up at two hundred metres’ distance-a black ring on the outside, then, white, blue and gold in the centre.

Lightning announced. ‘We have five arrows each. Whoever scores most highly on the target will remain-I mean, gain-the title of Lightning. Cyan Peregrine will shoot first.’

Cyan came forward to stand on a stone slab set into the grass. She felt for the reassuring ends of the arrows in her quiver, selected one composedly. She sighted and loosed. The arrow appeared in the middle of the cross in the gold, the target’s exact centre. She stepped aside and looked at her father defiantly.

Lightning stood on the flagstone. He was the target archer absolute. He made it seem so effortless. He faced the butt with a calm expression, confident and determined. His whole attitude was of command and power over the bow, the arrows and the target. He placed his feet apart with the weight equally on them, in a firm but springy stance. He was balanced and relaxed-a finger above the nock on the string, and two below. He used no marker, he knew it so well. He drew, and loosed sharply, the string free in an instant, and the arrow flew straight and sure.

There was a crack of wood. Lightning’s longer arrow had split Cyan’s in two. Its blue flights stood out from her white ones.

A roar from the audience. The reeves and servants sitting on the bales jumped up to applaud. Lightning acknowledged them but the noise seemed to daunt Cyan. She wasn’t experienced enough to have expected it. She said nothing, just looking out to the target and down to her own gear. She pulled the string and extended her left arm in one movement, and the arrow point came up. She looked directly to the target.

Her arrow hit the edge of the gold. It was Lightning’s turn to shoot. His arms were firm and unwavering, his attention never relaxed. Again he split Cyan’s arrow perfectly.

The crowd’s applause ceased immediately.

‘What is he doing?’ I said. ‘He could have won then!’

Eleonora murmured, ‘By god, he’s brave.’

‘What?’

‘One day, immortal, in the far future you’ll be able to say you saw this, and the rest of the world will look on you with awe. You will be able to say you were there at the beginning.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Just watch.’

Tern edged closer to me and put her arm around my waist.

Cyan shot again, and again Lightning hit her arrow directly, splitting it in half.

She raised her arm and wiped her face on her sleeve. She was desperate, but she stood with an elasticity to resist the force and recoil of her twangy little bow. She was the timeless picture of grace as she drew it with a beautiful movement until it filled her whole frame. She hit the gold above the arrows-they were as snug together as a fistful of sticks, their flights entangled.

Lightning split her arrow.

This was the last one. Cyan was aware of every factor that might make a difference. She shrugged her waistcoat tighter, she adjusted her bracer. She dug a thumb behind her belt buckle. Her little movements were like the wriggles of a worm on a hook.

She raised her bow and shot. The arrow snicked in next to the others on the gold cross.

Lightning’s turn: he drew. He loosed.

His arrow went wide-into the black outer ring.

Everyone in the stands was on their feet. He had lost.

He trembled as he lowered his bow. He gulped as if with a dry throat and tears came to his eyes, but with absolute mastery of himself, they weren’t shed.

Cyan was walking in a small circle with an expression of confusion. He stopped her, and made her look at him. He kissed her and said something softly. Cyan blinked.

Louder, he added, ‘Now I am out, and you are in. Enjoy it.’

He placed the end of his bow against the inside of his shoe, and unstrung it. He wound the string around his hand and slipped it in his pocket. Then he began to walk, past the stands and the dumbstruck audience, leaving Cyan behind. ‘But…’ she said. ‘But who’s going to look after me?’