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 studied 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.