Longbow Girl (3 page)

I
t was a Saturday. Her father was up, feeding Gawain spoonfuls of freshly mashed banana and avocado, giving Elinor a much-needed lie-in.

‘Morning,
cariad
,' he said, as Merry appeared in her dressing gown and Uggs. ‘You all right?'

‘Nope,' said Merry. ‘Headache.' Her dreams had segued into nightmares, and left her head throbbing.

‘Here, finish feeding this little monster and I'll cook us some pancakes with bananas and maple syrup. How about that?'

‘Mmmm. Yes please,' said Merry, sitting down with a grateful sigh. Sweet, stodgy food was the best cure, and her father, despite being traditional in many ways, was a very good cook. ‘I like to eat so I'd be stupid if I didn't know how to cook' was his response to anyone who expressed surprise.

Ten minutes later he handed Merry a full plate and a cup of hot chocolate.

‘Eat up. Feel better. I'll see you outside in half an hour.'

Mouth full, Merry nodded. Saturday mornings meant longbow practice with her father. Nothing got in the way except bad weather, and only then because it damaged the arrows' fletches and messed up the straw target.

This was a very different exercise from the arrows she shot with James, hanging out with him, larking around while he honed his football skills. Saturday practice with her father was where the longbowman handed down all his skills, where he pushed her always to get better, stronger and more accurate, not for a war that would no longer be fought, but because it was part of who the Owens were, as essential to their identity as the land they lived on. Every year, he was required to demonstrate his prowess at the Royal Welsh Show, in front of the Prince of Wales. In a year it would be Merry's turn.

The longbowmen of the past were legendary, the most fearsome killing machine the Western world had ever seen. Their bows had drawn weights of around one hundred and forty pounds. They could shoot their steel-tipped arrows from two hundred paces with sufficient force to pierce armour, and could shoot so fast that they could send three arrows scything through the air at any one time. They won unwinnable battles, gained untold lands, struck terror into the hearts of their enemies. Songs had been written about them, stories woven around them; they were the game changers of their age.

It was these ghostly giants of history that Merry and her
father honoured.

She had started training aged five. Her muscles and technique had been honed for over a decade. That was about as long as the archers of old took to develop the massive strength and skill needed to go to war with a longbow. Even though Gawain had come along, a wonderful surprise baby, his birth changed nothing. Merry was the longbow girl. Her parents wouldn't have dreamt of taking that away from her.

Merry finished her breakfast, already feeling better. She washed up, then pulled on her boots, grabbed her bow, her leather arm brace and quiver, and walked out to their practice field. She removed the tarpaulin cover from the straw target and strapped the brace to her left arm. She'd gone without a few times and the bowstring had given her some wicked bruises. Most longbow archers wore a finger tab to protect their skin when drawing the bow, but she and her father often forgot their tabs and went without. She'd grown large calluses on the pads of her two forefingers as a result, but she didn't mind. Calluses were better than gloves or tabs. You didn't lose them and besides, she liked to feel the bow cord and the arrow, to guide it with that extra bit of sensitivity.

Her father approached from the house, holding two bows.

‘You can unstring that one,' he said, nodding to the bow that lay on the tarpaulin and handing her another longer bow. ‘You've grown again,
cariad
. Time for a new one.'

‘Oh, Da.' Merry stood on tiptoe, kissed her father's cheek. The bow, her eleventh, was beautiful. She'd had a new one every year, from the age of five, and her father had made them
all. Each bow was a surprise – she never knew when she'd get it – and seemed to have marked a watershed in her life, as if her father knew what was coming, or perhaps as if having the new bow
made
something happen.

He had also made the bow that had harboured the invisible, undetectable flaw. The bow that broke and took Merry's eye.

He had never forgiven himself for that, and the smile he gave her as he handed her the new bow was tinged with a sorrow that never went away no matter how many times Merry told him that it wasn't his fault, that he couldn't have known, that it was just bad luck. It was archers' lore that every bow when fully drawn was nine-tenths broken, that all it took to cause a fatal rupture was one small weakness deep within the wood; a weakness that could lie dormant and invisible and undetected until it was too late. Like people. You never quite knew where the breaking point was.

Merry weighed the new bow in her hand. She held it, one end hovering just off the ground, the other reaching a few inches above her head. She prayed it was sound.

‘Just right,' said her father. ‘Here's the cord. Let's see if you can string the bow. Fifty-pound draw, mind you.'

He would already have tested it, making the cord just the right length to give the bow the perfect draw length. Her perfectionist father.

Merry slipped the knotted string over the lower nock, pulling it tight. She found a soft piece of ground to rest the lower nock on, then, placing her knee on the handle of the bow, she pulled with her left hand until the upper limb bent
towards her while with her right hand she worked the loop of the string towards the groove of the upper nock. With a final surge of strength, she slid it in.

She'd done it at the first attempt. No fumbling.

Her father gave a slight nod. Merry smiled.

She went through the routine that had become almost as familiar and as automatic as breathing. The longbowman's mantra, her father's mantra:
Ready your bows, nock, mark, draw, loose
. The same words that would have echoed across the battlefields of the Middle Ages.

She held the stave of her bow in her left hand, turned sideways on to the target.

Ready your bows . . .

She braced her feet, hip-width apart, left foot forward in the archer's stance. She reached back her arm and pulled an arrow from her quiver, holding it by the nock at the end, the slit that kept it in place on the bowstring. With its shaft of cedar and its metal tip, the arrow was twenty-seven inches long. It was fletched with goose feathers, like the arrows used at Crécy.

Nock . . .

She clicked the arrow on the string, making it thrum softly.

Mark . . .

She looked up, eyed the target, visualized the arrow slicing through the air, coming home to rest in the gold.

Draw . . .

She bent over from the waist, then in a fluid motion, using the strength in her legs, stomach, back and arms, she straightened up, and with the forefinger and second and third
fingers of her right hand on the string, she pulled her arm back and up till the bow was at full stretch, until her hand was just under her ear with her forearm parallel to the ground. Her back muscles bunched and strained, but she did it.

Loose
.

The arrow was pulled back too far to aim by looking down its shaft. Instead Merry just looked at the target, released her grip on the string, and let the arrow fly.

The arrow thudded into the target. Dead centre of the gold.

She glanced across the fields to the forest, where the chieftain lay, as if by her arrows, by her marksmanship, she could keep him at bay.

M
erry spent the rest of the weekend with her family. Weekdays on a farm were always so busy that they all valued whatever quiet time they could get on Saturday and Sunday. There were still chores to be done, but Elinor always made sure they went out on a family outing on both days, even if it was just a trip to Brecon.

Monday morning came and Merry spent the morning on the PC doing her distance-learning courses. Today she focused on maths and the sciences. By lunchtime she was done. Her father had gone out – stormed out more like. She'd heard his raised voice as he took a call on his mobile, then the slamming of a door and the acceleration of their ancient Land Rover as he drove off somewhere in a hurry.

Her mother had taken Gawain to visit her sister in Brecon,
so Merry got her own lunch. Tinned tomato soup with grated cheddar and two slices of Seren's home-made bread.

She still hadn't decided what to do about her book. It made her feel restless, sitting up there under her bed. It was as if it were giving off vibes.

A text pinged in as she spooned up soup. James.

What you doing?

Lunch. You?

Meant to be studying. Can't face it.

Parentals aren't forcing you?

Parentals have gone off to Cardiff. Want to come round?

I'll still use the tunnel.

What is it with you and the tunnel?

Don't know. Just love it.

Used to frighten you.

That's the point!

Weirdo.

See you in the dungeons.

Love the dungeons.

Who's weird now?

She'd show her book to James, Merry thought. That'd distract him from his woes.

She cleared up lunch then set off, the chest and a head torch hidden in a large plastic bag swinging at her side. She climbed the boundary wall, checking there was no sign of the wolfhounds, then headed towards the wilderness below the castle, where the gorse grew thick, concealing the entrance to the tunnel.

The de Courcys' escape tunnels were still a closely guarded secret, eight hundred years after their construction. Merry strapped on her head torch, switched it on, and pushed through the thorny bushes, ducking under the low entrance. Inside, it was cold and damp. The beam of her torch bounced off the walls of glistening black rock. As she went deeper into the tunnel, her footsteps echoed so it sounded like she was being followed. She glanced around a few times, just to check, even though she knew nobody'd be there. The tunnels always did that, spooking her. Maybe it was the unquiet spirits of all those who'd walked this way before . . .

As always, Merry was relieved when she got to the door that led into the castle dungeons. She tapped it lightly and it opened immediately. James stood there eyeing her plastic bag quizzically.

‘What you got in there?'

‘Wait and see.'

‘Come on, then. You can show me in my room.'

Merry pulled off her muddy trainers and socks, and left them with her torch beside the door. Barefoot, she walked behind James, through the dungeons, past the cells, now used to store wood and coal and odds and ends. She saw lamp stands, an old upright pram, a fire grill and two ladders. The iron bars were still there, though. She paused, reached out, took hold of one. Was there a flutter in the air, an echo of movement long ago, or was she spinning again? Something ran through her. She shivered and let go.

They filed up the narrow spiral staircase, came out into the
cavernous Great Hall. In the dim lighting, Merry thought she saw someone on her blind side, turned sharply.

James laughed. ‘Just Sir Lancelot.'

Merry blew out a breath and studied the life-size figure of the knight in full chain mail, complete with helmet and sword. ‘God! He always gets me!'

‘Gets the dogs too,' remarked James. ‘They still growl at him.'

They walked across the age-darkened slate floor, buffed smooth over the centuries, and headed up the broad staircase.

From the dark wood panelling, generations of de Courcys glowered down from their massed portraits. At the bottom, most prominent, was the current countess, the twenty-first, James's mother. Anne de Courcy was a girl from Swansea, the daughter of a steelworker, blessed with the looks that had turned the head and to everyone's surprise – including it was said, his own – won the heart of the young earl, Auberon de Courcy. Dark-haired, with blue eyes and creamy skin, she was stunningly beautiful in that
mirror, mirror on the wall
way.

Looking at the portraits, Merry could see how strongly Anne de Courcy had passed on her spectacular physical genes to her son. James had the same thick, dark hair, strong eyebrows like two strokes of black, and quick blue eyes. His nose, however, was pure de Courcy, long and straight, the mirror of his father's and most of the de Courcys on the wall. Sadly for James's sister, Lady Alicia had only her father's genes.

Alongside James, Merry hurried up the multiple flights of stairs, along the hallway. They passed the priest's hole and Merry felt again the shiver that different parts of the castle gave her. This tiny, airless space, just big enough to conceal a standing man, wasn't for ancient games of hide-and-seek. It had been built during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, when the penalty for being a Catholic priest was death. What nameless priests had hidden here, wondered Merry, with the shadow of death hanging over them?

‘Are you coming? Or d'you want me to shut you in there?' James called from ahead, cocking his head as if contemplating it.

‘You and whose army?' Merry replied.

James laughed. ‘You haven't got your bow, Merry Owen. You're defenceless!'

Merry spluttered at that. James knew her father gave her lessons in self-defence.

Together, they walked on to the end of the hallway, to James's corner room. Merry always blinked at the sheer scale of it. Windows facing west across the valley to her own house, and north to the Beacons. There was a double bed, a large desk and a giant beanbag, and still what felt like acres of space.

‘So, what's in the bag?' James said, nodding to it. ‘You're hanging on to it like you've got the crown jewels in there.'

‘Not far off,' replied Merry.

She took out the chest, opened it, carefully began to unravel the swaddling.

‘Please don't tell me there's a baby in there,' said James.

‘Ha ha. Not quite.' Merry removed the last bit of wrapping, set the book on the desk in front of James.

He stared at it, then looked up at her, his mouth open to speak when another voice cut in.

‘What's all this?'

Merry spun round.

The Earl de Courcy stood in the open door. Tall, slim, straight-backed, immaculate in his handmade suit.

Merry hissed in a breath, struggling to contain the anger bubbling up. This man was responsible for her stallion's death. For the problems her family was now facing.

The earl's angular face showed no emotion. Only his eyes moved, sharp, cold like stone. That's how he always seemed to Merry: the Stone Man.

‘God, Pa! I thought you were in Cardiff!' exclaimed James, looking awkward and annoyed.

‘I came back,' retorted the earl.

He nodded to Merry. She managed to nod back.

The earl walked up to the desk. ‘What
is
this?' he asked, his eyebrows rising. He bent down to scrutinize the book, then looked from James to Merry, waiting for an answer.

Merry had no choice but to speak to him. ‘I'm not exactly sure,' she replied in a clipped voice.

‘It's yours, I assume,' said the earl.

Merry nodded. ‘I found it on Saturday, in the forest. On our land,' she added.

The earl eyed her, got her meaning perfectly. ‘Really.'

‘Yes,' replied Merry. ‘I did.'

‘May I?' the earl was asking, his hand already on the book.

Merry felt like shouting:
No! You may not!
But what could she do? She was in his castle. Reluctantly, she nodded.

The earl turned the pages. ‘Exquisite,' he murmured. ‘What do you think it is?'

She blew out a breath. ‘Something precious,' she said at last. ‘And very old.'

‘You haven't shown it to any experts?' asked the earl, straightening, looking at Merry with cool speculation.

‘No, I haven't! I only just found it. I've hardly had time to figure out what to do with it.' That was a lie, but she had no intention of sharing her superstitious fears with the earl.

‘I was in Cardiff,' replied the earl, puzzlingly. ‘At the train station. Collecting some guests. You've met one already,' he said to James. ‘Dr Philipps.'

‘Your pet historian,' replied James. ‘The one who discovered that Henry VIII had stayed here.'

‘Don't be facetious, James,' reprimanded his father. ‘We have an important history. It needs documenting.' The earl turned back to Merry. ‘As it happens, Dr Philipps is also an expert on old manuscripts.'

He picked up her book.

‘Would you like to come downstairs and meet him?'

Merry felt another flare of anger. She exchanged a pained glance with James, who gave a helpless shrug. Only for his sake did Merry hold on to her temper.

What I would like to do
, thought Merry,
is to yank my book out of your hands, fall through the floor into the dungeons
and head back through the tunnel as fast as possible
.

But the earl was already walking through the door, carrying Merry's book, so she had little choice but to follow.