“As the challenged, I go first,” he said; but Robin was too sick to protest that it was not this test he had offered as challenge; nor, he knew, would a protest have done him any good. At such a range he would be lucky if his arrows did not bounce—if they struck the correct tree at all. The anger that had borne him up drained away as suddenly as it had risen, and he was cold and weary, and knew he had been a fool. He wondered if Tom meant to kill him after. There was no doubt that Tom was the better archer, any more than it was uncommon knowledge that Robin was not the archer his father had been; Bill had made his ears burn often enough on this subject—for all that Bill himself could barely hit the broad side of a barn at six paces. Robin thought sadly that he had not known the old wound could still hurt so sorely.
Robin turned heavy eyes to Tom as the bigger man took his stance and pulled his arrow powerfully back—but he noticed that the man’s hands were not quite steady. With anger? Robin thought. Or with ale? Either way he will take joy in beating me senseless.
“Three arrows each we may try,” Tom said between his teeth, and let go his first shaft. It flew straight, but a little awry, for it buried itself at the left edge of the burl, and not the center. The second struck so near to the first that their feathers vibrated together; and this second one was nearer the burl’s center. But the third, which should have struck nearest of all, went wild, and sank in the trunk a finger’s-breadth from the burl. Tom threw his bow down savagely and turned to Robin. “Let us see you shoot yet half so well,” he said threateningly.
Robin slowly moved forward to take his place, slowly unslung his bow, bent it to slip the string into its notch, and pulled an arrow from his quiver. But his hands were steady as he drew the bowstring back and sighted down the arrow.
His first arrow struck the far right side of the treetrunk, a good hand’s-breadth from the burl. There was a snicker behind him. It might be Bill; he doubted it was Tom. And yet his arrow was, for him and indeed for most archers, good shooting. It was not for his archery that Robin’s father had called Tom Moody bad. He notched and drew his second arrow, and it flew beautifully, to strike at the veriest right-hand edge of the burl; and yet it was nearer the mark than only one of Tom’s, and Robin had already shot two.
He fitted his last arrow to the string, staring at his hands, which went fairly about their familiar work without acknowledging the trouble that they and the rest of Robin were in. The arrow was his best; from the same fine-grained bit of pine he had made a half-dozen arrows Sir Richard had paid handsomely for, so handsomely that Robin had let himself keep the last, the odd seventh, in the wistful hope that so excellent an arrow might have an effect on his marksmanship. When he raised the bow, for a moment his eyes clouded over, and he could not see the tree he was aiming for; and he wondered, as his arrow quivered against the string, if he would ever shoot another after Tom and his lads got through with him.
He murmured a few words under his breath—a prayer, perhaps, or a farewell to Marian; or an apology to his father—and loosed his last arrow.
Another vagrant breeze arose from nowhere, and kissed his arrow in its flight; Robin felt it brush his cheek as well. And the arrow, perhaps, wavered.
And struck true, dead center, in the burl.
A barely audible gasp rose behind him: a hissing of breath through shut teeth. Robin stared at his arrow, its shaft still vibrating, and for a second time his vision briefly clouded. He blinked, and heard footsteps behind him, and stiffened to prevent himself from cringing away from what he felt sure would be a heavy hand on his shoulder, preliminary to the beating he would still receive, from many heavy hands, despite his lucky shooting.
But Tom strode straight by him, toward the tree, and after a moment Robin followed him without looking around.
There was no doubt that Robin’s arrow was beautifully centered, and that neither of Tom’s better shots came near it. Tom growled something, jerked the perfect arrow out of the tree, and trod on it. Robin heard the shaft break, but said nothing, thinking of his ribs, and of the sound of approaching soft footsteps behind him. But Tom still made no move toward him. He pulled his own arrows out of the tree and then stepped aside, glaring; and Robin, in a daze, stepped forward, retrieved his two remaining arrows, and restored them carefully to his quiver. He would check them later. After a moment he also stooped and hastily picked up the splintered halves of the broken arrow; and these he thrust under his belt.
Still no one said anything, and he moved cautiously away, toward the path, toward his day at Nottingham Fair, his day with Marian. He had to turn his back on Tom to do this, and he walked jerkily, as a man passes a growling mastiff which he knows would be happy to tear his arm off if he makes a false move; and he had regained the path and turned down it, carefully not looking back, when there was a strangled shout behind him.
“And do you think then, that you shall go unhindered to Nottingham Fair, and boast to your friends in the dirt that you did best Tom Moody at archery?”
Robin, too conscious of what was happening off to one side, was not conscious enough of what lay under his feet on this rough woods path; and he stumbled, ever so slightly, and his head nodded forward to save his balance. And an arrow whistled past his ear.
It whistled so nearly that it creased the nape of his neck, gently, and the narrow place where it rubbed was red and painful for many days. Fear jumped back into Robin’s throat and stopped his breathing, and his bowels turned to water: He means to kill me, he thought, and he turned like a creature at bay, crouching against the possibility of a further shaft from his enemy, groping over his shoulder for his bow, which he had providentially not unstrung. He notched an arrow and let fly back at the little group around the gnarled oak tree.
He aimed for Tom Moody’s right leg. He had aimed neither well nor carefully, and he took no thought for the consequences, should he succeed at so tricky a shot—or should he fail. But he was nonetheless appalled as he saw the feathered shaft appear as if by magic in Tom’s broad chest, as he heard the man’s hoarse cry of pain and terror. Tom looked down a moment, and clutched at the great spreading red stain around the thing that grew now so abruptly from his breast; and then his knees buckled, and he fell forward on his face and lay still. The snap of the shaft as Tom’s weight crushed it was very loud in the stillness; and then, like a long echo of that sharp, final sound, a squirrel appeared on a branch of the oak tree, and shrilly protested the invasion of his peace.