Dawn of Wonder (The Wakening Book 1) (35 page)

Wildemar was equally uncomfortable, looking like
he wanted to dart off and hide at the end of a high branch until the embarrassment
had worn off. Fingers worked and face twitched, but he managed to gather
himself and began tossing out little pips of information on the bow-making
process, beginning with wood selection.

Yew, elm and hickory he considered ideal, if they
could be found, while other woods like maple, walnut and fruit trees like plum,
apple or mulberry would also produce good bows. He showed them how to test any
wood by bending a thin branch and watching whether it snapped back into place
or returned with more of a ponderous lethargy. Torval sat without looking up,
nodding occasionally.

Aedan was beginning to wonder what the legendary
bowyer was going to contribute to the class when Wildemar’s store of
information ran empty and he looked across at Torval and asked if he would demonstrate
the full construction of a survival bow – a hunting flatbow if possible – from
branch to weapon in a single day.

Torval mumbled something to Wildemar who relayed
the message, a request for a volunteer. Peashot jumped forward. Torval, without
explaining what he was doing, measured the reach of Peashot’s arm with a marked
cord, doubled this and added a few inches.

Then he rose to his feet.

The boys went very quiet, and Aedan understood why
the man could never have been in the military.

Torval kept his eyes down as he began to move away,
struggling for each step. His legs were bent – not just a little bandy, but completely
deformed, as if they had been strapped around a barrel through his childhood
and forced to set in wide looping arches. As powerful and capable as his arms
were, so misshapen and useless were his legs. He had to throw his weight from
side to side, weaving forward in a tottering, stumping gait.

The initial silence was broken by something worse.
Malik started it – a cold sniggering amusement that was taken up by his friends
and boot-lickers. Wildemar called for silence, but he could not undo the insult
that continued to ring in everyone’s ears. Though he had taken no part in it, Aedan
still felt ashamed.

When the crippled bowyer made his tottering way
back, he did not raise his head. Though he had the strength in his arms to
thrash the lot of them with a few strokes of the young maple trunk he now
carried, he sat down quietly and began to work.

The trunk was about four inches in diameter. He sawed
it to the length he had just measured and split it down the middle. Choosing
the side free of knots, he used a drawknife to strip off the bark and cambium
along the back until it showed a single, undamaged growth ring, then he began
to tiller the limbs.

The heavy-armed bowyer hunched over his work, lost
– or perhaps taking shelter – in the rhythm of the drawknife. It fell to Wildemar
to explain what was taking place.

“Usually,” he said, “Torval would dry the wood very
slowly, tiller little bits off in stages, especially with longbows. Drying
hardens wood. Tillering is thinning the limbs. Balancing them is important.
Very important. Can take years. But what he’s demonstrating is a hasty bow for a
survival situation. The bow will be weaker, might crack slightly from forced
drying. Should still deliver a good shot though.”

After chipping out the rough shape of limbs and
handle with a small axe, deliberately avoiding the back of the bow – the side
facing the target – he placed the stave over a bed of coals and left it to dry.

Vayle raised his hand.

“Yes?” said Wildemar.

“How likely are we to be carrying axes, drawknives
and all these other tools if we are in a survival situation?”

Wildemar looked at Torval. The boys looked at Torval.
Torval looked at his shoes.

“Do – uh, do you – uh, think,” asked Wildemar, the
high branch calling him again, “that you could possibly show them with –
without using specialised tools? Maybe only a small hunting knife? And still
finish in a day? Possibly?”

The bowyer did not raise his eyes. He lurched and
stumped over to the coals, picked up the stave and placed it in a corner.

Then he left the room.

Wildemar twitched, eyes darting everywhere except
at the boys’ inquiring faces.

Nobody knew what to do.

It had obviously been too bold a request. Peashot
glared at Vayle.

Then Torval walked back into the room with a
second bough swinging under his arm, this one about two inches thick. In his
other hand was a small rock. Without a word, he took up a stick instead of his
measuring cord, motioned for Peashot to step forward, repeated the measurements,
and marked the bough.

His voice barely over a whisper, he turned to
Wildemar. “Would you like me to use one of their knives?” he asked.

Before Wildemar had a chance to reply, Peashot
slipped his knife out the sheath and handed it over.

From behind him, Aedan heard someone make a
scathing comment – the monkey bow-maker about to embarrass himself. He felt a
sudden pang. Why would Torval risk it? He could simply say it was not possible
and nobody would think any less of him. But by subjecting himself to absurd
challenges like this, he was inviting further ridicule. How was he going to
make a flatbow in a single day without tools? There was a reason why little
knives were not used to chop branches or split firewood.

By this time the workshop had filled with bowyers,
and the general noise of sawing, chopping, and filing provided a blanket for
murmured conversation. Wildemar noticed of course, but did not interfere.

Aedan listened to what was developing.

It was a bet.

Malik, never short of money, was offering three to
one that the bow would not be completed by sunset, or that it would break.

Cayde was writing down names and amounts.

“Northboy?” Malik whispered. “Frightened to bet
against me?”

Aedan glanced back at the quiet craftsman hunched
over his work. He looked old, beaten-down, friendless. The way he studied the
wood with such hopeful intensity, as if he had nothing in the world apart from
his craft, tugged at Aedan. He suddenly wanted the quietly courageous man to
succeed in front of these sneering boys, wanted it dreadfully.

“Thought so, beggar-boy,” said Malik, misreading
the silence.

Aedan swung back at him. “Ten coppers says he does
it.”

Malik’s eyes narrowed. “You actually have ten
huddies?”

“You have two chims and six?”

A smirk stole over Malik’s cold face.

Cayde filled in the bet.

Aedan had never owned ten copper huddies in his
life. At this point he had only one – maybe, somewhere, possibly under his bed
or behind his desk. If he lost the wager, it would mean asking Osric for help,
and that would not go well. Osric’s opinions on gambling were nothing short of
volcanic. If Osric refused to help … Aedan’s surge of boldness began to melt
into a sticky worry.

What had he done? If the bow failed, there would
be a noose around his neck, and he had just given Malik the rope. But he could
not back out now.

He turned to watch the bowyer with an interest
that quickly became feverish.

“What was that about?” Hadley asked.

“I bet … a few coppers?”

“That he would fail?”

“That he would succeed?”

“What! How much?”

Aedan hesitated. “Ten.”

“You bet ten huddies that he would finish! Are you
mad? He was slow
with
tools. How is he even going to cut through the
wood to begin with? It will take him two weeks to whittle out the basic shape.”
Hadley raised and dropped his hands while staring at Aedan and shaking his
head.

Aedan writhed. He had no reply. They both turned
to watch the bowyer, who, as yet, had not made any progress.

Torval’s brows were pinched together, an
expression of bear-like simplicity, as he peered from the knife to the bough
and back again.

Aedan groaned, wishing again that he had not been
such a fool.

After what seemed an age of short-sighted
squinting, Torval reached for the knife, held it in one hand, and picked up a
rock in the other. Using the knife edge as a broad chisel, he tapped on the
back with the rock, cutting an angled incision into the wood all the way round
as a beaver works through a tree trunk. It was slower than a saw but quicker
than Aedan had expected. It allowed him the slightest tingle of desperate hope.

Wildemar, having calmed his nervous fidgets again,
explained that this wood was mulberry, not as hard as maple but very supple,
and a lot easier to work with – an important consideration given the lack of
tools.

When the section was cut, Torval knocked the blade
into the end of the beam. By hammering the back of the projecting tip and
pulling on the handle, he managed to work his way down, prying the sections of
wood apart until he reached the area marked as the handle. He then chiselled
the long flap of wood off and repeated the procedure on the other side. The
rough layout of the bow was clear now.

Then he did something Aedan would not have thought
of. After sharpening the knife on the stone, he knocked the tip into a short
sturdy branch, and used the resulting tool as a kind of rough drawknife. With
the handle in one hand and the attached branch in the other, he was able to
pull the blade along the length of the wood, slicing off long shavings that
fluttered to the ground.

This was clearly something that had not been seen
before in the workshop because a few of the other bowyers left their benches
and drifted over to witness the unusual operation. One of them tapped Hadley on
the shoulder, wanting to know why Torval was not using tools. Hadley explained,
and more than one of the men nodded his surprise and approval at the old man’s
creativity. Once happy with the shape, Torval set the bow over the coals to
dry.

“Do you want me to make the string too?” he asked
Wildemar, in a quiet voice.

Aedan held his breath. He had forgotten about this
part.

Before Wildemar could answer, Malik spoke up in
his aloof tones, now oiled with false courtesy. “Master Wildemar, we would
really appreciate being shown the whole process.”

The request had nothing to do with understanding
the process. All the boys knew it. In the rush of whispered complaints from
those who had bet against Malik, the bowyer lurched away and returned with an
enormous thorny leaf. Aedan had seen these leaves on a type of large succulent plant
growing in the area.

Torval used his rock to bash the heavy leaf into
wet fleshy fibres which he then separated and hung up to dry beside the stave,
just as lunch was served.

Seeing how quickly the hours had slipped away
caused Aedan’s stomach to knot. He could only swallow only a few bites of
flatbread dipped in his potato-and-leek soup. His appetite wasn’t improved by
the slight pang he felt whenever he glanced at the far corner where Torval,
separate from the groups of younger craftsmen, was hunkered down over his meal
alone.

The wooden bowls were gathered up, and everyone
hurried back to their places.

After turning the bow that was suspended over the
coals and leaving it to bake a while longer, Torval collected the now-dry leaf
fibres and separated them into strands, hanging them over the bench in front of
him.

Beginning with three strands, he knotted them
together at the ends, then started the tedious process of reverse-twisting, in
which one strand is twisted and then looped over the other two in the reversed
direction. His fingers moved slowly at first, but then they sped up until he
had done almost two feet. One of the strands was growing short. He took another
from the bench, twisted it into the first and continued as before, adding to
the strands one at a time as needed. Within an hour, the string was complete –
a tight pale-green weave that looked surprisingly neat and strong.

He coiled and placed it on the table, then collected
the stave. It had lost much of its weight while drying, Wildemar explained, and
would be a lot harder.

Torval sharpened the knife again and began to tiller
the limbs from the belly-side, carefully weakening them until he was able to
bend the bow over his knee. The limbs were broad, too broad for a handle, so he
trimmed the centre section until it was a comfortable fit for a small hand,
then chiselled out a rough arrow shelf.

The apprentices were drawing into two groups – one
excited and daring to hope, the other still cynical yet not as confident anymore
as they saw the bow materialize under the edge of the little knife. This time, when
the bowyer pushed himself onto his bent legs and hobbled to the fire, there were
no whispers of mocking laughter.

He held one of the limbs above the flames as if
slow-roasting it. The boys had seen this when straightening quarterstaves. Torval
kept touching the wood, and when it was too hot for his finger to remain on the
surface, he slipped the end of the stave into a gap between bricks and bent it,
holding it in place until it cooled. He looked down the length, heated and bent
it again, and examined it with a grunt of satisfaction.

Aedan could see from where he was that a mild crook
in the wood had been completely removed. The string would now track down the
middle.

Torval then repeated the heat-bending process, this
time giving the bow a gentle recurve, pointing the ends of the limbs away from
the archer.

“Much better recoil,” Wildemar explained.

Tension in the room grew as the sun passed its
zenith and began the downward journey. Lively chatter became loud and Wildemar
was compelled to hush the apprentices several times.

But now the other bowyers in the room had got wind
of the bet and seemed to have arranged some bets of their own. One by one, they
gathered around, ringing the old man as he settled at his bench to carve
notches at the tips of the limbs.