“No, not at all. And how is John today?” she asked, and then smiled as Maggie brightened and started providing her with lengthy details of her husband’s morning.
Maggie indeed liked to prattle, but Emma soon found she had a way with words which made one laugh at the funny stories she told about those around her. And she also knew how to make fun of herself, so her talk was not boring at all. Emma also soon saw Maggie was not malicious or gossipy, but simply good-humoured. She was already laughing and shaking her head, when she belatedly realized they’d reached the archery butt, a field which had been set apurpose for archery. From Maggie’s stories of her husband, Emma had already understood that Rowena was indeed closely acquainted with Maggie and her family. Maggie’s husband, John, was also a master archer, and he and Arthen were teaching young boys their craft. From what Maggie had been saying, boys had begun to come from far away and take lodgings in town for a chance to be taught in the school for archers which Arthen and her husband had set up.
Emma’s eyes soon roamed over the archery practice field, and counted there no less than twenty boys of various ages, who were practising their target skills. She instantly rushed after Robin and Will, fearing the boy would walk ahead on the field and might be struck by one of the flying arrows.
“Not one step ahead,” she cautioned them, taking Robin firmly by the hand.
“Aye, hold back,” Maggie nodded, beckoning to a wooden bench by the side of the practice field. “And perchance you will get oatcakes if you are good and stay out of trouble,” she added with a wink.
Both boys were lured by Maggie’s promise of a treat and Emma was relieved to see them sit down and begin to munch happily on their cakes. She bit into one Maggie offered to her.
“Oh, that’s delicious,” she muttered, in genuine enjoyment.
Maggie waved away her praise.
“I expect so. It would be shameful if it wasn’t, with me from a family of bakers.”
It seemed Maggie’s baking skills were well known to the pupils of the archery school, who soon stopped their practice to come and sample the treats Maggie had brought in her basket. Maggie started chatting with them in her good-natured manner, while Emma stood aside, self-conscious of the strange and wary glances the boys were casting her from time to time. She wondered what they knew of Rowena, but did not have time to wonder, because a dark, broad-shouldered man came to put his arm around Maggie’s shoulders.
“Distracting the boys yet again, wife?” he chided, but his eyes were laughing.
“Working them too hard again, husband?” Maggie countered with a wink.
Her husband smiled warmly, but Emma had occasion to see his smile freeze on his face when his eyes fell upon her. For a moment, anger seemed to darken them, but then he checked himself and greeted her stiffly. Maggie now looked from one to the other, placing a hand on her husband’s shoulder.
“Stop looking so glum and give the woman a proper greeting,” she said.
But John said nothing, just staring away from her. It seemed plain to Emma that John knew only too well how Rowena hadbehaved and probably so did Maggie, who, Emma understood, was one of those kind and giving people willing to overlook bad behaviour in others. She blushed, although it wasn’t shame for her own behaviour that was causing her blush. And she blushed even more deeply, when she saw Master Archer approach, his bow slung on one shoulder, with a grim expression on his face.
“Maggie,” he nodded, pointedly glancing away from Emma and aware of the stares his pupils were now casting in their direction.
Maggie beamed at him, as if oblivious to the tense atmosphere.
“Have a cake. It will sweeten your sour mood,” she told him with a wink, and Master Archer shook his head with a sigh, but a reluctant smile blossomed on his lips.
Maggie then resumed her usual chatter, and Emma felt grateful for it, understanding that John’s wife did not seek to judge Rowena in any way for what had occurred and was being helpful and generous. She sat down on the bench, grateful that, due to Maggie, the pupils’ eyes were no longer upon her. Later, when John and Arthen called the boys back to their target practice, she had occasion to glance upon the way Master Archer was behaving to the young archers-in-training. There was none of the harsh, grim man she’d come to know in the last days when he was around his pupils. His voice was calm and patient even when he corrected the boys and cautioned them of their mistakes, and he often laughed and joked during his lessons, showing a different side of himself than Emma had come to see.
He did not even once glance in her direction, although he took a short respite to play with both Robin and Will, commending Will who, at five, was already able to handle a small bow and hit a wand from a good distance. Even if she did not know much of archery, Emma was well aware that doing a wand was good practice for beginner archers and some ofArthen's younger students were engaged in this exercise. The "wand" itself was nothing more than willow branch stripped of its bark and impaled in the earth. Emma though felt uncomfortable to have Robin sit so close to bows and arrows, and strode to caution Master Archer that the boy was still too young to learn how to handle a weapon.
“Robin and I should go back,” she said, awkwardly, coming to where Master Archer and the boys were.
As Will ran to his mother for a drink of water, Arthen set aside the small bow and pushed Robin gently in her direction.
“Go back then, both of you” he countered softly.
Emma nodded, relieved the exchange was over, but Arthen soon tossed out at her in the same soft voice, “Have a care with Maggie.”
Emma raised her eyebrows as she was taking Robin by the hand.
“You know too well what I mean,” Master Archer added pointedly.
“Nay, I do not know what you mean,” Emma found herself bristling, before she could call back the words.
Master Archer shook his head with a bitter twist of his mouth.
“Suddenly you are friendly with her, although before you seldom deigned to speak to her, thinking her far beneath you. And whenever you spoke of Maggie you called her stupid and coarse. Don’t tell me you do not recall.”
“That was a bad way to behave. But now I’m changed,” Emma replied, fully understanding how warm and generous Maggie was to behave graciously to a woman who’d spurned her.