Arthen nodded, but he cast the sheriff a steady, unconcerned glance. Emma strived to look just as unconcerned as he was, but she found she could not take her eyes off the girl who, she now saw, was bravely trying to hold her head high and make nothing of what had happened. And as her chest tightened, Emma knew she had no choice but speak although it was unwise to do so.
“My lord,” Emma said in Norman with a deep, gracious curtsy. “I could not help but hear what was said. Forgive my presumptuousness, yet it is said the bow is not a weapon unsuited for a lady. Even our late, saintly Queen, the Conqueror’s wife, Matilda, was known as a keen archer in her own right, was she not?”
Emma indeed had no notion whether Matilda had been handy with the bow. Yet other noblewomen of her acquaintance were skilled with it and keen huntresses themselves. So it was not a full lie. She’d brought Matilda up, because Matilda was regarded as a paragon of female virtue. Surely, even the sheriff would be impressed by her mention of this queen's name.
Yet the sheriff frowned upon her in sheer displeasure.
“A bold, brazen woman, this wife of yours, I keep hearing. Did you not school her not to speak out of turn?” he flung at Arthen, and the boy by his side cast her an appraising look, which, to Emma’s amazement, held not only disdain but naked lust mixed inside it.
Arthen said nothing. Instead he glanced upon the dark, lean girl who was standing next to her brother, her lips pursed and her hands clutched to her chest.
“Will milady show me her hands, if she pleases?”
The girl stared at him in deep surprise, then glanced at her father warily. The sheriff frowned and growled, “What is the meaning of this?”
“I always seek to see the hands of those who desire to learn archery from me, my lord. A steady, nimble-fingered hand and a strong wrist are what a good archer requires, other than a very keen eye,” Arthen spoke.
Emma’s heart started thumping like mad in her chest. He could not mean what he was saying, could he? The dark boy cocked a disdainful eyebrow.
“Truly, Master Archer?” he said with a sneer, then turned to his father. “Oh, Father, this is diverting indeed. We would have seen it all. A maiden in a school of archers.”
“And why ever not?” the girl suddenly countered in a hot, impassioned voice.
For a moment, her father looked as if he was about to strike her there and then, but the boy’s malicious laughter made him shake his head wearily.
“Milady, if you please,” Arthen repeated as if oblivious of the sheriff’s presence.
Under the astonished gaze of her father, the young lady stretched out her hands for Arthen’s inspection. He just glanced upon them closely careful not to draw too close, obviously knowing that, as a commoner, he would be placing himself in danger if he dared touch a noble lady’s hand.
“My lord,” Arthen spoke at last with a small incline of his head. “If you allow it, I shall teach your daughter.”
It was at this precise moment that Emma utterly and completely lost her heart to him. She glanced upon him, trying hard to hide her dazed joy. She loved him. In the last weeks she had been falling in love with him but it was at this moment, when she’d perceived how fair-minded he was in all ways, that she surrendered her heart to him fully, knowing there would be no undoing this.
The sheriff looked darkly angry for a while, but the boy by his side cast a feral smile.
“Oh? And do you mean to have her compete in the archery contest against other true archers? How diverting! Just as the time we saw that trained monkey brought from the Holy Land. Remember, Father?”
The sheriff did not look amused at first, but then, as if he himself had been trained to obey the command of the boy by his side, he started to smile and shake his head.
“Aye. That was diverting.”
He heaved a sigh and cast his daughter a contemptuous look, as if he had been glancing at one of the hounds he owned.
“Why ever not, indeed? I will expect you’ll soon tire of it. So there’s no harm in it, is there? A girlish game to amuse yourself with until you wed.”
“Why, thank you, Father,” the young lady muttered with cheeks flushing with pleasure and a deep curtsy. “Can… can I start at once? If… I mean… if Master Archer deems it right, that is,” she added shyly.
“Aye, Father, you should let her,” her brother said in gleeful disdain. “I’ll stick around and watch this!”
“I’m sure my lord is otherwise needed. Besides, it would be wrong to have such an experienced archer as yourself watch so closely upon one who’s newly learning,” Arthen countered smoothly.
The young lord opened his mouth to speak, but his father seemed to have lost his patience.
“Fine then, please yourself, daughter. Come, Gilbert. Let your sister play around until she tires of it. You’ll tell me how much coin you require for each lesson, Master Archer,” he added with an arched eyebrow at Arthen.
“No coin for this. It is I who offered to teach milady, not my lord who required this of me,” Arthen replied.
The young boy narrowed his dark eyes, having certainly perceived the crisp steadiness in Arthen’s voice, but his father seemed pleased that the commoner required no coin for his services.