Budapest » [Clintasha]

Chapter Forty-One: Fletching

"Have you ever fired a bow and arrow, Clint?" Jacques asked me with a sinisterly suspicious look etched onto his features.

Casting my eyes down guiltily, I shook my head. "I'm pretty decent with a slingshot though. I can knock a can down from twenty paces!" I announced, hands deep in my pocket with self-consciousness.

Jacques lead us around the cluster of caravans and over to the tent which was being propped up: telescopic poles raised, wires being strung out and pegs being hammered into the ground and the canvas of the big-top being stretched over the skeleton of metal.

"Well," he hummed, twirling the end of his textured moustache around his finger. "If you are as good a marksman as you say you are, then it should be no trouble switching from a slingshot to a bow and arrow. It's simple enough..."

Behind the sunken mess that was the half-constructed tent, Jacques kicked around some hay bales into place and darted into his caravan.

"I'm not so convinced, kid," The Swordsman's butch colleague grumbled, arms crossed cynically.

"You'll see," I said smugly, puffing my chest out proudly.

Jacques plodded merrily out of his caravan with two things in his hands; a longbow and a quiver. "These, my little Hawkeye, will be your tools of trade. Prove to me you're any good, and I'll happily let you join the circus. Otherwise..." He left the remainder of that sentence to my imagination.

But the offer hung in the air like a carrot on a stick. Not letting any of the nerves bleed through, I snatched the quiver of arrows from his hand and slipped it over my shoulder, getting a very surprised look from the guys accompanying me. The bow was a tad heavier than I had anticipated and I slipped that carefully from his hand, testing the weight of it.

As I reached behind me to summon an arrow to my hand, there was a tutting.

"No, no! Twenty paces you said!" Jacques dark eyes lit up. "Twenty paces you will get!" Measuring the steps from bale to where I currently stood, he walked me backwards, counting up to twenty, and then held me still by the shoulders. "Go on then... Prove to me you're as skillful as you claim!" He waved his hands about animatedly.

The distance was daunting. Though the target was substantially larger, the weapon in my hand was foreign to me. All the same, I masked my inhibitions and withdrew the slender shaft of one arrow, twirling it adeptly between finger and thumb as I took it to my bowstring.

I lined the groove in the feathered butt of the arrow up with the bowstring, the shaft resting on the hand clutching the arc of the bow. Fingers curled sound the string, I drew the taut elastic back until it was extended to its maximum.

I flexed my fingers as I lined up the shot, my hands clamming up. The muscles in my arms were straining, unused to the unnatural position they were contorted into and the bowstring bit into my hand.

Breathe in... My target drew into focus and I angled the tip of the arrow towards it.

Breathe out... My back muscles went lax and my hand released the bowstring.

The arrow twirled as it was freed and in the blink of an eye it skewered the centre of the hay bale; the arrow stuck in and flexed before standing proud.

"My, my; it appears our little Hawkeye is a superior marksman after all..." I was clapped on the back as I lowered the bow. "You're a natural! Are you sure you've never done this before?"

"Never..." I breathed a sigh of relief and tittered nervously.

And that's how I ended up joining a travelling circus and becoming one of the skilled carnies I cheered for. All completely on accident.