As the heralds proclaimed the beginning of the tournament, John and his retinue took their places in the stands in a section separated from the others by being somewhat elevated above them and enclosed on all sides save the front, giving those sitting within the most commanding view of the field. The archery butts were brought out and Bobby stepped forward to take his place among the ranks of the competitors. There were not too many of them, since challengers would have to shoot against John's Norman archers, who were famous for their marksmanship.
"Now look what you've done," growled Finn Delaney, who had gone along with Bobby to hold his quiver and his cloak.
"Now look what you've done, sir," said Bobby, grinning. Finn was old enough to be his father.
"Shit, give me a break," said Finn. He ran a beefy hand through his thick red hair. "This isn't funny. He wasn't kidding about giving you a whipping. You think they'll stop with just tearing some skin off your back? These bastards will keep at it till you croak!"
"That's assuming I lose this contest," Bobby said.
"Who do you think you are, Robin Hood?"
Bobby stared at him in astonishment, then broke up.
"Okay, very funny," Finn said, frowning. "But what if any of these characters are better than you?"
"Then I guess we'll be in trouble."
"We?"
"Thanks, Finn. I knew you'd stand by me."
"Jesus, you could at least have called him Sire or Your Majesty or something. You had to go and piss him off. What was the point?"
Bobby handed him his cloak and hat. "You're supposed to be Little John," he said, "and I'm supposed to be the fastest gun in Sherwood Forest, remember? If I win this shoot-out, they'll be talking about it all over the place. Can you think of a better way of establishing our credentials?"
"Give me a minute, I'm sure I can come up with something."
"Well, think fast, because they're about to get this show on the road."
The trumpets blared again and the herald announced that each man would have three flights of arrows at a distance of seventy-five paces. The moment that had been announced, seven of the competitors dropped out. That left only nine, including Bobby. Each man shot at will, taking as much time as he wished to shoot three arrows in succession. Bobby hit the gold with every shot with no apparent difficulty and, to most of the people in the stands, it looked like he hardly even aimed. Only two archers did as well, which eliminated everybody else.
"That wasn't bad," said Finn.
"I had to make harder shots in training," Bobby said. "Besides, this isn't entirely new to me, you know. Remind me to tell you about the time I took archery lessons from Ulysses."
They moved the targets farther back, to a distance of about one hundred yards. They shot again and this time one man was eliminated. That left Bobby and Hubert, John's champion archer.
"If Hubert doesn't beat this insolent braggart," John said, "I'll have his guts for garters."
The targets were now moved back to a distance of some hundred and twenty yards.
"You sure about this?" whispered Finn.
"Piece of cake."
Hubert was to have the first shot. He drew his long bow back to his right ear, aimed carefully, waited for the breeze to die down and then let fly. The arrow described a graceful arc in the air and landed directly dead center in the gold. A cheer went up from the stands.
"Hah!" John exclaimed, jubilant at Hubert's shot. "Let's see the Saxon bastard beat that shot! It can't be done!"
Finn's heart sank.
"Hell of a shot," Bobby said. "I'd give my left nut for a laminated Browning recurve with stabilizers right about now."
"What are we going to do?"
"The only thing we can do."
"Resign and run for it?"