II.
"It's too hard, Father, I can't do it!" Eduard pouted, and let the bow go slack.
And had it been so long ago that Stéphane had known his frustration? Perhaps he hadn't been quite so young, but he remembered aching muscles he hadn't known were there before. Able to think of nothing else but getting back out on the lawn with the targets, even though he could barely lift a half-full tea cup to his lips. To shoot just one more arrow before it grew too dark or too cold to stay out, then one more after that, always believing the next one would finally hit the bull's eye.
His satisfaction, so brief, when it finally happened.
He crouched down behind Eduard. "Try again. Nock your arrow like I showed you, then pull back—slowly. Elbows up!" he said, lifting them into place. Turning Eduard's hips, and then his head when it wanted to move with them, to face the target properly.
"Now. Line up the point of your arrow with that little notch in the bow right above the grip. That will tell you precisely where your arrow wants to go. Then, line them both up with your target."
Eduard's seven-year-old arms shook as he tried to hold the bow taut and steady, and corrected his aim.
"When you're confident you have everything where you want it, then release."
His small frame full of concentration, Eduard let his arrow fly. It fell short of its mark, and off-side, much to his audible frustration.
"Never you mind," Stéphane assured him. "You'll do better with each try. No one expects you to hit the target dead-on the first time you pick up a bow."
He took up his own bow from where he had rested it, nocked an arrow, and pulled back. The creak of the vambrace's leather against the bow's grip was to his ears like seeing a smile of recognition appear on the face of an old friend.
"Next time," he told Eduard over the fletching, "draw the string a little tighter. Back, as far as you can pull it. That will give your arrow the force it needs to travel further."
"But I'm not strong enough!" the boy huffed.
"Then you must make yourself strong enough, Eduard."
"When can I join you on the hunt?"
Sighing, Stéphane lowered his aim. This was by now an old familiar argument, with an old familiar answer.
"When you show me you possess the proper discipline for it. When you've mastered patience and proven you can hit a target. Then, and only then, will I take you with me. Out in the wilds, Eduard, a missed shot can mean the difference between life and death. Or, at very least, between a successful hunt and failure. Your aim should be to kill quickly, cleanly, with a single shot. Two, if absolutely necessary. You do not want to merely maim your quarry, and leave it to die a slow and painful death. A wounded animal can still hurt you if you get too close—or run off and make all your efforts have been for naught.
"So, if you truly wish to call yourself a hunter," he said as he raised his aim again, "you must earn the right. Respect your quarry's strengths as well as its weaknesses, and strive to overcome them always. To be quicker than the boar. Quieter than the hart. More clever than the fox. Stronger—"
He released, and his arrow flew true to the center of its target.
"Than your own bow."
The look of envy on Eduard's face when he saw that bolt sink home was one Stéphane knew all too well.
"So," Eduard began uncertainly, "my bow is my enemy?"
"Hardly. Your bow is your greatest ally, Eduard. But you must master it as well so that it comes to feel like an extension of yourself. As natural to you as . . . well, as your own arm."
Turning that over in his mind, Eduard picked up another arrow. "I think I should like to kill a fox," he said.
And when he missed his target this time—though by less distance—he was careful not to fuss over it. He was learning.