It was a bright, beautiful day for the time of the year, the third one in succession and a harbinger, everyone hoped, of an early, welcome spring. We made our way contentedly to one of our favourite spots, far enough away from the Abbey buildings to be secure from interruption and yet close enough for us to be able to return quickly in the unlikely event of an alarum being sounded on the iron triangle that hung by the main entrance. Our destination was an oxbow loop in the small river that ran through the heavily wooded area to the north of the Abbey, a place of dappled shadows on a sunny day but one that could be cold, boggy, and treacherous in inclement weather. The loop of the river there was wide and placid, the dry land within the oxbow covered with lush grass. Below an outcrop of rock was a long, chest-deep swimming hole for our personal enjoyment. There were fish in there, speckled trout that hovered, barely visible, at the edge of the current below the falls, and the soft earth of the banks showed the cloven hoof marks of the deer that came there daily to drink.
The main attraction of the place for us was a recent modification, the result of a violent windstorm that had brought down an enormous ash tree athwart the stream the previous spring. At first we had been dismayed, thinking our favourite place ruined. It had taken us several days to become aware that the collapse of the giant had resulted in a double bridge over the deepest part of our swimming hole, the main trunk splitting in such a way as to lay two major limbs side by side and less than three feet apart. We lopped off all the trailing branches, leaving only the two bare poles of the main limbs in place, the thinner of the two resting slightly less than a foot below the level of the other. It was perfect for our purposes, and we had put it to good use throughout the summer and autumn months that followed.
That February day was the first time we had returned to the spot that year, and we wasted no time. Will ran lithely out into the middle of the lower limb and leaned against his staff, propping it on the upper pole and looking down into the water as I sprang up and across the narrow gap to the upper log.
“Sunshine or no,” he said, “that water’s cold enough to kill the first man in.” He leered up at me. “And guess what? It’s not going to be me.”
“Then we’ll both go home dry, for it won’t be me, either,” I said, grinning back at him.
I remember I felt strong and confident that day, highly aware of my own physique and conditioning. It was true that I was a librarian now and spent much of my time cooped up indoors and out of the sun, but I was far fitter than any of my contemporaries and most of the brotherhood’s younger members. Five years and more of constant drill and exercise with the heavy quarterstaves had made a man of me, in physical size at least. I was broad and strong, nimble and sure-footed and filled with energy and stamina. I can see, looking back now, that I was quite proud of myself, but I had good reason. I also had a constant reminder that I should never crow too much, for Will dwarfed me. He towered a full head over me, and his shoulders seemed twice the width of mine. He had legs like tree trunks and arms to match, and his chest was almost as broad and deep as Ewan’s though he was not yet seventeen.
It was that difference in our sizes that made the twin bridges perfect for our needs, because the extra height I gained by standing on the upper log fairly cancelled out Will’s advantage, and the few extra inches of girth in the log beneath my feet accorded me an added measure of stability and foot room, so that when we faced each other across the narrow gap we were as close as we could come to being evenly matched.
We began slowly—not cautiously, for we knew what we were doing, but we had not stood on the logs for months and they had become coated with a thin film of moss, so our opening moves were tentative, each of us gauging his own balance and ease of mobility rather than paying attention to the other. Finally Will straightened his back.
“Are you ready?”
In reply I hefted my staff in both hands and snapped my arm straight in front of me, rapping one end against the centre of his weapon, but even as I made contact he was whipping his staff away to the side, raising it high and bringing it straight down in a tightly controlled, two-handed slash that would have cracked my skull had I been there to receive it. But I had already swayed back on my heels and raised my own staff in a horizontal block that stopped his attack but left both my hands stinging. He grinned at me and dropped one end of his staff to rest against the log by his feet.
“I almost had you there, Cuz,” he said, in that quiet voice I had long since come to recognize as signalling a coming attack, and I took two quick steps to my left, placing myself to the right of his natural swing, fully prepared to take revenge if he lunged at me and missed. He grinned again and shifted his staff to a two-handed grip, and for several moments we manoeuvred opposite each other in watchful silence, each waiting for the other to make an error and invite destruction. When neither of us did, though, and it became plain that neither would, Will straightened up again.