Chapter 68: Audience
An audience wasn’t what the girl was expecting the first time she had to show her father her progression on shooting arrows while on horseback. As she brought Sorrel out to the fields beyond the barracks, she dreaded the sight of a few knights standing around as well as Felix and Leif.
If she wasn’t mistaken, there were even a few apprentices and squires inside the barracks, peeking out their windows if they were inside during that time. It felt like she had an audience which was making her even more destined to fail.
What was worse was that there were other beginner archers or already established archers within the knighthood who weren’t given that level of scrutiny. She had a feeling it had a lot to do with her father.
The large, Sünstoian man stood in the field, waiting for her with Sven and Gunnar on either side of him.
Seeing that the best archer knight on the knighthood was there, Sir Sven, then nerves started piling on and she really didn’t want to mess up after all the times she had shot alongside him.
However, feelings weren’t communicated outwardly and she kept her thoughts to herself. She even managed to keep lifting her head and her eyes forward. Perhaps the only useful thing from her past life was the way that they trained women to ignore discomfort and face everyone with this demure politeness. She had the ignoring discomfort part down but her personality was more fiery and insistent on proving itself. As long as her facade remained neutral that was all that mattered, she supposed.
Sir Arthur stroked the horse that he was so used to having in his stables. He hadn’t seen the animal all winter long and it was nice to see him working well for Arthur’s precious child even still.
"Are you ready?" Arthur asked his daughter as he looked up at her.
She had pointedly been keeping her eyes elsewhere so no one would be able to get a read on her thoughts.