The Grail of Sir Thomas

by Yury Nikitin

Chapter 6

  The small woman’s house was neat and tidy, with a fire blazing in a big stove and an appetizing gurgle of stew in pots. Chachar served bowls to the table. Her cheeks reddened and eyes glistened while she stared at Thomas and Oleg in joy. She was young and tempting, her ripe breasts almost bounced out of her low-necked dress – so light in that southern heat that it did not hide her sinful, as the Christian faith put it, body but drew seductively its every detail.

  Oleg, a Pagan, feasted his eyes upon the young woman gladly, but Thomas began to feel uneasy. Twice he choked on tiny pieces of meat. Chachar kept serving him more and more of it, pouring it over with sauces, sprinkling with herbs, spices, red and black pepper – and looking in his eyes, moving her whole body closer to him, all but whining and waving her tail like a pup. Her lips, plump as ripe cherries, came apart, showing pearl-white teeth, as pointed as a child’s. Her whole being caught every desire of the brave knight.

  Oleg ate unhurriedly. He did not listen to the conversation but replayed the fight in his mind’s eye and approved his own behavior gloomily. He had felt no desire to kill, no warrior’s delight – he was just annoyed and blankly sad. That meant he could keep his bow and arrows, they would not make him go astray. Neither would they obscure his search for Truth.

  The house had two rooms, the wounded man lying in the back one. He dared not to moan, in fear of being killed if they heard. Chachar brought him some food and came back anxious. “He has a fever… What can we do?”

  Thomas waved her concern aside with irritation but Oleg was the first to reply. “I’ll have a sleep there and see to him.” He stood up.

  “Would you stay at the table for a bit more time?” Chachar said briskly. “Men love to feast! I can bring some old wine, a couple of jugs I still have in my cellar.”

  “We’ve had a shattering day,” Oleg replied. On the threshold of the other room, he turned back and nodded at Thomas. “But sir knight might amuse you with his stories. He’s been fighting the Holy Land free, storming Jerusalem…”

  He shut the door behind him, fell on the bed that was knocked together of planks, roughly. The wounded man held his breath in another corner. Oleg put his hands behind his head and fell fast asleep.

  But he had touched his charms before, so his dreams were full of blood and fear.

  Early in the morning, he woke up to merry voices outside. Thomas, naked to his waist, washed his face near the water barrel. Chachar poured water on his hands, laughing, trying to splash it on his back – white as a woman’s but muscular as a proper man’s, with two bluish scars under the shoulder blade. The knight squealed, jumped aside; the water was icy cold, taken from a spring.

  Oleg stepped aside from the window on his toes. The knight’s armor lay on a wide bench, clean and polished to a shine, which could have hardly been done with Thomas’s own hands. The huge sword hung on two iron hooks in the wall. The steel-plated gauntlets were on the windowsill, beside flowerpots… Just yesterday night, this woman was in terrible danger, and the knight was crucified, burnt, and tortured just a day before. Great is the vitality Gods endowed Man with. They must have prepared a hard lot for him.

  The door slammed. Thomas entered the room, disheveled and smiling. His tanned face looked as if it had been stolen from another body – the tan ended abruptly at his throat. “How did you sleep, sir wonderer?”

  “Well, thanks,” Oleg replied, staring at the knight. “And you have circles under eyes. You can stay here and have a rest.”

  “And you?”

  “I’m leaving after breakfast,” Oleg said with no further explanations.

  Thomas looked embarrassed. He put his clothes on hastily, began to pace up and down the room. “Sir wonderer… We are both heading for the north. May we ride together to Constantinople at least? You have no way to escape it, neither have I. All roads from Asia lead to this second Rome – the only place where Europe meets Asia!”

  “Why do you want to?”

  “Sir wonderer, I’ll be frank with you. It is the woman.”

  Oleg looked at the young knight intently. “What are you going to do? Sell her? We drove the rapists away but we can’t stay here to guard her innocence.”

  Thomas sounded unhappy. “She has… entrusted herself to us. Her husband – or maybe her patron, I did not understand and felt no need to elicit – was killed last week. They took the horses, so she got stuck in the house. She begs us to take her away from this scary place.”

  Oleg came to the window, looked over the yard and Chachar to the green valley, the olive grove and curly bushes, at the blue merciless sky with not a hint of rain. He shrugged. “She did not beg me.”

  Thomas looked as miserable as he was at that moment. “Sir wonderer… I have my hands full with the cup. Maybe you could…?”

  Oleg brought his quiver from another room, checked the arrows quickly and put it on his back. With a desperate look on his face, Thomas watched the strange pilgrim adjust his belt in a very professional way, drag the two-handed sword from under the bench. “Do what you like,” Oleg replied. “And I have no interest in women.”

  “She’s not a woman! She’s a victim. We are bound to help her. Don’t your gods tell you to help the weak?”

  Oleg cast a piercing look at him. “But Pagans are bad, aren’t they?”

  “Not that bad!”

  “Sir Thomas. I am looking for salvation for all people in the world.”

  “So you let each single one die?”

  Oleg paused, then asked abruptly, “What does your woman want?”

  “My woman? Sir wonderer!”

  “Well, not yours then, though she thinks otherwise. What does she want?”

  “She asked me to take her to any big city.”

  Oleg thought for a while. His shoulders, heavy as big stones, moved reluctantly. “Two days’ journey… We’ll be there by tomorrow evening. I can stand it. Then I’ll give you the horse – you need a spare one in all your steel. A remount, I mean.”

  “And you?”

  “On foot, as I’m used to.”

  Thomas did not fathom why you would go on foot when you can ride, but he didn’t want to irritate his comrade and said nothing.

  After they broke a hearty fast (Chachar put on the table all of her stock), Oleg went to the horses. There were six of them left by the marauders. He saddled three as remounts and prepared the most beautiful one for Chachar, a highborn lady. At least Thomas very much wants her to be that.

  When Thomas put his armor on (Chachar must have helped him) and stepped heavily out on the porch, three saddled horses were pawing the ground impatiently under the window. Three remounts were loaded with bags, packs, and bundles. The wonderer was searching the dead men, turning out their pockets, collecting coins and rings. He had fastened the captured sabers and darts to the remounts. Each spare horse also carried a water skin.

  “Sir wonderer,” Thomas said with surprise, “are we crossing a desert?”

  “There are no wells on the short cut. Without water, we’ll have to make a hook and over.”

  “A hook? And over?”

  “This is Rossian for a longer road. I mean that with our own water supply we can take a shorter way.”

  Thomas’s face expressed hesitation, as if he could not decide whether a shorter way was better. They say: he who cuts his way never comes home by night, and he who rides straight gets to the devil. He turned his head and called Chachar. Her clear voice replied from inside, a clatter of dishes joined it. Thomas gave Oleg a guilty smile and went into the house.

  Chachar came out in men’s clothing and a traveling cloak. She lingered on the porch, staring at the wonderer as if she had never seen him before. Thomas also stopped, gazing at the one who was his comrade in the stone quarry.

  The wonderer had left his cloak in the house and came out in a short, sleeveless wolfskin jerkin, fur on the outside. The jerkin was open, allowing them to see his chest, as wide as a granite slab, and his bare shoulders, massive and
glistening like rocks. His longs arms seemed to be carved of a dark oak, so thick and strong they were, bulging with sinews and muscle. His body was mighty but his face still and humble. His fire-red hair was tied with a silk lace over the eyebrows. Thomas found this look strangely attractive,

  The wonderer’s trousers were made of curried leather. His belt was thick, with iron pendants scattering sunbeams all along it. A flack and a narrow knife were suspended on rings on the left of his belt. Two rings on the right – for a short sword – remained empty.

  “A sword, an axe, a cleaver,” Thomas offered. “Would you take any?” He descended from the porch, still staring at the transformed wonderer. Back in the stone quarry Oleg had not pined away, on the contrary, he had fleshed out with dry muscle. Now his big body had not a drop of fat, as if it were forged of steel.

  “I’ve left the axe on a remount,” Oleg replied indifferently. “I don’t like to carry much steel on board.”

  Thomas stroked his armor involuntarily. He thought that such a bull as the wonderer was born to carry whole mountain ridges. “Wolf skins were worn by barbarians who besieged Rome,” he said ironically.

  “And destroyed it.”

  “So they did,” Thomas agreed reluctantly. “But you are vulnerable like that!”

  The wonderer turned the hem of his jerkin back. On the inner side, two knife handles glittered side by side, identical as peas in a pod.

  “Knives?” Thomas said in surprise. “What for?”

  The wonderer stooped. Thomas pulled a knife carefully. It went out of the leather case in a reluctant, balking way, as if it didn’t want to leave the nest where its twin remained warm.

  While Chachar walked around horses, shifting the saddlebags in her way, Thomas turned the knife in hand, watched the blade in enchantment. He remembered the throw with which the wonderer had cleaned their way out of the shape-shifter Baron’s castle.

  The blade was razor-sharp, no longer than a palm, but heavy, thickened on the end. One side has the cutting edge, while another, for some strange reason, a stripe of base copper riveted to the excellent steel. The gleaming blade is seated on the straight shabby bone of a handle covered with small notches. To prevent fingers from slipping, Thomas guessed. Once he saw the throwing knives of Assassins, members of a secret Saracen sect, but those had wooden hilts. In the best knives, the wood was stretched over with shark skin, so rough that even sweaty fingers would never slip off. He scratched the sparkling spot of damask steel on the top of the hilt: the blade was set through it, the upper end bent down to keep the bone in place firmly.

  “Why this strip of copper?” he asked with displeasure. “It ruins the beauty!”

  “Beauty?” Oleg smirked. “What’s beautiful about murder?”

  “A murder holds no beauty,” Thomas replied with dignity, “but a joust does.”

  “Yes. The more complicated and magnificent the rite, the less the murder itself is visible… This strip protects against stabs.”

  Thomas was surprised. “Fencing with such a short thing?”

  “You’re still to be convinced that the world has other countries than Britain?”

  Chachar mounted at last, tired of waiting for the knight to help her, when Thomas checked himself. She sent him a charming smile from the saddle. He smiled back guiltily, handed the knife back to the wonderer and mounted his huge stallion.

  Oleg outrode the knight and the young woman to let them chat without him in the way. The day was bright and sunny, the bloody night left behind, as well as the house with the wounded man in its back room. He was intact save for broken bones, so he’d go robbing and plundering again as soon as his broken leg knitted.

  The woman’s happy laughter and the knight’s manly voice were behind Oleg. He went deep into brooding. As his hand touched his charms habitually, a vague fear began to creep into his soul, breaking through clean and sublime thoughts about the secret purport of life and being. One charm stuck in his fingers too frequently – the one showing swords, arrows, fierce griffons and heavenly fire… The world is dangerous: robbers rob on the roads, marauders break into villages, wolf packs wait for a lone traveler, but charms are silent about such daily mess, trifles and small inconveniences. That was the ordinary life – but now dangers seemed to be beckoned from every side, dragged into their way!

  Oleg looked himself over, then shot a glance back. The knight was telling Chachar of heroic deeds and battles, throwing out his chest proudly, roaring with laughter. Is he dangerous? An ordinary knight, one of many in this land captured by Arabs and then invaded by European hosts? Or is it the woman?

  Oleg missed the moment when the woman’s laughter ceased. Suddenly, he heard Thomas nearby. “Sir wonderer, what’s the good of that copper?”

  Oleg started, gave the knight a puzzled look. Thomas rode stirrup by stirrup with him, keen curiosity written on his face. The woman rode behind in resentful silence.

  “I’m interested in weapons,” Thomas explained. “Surely, knives are no knightly weapon, but as a unit commander in the assault of Jerusalem, I learnt to use different things. Not for myself, for I am a noble knight of Gisland, but for my men I had to… Do you understand, sir wonderer?”

  “When you slash with swords,” Oleg said, annoyed with being brought back to mundane matters, “they collide and slide. The fight gets clumsy, ill-predictable. When I parry a blow with my knife, I know exactly where the enemy’s blade is. Copper is soft. A blade will not slip along it but be stopped.”

  He took the knife out, handed it to the knight. Thomas turned it in hand, his gaze shifted to the wonderer’s big hands. “Isn’t the handle short for you?”

  “Three fingers to fit into it? That’s enough. And there’s room for a thumb on the other side. That will do for a good throw. The shorter handle is better. Would you like a try? On average, the thrown knife makes a turn in the air within seven steps, so it will stab the one standing or running in three, ten or thirteen steps.”

  “What if the enemy’s in eight steps?”

  “Then you make it turn faster. Or slower. That’s all.”

  Thomas handed the knife back hastily. “No! A knight is not a kind of wandering Gypsy.”

  “Hum… What about wandering knights?”

  “Errant!” Thomas corrected indignantly. “Errant knights! Back in the times of King Arthur and since then, the knights of the Round Table were erring in search of adventure…”

  “Isn’t that what Gypsies do? Well, well. By the way, you can throw a knife in a knightly way – straight, as if it were a dart. With no turns! That is what the blade ends are made heavier for, and the handle is made of light wood or bone. Would you try?”

  Thomas shook his head. “We, Angles of Britain, have an inquiring mind but little love for changes. A good sword and a long spear are our weapons, for ever and ever! We shall always remain what God has made us!”

  He reined up. Oleg rode farther, alone with his thoughts. Soon he heard the silver tinkle of the woman’s laughter behind, then a hollow burst of the knight’s laughter. Oleg marveled at the powers of their vitality and endurance again. Gods must have prepared a hard way ahead for man. Otherwise they’d not give him such powers.

  The road rose on a mountain peak and Oleg had time, before a descent, to take the environs in at a glance: green hills, a valley with smooth square fields, small villages and a high ramparted castle far ahead. At that distance it seemed small like a toy, no details visible, but the road went there, swarmed with galloping riders and slow, heavy-loaded carts.

  Frowning, he drove his horse down slowly. The road was trodden, gently sloping, sided with old olives with swollen trunks and crooked branches that seemed to be bent in torment. The heat grew torrid. The bright blue sky was getting lighter till it was the off-white color of ashes. The air turned so dry that a breath of it was scratching. They saw hares darting and heard quails chirring in the wheat fields and thick grass along the roadsides.

  Thomas rode in his armor stoically
, only his helmet off and hanging on the saddle hook. The wind ruffled his flaxen hair, tore drops of sweat off his red steamed face. Chachar tried to sing, laughed, kept stealing glances in the knight’s eyes of bright blue color, strange and wonderful in this land of brown-eyed people.

  At noon Oleg spotted some rich greenery from a distance, turned there and found a small stream. They made a halt, watered the horses. Chachar spread food and spices on the tablecloth. Oleg undressed, rinsed himself with the icy water that made its way upward to the sun from goodness-knows-which depth. Thomas watched him with envy. Finally, the knight could not help stripping naked himself and dipping into the stream, which was less than knee-deep. He screamed and laughed happily, raising clouds of sparkling spray. He also washed his clothes, beat them with stones and spread them out in the grass to dry.

  When Oleg untied the bags of oat from the horse’s snouts, Thomas was sitting near the stream, tearing his white skin with nails as hard as hooves, his face twisted with exceptional enjoyment. “Flies…” he moaned through gritted teeth. “Begot by Satan himself for torturing Christian knights. They get under pieces of armor where no Saracen saber can reach…”

  “Flies? Really?”

  “Disgusting white worms! They make flies, be it known to you, sir wonderer.”

  “I know it,” Oleg muttered, “but a noble knight knowing that is a surprise!”

  Thomas shook his head, scratching himself furiously. “You won’t believe what silly things are put in our heads as children! To be named a knight, one has to learn trivium and quadrivium, to sing and make verses, to read and write… But I, to tell the truth, went into knightly exercise most of all!”

  “I can guess,” Oleg mumbled. “If even kings in Europe can’t read, and sign with a cross…”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Thomas dismissed with light heart. “As soon as a king receives a letter, he has a Jew caught and brought to him. All Jews can read and write, as required by their faith. The Jew reads the letter to the king. He dictates the answer, the Jew scribbles it, the letter is sealed and sent back with a rider! That’s all. And the king who gets the answer will also have a Jew brought to read it.”

  “Very convenient,” Oleg agreed.

  Thomas did not catch the sarcasm. He reached an itching place between his shoulder blades and groaned with joy.

  “Call Chachar,” Oleg offered. “She has cat’s nails.”

  Thomas glanced back warily at the woman. She was sitting half-turned a few steps away, listening. Her cheek and pink ear were blush red, hands moved awkwardly, dropping meat, eggs and onions. “I can’t,” Thomas replied finally. “She’s a woman of noble birth! I can’t make her do this plain work.”

  “Of course a common woman would have scratched your back better. But she’s unlikely to be found here.”

  After the lunch and a brief rest, they continued the journey. Soon they rode past a strange ancient building. It stood in a flat valley, high thick grass swaying around it, the entrance overgrown with shrubs, thick green ropes climbing up the walls, clinging to the cracks, their leaves glistening like wax. The building was enormous, gloomy, formed by huge grey stone blocks. Having been abandoned for centuries, dented by winds and heat, it was a silent memory of ancient empires and vanished nations.

  Oleg felt anguish gnaw at his heart. It is known that Black God would not allow Man to climb out from wildness and ignorance to the shining peaks where the Fair Gods dwell! He plots and impedes, but people are helped by the Fair Gods who created them. However, there is still more loss than success on the thorny path. A seat of culture is barely created when the wild hordes sent by Black God would ruin its prospering cities, burn libraries, destroy dams and canals… It is raised from the ruins – and ruined, burned and butchered again by beastly men. Endlessly, all the time… Too much loss, blood and suffering.

  Surely, Man is moving to the shining peak. Though rolling down almost to the bottom after each disaster, he then climbs a bit higher than he did the last time. The young European kingdoms, despite all their ignorance and violence of savages, are more humane in heart as compared to ancient empires who left the ruins of colossal circuses where live men –gladiators – had fought to death. Those empires built pyramids, lighthouses and temples where thousands of people were sacrificed, while the new Barbarian faith only had one human sacrifice, the last and the greatest one: Christ, the founder of the faith, gave his life. Since that, people are not sacrificed any more. Even the battles of gladiators were replaced by chariot racing…

  The evening was falling. They headed for the crimson half of the sky: it looked as though covered with dry blood, dark and brown, bright purple drops let out in the ruptures only. The sun was half below the horizon, long reddish shadows lay across the evening land.

  The road led to the castle: it stood out gloomily against the crimson sun and expanded with every step they made. Oleg looked at it with a sullen eye, urged his horse on, so they would pass it before dark. The lands around the castle looked swept by a terrible storm. Everything was broken, trampled, and soiled. Wide stubs glistened in place of the grove, for the trees had been sawn down almost at the ground level. The castle stands in the middle of trampled field – freshly built, its watchtowers still not roofed. No annexes: only a great, square keep of four floors, stables and a rampart surrounding a large area of roughly loosened ground. The main building has holes instead of windows, some with fresh-forged grates in them. A flag with eagles, dragons and roaring bears is flying over the castle gate.

  Thomas was telling Chachar loudly and competently that shrubs and trees had been cut down and grass burnt in order not to allow a wicked enemy to get close without being seen. “The land is still Saracen, Christian warriors need to consolidate the captured lands urgently. After that, they will be able to extend their noble rule to other Pagan nations.”

  They had already passed the castle when the gate opened and two riders burst out at full tilt. Both cried loudly, waved their hands. Thomas reined up and turned his horse slowly, his lance pointed menacingly at the approaching strangers. Oleg rode aside, took his bow and drew the string briskly. Chachar hid behind the shining knight’s back.

  Two unarmed young boys, save for daggers on their belts, in very bright clothes came to them unhurriedly, reined up in three steps. One of the boys raised his palm. “I am a squire of Sir Gorvel, the noble knight!” he said in a clear ringing voice. “My lord asks you, tired travelers, to do him the honor of your visit! You are invited to have a rest in his castle. Your horses will be fed with choice corn, and you will be woken up in the morning… if only you don’t prefer to stay for a few more days.”

  Oleg took a breath in, about to refuse firmly, when Thomas cried happily: “Gorvel? We climbed the walls of Jerusalem together, like two evil monkeys! Arrows swished, stones flew, and the two of us stood back to back… Is it his castle? He’s a seignior now?”

  “The King granted him these lands,” the squire replied with such pride as if it were himself granted with them. “There are only seven of us. The rest are Saracen, hirelings and vagrant folk, but the location is perfect – the crossing of caravan roads!”

  Thomas waved imperiously for Oleg to come, drove his horse along the road to the castle. Chachar cast a triumphant look at the wonderer who looked like a wild animal to her. She caught up with the magnificent knight and young squires briskly. Oleg hid the arrow, followed them reluctantly.

  The squires shouted to the guards at the gate. One of them blew a horn, though the guards had seen them from the wall before. The squires made way respectfully for the guests, including Oleg in his barbarian clothes. He could not help shuddering. He never liked strangers behind him, especially when his soul shrank with a vague foreboding of evil.

  The gate swung open. In their way, blocking the passage, a huge red-bearded knight stood in his armor, his helmet in the crook of his right arm, his shoulder-long hair, as red as fire, ruffled slightly by the wind.

  Thomas vault
ed off the horse heavily with a clang of steel. The red-bearded knight came to him. They embraced with such a thunder as if two forgers collided, thrown by giant hands. While they clapped each another on shoulders and shouted happily, it sounded like an iron gate being knocked out by a ram, with sparks scattering around.

  “Sir Thomas!”

  “Sir Gorvel!”

  The squires and a handful of guards were standing around in a sparse circle, looking at the mighty warriors in silent awe. Finally, one man dared to lift his sword and cry glory to the Crusader army.

  The squire took the reins of Oleg’s horse. “I’ll take them to stables,” he said with an air of importance. “You go to the servant room, have dinner there.”

  Oleg nodded, jumped off and squatted, stretching his legs. He thrust the bow and quiver into the bag over his shoulder, left the axe on the saddle, but took the sword. Chachar flew down as a butterfly, threw the reins gracefully to another squire.

  Thomas released himself from the read-bearded lord’s embrace. “Wait, sir wonderer!” he cried to Oleg hastily. “Stop, you deaf devil! Sir Gorvel, this man is no servant to me but a brave companion-at-arms. A co-fighter, as they say in Rus’.”

  Gorvel put his hands, in thin mail gloves, on Oleg’s shoulders in a friendly manner. “Welcome, Sir… wonderer. My castle is your castle. Please feel at home! Angles say: my home is my castle, but we are another sort of man – all wide open, our hearts on our sleeves…”

  His tanned scarred face expressed astonishment: his gauntleted hands seemed to be lying on round granite boulders.

  “We don’t need much,” Oleg said sulkily. “A pitch of hay for horses, a corner for us to sleep in, a slice of bread for dinner.”

  Gorvel clapped on his iron hips, upset. “What is not here, that is not! Poor horses will have to eat choice oats, guests – to be content with feather beds in chambers. As to dinner, we can only serve pies and sweet biscuits instead of bread. We’ll also find something for you to wash those dry things down your throats!”

  Thomas looked at Gorvel closely and laughed. “If you are the same, I beg you not to serve wine in barrels! Several jugs will be enough.”

  “Of course,” Gorvel comforted him. “It’s enough… to begin with!”