The Grail of Sir Thomas

by Yury Nikitin

Chapter 7

  Oleg entered the great hall and stopped for a moment, stunned by loud voices, jokes, toasts, and songs. In the bright light of blazing tar torches, at two broad tables, all the seven Franks in the company of Saracens (those turned Christians or simply in the service of Gorvel, a brave warrior) had a feast before them: eating, drinking, crying out toasts.

  Oleg felt their tenacious, searching looks all over him. He knew he looked like a Frank, with his red hair, green eyes, big bones and bulging muscle, but a Frank washed suspiciously clean. His wet hair was plastered to his forehead, his clothes dusted off. Frankish knights in the land of Saracen kept up their European habits, washing their bodies fewer times a year than their Saracen servants and the mercenaries who lived by the Koran did in a week. At their feast, dishes were given to dogs to lick them clean. Hounds rushed about the hall, fighting for bones, raising their back legs to water the legs of tables and, preferably, those of guests, Chachar in particular, to mark these people as familiars.

  Fiery-bearded Gorvel and Sir Thomas were seated in throne-like wooden armchairs, others on broad benches. Four people were seated separately, facing the lord: Chachar, a tall beautiful woman of breeding with tired eyes next to her, a handsome young man with a sleek face and arrogant malevolent eyes, and – as in every Christian castle – a stout monk in black cassock belted with a plain rope.

  Gorvel stood up, showed Oleg (with a wide gesture that almost knocked down a servant with a tray) his place next to the monk. The latter pretended to move aside but only pulled to himself a big jug and a plate with half a roast boar instead.

  The monk reeked of roast onions and sour wine. Oleg sat, elbowed a space for himself, reached the roast boar haunch, salted it. The salt here was strangely white and fine. A servant put a wide cup in front of him, but Oleg did not move a muscle. While eating meat, he felt strength filling him: beastly but quiet and meek that time, ready to obey every order of spirit, in fear of being plunged into starvation, hardships and torments once again. He had never been much for drinking wine, and that was no proper time at all. He sensed a vague danger within the hall and needed his wits with him.

  Gorvel and Thomas clapped on each other’s shoulders loudly, drank for the battle in Cilicia, for the fight on the walls of the Tower of David, for the victory in Terland. No mention of Jerusalem: they must have celebrated big cities before. Gorvel’s eyes glittered, his face reddened, he spoke loudly and tried to roar marching songs. Their toasts referred to small towns and keeps that, as Oleg realized, were to be followed by settlements, villages, homesteads, wells, barns and hen coops. Anyway, there was so much wine that it would suffice to drink for each stone in the Temple of Solomon and for each nail in the twenty gates of the Tower of David.

  The young man winced arrogantly at Gorvel’s laughter. At times he bent to the tall beauty’s ear and whispered something, and she nodded with her eyes down. Oleg caught her single look at the handsome lad and understood much of it, but that was none of his concern. People play their games everywhere in the same way, though everyone thinks of their own self and situation as unique. Oleg even felt relieved at the familiar sight of their looks and gestures – those two were no danger. And the monk? He cares of his belly and nothing more. Whether Gorvel kept him half-starving or the monk’s own reason was lost to greed, he grabbed everything he could reach, hiccupped, choked, dropped slices of meat and moved his knees apart hastily to catch them. A woman’s habit. A man accustomed to wearing pants would have moved his knees together.

  Oleg knocked aside the dogs who jumped over his feet. In Rus’, dogs are not allowed in even to decrepit houses. Even the poorest mongrel has an isolated doghouse – and this castle seems to be a great kennel itself!

  Gorvel and Thomas roared with laughter, changing mighty clap for mighty clap. They had left their armor in the armory, so their friendly slapping sounded as if a thick tree were being lashed to drive down a bear, or wild bees out of a hollow in its trunk. Gorvel’s wife shot hostile glances at her husband. The young man winced and raised his eyebrows ironically. Oleg spotted that the eyes on his young face looked very old. Then he noticed a thin netting of wrinkles, some burst blood vessels in the white of the man’s eyes, the guarded looks he cast at the laughing Thomas. The merry knights recalled, in eager rivalry, what they felt while standing back to back among hundreds of Saracens. The ladders had broken, leaving them on the wall: two Christian knights against infidels…

  Wine splashed on the table from Gorvel’s cup. The red-bearded lord did not mind it. He yelled, interrupted Thomas, also drunken and yelling, to find out details, roared with laughter, demanded songs, sent for his minstrel but forgot it at once, cried for the barrels of Chios wine to be brought in too. “You see, Sir Thomas, all the merchant folk drag their caravans past this place. For my protection and for the castle construction and for them, blood suckers, crucified our Christ… That’s how I got those few barrels. Or few dozen? My steward swears they topped over hundred last week… I have deep cellars. Two scores of slaves died while digging and covering them with stone…”

  “Sir Gorvel,” Thomas asked, “have you settled forever? Won’t you return to Britain?”

  Gorvel stopped roaring with friendly laughter and got serious. He drained his cup in one gulp, thundered it down on the table. “My soul is Anglic! I’d rather herd cows on the banks of Don, my home river in Sheffield, than rule a kingdom here! Alas, my king commanded to build a fortress. We are few here, and Saracen as many as grits in a desert. We can only be safe in castles: Saracen are bad at taking them. Still bad…”

  “You’ve built it fast!”

  “We had to erect a mound,” Gorvel complained. “All this land was as flat and bald as my confessor’s head! See him there, at the table? They dragged stone from across the river and a mile over. Lots of men drowned, but I had the rampart raised in two weeks! Only then I set to the castle.”

  “A strategic decision,” Thomas praised. “You’ve seen me in battles, yeah? The King appreciates me, but he did right to bestow this land on you, to make you a lord! And I’m still a knight errant, ‘cause I’m not fit for a seignior.”

  Gorvel squinted at him. “May we change places?” he asked suddenly.

  Thomas shivered, as if an icicle fell under his collar. “Not for the world!” he replied ingenuously.

  Gorvel burst out laughing, but his eyes were sad. The monk poured the rest of wine into his cup, sent a servant for a new jug. Gorvel commented on it with assumed merriment, “Due to the caravan road, I have wines of Chios, Mazandaran, Liss, Darkover, even of Zurbagan. If they made me a watchdog, I’d rather be the one on a rich market than in a poor village!”

  Long after midnight, Gorvel’s wife, Lady Roveg, left the feast. Soon after her leave, a serving maid bent to Chachar’s ear and hinted in whisper that a decent woman should not remain in the company of drunken men anymore, as their jokes had become even more vulgar and their songs indecent.

  Chachar stood up with great reluctance. No way to tell that she’d heard saltier things and preferred the company of men to any other. She doesn’t like women, neither do they like her, offending her out of fear. The maid led her to the vast chambers of Gorvel’s son, Roland, Odoacer, or Theodoric (Gorvel had not decided on the name for his firstborn son still, though he dismissed flatly any of his wife’s hints that the stars heralded a girl to be born.)

  Chachar turned and tossed in the luxurious bed for a long time: the chamber was too vast, she felt exposed, like in the middle of a city square. Sleep escaped her. Something was scratching and rustling under the bed, so she dared not to put her feet down on the floor. She wrapped herself in the blanket up to her head, but the night was too hot and stuffy, she bathed in sweat. Finally, Chachar stood on the bed, looked around, and jumped down on the floor, trying to land as far as possible from the bed.

  The single faint lamp lit grey squares of the stone wall, leaving the rest of the room pitch-dark. Chachar made the wick longer. The oil blazed up
, as her eyes did, when she saw a sparkling mirror framed in wood on the wall next to her. Not the polished bronze plate her previous home had, but a true bright mirror where she could really see herself!

  The mirror was sided by bare daggers. One had a big spider sitting on it, its belly whitish, its eyes gleaming strangely in the yellow light. Chachar stepped away warily, but not so far as to lose the sight of her reflection in the mirror. She turned around, moved her eyebrows, bent her slender waist. The roar of rude male voices and tipsy singing came from below, and she saw that the reflection’s cheeks flashed cheerfully, her eyes lit up, her breasts rose, their hard nipples stuck against the fine fabric of her nightgown. She always felt better with men, while in women’s company she faded – like a butterfly with pollen wiped roughly off its wings.

  Hesitantly, she glanced back at the dark bed, so gloomy and scary to sleep in alone; she couldn’t help expecting a hairy black hand to emerge from beneath and grab her. She pushed the door, walked out warily into the dark corridor.

  She saw a light moving far ahead and hurried to it till she saw a lit face, red and puffy, pieces of felt armor with iron plates sewed on them. The soldier reeked of wine. He gave her an indifferent once-over, nodded at the stairs. “Still feast here in hall! Hungry you? Come down, help needed in kitchen. And you’ll gorge there!”

  “Thank you, sir,” Chachar said. The old soldier, flattered by her words, threw out his chest, raised the torch proudly as if it were his lance and he were the knight riding into the royal tournament.

  Chachar approached the ajar door of the big hall, peeped into with caution. The feast was lavish but the wooden armchairs and the bench facing them empty. Gorvel’s wife and the pale young man had disappeared. The monk was sitting at another table, eating and drinking for three. He dropped goblets and copper cups, yelled obscene songs, even tried to dance.

  Chachar stepped aside without being seen, slunk tip-toe along the corridor till she heard voices from behind the last door. She listened, tidied her hair, set ajar the door timidly.

  In a big chamber, Gorvel and Thomas sat near the blazing fireplace. Lady Roveg was seated regally in a luxurious armchair beside them. All three of them listened attentively to the young man singing and playing lute. His fingers ran across the strings briskly, his voice sounded so manly and beautiful that Chachar forgave him at once his arrogant face and malevolent, fishy eyes.

  Thomas was the first to spot the door ajar. Chachar tried to move away, but the knight whispered something to Gorvel who replied with a broad smile. Chachar knew that sort of understanding grin. Thomas stood up and, stepping as softly as he could, and came out to her.

  “I’m afraid,” she told him in a plaintive voice. “Can’t sleep.”

  Thomas looked at her from above. He smelled of good wine, strong man’s body, sweat, and something special that made her gasp for air and her heart beat faster. She felt her cheeks flush as red roses. Thick blush covered even her neck, only her breasts, high and sensual, remained snow white. Thomas looked down involuntarily. In sweet presentiment, Chachar saw the effort it took him to take eyes off the low neck where her waving breasts rose eagerly to meet his keen gaze.

  “What chamber did my friend Gorvel allot you?” he asked in a suddenly hoarse voice. His eyes turned in their sockets in spite of himself. Chachar felt his ardent gaze moving on her tender skin, leaving a red trace of blush.

  “A floor above,” she answered and dropped her eyes to let the knight look where he would. “The chamber of his future heir.”

  “Or a heiress,” he said with a hoarse laugh. “Would you… like to see round my friend’s castle? Now that you can’t sleep in such a stuffy night… Maybe a storm’s coming? I also feel somewhat anxious…”

  “I’ll be happy to stroll around the castle with you, Sir Thomas. The walk may help me to sleep…”

  Thomas glanced back at the monstrously thick wall. “Well then… let’s start from the bottom? And finish on the watchtower, under the sky and stars. I’ve never seen such big stars before!”

  “Neither have I,” she confessed and went first, feeling his gaze on her back. Her cheeks were so burning that they felt nipped. She was glad she had put no excess clothing on: her well-built body, always inspiring men to reach out for it, was seen through the nightgown even in the dim torchlight. Back at the feast, the Saracen stared at her, the red-bearded host glanced approvingly, stripping her off with his eyes, and even the fishy-eyed minstrel was looking at her too intently, to Lady Rovig’s obvious vexation!

  They went, descending by steep stairs. It was moist and chilly down there. Chachar kept close to Thomas: she felt creepy, and the knight walked by her side, mighty and handsome, a true man from head to foot, so at the first opportunity she screamed with fear and seized his hand. So they proceeded: she trembled and nestled up to him in fear, as the shadows thickened and moved in such a way as if this newly built castle were already haunted.

  Down in the cellar, they faced a massive iron door. Thomas sniffed, his chest puffed up, he pushed the iron wings hastily. From inside, there came the cold moist air of deep underground – and such a powerful smell of wine that Thomas reeled. In the dim crimson light of the torch he held overhead, they could see three high bulging rows, as though formed by lying buffalos.

  “Three rows of wine barrels!” Chachar exclaimed in astonishment. “Why does he need that much?”

  “I know that man!” Thomas laughed. “He deems it an offense to drink water when there’s any wine within two miles around. And now, in his own castle by the cross of caravan roads…”

  Chachar looked in the knight’s laughing face, with crimson lights dancing on it, and descended into the cellar bravely. The stairs had sharp edges, not worn yet, the ground beneath her feet smelled of untrodden freshness. Poles and boars jutted out of the rows here and there. The wine barrels formed three rows: two along the walls and one in the middle, sided by passages as wide as a man’s arms spread: such breadth is convenient for rolling out the barrel you need. The monstrous casks of thick oaken planks towered on each other so high that Chachar shook her head in amazement. “More than one can drink in hundred years!”

  “And one with friends?” Thomas asked merrily.

  “Well, maybe in fifty…”

  “Gorvel’s a brave knight but not the one to miss profit. He always had a transport of loot following him. That’s why he’s a lord here and I’m going home. He’ll sell the wine, buy something else, then sell again… We’ll hear of a new kingdom soon, Chachar!”

  He stuck the torch into an iron rest. Chachar turned to him at once, her eyes glittered. She put her hands on his chest, feeling a broad, curved plate of muscle under her fingers. Below it, his heart, as huge as a hammer, pounded steadily, each new beat stronger and faster. Chachar smiled triumphantly, reached for his lips with her own… Thomas took her by shoulders.

  The ringing silence, when both of them only heard his rattling breath, was suddenly broken by heavy footsteps. Thomas glanced around, slapped involuntarily his heap where the sword hilt used to be. Two broad-shouldered warriors in gleaming iron helmets were coming downstairs to the cellar. Thomas could not see their faces, but bare swords in their hands cast ominous crimson lights around. They walked alert, as if in search for somebody, holding their curved one-edged Saracen swords a bit slantwise, as the hirelings of East are used to. Their habits gave them away as Saracens… and good fighters.

  He moved Chachar behind his back and whispered, “You know them?”

  “Never saw them before…”

  Thomas froze behind the barrels but the warriors could not see them. The two men walked slowly, protecting each other. Oblivious, Thomas flung his hand to the heap, and his fingers only felt linen fabric. However, he had a short dagger on his belt!

  The warriors descended from the stairs onto the ground, stood there for a while till their eyes accommodated to the faint light. One of them whispered to another, and they went forward cautiously, bending
down in a predatory way.

  “Chachar,” Thomas whispered. “Crouch behind this barrel! Let them pass by, then run to the stairs”

  “They’ll see me!” she mouthed.

  “They’ll see me, not you.”

  “But you…?”

  “I’ll try to keep them here. And you raise an alarm when you’re out. Or run straight to Gorvel. He’s two floors above.”

  She crouched, hiding in the shadows. Thomas backed up, his eyes fixed on the Saracens. Something crunched under his foot. Both warriors gave a start, hurried to his side with their broad blades advanced. One had his sword in right hand, the other man in his left. However, they did not rush headlong. Definitely no novices at man hunt.

  Thomas ran back, hiding behind the rows of barrels. Poles crunched underfoot, marking his way. Finally, both warriors saw his gliding shadow and increased their pace – but did not break into a run as Thomas had hoped they would. His heart was wrung in the fingers of fear. Will the innocent woman have time to escape assassins? He had no doubt they were assassins. He’d seen too much of life to confuse wine with vinegar or a priest with a vagrant.

  The warriors parted and ran along the edges of the passage, all but brushing against the barrels. Thomas pulled out his dagger, turned it in hand angrily: it was so tiny and toy-like against a huge two-handed sword. The two of those have smaller swords. Curved Arabian ones, but real swords, not toys like this.

  They slowed their pace, started coming from both sides, as far as the walls of barrels allowed, their tenacious eyes caught every move of the cornered knight. Thomas weighed the dagger in hand, recalled his friend wielding this strange weapon artfully – and hurled it into the warrior within four steps of him. The dagger hit his chest forcefully, rebounded, fell on the earthen floor, and bounced under the barrels. The warrior recoiled. Thomas could not see his face in the shade but heard his croak of suppressed laughter. “Bad luck?.. You should have learnt!”

  His sword cut the air abruptly. The second man dashed to at once, raising his sword. Thomas pushed off strongly, jumped up on the barrel and on to another one. There was a loud crack behind, a splash on his legs. The assassin cursed in Arabic as he pulled his sword out of the cut barrel.

  His companion cried, “Keep him there! I’ll bar the door. He won’t escape!”

  Thomas measured by eye the distance to the one who remained beneath. The assassin smiled malevolently, waved his free hand in an invitation to come and try to take him while he was alone. He held his sword loosely, but Thomas could tell the difference between a man whose failures had added to his experience and a greenhorn. If only he had not thrown the dagger that stupidly…

  He climbed like a monkey on damp wooden barrels, his cheeks blushed with shame and humiliation. At four steps! By flat side! A miss would have been better than that… He hoped that Chachar had time to slip out while they were driving him on to the very top…

  He heard the clang of the door, barred by the second warrior. They started to come from both sides. Thomas climbed on the topmost cask but he had barely jerked his foot away when the lower edge was cut off by blade. He jumped to save his feet, fell down, his hands found the next barrel. Another sword flashed into the cask from beneath and nearly chopped his fingers off.

  Thomas swore, fell, rolled over the barrel, stopped in a hollow between round sides. He heard them laugh below. One started to climb carefully, another stared at Thomas without a blink, his sword ready. The first man struck, Thomas jumped on the next barrel. The blade crunched through the wooden side, the warrior pulled it out, brandished again. Thomas crouched, ready to jump. The assassin waited, then brandished several times, trying to reach him. His last blow was brisk and treacherous. Thomas flew up. What had saved him up to that moment was their sword’s weight, no light sabers – that gave him time to evade the crushing blows of sharp steel. All the same, he felt a cold in his chest. The cat-and-mouse game has a single end: a mouse unable to hit back…

  They were surrounding him. Thomas jumped along the row, from one barrel to another, as if they were the backs of giant turtles. Everything in the damp cellar was moldy or covered with slime. His legs ached with the effort of keeping himself from falling down.

  There were three barrels ahead, then the end of the row. Driven skillfully to his inescapable end, Thomas saw his death, heard his wings flap overhead. Gathering the last of his strength, he jumped suddenly from the middle row to another. The assassin’s late strike slashed the sole of his boot. Thomas didn’t make the jump, his chest hit against the wooden edge, but he jerked his legs up instantly, got onto the barrel and rolled away. He heard a crack, then curses and gurgling, the smell of wine grew stronger. Behind him, they swore and shouted angrily.

  Thomas ran along the row, his shoulder brushing against the wall, jumped down on the ground. Limping, he rushed for the door. He heard footfall behind, but the door was already close. He seized the iron cramps, flung the bar away with a crash, seized the second one… The footsteps got so close that he, having removed the second bar and pulled the door open, was forced to dart headfirst down the stairs. Steel clanged loudly on steel, a sword swished through his hair and barely missed cutting his ear off.

  He fell, his forehead hit against the cask bottom. The door banged shut, the bars clanged again. He saw a familiar glitter on the ground between barrels, grabbed the thing before he realized what it was, heard footsteps and made, with inscrutable speed, his way onto the top of the cask wall. In surprise, Thomas gazed at his clenched fist: it held his dagger by the hilt.

  Both assassins breathed heavily. “Stop jumping like a cowardly monkey!” one said in a guttural voice. “Climb down, be a man.”

  “You are not a true knight,” the other accused.

  “Better you come up here,” Thomas invited. His breath wheezed out, his throat was dry.

  “We’ll have to.”

  They started climbing on the barrels. Thomas slashed briskly at the thick rope keeping the row together. Huge, monstrous wine vessels began sliding apart. At first, the warriors didn’t mind the barrels moving but then they heard a heavy rustle, a groan of damp wood. One jumped off, his sword advanced, the other still gripping at the side of the huge barrel. It turned round slowly and rolled along with others, speeding up, so he came off, fell on his back, the sword still in hand.

  Thomas hung on the scrap of the rope, as thick as a ship’s one, dangling in the air. The barrels were rolling apart from beneath his feet. The first assassin ran away in fear, but the heavy casks rolling down from the high row were fast to gain speed. The second man was barely up on his feet when a barrel knocked him down and rolled over him. Thomas heard his bones and skull crunch, his chest clap like a burst bull bladder, saw blood gushing from beneath the cask. In the shady cellar, the robber’s blood seemed as dark as tar.

  For a moment, Thomas saw a flattened spot. Like an animal’s skin taken off and lying by the bed on the castle floor in winter. Then other barrels rolled over, thundering, pushing among themselves, and Thomas could not see the sprawled body anymore.

  The first one had almost reached the wall but the enormous wine-gurgling monsters ran him down and crumpled him. The casks cracked, the powerful smell of wine made Thomas’s head dizzy. He felt more drunk than ever before.

  That was when he heard a thundering sound. The door shook, all but flying off its hinges. Thomas released the rope and landed with a shriek, “I’ll open it, just a moment!”

  His feet slipped in the puddles of wine, he fell thrice, got all covered with mud, struggled up the stairs. Once he removed the bars, the door flung him away. He cried, fell back into the wine puddle. Sir Gorvel with two soldiers, all armed, appeared in the doorway. Behind them, he heard Chachar squealing and saw a glitter of helmets, armor, and bare swords.

  He felt strong hands on his shoulders, struggled up to his feet. It was Gorvel looking at him with anxiety, his eyes all but popped out. “Sir Thomas! If you wanted a spree, why do it alone? It’s not fri
endly. I’ve never treated you like that!”

  Thomas shook his head drunkenly. “Oh, Sir Gorvel… Would I ever do such a thing to your wine cellar if not in a grave need?”

  “Never mind the wine!” Gorvel dismissed. “What happened? The woman was jabbering but I got not a damned thing from her, with all that wine gurgling in my head… Anyway, I’m no match for you, sir Thomas. You reek of wine as if you had some forty barrels!”

  “No, only three or four,” Thomas comforted. “No more… were damaged. They leaked… You may laugh, Sir Gorvel, but I had no lick of your wine at all…”

  Gorvel roared with laughter eagerly. Sir Thomas could barely keep his feet, his eyes rolling under his forehead, his tongue tied. If he visited the wine cellar any time soon, the purpose must be something other than talk of sublime love!

  Afterwards, Thomas was asking himself what the hell made him go to that cellar but found no reasonable answer. The only explanation he could find was that no logic can be found where a woman is involved.