The Grail of Sir Thomas

by Yury Nikitin

Chapter 8

  Oleg was sprawled on his bed awake, fingering his charms. The faint moonlight fell through the guarded window, only part of the bed lit by it. Oleg had worked out how he could lie for sleep to keep his face away from the ghastly light.

  His fingers quivered, lingering on small wooden figures. He felt his back get up as he saw every road coming to a dead end. Danger on the right and on the left, above and below, looking into the window and waiting on the stairs. The charm with a double heart meant danger not only for him, but for his nearest and dearest. But who was his here? Not that odd knight with his noble ways… Nothing was clear at all. Who could link him to the knight and want both of them dead? What could link them together at all?

  He closed his eyes and concentrated on his feelings as he ran the wooden figures through his fingers slowly once more. A charm stuck between his thumb and forefinger – the one with the sword and arrows again! Gods persist in warning. In the daily turmoil, it is not always possible to see the signs of coming trouble, or to hear one’s own soul: all-seeing, all-hearing, all-understanding. Sometimes the voice of the soul comes in a dream, and one wakes up enlightened, happy with having invented or discovered a thing in his sleep! Sometimes you hear it early in the morning, while still half-asleep, with your head clean and free of mundane stuff, but only a sorcerer can seclude from the world and listen to his soul. Charms are the simplest tool through which the soul can speak, give a hint or a warning…

  Oleg slipped off the bed quietly, his blanket left bulging, and hid underneath it. He kept fingering his charms when he heard a soft rustle outside the window. The chamber went dark as if something had screened the window. He seemed to hear a breath held, then a resonant click: Oleg knew that sound of a metal crossbow string. He uttered a short groan, pulled the dangling edge of the blanket down a little, pushed the wooden bed from beneath,

  Oleg listened, slipped out briskly, a knife in hand ready to throw. A short metal arrow was stuck in the thick head of the bed, the blanket pierced through by it. The arrow point had a deep groove in it. Oleg touched the arrow, feeling the warmth of a stranger’s palm, tugged it out. It was deep in the oaken head of the bed, almost halfway through it. However, the strength of the shooter’s arm could never be known with a crossbow. A child would shoot it with the same strength as a man grown. At once Oleg was near the window, seized the metal rods, strained himself. He heard the rustle of stone crumbs, then the rods bent and, with a faint grind, went off their stone jacks. The courtyard was silent save for cattle lowing in the shed and a young, silly dog yelping behind the outhouses. The moon, with its edge nibbled, floated the sky, deadly.

  Oleg squeezed himself through the window, scraping his shoulders. His fingertips felt stone ledges and cracks. Gorvel’s castle was almost impregnable, as Franks saw it, but a brave skilled climber or a daredevil could climb its walls up to the roof easily. Franks will have to learn much by bitter, gory experience. The Saracen assassins are capable of much more than pompous European knights or simple-minded common folk.

  Pressing himself to the wall, he climbed down slowly, stopping and listening. He heard someone descending on the left, hidden by the grand shadow of the tower wall. Not a very good climber: he pants, knocks on stones. To judge from the sounds, the climber was clad in mail or light armor. Definitely, he’s no Saracen: assassins always go light, nothing excessive on. They condemn Franks, even while serving them, for taking no step without a pood9 of iron on their shoulders. He might well be a European. The one eager to learn from Saracens, otherwise he’d not dare to climb a sheer wall in the dead of night. He’d have pleaded tradition, the good Anglic sword strike, or even the valor of the Knights of the Round Table, to refuse flatly.

  The stars rocked overhead, but Oleg proceeded down, into the pitch dark. The roofs and the top of walls are moonlit, while the court is all covered with impenetrable black shadows cast by the walls. The top of the tethering post is glittering as a lone island in the sea of darkness.

  When he smelled the ground close, the crossbowman jumped down. Oleg heard his boots on the stone paving, unclasped his hands at once, never minding the noise: his bare feet made no sound. With his heart wrung with fear, he ran across the moonlit patch in the middle of the yard, plunged head first into the salutary shade and stopped dead, listening. The heavy footsteps were far ahead.

  Oleg’s eyes accommodated, and he made out the figure of a man running away, the metal glitter of his back. The crossbowman didn’t leave his expensive weapon. The murderer ran up to the rampart, started climbing it. His limbs moved swiftly, as if he were a spider on the web.

  Oleg sneaked slowly to the wall. The crossbowman was climbing a rope, but Oleg had to make it on the bare stone, gripping at the smallest cracks and ledges. When the man blocked out the stars over the wall for a moment, Oleg was in the middle of it. When he reached the top himself, he heard the clatter of hooves and a muffled neigh in the dark beneath. A horse with a rider in flapping cloak burst out of the shadow and galloped away from the castle.

  Oleg jumped down from the very top, fell on the edge of the moat, rolled down the slope, reducing his speed. He heard crackles and crunches under his body, felt his bare feet pricked, as if fish and bird bones had been thrown down from the castle walls for ages. The clatter of hooves was fading away fast. Oleg rushed after, unfastened his jerkin at once. The earth beneath his bare feet was pleasantly cool, the morning air chilly and sharp as a Damask saber. He’d get warmer on his run, so it was the cold, not the warmth, he needed to preserve. The crossbowman drove his horse in an even gallop, evidently sparing its strength for a long ride.

  Few people know, while the rest are charmed by the might of horse muscle and suppressed by their own laziness, that no horse can run as fast and far as a man can! In a run for half a verst10 the horse will come first, but at a longer distance it will run short of its breath or even fall, while a man can run ten versts and longer with the same speed, in full armor! Ruses were trained to run in armor, with shield and axe in hands, two-handed sword on the back, throwing knives on the belt or hidden under a flap, and akinak, a short Scythian sword, at the top of the boot. That sword was typically referred to as a knee thing for strife, abbreviated to knife.

  Dust rose over the road as a subtle cloud. As Oleg ran, he glanced at either the fat-lightening sky or the distant sparkle of metal plate on the crossbow stock. The clatter of hooves was distinct in the night silence: even birds had not roused yet, no songs, and Oleg’s bare feet raised the dust without a sound.

  Finally, the sound of hooves died away, but the pale light of dawn enabled Oleg to see the tracks, dim and dark on the road ahead. The far edge of the land was going pink. If the crossbowman turned aside, into the thickets, he would be easy to trace. Hoof prints, broken branches, trampled grass – all signs for an experienced eye to know the rider’s way.

  His breath burst out hoarse and hot, his throat overdried. Oleg realized he was tiring, like a huge fish thrown onshore. His cave was not much for running about, so he broke off the habit to exercise. And the advantage of his previous experience would not suffice alone…

  Panting from the run, he thought suddenly the crossbowman might have experience too. And there were many other dangers: a snake lurking in the rotten leaves, under a log, or within an empty horse skull…

  The track turned off the road suddenly, Oleg had barely run past, but he broke into the shrubs at once and saw deep hoof prints in the damp ground. He felt the coolness of a stream ahead. By that sensation, Oleg could draw the twists of it, tell its depth, and name all the grasses and flowers on its banks. He heard the clatter of hooves again. The horse’s pace was even, thick blades of juicy grass crunched in its teeth.

  The clouds blazed up in the sky, the dawn came down to the ground from them. The sand turned orange and shining, the rich grass sparkled with all the tints of green.

  In two or three hundred steps ahead, in the curve of the stream, a shelter of newly cut branches stood. It was ma
de skillfully: Oleg could barely single out its sloping walls in the surrounding greenery. The rider, with crossbow over his shoulders, trotted straight to the shelter. When he was within ten steps of it, a small man in long green oriental robes came out of the bushes on the right. He had a simple bow of ash stick, with a tightly stretched string, in hand.

  The rider waved his hand reassuringly from a distance. “I’m friend! You are difficult to take by surprise, master, aren’t you?”

  “How was it?” the man in the green robe interrupted.

  “I’ve pinned him like a toad, to the back of the bed. This Frankish crossbow makes a terrible hit! But it takes so long to draw the string with a winch… And this bloody double traction!” He vaulted off, clapped his excited horse by neck, took the saddle and harness off and shouldered them. “Good horse, fast as wind… Chukan and Gexah still there?”

  “Their job is harder,” the man in the robe replied. “The knight is brave, his armor always on him, even as he shits in shrubs. He has to be taken aback. That’s not shooting down an armless pilgrim!”

  The rider kept his hot horse from rushing to the cold stream, slapped and patted the animal. “That pilgrim is more of a bear!” he said with displeasure. “I smelled danger, though he had no armor nor arms!”

  Oleg took his throwing knives out, estimated by eye the distance to the crossbowman and his master. Oleg’s heart beat like mad, protesting against the sudden stop of the run. Big beads of sweat ran down from his forehead, broke through the dams of his eyebrows to bite his eyes. His fingers felt wet, he wiped them on his knees.

  The man in green robe glanced with a sullen approval at the crossbowman who was leading his horse round to cool it and keep it, steamed, from drinking icy water. “It’s done. I hope it is! Chukan and Gexah never missed before… Just think: five thousand dinars for a cup! That’s fantastic!”

  “In silver?” the crossbowman asked, grinning.

  “In gold, you fool. A single shot earned you a thousand golden dinars! See it? Where else could you have earned that much?”

  The rider shook his head in astonishment. “A thousand in gold?!”

  “A thousand. Chukan and Gexah will each get that much. And two thousands are mine, for I’ve planned it all and directed you three, skilled with knives and arrows but weak at brains.”

  “I don’t object,” the crossbowman said hastily. “You always had a bigger share. But we’ve never got that much… That seems queer. When we set a king with arrows, after we passed three lines of his bodyguards, we were paid less. And here – kill a knight and a pilgrim, take a cup… And that’s all?”

  “Why should it matter? Do what they want but don’t ask why. In fact, I understand it was sufficient to take the cup only, but they once had it go wrong. Either stolen or taken back…”

  “I see. A dead man won’t come to take it back. A thousand in gold, Ganim! For this money I shall…”

  The heavy crossbow, with a long polished butt, fidgeted on the rider’s back. Oleg waited till the other man turned face to him while leading the horse round. The knife slipped out of Oleg’s hand like a silver fish. He took the second knife at once, flung into the back of the green-robed man whom the crossbowman called Ganim. The crossbowman jerked his arms up as if he wanted to fly, fell on his back, dropping the reins, and stayed motionless: his mouth wide open in a silent cry, his right eye a gurgling bloody mess, with the knife hilt jutting out of it.

  The green-robed man stood with his back turned to Oleg, but some beastly feeling made him wheel round. He drew his bow at once, shot. Oleg jerked aside, caught the arrow with his hand. The robed man, baring his teeth in fury, scratched the knife handle sticking out of his chest: the blade had crushed through the breastbone. He began to draw his bow again. In ten steps, Oleg became alerted. Ganim drew it and put it down several times, seizing the moment; if the pilgrim could catch an arrow with his left hand, he could manage it with his right too…

  Finally, Ganim’s fingers unclenched, he fell to his knees, half dead. The bow dropped. His eyes flashed and faded, he fell on his side, his arm bent clumsily. A blood puddle was spreading from beneath him. His other hand scratched the ground for a while, then stiffened.

  Oleg came from aside, stopped in three steps. “You’re not dead,” he told Ganim, “so leave my knife’s hilt. Look at me.”

  Ganim made no move. His quivering fingers straightened. Oleg came from behind, turned him with a knock and recoiled. Suddenly, Ganim jumped from the ground. His left hand flung a handful of earth into Oleg’s face, his right one pulled the knife out of his chest and struck, with lightning speed, the spot where Oleg should have been standing. But the earth flew past Oleg, he elbowed the knife away, seized Ganim’s hand and twisted it fiercely. Ganim screamed, fell to his knees.

  Oleg twisted it further. He heard bones crack, tendons burst with a crunch. Ganim’s face hit on the ground, which was wet with blood. The red spilled out from his chest in an uneven trickle, pulsing in time with his quivering heart.

  “I have not missed,” Oleg told him pressingly. “I wanted to ask, that’s why you are still alive. Who paid five thousands in gold?”

  With effort, Ganim turned his face. It was caked in bloody mud, his eyes and mouth closed up with it. “You’ll be destroyed both…” he rasped. “No one can stand up to their might!”

  “Names!” Oleg demanded. He twisted the enemy’s hand, the last gristles crunched, Ganim stopped twitching. His strength was drained fast with the blood loss. Oleg hit him near his shoulder blade, heard a dry crunch, seized the fragments, as thin as bird bones, and started rubbing their blooded ends, with marrow flowing out of them, against each other. “Say it!” he demanded fiercely. “Say it now!”

  Ganim wheezed with terrible pain, twitched, his lips foamed. Oleg seized his private parts with another hand and squeezed. The new pain made Ganim toss up, his pallid face went black, a wheezing voice escaped his lips. “I’ll say… It was… in person…”

  He tossed up again, his body flinched, then stretched like a log, gave a last quiver like grass in the wind, and froze. His face looked more awful than that of a strangled man, his goggled eyes full of terror. Oleg sighed, closed the man’s eyes, folded his arms on his chest.

  The crossbowman lay still. The blade had gone deep into his brain. Oleg pulled the hilt with caution, to overcome the resistance but avoid being spattered. He wiped the knives clean, then put them into covers. Both entered their nests reluctantly, like the swords from minstrels’ songs that screamed with joy (the swords, not the songs) each time when unsheathed and wept with grief when leaving the battle.

  Searching the shelter of branches, he found a well-hidden leather bag with gold coins, weighed it in hand. If these are golden dinars, they number in no less than five thousand. Someone is craving the cup desperately. So much so that he ordered to kill two men in the way: a knight, hero of the capture of Jerusalem, and a peaceful pilgrim. Now the knight must be beating off two killers, if he’s still alive. He might have been invincible in jousting and heroic as a member of an attacking knightly force, but Saracen assassins were harder nuts to crack. The poor knight might already be wheezing with his throat cut, his hot blood shedding to the ground…

  He hid the gold in a different place, went around the shelter in broadening circles. He saw a lot of hoof prints. On the wet ground near the stream they were so distinct that he could easily count every nail and dent in the iron horseshoes. However, the sun rose high in the sky before he identified the horse of the mysterious employer, the one who had brought five thousands of golden dinars.

  Oleg ran, watching the tracks on the earth and patches of trampled grass, listening to the birds crying and grasshoppers chirring. A steppe is a whole being. An experienced ear on one end of it will grasp easily what’s going on the other.

  He ran in wide steps, keeping his elbows behind, so that his chest breathed in deeply and mightily without squeezing his heart. In hundred steps on the left, a magpie flew
out of a bush with an indignant scream. At once, Oleg slowed his run down to a walk, his eyes fixed on the suspicious bush, his hand on his knife hilt.

  His eyes were still on the veil of green leaves, trying to penetrate through the bush, when he heard a soft voice behind, “Here, slave!”

  From behind a thick log, a dried-up sinewy man stood up, clad in a thin mail with wide collar. He had a curved sword on his belt and bow in hands, an arrow on the string. Oleg recognized Ternak, a slave hunter who had impeded his homecoming and had Abdulla bring him to Baron Otset’s stone quarry.

  “Didn’t expect to see me?” Ternak blurted, his eyes narrowed fiercely. His upper lip jerked up in a predatory smile, baring yellow teeth. “Was it you, with that blockhead knight, who raised the mutiny? Though it doesn’t matter anymore. The castle now has another master. I see you managed to kill Ganim and his man. I had little love for them, but I have even less for those who succeed in killing such…”

  He failed to find a proper word. Meanwhile, his hands drew the bowstring. He expected to see fear in the face of the runaway slave, desired it, but Oleg kept his expression as impenetrable as he could, despite his thoughts jumping like gudgeons on a hot pan. How did Ternak happen to be here? Did he follow them all the way?

  “Did you hire Ganim?” he asked, making no move.

  Ternak smirked, his eyes blazed with malevolence. “Those in Hell know all. Ask them!” He aimed at Oleg, shifting the pointed arrowhead between his face and breast.

  Oleg did not stir. “Why does your partner hide? He may come out.”

  “What partner?”

  “In that bush. A magpie flew out,” Oleg pointed with his finger.

  Ternak did not move an eye, replied with a smirk. “I’m no greenhorn to be entrapped that easy.”

  The bowstring clicked. Oleg jerked aside. He would have caught the arrow flying, but changed his mind at the last moment (what use is an arrow in hand if Ternak draws his sword out?), so his hand reached for the throwing knife.

  Ternak knew fighting ways. Oleg was late to grasp it. He felt a strike on his side, touched the hurt place: the arrow stuck out there! Ternak smiled, with his outwitting of Oleg, bow still in hands, but his smile seemed to be curved in wood: the knife was deep in his breast.

  Oleg came up to him, kicked the bow aside. Pain spread in his side, blood trickled down his clothes, dripped on the dry ground. Clenching his teeth, he felt the arrow and flesh around it. With relief, he found out that the iron arrowhead had slid along his rib, scratching it. There was a swollen bump under his skin on the other side, as though a nut were hidden there.

  Holding his breath, he pushed the arrow deeper and almost broke his neck trying to see the place where the arrowhead would come out. The bump swelled and stretched, glittering in the burning sun – and suddenly sank, pierced by a sharp metal point from inside. It was red with blood spurting out from that new wound. Oleg moved the arrow further quickly till its jaggy head was all out. Swearing quietly, he broke the wooden shaft, pulled it out from the other side. The blood went gushing from both ends of the wound. Oleg bent hastily over the dead man to use the thin cloth of his turban as dressing.

  A low voice, resembling a roar, ordered sullenly from behind, “Stand still! No dressing.”

  Oleg turned round slowly. From behind the bush on his left – the one from which the scared magpie had flown out – Gorvel’s minstrel stood. He was in travelling clothes, his pale malevolent face alerted, his eyes catching Oleg’s every move, a small bow of aurochs’s horn in his hands, a curved sword and a long narrow dagger on his belt. Oleg cast a helpless glance at his knife, hilt-deep in Ternak’s chest. The singer caught his look and nodded. “Leave it be. And don’t move. I love to watch the blood pour out. Even if I was not the one to shed it.”

  He smiled malevolently. Oleg saw triumph and delight in his swamp-greenish eyes. The singer could have killed him with a shot in back through the bush, but then the bloody pilgrim would have died unaware of his killer, without torment – and now he’ll realize that, though he killed Ternak, Ganim and his man, there are even stronger and more skilled ones. The strong and skilled minstrel will walk around while the pilgrim’s bones will be dragged by animals…

  “Did you hire Ganim?” Oleg asked in a depressed voice. He staggered, blood trickled down his leg to soak into the dry ground. He felt hot and wet within his boot.

  The minstrel gave no reply. He bared his teeth, drew the bow slowly, looking straight in Oleg’s eyes. Several times he released the string and drew again. Despite the smirk, his eyes were guarded. They caught even the smallest move of the pilgrim’s muscle. Oleg tried to swing aside but his side burst with pain, his legs gave way. He heard ringing in his ears. It was the loss of blood. He felt his face go pallid – and saw it in the minstrel’s smirk, his triumphant eyes. “I’ll make a cup of your skull!” the singer promised. “You were a mighty warrior…”

  “Did you hire him?” Oleg saw the singer’s smirk and glittering eyes, the rest blurred with hot haze. Suddenly he glimpsed a move out of the corner of his left eye, looked there asquint. As Ternak had gripped the hilt of the knife in his chest, he was still holding it, his fingers weakening, losing touch with it one by one. In a moment, his hand would fall down into the grass. “Ternak,” Oleg said insistently, “fling the knife at him!”

  The minstrel shot a glance there. Ternak’s hand fell with a noise, burying itself in the grass. The singer shot briskly. His arrow struck Ternak heavily under his thrown-up chin, went in almost to the feather.

  Oleg jumped back and aside once the arrow left the bowstring. He fell into a gully, broke through bushes, rolled down in a ball till he reached the bottom. The thickets softened his fall. He hastened to climb above and aside, feeling giddy, big black flies rushing before his eyes, his blood dripping on the grass. Twisting, he pulled out his second knife, gripped the hilt. The minstrel was sure he’d left his only knife in Ternak’s body. Oleg had made him think so by devouring that knife with eyes. Now he had a small chance to outwit the minstrel, who proved to be a skilled and experienced assassin, those three killers no match for him. It’s strange he has to wander in a singer’s likeness…

  He heard a rustle above. The minstrel was coming slowly down the slope, bow in hands, arrow on the string. He kept his eyes on the bloodstains on the ground and leaves, and he walked carefully, did not run. He stared at each blade of grass, his eyes (a match for Oleg’s) missed neither a grasshopper jumping nor a lizard darting in the grass. At the same time he seemed to notice what was going on around and even behind him.

  Oleg clapped himself mentally on the shoulder: he had left the bottom of the gully in time. He lay hidden in the grass, almost in the open space. Such places are never looked upon closely when sided by thick bushes. Wounded prey would usually hide behind branches, so the minstrel kept away from shrubs, ready to shoot an arrow at any suspicious move.

  Oleg felt his face muddy. He got dirty all over, like a pig, while crawling on his belly along the bed of a recently dried-up stream, but that made him invisible among boulders, grey and muddy the same. His body was plastered with leaves and dry grass blades, the clots of earth dangled from his cheeks.

  The minstrel stepped with caution. He not only looked at the bloody trace but glanced around too. The red stains led him to the logs that had stopped Oleg’s fall. The four of them, with their branches tangled, made a perfect hide. The singer’s lips curved in the ghost of a triumphant smirk, but he kept moving on in a guarded and tenacious way. He was an excellent hunter, one who would easily trace and kill a wounded bear, or even a lion.

  Oleg lay, clinging to the ground, barely daring to breathe. With his left ear pressed to the ground, he heard every step, every move. He could not see the minstrel but his intuition informed him that he’d passed by and was leaving.

  Oleg raised himself a little on trembling arms and saw a stooped figure twenty steps ahead. The singer sneaked, ready to wheel round at any moment, to jump as
ide or fall under the protection of shrubs. He had the bow half-drawn while peering at the tangle of roots and branches of stout fallen trees. The iron arrowhead glittered like a big snake’s wet tongue.

  Oleg struggled up, trying not to step on his right leg, numb and disobeying. The singer made ten more steps away. Oleg aimed clumsily, as if it were his first throw in a lifetime, and flung the knife. Everything went dark before his eyes, he lurched and stretched his arms, trying to keep his feet.

  He heard a convulsive sob ahead. The minstrel wheeled round, his arrow flew over Oleg’s head. The singer’s eyes were goggled and mad, the last blood flowed away from his cheeks, and his face went pallid yellow. He seized a second arrow briskly, shot at Oleg. A click – and the arrow missed. The minstrel bared his teeth, reeled, blood went trickling out of his mouth. He kneeled slowly, staring at Oleg with astonishment. The bow slipped off and down into the grass.

  Oleg came up, limping heavily, dragging his foot. The minstrel coughed, spattering blood on his chin. “You did it…” he rasped. “I underestimated…”

  “Who sent you?” Oleg demanded.

  The minstrel made a little wave of head, his eyes flashed. “No way to force me… I’m dying…”

  Oleg nodded sullenly. If the knife struck where it should have, then the point of the blade had cut through the spinal muscle and into the heart. “Should I burn or bury you?” Oleg asked.

  Blood gushed out of the singer’s mouth unevenly, as his heart was still clinging to life. His breast rose heavily, with a squelch inside, as if a big fish were splashing there. “I worship fire,” he said in a fading voice.

  “All the four elements are sacred,” Oleg added quickly. “I can bury you according to your rite. Would you tell me?”

  The minstrel’s eyes were closing, as he rocked on his knees. Oleg barely heard his whisper, “Take my sword… Worth forty cows and two horses…”

  “In the name of Zarathustra,” Oleg demanded in Farsi. “Who sent you?”

  “The Lords of the World…”

  He fell face first, already dead. Oleg tugged the knife out of his back (it had actually reached the heart!) and wiped it on the minstrel’s shoulder. He took some gold coins he found in the dead man’s pocket, before starting the hard climb above. Although his bleeding had stopped, he felt too weak to defend even against a sparrow. He’d not have been able to bury the singer in the European way if even he wanted to. Luckily, the faith of fire worshippers prohibits the bodies to be buried in earth, burnt or thrown into water: all the four elements are sacred and should not be defiled by corpses. A dead body should be left open for the predatory birds and animals to bury it in their stomachs, with the remainder picked up by ants and bugs.

  He fainted twice on his way back to the shelter. The bodies of Ganim and the crossbowman were all covered with a quilt of green flies, and big yellow ants had trodden paths to them. While the ants rushed to the bodies, their bellies were tucked in. Those who returned had their bellies swollen, red fibers of flesh in their tiny jaws.

  The horses snorted, backed away from the man covered with blood. Oleg raked out the bag of gold coins, cursing himself for having hidden it that deep, tied it across the saddle of Ganim’s horse and mounted, with great difficulty, the crossbowman’s horse.

  When he rode up to the gate of Gorvel’s castle, he found guards with bare swords waiting for him. The gate swung open hastily. Gorvel hurried to meet Oleg, helped him to dismount. The red-bearded lord’s face was grim, his eyes flashed like lightning bolts. He clenched his fists and yelled at the guards.

  Thomas came rushing, in full armor, only his visor up. “Been in a fight, sir wonderer?” he cried anxiously from the distance. “Is anyone left there?”

  “Your minstrel with friends,” Oleg replied gloomily, as he was combating sickness with the last of his strength. “If you want their songs… you’ll have to go there. They’re not likely… to climb out of the gully soon.”