by Yury Nikitin
Chapter 20
Once the fighting was over, Tilak ordered men to fix the city gate and posted guards on it. Then he selected soldiers to ride with him all over the city, in search of hiding barbarians. As he saw the two mighty Franks riding towards him, he squealed with joy.
“The Queen sent her bodyguards to find you,” Tilak told them. “She had a sudden feeling as though you’ve left us! I’ve rummaged half of the city myself!”
“We were in the other half,” Thomas grumbled. He seemed to have just come out of a slaughterhouse. Even his horse was bathed in blood, and his saddle was soaked with it; thick and dark, looking black in the light of fires.
The northern barbarian in wolf skin by the knight’s side was clean but, judging by his face, he’d also been killing. Besides, his quiver was empty and his sword was on his back, in the northern way, as if he would like never to see it again.
“Isosnezhda told me to invite you to the feast,” Tilak said solemnly. “To celebrate the victory over the barbarians. The two of you are the greatest heroes! Especially you, sir iron knight!”
Thomas shook his head dismissively. “We have to visit the great magician first.”
“Haven’t I told you?” Tilak exclaimed in surprise. “Barbarians had been to the tower once again before they fled. They burnt it down, destroyed all, cut the magician into pieces… Nothing remained there but burnt walls!”
Thomas watched Tilak in stupefaction. The knight did not seem to fathom what had happened. His jaw dropped, reins slipped out of his numb fingers. His stallion stepped aside, Thomas came to himself and turned to the leader of Merefans. “How… How did that happen? How could he allow himself to be killed?”
Tilak shrugged, and the wonderer spoke in a gentle voice, “Stop rending your brave heart, Sir Thomas. You lost nothing. What could you be foretold by a magician who failed to see his own destiny? When we grasped the whole thing of it, he kept balking like a senile ass of Bagdad. Only once had he got the right thing; when he decided not to bully us…”
They turned their horses slowly, rode to the palace, white in the dark of the night. The lights were on, and not the ones cast by fires; soldiers hurried to light the remaining lamps, drive torches into the walls in places. They were cleaning the halls hastily, pulling tables together, in preparation for the triumphant feast.
Near the palace, their horses were taken and led running to the tethering post. Thomas and Oleg waited, shifting their feet. Tilak led the way up the broad marble stairs, which were still blood-stained. The surviving locals dragged corpses away hastily, searching their pockets to return what the barbarians had robbed them of.
Thomas glanced back at Tilak anxiously. “How long are your feasts? Not a week long, I hope?”
“A good feast is a long one,” Tilak replied with dignity.
“Then I’d prefer a bad feast,” Thomas decided. “Sir wonderer and I have a long way ahead!”
Tilak gasped, stopped at the middle of the stairs, his eyes as huge as dishes for celebratory meal. “Sir noble crusader! At these very moments, a throne chair is put in place for you! Have we missed something?”
Thomas blushed, glanced over at the wonderer. Oleg grinned, evidently amused by the knight’s confusion. “But… Isosnezhda is a fair ruler, isn’t she?” Thomas asked Tilak hastily, angry with himself for being embarrassed.
Tilak nodded, keeping his astonished eyes on Thomas. His voice grew stricter. “Her father died last year, and her mother perished five years ago in a fire. And now the Queen has lost the only relative whom she trusted: the wicked treasurer was her cousin once removed! Our kingdom needs a strong hand, sir. Isosnezhda has our loyalty… and our love, but we, her faithful warriors, would like a strong man on the throne beside her. I’ve heard the talk of my soldiers today… Forgive my insolence, sir, but they spoke of you as our ruler!”
“I will not infringe upon the queen’s sovereign rights,” Thomas told him with dignity. “I am Thomas Malton of Gisland, a crusader of Christ’s hosts, a man of my word and honor!”
Tilak advanced his open palms. “Sir, we’ll do all of it by ourselves!” he tried to persuade. “Today the assembly of generals will proclaim you the king. We believe you’ll treat beautiful Isosnezhda kindly. You can marry her. If she tries to refuse you, then we, her generals, will threat to turn against her. We’ll force her, urge her!”
Thomas hummed and hawed and lifted his hands. Oleg took mercy on him, clapped both Thomas and Tilak on shoulders, and the three of them entered the royal palace. Thomas was greeted with joyful shouts. People came running from the other side of the palace to see him, and they who had fought side by side with him, in those valiant three hundreds, pointed proudly at him, their leader who swept dirty barbarians away as the wind sweeps dry leaves!
In the great hall, men were taking their seats. Servants were running their feet off, bringing food and wine to the palace from looted shops and stocks. Isosnezhda saw the mighty figures of the northern warriors from a distance and beamed at once. Her radiant eyes shone like morning stars.
Thomas got his legs stuck to the floor. While he bowed to the radiant queen at a distance, keeping his eyes on her and forcing a broad smile, he whispered desperately to Oleg, “Sir wonderer. You’ve been to caves, you’ve spoken to gods… though Pagan, but gods all the same… Could you please speak to the queen? Explain to her that my soul belongs to other lady?”
“And have her scratch my eyes out? I’m no fool. I saw her nails… And she also has teeth, as sharp as a shark’s.”
“But she’s a queen! No plain woman…”
“She’s looking at you like a woman, no queen. Sort it out yourself, I want no part. You shouldn’t have smiled at her. All of them treat it as a marriage proposal!”
The feast turned out to be also a war and state counsel, an assembly of generals, a resumption of oaths. The losses were great, and the faces of warriors at the table gloomy. Wine flowed like water, but one or another general would have his teeth gritted with fury and a silver cup crushed in his hand, spilling the wine over the festal tablecloth.
The frightened chieftains of neighboring tribes hurried to send their heirs or young daughters as hostages and swear their loyalty on a sword, a fire, or a black dog’s entrails. The heirs were placed, once they had come, in a stone outhouse in the garden, under a vigilant watch.
While the chieftains said their oaths, Thomas, in full armor, stood behind the young queen’s throne. He was fearsome, his eyes glittered menacingly. With a metal clink, he flung his huge gauntleted hand on the hilt of the giant two-handed sword. The barbarians who managed to leave the city alive had time to bring their tribes word of that terrible insatiable blade.
Oleg sat at the far table with ordinary soldiers, drank enough for three and ate enough for five. His merriment looked unnatural. Thomas glanced at him with envy; the wonderer kept a low profile, following, as he had explained, the common way of his people, so he was not praised as a hero, but he also got none of the concerns Thomas was drowning in, like in a teacup. Oleg spoke unhurriedly to Tilak, sparing Thomas that unpleasant talk, and arranged he would prepare horses for them, see the remounts loaded with blankets, wine, meat and oats, and then, at dawn, lead the remounts and destriers from the stables straight to the marble stairs of the palace.
The feast lasted all the night long. Thomas got out to his horse straight from the table. The beautiful Isosnezhda came out to see him off; that extended Thomas’s torments. Her large blue eyes were full of tears, a begging look in them, her lower lip quivering. She did not trust herself to speak, only touched the knight’s chest gently with her delicate fingers, keeping her eyes on him. As she raised her face, he saw her tears dammed in the lakes of eyes.
When Oleg reminded Thomas impatiently, in half a voice, that one should not prolong suffering, neither our own nor those of others, Thomas clenched his teeth and mounted abruptly. As the stallion felt his master’s mood, he gave a heavy sigh, cast a reproachful look at the queen.
“And you?” Thomas forced out.
“Me?” Isosnezhda smiled sadly. “I shall rule in your name. A queen waiting for her powerful defender to come back.”
Oleg grasped the reins of Thomas’s stallion with his strong hand, gave a loud whoop. The horses galloped straight away, their steel shoes thundered on the ground. The road rushed to meet them in fright, threw itself under the hooves, slipped beneath them in a flash, to sigh with relief and come to itself behind the riders.
The horses rushed in a heavy gallop till they got steamy. Oleg never glanced back. When the white city walls hid behind green hills, he allowed the tired horses to take a slow pace, then heaved a sigh. “Well, a glove and a dagger – not a big loss indeed. Though certainly a pity. I hope you left your old gauntlet? The spare one you had in your bag?”
Thomas straightened up with insult. “Sir wonderer!” he said with pain. “How can you? At this moment…”
Oleg hemmed with disapproval. His eyes remained inquiring.
“An old one,” Thomas confessed reluctantly. “But the dagger was new!”
Oleg nodded. As he shifted his attention to the road ahead, his eyebrows met at the bridge of his nose. Thomas felt awkward when he understood that his caring friend was thinking where on their way to buy a three-edged narrow dagger to replace that one, and also a couple of spare gauntlets, made of mail rings and topped with plates of steel, as those iron gloves are the most frequently broken pieces of armor…
“Sir wonderer,” Thomas asked with confusion, “please don’t tell anyone we fought spiders, or I’ll be mocked at home. They won’t get it. Fools.”
There were about forty versts from Merefa to the coast of Black Sea. They set out at dawn and had a brief rest in the torrid afternoon. Oleg hoped to reach the sea by evening. If their luck was good, the next morning they could be sailing on a ship; one of the thousands plying along the coast, never taking a risk to go too far from the land. This way, along the shore, they would get to Constantinople in several days and part there. The noble sire knight would take the northwest road, through Serbia, Croatia, states of Germany and kingdoms of Frank to his Britain, while the way of Oleg the wonderer lay to the north, across the dangerous lands roamed by mounted hordes of Pechenegs, Kumans and other people of the steppes…
Thomas still rode in his full armor, even in his helmet, enduring the heat and steaming, though within scores of miles around there was not a soul and, in places, no bush, only grass too low to hide a hare. Seldom they came across villages and rode past, with their noses turned up proudly; the Merefans had kindly provided them with food and money enough for a year.
Even the slightest memory of Merefa made the knight’s face dark. Oleg, feeling pity for his friend, would hurry to amuse him with true occurrences and funny incidents of the lives of kings and heroes. He knew lots of such stories, and Thomas began to listen involuntarily.
Once their road came to a big city, which was flooded with immense crowds of pilgrims. A grand temple towered majestically above the city, in the very center. The city has grown around the temple, Thomas grasped. The temple was surrounded by noisy caravansaries. Thousands of pilgrims moved in a never-ending chain, three or four men across, to offer their worship to the Eternal Fire.
“It looks like that fire is really cleansing,” Thomas said with respect.
“It cleans no damned thing,” Oleg replied angrily. “Let’s go. Ride on!”
“Wait,” Thomas asked him. “I want a look at it.”
“No,” Oleg said hastily. He turned his face away as if that fire were burning his eyes. “We must hurry!”
Thomas nodded. “Your words are sweet like honey to my faithful Christian heart. Probably, you’re not a lost man. You can be brought into the bosom of the Church… on a good chain, surely. And there your mean soul shall be saved with a trifling penance imposed on you… for some couple of thousand years. But why are you so sure that Pagan fire cleans nothing? The Lord, in his unfathomable mercy, could allow…”
Oleg dropped his head, turned away, hiding his eyes, like a devil would turn from a holy crucifix. When he spoke, he sounded broken, his voice full of strange guilt and even repentance. “What if some muddler, a trainee sorcerer, a botching one, had lit that fire but failed to put it out? And here it burns… a reminder of his folly. And people… are just people. Everywhere.”
“Really?” Thomas doubted. “Could such a muddler be? That’s no muddler, that’s… I don’t even know who!”
“He could do it by accident!” Oleg snapped.
Thomas clenched his gauntleted fist. “For such a botch, I…”
Oleg heaved a sigh. Thomas looked around arrogantly. The big city that grew around the wonderful fire for centuries was noisy and boiling, a swaying sea of humans: bright and colored, loudmouthed and cheerful. They are men, though infidel. Thomas did not want all his enemies to be idiots, as that meant himself a match for them.
“Though there were woods then,” Oleg said suddenly, with strange melancholy. “Wild woods. And marshes everywhere. No sky to see, and miasmas… Let’s ride faster!”
At noon, when the scorching sun was bending them down to the ground, Oleg, bathing in sweat, pointed silently at two oaks that grew near a small stream. Like any trees in the open, they had matured with no hindrance and grew stout. Their thick branches could hide from sun or rain a big group – or a whole caravan with its camels, donkeys, and goods. Thomas’s stallion, who had been looking at Oleg with hope for a long time, turned after him eagerly before the knight touched his reins.
They were in no more than a hundred steps of the oaks when a strange ragged figure came running up the slope on its fours from the stream. Shrieking shrilly, the creature fell, then got up to its hind legs, staggered two steps and fell again, just under the tree.
After it, a big animal darted out, so enormous that it took Thomas some time to recognize it as a bear. He ran in no hurry, the hair on his paws and belly matted, as if he was just fishing in the stream, its mouth full of sharp white teeth. The strange creature turned out to be a girl with tousled filthy hair. She pressed her back against the tree trunk, terrified, as she watched the animal rushing to her.
“Our Lady!” Thomas cried and lowered his visor. His stallion broke into a gallop as usual. The bear gave a roar, and the destrier, though he’d been storming the Tower of David, went trembling in a broad arc to round the wild beast.
Thomas swore, hurled his lance on the ground, gripped his sword, and vaulted off. The stallion tried to gallop away, Oleg rode after it and managed to catch the frightened animal. Thomas, with bare sword in hand, ran to the bear who stood upright before the screaming girl, colossal on its hind paws, its forepaws stretched out, as though in delight.
Seeing that he would be late, Thomas yelled, threw the sword with all his might, using it as a dart for the first time in his life. The sword flew, whirling in the air, hit the bear flatwise on his back. The animal (he’d already seized his prey) recoiled with surprise at the sudden strike of the heavy sword. The girl shrank back with a scream, her bare shoulders covered in bloody marks from the bear’s claws.
The bear wheeled round to his offender. It was no young bear who knew nothing of dogs and men; that one had evidently met hunters, knew the sharp pain of flying arrows and piercing spears. He uttered a terrible roar, which shook the air and the ground, but did not dash ahead in blind fury. Instead, he looked his enemy over with bloodshot eyes, searching for the glitter of a bitter, biting blade.
Thomas felt his back turn creepy – a
nd regretted acutely he had neither a spear to spin the animal nor his huge two-handed sword. Here it lies! Under the bear’s thick paw, half pressed into the earth. His hands were empty, and the animal was gigantic, as he’d never seen before.
Two steps away, on the ground, there was a long pole with a charred and sharpened end. Thomas took grip of its smooth wood before he grasped it was a spear: a primitive one made by a savage who’d burnt its end in the fire to harden it!
The bear sank to his fours, started coming towards the knight slowly, carefully. His red eyes blazed with malice, sharp teeth glittered. Thomas, adapting to the simple weapon, kept its sharp end down, low to the ground. His cousin once removed died of wounds he received when a bear, half as large as this one, had ducked under his steel spear.
Thomas muttered a curse. Risking being taken unarmed by the bear’s sudden attack, he lunged quickly, jabbed the forepaws, both of them, with the charred end. He hoped to make the animal rise on its hind paws. That would be a chance to thrust the sharp pole in his heart.
The beast gave a terrible roar but did not stand up. In a flash, he snatched the pole with his large mouth, shook his head. Thomas screamed with pain: his arms were all but torn off their joints. He heard a crunch and saw a broken piece, shorter than an axe handle, in his hand.
Ridiculous, a thought flashed in his head. To fight and win on the walls of Jerusalem, take the Tower of David by storm, survive in dozens of battles… and die of a forest animal’s paw?
He cast a frightened glance around in search of the wonderer. Oleg had just seized the reins of the knight’s horse, half a mile from the fight. “Run!” Thomas cried to the girl. She watched him with eyes goggled in terror. “Run, fool! To that man with the two horses!”
Suddenly, the bear stood up. Thomas strained his shoulders, stretched his arms out. A great heaviness came down on him, as though a mountain collapsed, his throat cramped with noisome breath. He felt his spine cracking, his vertebrae bursting, his ears were ringing from the deafening roar. The bear kept crushing and breaking, the steel armor caved in. The air burst out of Thomas’s chest with rattling, his ribs brushed painfully against each other.
They took a firm stand, grappling each another, but Thomas only tried, without success, to join his fingers on the animal’s broad back, while the roaring bear clawed the steel plates of his armor. There was terrible grinding, as strong claws broke, like fish scales under a knife, steel pieces fell to the ground, claws stuck into the small rings of mail. Thomas twisted with pain; the bear’s long claws reached him through the thick sweater, dug into the muscle on his back.
He stopped trying to lock his fingers – the bear was too broad – but squeezed the animal with all his might. His breath rattled, the bear roared, growled, and spat. Thomas got weaker, pressed on with the last of his strength. Suddenly the bear loosened his grip, tried to release himself, to push the iron knight away. Thomas pressed on, surprised at keeping his feet still. The bear’s mighty roar turned into a squealing, doggish whine. The beast wriggled, tried to push free again. Thomas took a deep breath and a tighter grapple on the bear (he now seemed smaller) and squeezed him with all the force he could gather. He heard a crunch under his arms, then a gurgle. A warm liquid rained down on his helmet, poured over his eyes.
Thomas released his grapple, stepped away quickly. Blood came gushing from the huge jaws hanging over him. The eyes of the colossal bear, as red as coals, died out. The animal collapsed on his back, the ground shook. Thick paws gave a twitch and stretched out.
The girl was sitting under the tree with terrified expression on her dirty, soiled face.
The wonderer was leading unhurriedly the destrier with moving ears. He glanced Thomas over with disapproval. “You always get dirty as a pig… Get into the stream, or you’ll fail to rip it off when it dries.”
Thomas breathed heavily, with rattling and piercing within his chest at every deep breath. He had no strength to reply. He only turned his head to the stream but did not trust himself to walk there, in fear that his weakened legs would fail him.
Oleg dismounted, came to the girl. She moved aside in fright, her eyes still full with horror. “Silly you,” Oleg persuaded. “It’s not me you should be afraid of, but that man in his iron shell. His heart is also shelled, I warn you! Let me adjust your leg. It got crooked all over.”
He felt her ankle, took it in both hands, kneaded, stretched, then moved it abruptly. The girl gave a thin squeak, like a small animal in its burrow, but even Thomas grasped at once that there was no displacement anymore, only a slight pain that would pass in a day or two.
Thomas dragged his feet to the stream, doing his best to keep a serene face and not to limp. The bank moved under his iron boots, he fell and slipped down on his back into the ice-cold water, raising a sparkling spray. The stream was small; his feet reached the other side, while his head remained on this one. Cold water flowed among the pieces of armor, soaked his knitted clothing, cooled his bruised body. Thomas felt like a solid bruise with protruding broken ribs and jagged fragments of bone.
He lay in the stream, chilled but enduring, though his teeth chattered. The sun was scorching and ruthless, the torrid heat made flies drop dead. Should one slip out from under a leaf, it snatched something in a flash of mica wings and hid again at once. The grass on the bank shrank and lay down in exhaustion, despite its roots reaching the ice-cold water.
He heard a strong voice above. “Sir Thomas! It’s no good. We have guests, and you keep fishing! Have you caught many?”
Thomas heard the voices of others. Earth crumbled under his iron elbows till he managed to stand up in the middle of the stream. With water spurting out of all the slits in his armor, he looked like a fountain in the royal palace. He felt a move in his bosom, put a hand there involuntarily. When he took it out, there was a small silvery fish jumping on his palm, with red fins and angry goggled eyes. Stunned, Thomas unclenched his fingers, and the fish leapt into the stream with a gurgle.
“That’s all for half a day?” Oleg accused. “Oh… You meet the guests.”
“And you?”
“They crave for you.”
On the bank, three tents had appeared under the trees. People bustled about them. By the road, a whole string of decrepit carts was coming, pulled by docile horses and loaded with poor chattels, followed by gaunt, ragged, almost unarmed pedestrians.
A stocky shaggy man, in a torn shirt and some old pants, stepped ahead to meet Thomas. The man had a short sword with a wooden hilt on his rope belt. He was followed by two men of even poorer and plainer looks, and the girl Thomas had rescued. Now she had a clean face, a burning red flower in her combed dark hair. She was all eyes watching Thomas, while whispering something briskly to the men.
The shaggy man gave Thomas a bow. “I’m a chieftain of the tribe. My name is Samoth. This is my grand-niece, lazy and sly, but we love our people and want no one dead… Thank you, mighty warrior! Please honor us by your presence. Be our guest.”
Thomas lifted his hands in dismay, glanced back at Oleg, seeking support. “Thank you. We’d like to, but we must go.”
“To the sea?” the chieftain asked.
“Yes.”
“And then? Constantinople?”
Thomas got surprised and anxious. “How do you know?”
“Everyone goes to Constantinople,” the chieftain replied calmly. “All the roads in the world go through this capital city. You are Frank. You came here through Constantinople – and have no way to escape it in your return.”
“True,” Thomas admitted. “But I have no time to lose.”
Samoth turned round to his assistants for a quick counsel, then spoke to the knight again. “If you leave today, you’ll stay ashore till next noon. There are no ports along this road, and the ship of Gelong – he’s my blood! – will not leave till the holiday.”
“Which holiday?” Thomas asked.
“Of the Great Fish that saved our land,” Samoth answered solemnl
y.
Thomas opened his mouth to tell him what he thought of Pagan customs but bit his tongue as he caught the wonderer’s mocking glance. Let them have their rites. These people will be christened by someone who has more time and less concerns.
“Thank you,” he replied, frowning. “But tomorrow we set out at dawn. What’s the name of your relative whom you mentioned?”
“Gelong. We’ll write him you are a friend of ours, and he’ll do his best to make your journey pleasant.”
Thomas glanced at their rags, gaunt faces, bare feet. “You can read and write?” he said with doubt.
The chieftain laughed, baring his yellow dented teeth. “All of us can! Only two nations in the world have to be literate to please their gods: we, great Uryupins, and those, what’s their… some Jews.”
The people put their carts in a ring and stretched chains between them. As it was explained to Thomas, it was their protection against sudden attacks of brigands whom the roads and caravan ways, in the aftermath of the war, were swarmed with. In the middle of the cart ring, they made fires, put up two score of tents, poor and dirty, made of skin patches and old blankets. They cooked floury soup in cauldrons over the fire, baked edible roots on coals. Thomas put out the meat and dainties that the Merefans had given them for the trip and laughed, as he saw the eyes of children and adults widen with delight.
The rescued girl, her name was Iguanda, kept by Thomas’s side, watching him with loving eyes. Oleg smirked. A grand-niece, as he had calculated on his fingers, was a rather high degree of kinship on the maternal line (Uryupins and Jews used to count kinship that way). These people are poor, but they can be robbed of nothing. They look happy. What does a man need else?
Thomas was angry; he was left to drowning in a teacup again while the wonderer stayed apart, sitting by the fire, drinking sour wine with Uryupins, listening to their stories. Like water off a duck’s back! The Uryupins asked Thomas simple-mindedly whether he, a mighty warrior, was to join them. “Iguanda will marry you if you ask well. In due time, you can become a chieftain if you memorize all our customs!”
Irritated by that talk, Thomas stood up and walked away, around the camp. As a war professional, he noticed how the carts were placed and arms disposed.
In the middle of the camp, he saw some ancient ruins almost buried in the sand. He felt them, told the wonderer with surprise, “Looks like there had once been a sanctuary. Or even a capital city! These ragged men could have been an ancient and wise nation, like Chaldeans, but gone wild, couldn’t they? But what power could destroy these walls? They are of granite slabs, not burnt clay!”
“What a difference,” Oleg muttered.
“Big,” Thomas objected. “Once a blunder like that began such a… Saracens say Iblis was an angel who refused to bow to Adam. ‘You made me of fire and him of earth,’ he told God and was chucked down, head over heels, from the heavens. And what came of it? Since that time, Iblis hates men and keeps doing harm to them. You must remember what that damned one did to us!”
Oleg was surprised. “You are Christian! How can Iblis harm you? He’s a devil of the Muslims!”
“How can he?” Thomas was insulted. It seemed to him that the wonderer suspected him of cowardice. “Just like Satan and his! He is Iblis, Devil, Beelzebub, Shaitan, Loki, Lucifer… I’m no prelate to know all his names!” He waved Oleg aside and went back to the nomads.
Oleg glanced with interest at Thomas taking a drinking bowl from the chieftain’s hands, saying something, touching his heart, then his forehead before he drank from the bowl.
When there were two of them again, Oleg asked venomously, “Won’t you be punished?”
“By whom?” Thomas wondered.
“By that god of yours.”
“What for?”
“For your bowing, I dare say, to the god of others.”
Thomas gave him a patronizing look, replied in a condescending voice. “Sir wonderer… you know much but not everything. Probably you haven’t travelled enough. A single god… a single face of God, I mean, is known to those who have never got off their stove, as you’d say. And I have been to many… And I know: when God comes to a new land, He, to be better understood, speaks their tongue, puts on their clothes, or even adopts a local name! Different people have different ways. Let them have it, if only they are the ways of goodness, knightly valor, and justice. I know that we call the name of Christ, the Saracen – of Allah, some other people – of Buddha… but we call the same God! Besides, I don’t bow. I just salute to the Supreme Lord.”
Part II
