The Grail of Sir Thomas

for sure.”

At the height of the revelry, when Thomas was going to try his luck in game, as play and way is where people show their true colors, in play and bath everyone is equal, playing is not stealing — there was a sudden rustle in the tree tops. The air went trembling, some blue sparks flashed and died out at once. Branches broke with a crunch, as a bough… not, a whole log was falling onto the ground.

The log tumbled down and appeared to be hollow inside. Before anyone could say knife, a lean and tiny old woman got out of there, like a giant bark beetle. Her face was wrinkled like a baked apple, she had no teeth but her eyes were sharp. She dusted off hastily: wooden crumbs were stuck in her shaggy grey hair, as if she were really gnawing at the wood. “Hail to everyone,” she said quickly. “Don’t be afraid, I shan’t hurt you. For some reason, I feel really sated today. I’ll only warm by the fire if you don’t mind.”

The eldest merchant made a hiccup, forced out, “We don’t… We don’t mind it at all. Not at all!”

The old woman came closer. She was clad in rags hanging from her body like the wings of an old bat used to sleeping among cobwebs. Her pin-sharp eyes measured at once the motionless figures of Thomas and Oleg. Thomas kept his palm alerted on the hilt of two-handed knightly sword. There was a nail from Christ’s cross in it, hammered deeply. The nail sprinkled with the noblest blood has the power to protect against all the crafty designs by devil and his servants. Surely, it would only protect those who’s devoted in their faith. My chaplain promised that. Oh shit, it’s another sword I have now!

“The news of the two of you have spread over all the earth.”

Oleg, finishing the stale slice of cheese, objected with his mouth full, “Hardly all of it!”

“All of ours,” the old woman specified.

“Sit down, warm your bones. A knowing woman?”

“Now they call me witch. People know nothing about the old knowledge and us who keep it. And they don’t want to know.”

Oleg clenched his jaws. Again, like many times before, ignorance comes into the world with triumph. In past, literacy could be promoted by force, but this new faith of the weak and poor in spirit proclaims those weak, dirty, and ignorant the most pleasing to the new god. And literacy is from devil. Beat and burn the literate!

Thomas looked with disgust. He didn’t cross himself (it did not befit a man to be afraid of a woman, even a witch) but set aside, lest he touch her by accident with his iron elbow and get his armor rusty.

The witch lifted her hands. A rustle in the tree tops again, crunch and fall of boughs. The merchants darted sideways. A patterned tablecloth spread on the green grass, some narrow-necked jugs, the likes of which Oleg had only seen in Hellas, tumbled on the ground. Two colossal winebowls, one of home brew, another of heady mead, emerged silently, small scoops plopped down, and in the middle of the tablecloth, moving other things aside, a roast boar appeared with an apple in mouth.

“Paganism!” Thomas said with disgust. “Devil’s work!”

“Don’t eat,” Oleg suggested.

“What next,” Thomas was insulted. “Devil might think I’m afraid of his servants!” He was the first to take out a dagger (narrow and very sharp, the only fit thing to finish off a knocked-down knight by thrusting the blade into his visor slit), stabbed the boar with joy, as though taking a Saracen’s life. There came a smell of fragrant meat. The boar was young and juicy. It seemed to be no forest animal but the one fattened in the warm and care, with milk and fresh bread.

Oleg, laughing up his sleeve, snatched the slices of roast meat from the fire. The merchants exchanged glances and reached for scoops. The eldest one pushed his cross deeper into his collar, scooped the brew at once and took a slice of meat from Oleg, tasted the brew, listened to himself. A contented smile appeared on his face.

The merchants ate and drank the witch’s treat with caution at first, but when the brew got into heads, there were born Pagans drinking and bellowing songs by the fire. One even raised the hag to dance, and when some yellow eyes, definitely not wolfish, started to gleam from behind the trees in the night, no one caught at his cross. The eldest one even made an inviting gesture: the tablecloth would feed everyone if the hag spoke truth. In the night woods we are all brothers.

When the embracing merchants bellowed obscene songs, the witch turned to Oleg and Thomas. Her voice fell to a whisper. “What have you done?”

“And what have you heard?” Oleg asked back.

The witch paid no heed to him. Her small sharp eyes were piercing Thomas.“What do thou bear… with thee or in thee, that thou are spoken about even in the High mountains?”

Thomas hesitated, glanced at sir wonderer. Oleg said in a louder voice, “What does it matter to you? Eavesdropping is bad.”

The witch looked him over with disdain. “Tell me… Are thou with him?”

“I am. What did you hear?”

The witch turned her piercing eyes on the knight again. “They are rather afraid of something. Bad sound, but I grasped they were sending to stop you…”

“They came to stop me,” Thomas grunted.

“And what?”

“They’ll come to no other place. Unless dragged by devils.”

The witch examined him with growing interest. She ignored the knight’s irritation, Oleg understood why. An ignorant angel. Just a child, however big and strong he looks. A capricious, quick-tempered child of the new world. Not the best one: still a long time before we can see what this world is truly worth, so now it’s simply new. How can one be angry with a child? “Very proud words… And thou are not the one who cringes. That’s laudable.”

“He cringes,” Oleg said venomously. “Before no dragon but before the cross, bones, splinters, a footprint in stone… He also spits over shoulder, crosses himself often, whispers, crooks his fingers behind, scared of something like a hare.”

“So superstitious?” the witch wondered.

“He also believes in dreams and sneeze, in a black cat, a woman with empty buckets, a priest on the way, and Friday, the thirteenth…”

Thomas sniffed angrily. He feared no visible enemy: God was his witness, as well as the Saracens he’d defeated. But the faith tells us to be afraid of the invisible enemy, the Archfiend!

The witch snapped her fingers, raised her hands. Two big broad cups fell from above, the witch caught them deftly, lest they touch the ground. The brims of those cups were a dim shimmer in the firelight. Thomas detected that both were bound with old silver.

Oleg took a cup from her, smirked, glanced at Thomas. Then looked at the cup again, shook his head when his eyes met the witch’s. She waved aside with negligence: drink, don’t make difficulties! Look at your friend who doesn’t mind anything…

Meanwhile, Thomas drained his cup and poured some rough wine from the jug: the boar was sprinkled with eastern spices, so the knight’s mouth was burning. He tossed off, then tasted some mead (he’d got to know its taste and charm in Kiev), gulped it down with some more wine and filled the cup again at once.

Oleg had no wish to speak in front of merchants. They are listening, glancing at each other. In their trade one may drink, even get drunk, but for the one who loses head his first trip as a merchant will be his last. And those were tough, experienced trade wolves. Even too tough for such a simple market trip from one princedom into another.

Anticipating the witch’s new question, Oleg asked them respectfully, “Oh, you have made a really long way! You’ve seen countries far away and people overseas! You’ve beheld with your own eyes what we only know from songs, which the new faith orders to name byliny. Please tell us about the wonderful things you’ve seen in your last voyage!”

Flattery makes even the wisest one stupid. For some reason Rod left this to be a human’s vulnerable place, one of many. The merchant’s sharp eyes went oily and dull at once. Stroking his luxurious beard, the eldest one said grandly, “We’ve seen tall towers of Bagdad and the sea as blue as sky. We’ve seen sands and strange animals. We’ve beheld the world where winter brings no snow, where people are black like tar or coal! We’ve seen mighty tribes in which even chieftains walk around naked and eat humans…”