“Please don’t look at the beast. It’s an awful sight for you…”
She embraced his neck with her sugar-white hands, raised her pretty head. Her beautiful face, shining with hope, was just before Thomas’s eyes, and her eyes glimmered with happiness. Her voice was so tender and melodious that his heart ached. “It’s awful! I didn’t know he was mortal. When he slew my husband, Baron Otset, and took his appearance… A monster! False damned monster! He deceived me. I was always deceived, by everyone! Baron lied…”
“A monster,” Thomas muttered. The sword dropped from his hand again, his muscle relaxed. He embraced the tender woman’s shoulders clumsily, fearing to stain her golden hair with blood. “But now he’s dead.”
“My dear Baron,” she whispered. Her magnificent blue eyes looked in the narrow slit of his helmet with a plead. “I mean, my mysterious knight! You won’t leave a weak woman without protection, will you?”
“My honor can’t allow it!” Thomas replied with knightly ardor. “Just your word — and I’ll do everything for you not to be worried!”
Her beautiful arms were still embracing him, her high breasts waved while pressed to his steel armor. “Your nobility has… won me!” she exclaimed with emotion. “And my castle, its lands, stone quarries and slaves in addition. Behind Baron… the last and the one before him… I felt as safe as behind a stone wall. But now I’m so afraid, so alone! You must become my new stone wall, brave knight! A wall behind which my faint scared heart will find refuge!”
Thomas opened his mouth and closed it, blood pounded louder in his temples. He heard a distant ringing in ears. Her deep pupils were expanding, filling all the world. He felt dimly that her tender hands pulled the helmet off his head neatly, her deft fingers unclasped the broad steel plates, drawing the mighty but rigid knight out of his armor, like a shelled oyster.
Thomas tried to shake the overcoming weakness off. He was not only weary after a hard battle: some strange sluggishness added to it. His thoughts tangled — maybe a consequence of the header. Her immense begging eyes screened all the world off. His lungs were crackling, he coughed, spat a clot of blood out. He felt a stitch in his side as if an arrowhead stuck there. Thomas had a vague memory of the hard blow landed there. His armor endured, but a couple of ribs may have been broken like straws.
Far away, there were voices, the crash of the furniture turned upside down. The sound of heavy footsteps approached, the bedroom door cracked open on its single hinge. Thomas heard a loud indignant cry. “I thought him dead! And he’s — what a shame! — pleasing his insatiate lust!”
He caught a glimpse of the wonderer’s angry face in the mist . Oleg was grim as a black rock, his eyes unfriendly, his breath fast. He had a two-handed sword, as large as a beam, in his hands, its point rested against the floor.
Thomas stirred. Being very weak, he felt some unusual, scary lightness in his body. His foot stumbled over a heap of armor. With slack surprise, he recognized his breastplate, shin plates, his helmet… He found himself sitting on the floor, his head on the woman’s knees. Baroness fingered his hair tenderly, stroked his head. The fireplace was bursting with flames, the air as hot and dry as a blow of simoom, the terrible hurricane of Saracen deserts. The shouts of fury and clang of steel were coming from outside, through the windows.
Thomas heard an icy cold voice over his head, an arrogant voice, full of great contempt. “Get out, slave! Or my husband, the lord of the castle, will rise and kill you!”
The wonderer looked with confusion at the motionless troll who sprawled his four paws in a huge puddle of blood. “I think he’ll rise when pigs get wings.”
“It’s the former,” Baroness said coldly. “And the present lord is here! He’s fierce and merciless.”
The wonderer moved his heavy rocks of shoulders and backed. “Well, if that’s the turn of it…”
Thomas gathered the last of his strength to croak, “Sir wonderer… wait. Horses…”
The wonderer stopped in the doorway. The door was still swinging on a hinge, squeaking as a knife that scratches a pan. “What?”
“Help!” Thomas moaned.
The wonderer came back, touched the knight’s forehead, gave an anxious whistle. Thomas felt his strong fingers behind ears, on the back of the head, then a stitch in the bridge of the nose. Suddenly he felt a huge load taken off, no more warm dampness inside. His eyesight cleared, he saw distinctly the alarm in wonderer’s eyes, his compressed lips.
Baroness seized by legs, trying to keep him. With great difficulty, Thomas drew aside her beautiful snow- white hands, for the only touch of which other knights would give their lives. He got up, lurched. The wonderer watched, with a sullen approval, the knight climb into his rumpled armor like an old ill turtle.
“My lord!” the young Baroness cried, her marvelous eyes filled with tears. “You’re exhausted. You’ve slain the monster…”
Thomas dressed as fast as he could, puffing and panting. The wonderer supported him by shoulders, clasped his back, pulled, pushed and tapped — and Thomas found himself inside the armor. At once he felt clad and protected, comfortable with the steel lying heavily on shoulders.
He heaved the sword up from the puddle of black blood. As against the sword in the wonderer’s hands, it looked like a dagger.
The wonderer waved to him from near the window. “We’ll have to go through back chambers!”
“Slaves got in?” Thomas asked dully. He shot an embarrassed glance at the golden-haired Baroness. “We can’t allow… A rape…”
“Slaves are far. Guards are retreating to the gate. A dozen of those mugs will be there soon, and I hate it when people fight like animals!” He backed from the window, ominous crimson lights dancing on his face. They heard triumphant cries and screams of agony from outside, the crackle of buildings put on fire.
Thomas turned to Baroness. “Where’s the cup?”
“Which?” she asked, her beautiful eyebrows raised very high. “I have many cups. Baron brought them from everywhere. And the previous Baron… And the one before him…”
The wonderer turned around. “This cup came itself,” he snapped angrily. “Speak quickly, woman!”
Baroness straightened up with an arrogant look. Her long eyelashes flew up. “Am I not protected by a brave knight, a slayer to monster?
Thomas coughed. “Sir wonderer. You’re speaking to a highborn lady.”
The wonderer winced as if he drank some apple vinegar. “Sort it out as you like. I’ve left the horses near the tower wall. If you want to get out safe — come with me. Otherwise I’m leaving alone.”
Thomas trailed behind Oleg miserably. There was a fight at the stairs, a floor below: a rush of heads, glittering blades, stakes and axes. Men shouted, steel clanged, wounded ones shrieked awfully.
The wonderer all but dragged the knight. Suddenly Thomas stopped, raised his visor. His face was pallid, eyes shone like stars. “It was not my life I wanted to save! You know.”
“A cup dearer than life?” the wonderer flung out, startled.
“There are many things dearer than life. Honor. Nobility. Fidelity. Even love. Run, sir wonderer! You’ve amazed me, I’d have never thought… I owe my life to you twice. I’m sorry I can’t pay back… I’m staying. Even if I die.”
“Honor and fidelity — I know what’s that. But… a cup?”
“Not a plain cup.”
With a strange expression, the wonderer watched the doomed knight leave for the bedroom. The glittering figure passed through the doorway and vanished, leaving a track of blood drops from his sword point. Oleg heard a forceful roar swelling at the stairs. The last of the defenders gave a plaintive cry, and slaves rushed up, glistening with bare backs. Few of them had swords or daggers, most brandished picks, crowbars, stakes, and hammers wildly. Even the handles were stained with blood.
The wonderer clenched his teeth, gave a heavy sigh. His legs moved apart into a fighting stance themselves. He took the sword with both hands and started to wait.
Thomas ran out, clasping a leather bag to his breast, the bare sword in other hand. His visor was down, so Oleg couldn’t see the knight’s face. Blood was streaming down his armor. He jumped over the dead bodies, stumbled over a wounded man who tried to crawl. “Slaves here too… They’ve broken into the bedroom from another side to rape Baroness.”
“And you defended her with all your might?”
“Er… It was before I found the cup! I killed three…”
