He failed to stick the kettle on coals and had to drive some stakes in. Leaving the water on the boil, he plodded back to the stream. The wonderer had taught him a Scythian way of fishing and Thomas also knew Anglic way since he was a child. Before the water boiled, he came back carrying five big fish and two score of smaller ones in his shirt with tied sleeves.
He dumped his wriggling and jumping prey on the ground, pressed down quickly the head of the biggest burbot. With the wonderer’s sharp knife, he cut its tender white belly through, pulled out dark mucous guts and the swimming bladder that felt supple and elastic, tore away the orange liver: it had an amber glitter and was so juicy that the very sight of it made him drool over and his mortal agony, in some imperceptible way, started to turn into gentle sorrow.
Once he cleaned the small fish, he threw them into boiling water. He slashed a sweet juice-dripping stripe out of the big fat river animal, sliced it, sprinkled with the strange grey salt of Agathyrsians and, while the fish soup was cooked, he chewed that raw juicy meat. He chewed, screwing up with joy, his mouth squelching and champing, heavy drops of limpid juice hanging in the corners of it.
The water in the kettle went bubbling, he glimpsed a head with one goggled eye, outstretched fins in the turbid foam. It smelled of fish soup, splashes fell on the burning coals with a sweet hiss. Thomas sniffed, then scooped, blew at the turbid odorous liquid for a long time: a sip of hot would knock his taste off, make him unable to feel whether the stew was good or needed some more boiling, salt, or herbs. At last, he made a careful sip, tasted it in his mouth for a while, salted, tried again, put the spoon aside with content, feeling his grief not that gnawing anymore.
He fetched a supply of twigs, trying to keep himself busy always, lest the anguish come back to claw his soul. It will come right, it will all come right at the end. May the wonderer repeat these words so frequently because he’s also eaten by some grief unknown to the knight? Though so imperturbable in looks? Completely immersed in his thoughts? Or… incompletely? Off chance it will come right for him too…
The fish soup was cold when the shrubs cracked, he heard heavy steps. The wonderer moved slowly, dragged his feet. Thomas felt a prick of conscience: the wonderer was no less tired but he went scouting!
Oleg ate his meal vacantly, though he did express surprise of the knight’s strange skill: if no poor devil’s misfortune to be born a knight, he could have luck to make a good cook. Oleg supped all of the stew, sucked big bones around, but his eyes were vacant and roving. He often seized his charms, stretched his neck, sniffed the air like a hound.
Thomas got anxious, reached for his sword. Suddenly the wonderer grabbed his bow, drew the string on, felt the stretched tendon critically with his thick nail before throwing the quiver of arrows in his back and moving his shoulders to set their feathered ends straight below his left shoulder.
“You stay,” he ordered Thomas gloomily. “Aurochs coming.”
“Didn’t you like fish soup?” Thomas muttered. “I saw a bustard here, fat quails crying breathlessly… Why a huge aurochs?”
“It will make a quail to someone,” Oleg replied mysteriously. “Or even a fly.” He climbed out of the cleft, walked past the stream, stopped behind a tree. A big bustard emerged from the low shrubs nearby. A fat she-quail, followed by her brood, passed by in hundred steps, dragging her wing in case, but the wonderer gave her no second look.
Oleg’s nostrils twitched. He even pressed his ear to the ground, got up contented, showed his thumb to Thomas.
The ground started to tremble, they heard approaching rumble. A cloud of yellow dust rose far away, growing slowly. In front of it, there was a dark stripe. Soon Thomas discerned individual animals. It was a herd of aurochs rushing in avalanche, as though escaping some terrible thing.
Oleg put a heavy arrow on the bow string, waited. It seemed to Thomas still too early when he flung, as though with his whole body, the arrow forward. The tendon string made a resonant click against his leather glove. His right hand put the second arrow on, pulled the string on, bending the bow creepily into a wheel.
Arrows swished through the air: heavy, destructive, coming one upon another. Thomas watched with admiration: he had never seen the wonderer shooting that quickly and forcefully before.
The first arrow went into the breast of a big young aurochs up to the feather, others hit the youth, well-fed bull-calves, creepily and accurately. Thomas drew out his sword, rushed to the herd in fighting excitement. The aurochs dashed past, two score of them remained on the ground.
Thomas slashed the injured animals quickly, turned his shining excited face to the wonderer. “I’ve never seen such a splendid hunt!”
“I’m out of arrows,” Oleg replied with vexation.
“Or you’d have killed the whole herd?.. I didn’t expect you to be such a keen hunter!”
“Sir Thomas,” the wonderer asked, “would you do me a favor? Please help to skin them. It would also be good to take all the meat off bones.”
Thomas threw his blooded sword aside and set to the true men’s work: the joy of it could hardly be understood by women and monks. He skinned the aurochs deftly, cut away their hearts and liver, which were to make man’s arms and will strong, hurled on the laid skin. Oleg cut the meat off hastily, rolled into the skins, which were still bleeding, dragged into a deep cleft. Thomas did not rack his brain over the wonderer’s plans: he gave all of himself to the amusement of knight, as though back to his blessed Britain!
Oleg picked up two slices of meat, went climbing up the slope. Thomas followed him with vacant eyes: high above, there was a wide stone ledge, a huge black hollow over it looked like a spare way out for Agathyrsians with all their belongings, kettle, carts, and herds. If the wonderer preferred a look into that hole, he risked to have no taste of tender sirloin roasting on the coals, spreading over befuddling odors, like a flower. But if a sweet flower drives bumblebees and butterflies mad, that smell could do the same even to a noble knight who passed Crimea and Rome and even saw the priest’s pear tree, though he still did not know what the wonderer found peculiar about it.[24]
He gulped down the saliva of hunger, waiting patiently for the wonderer to come back. Oleg came long after, tired, with his elbows scratched, rolled two more big slices into fresh-off skins, darted away. Thomas spat angrily and had his meal in proud solitude. That time the wonderer did not turn up so long that Thomas got anxious. To while away the waiting time, he lay down with his head on his sword, fell asleep.
He woke up and gasped: the sun got half below the skyline. The wonderer messed about the fading fire: blew the coals up, tossed new twigs. “Keep sleeping,” he comforted the knight. “You need a counsel with your pillow.”
“What pillow?” Thomas grumbled in vexation. “God gives day, devil gives sorrows.”
“Sorrows? But also a horse.”
“Who gives it?” Thomas asked. “God or devil?”
The wonderer put the kettle of water on the fire, squatted with groan. “I’m not good at Christian mythology. You may think the horse is sent by my gods. They once were
His face darkened. The faith and gods of others were then brought at the points of swords to his native land too, and Russian temples were burnt and destroyed! And sorcerers were beheaded, quartered, impaled to strengthen the faith of Christ. “Sleep, Sir Thomas.” He did not command but asked in half a voice, as though his throat squeezed by one’s strong hand. “Sleep…”
Strangely, Thomas fell fast asleep all but at once, making up for lost time. He opened his eyes again at dawn, when the sun set fire to clouds with its blazing arrows and the eastern edge of the sky was golden and ready to flare. The wonderer sat at the same place by the fire, in the same doleful pose. As he saw or guessed Thomas awake, he got up slowly to his feet. Thomas heard a distinct crunch of Oleg’s stiffened joints.
“Get up, brave knight! I see the great future of Angles. Drag the meat out…” He was interrupted by a thundering roar. A small avalanche came down the steep slope: stones rushed down, crushing shrubs and small trees. Thomas seemed to see a cloud of bluish smoke emerging from the dark hole.
Oleg clasped his hands in fright, dashed up the steep slope. The heavy sword bounced on his back: the baldric was not clasped tight. Thomas gave a shudder, pulled his sword out, took a firmer stand and started to wait, gripping the sword hilt with both hands.
