The Grail of Sir Thomas

“Thank you for your interference, noble knight,” she said briskly.

“It’s my duty,” Thomas replied gallantly.

“Now… please help to carry this man into the house.”

“What for?” Thomas wondered.

“To put him to bed, to dress his wound!”

Thomas’s gauntlet slapped on the saddle. “Woman! You feel pity for a beast who wanted to take you by force and kill you! Let him die. As a Christian, I’m never angry with the dead.”

“Then you should have killed him at once!” she objected passionately. “Now the fight is over, it’s time to lick wounds. I won’t have a man die at my door! Even if he’s no man but an evil wolf!”

Oleg dismounted. “Open the door. I’ll help.”

He seized the wounded man by his collar and belt. The woman ran up the porch. Thomas dismounted, his good spirits lost. This silly woman knows nothing. The beginning was fine: a cry for help, a brief fight, a woman saved — but then all of it turned folly. Province! And the wonderer could be expected of even less so. A Pagan, uneducated, just out of caves where one can hardly learn good manners.

While the men was put to bed and Oleg dressed his wounds and the woman — Chachar was her name — warmed some water, Thomas examined the bodies outside. Five dead, two wounded badly: unconscious, hardly able to breath. Thomas was glad the merciful woman had not noticed them. He took out his misericord, a long narrow dagger made to finish wounded knights off through a visor slit, and stabbed their throats.

Five villains were killed with arrows: shot in head, in throat, two shot in heart, and Oleg’s arrow in back had also reached the heart. One man was span with lance like a bug with a spin. The one trampled by the destrier had been carried to the house. On the road, Thomas had run down and slashed three more. Overall, he had sent to the Hell five of them — as much as the wonderer.

Cheered up a bit, he tethered the horses and started to pull the arrows out. The force with which the wonderer had sent them was amazing. Some men were pierced through. By the moment he plucked all five arrows, he got all covered with blood again, like a butcher. Bow is a dreadful weapon. The Holy Church had a purpose to oppose it and to prohibit crossbows, or arbalests, at all. With a bow, even a coward can slay a hero. If heroes die and ambushed cowards remain safe, it will put an end to courage. Battles should be honest: breast to breast, face to face!

He wiped the arrows clean, washed himself in the barrel of water near the porch and went into the house.

Chapter 6

The house of the small woman was neat and tidy, with fire burning in the big stove and appetizing gurgle in pots. Chachar was serving bowls to the table, her cheeks reddened, eyes glistened while she stared at Thomas and Oleg in joy. She was young and tempting, her ripe breasts almost bounced out of her low-necked dress, which was so light in that southern heat that it did not hide her sinful, as the Christian faith put it, body but draw every detail of it seductively.

Oleg, a Pagan, glanced at the young woman gladly, but Thomas started feeling uneasy. Twice he choked with tiny pieces of meat. Chachar kept serving him more and more of it, pouring with sauces, sprinkling with herbs, spices, red and black pepper — and looking in his eyes, moving her whole body closer to him, all but whining and waving her tail, like a pup. Her lips, plump as ripe cherries, came apart, showing pearl-white teeth, pointed like a child’s. Her whole being was catching every desire of the brave knight.

Oleg ate unhurriedly. He did not listen to the conversation but replayed the fight in his mind’s eyes and approved own behavior gloomily. He had felt no desire to kill, no warrior’s delight — he was only annoyed and blankly sad. That meant he could keep his bow and arrows: they would not make him go astray. Neither would they obscure his search for Truth.

The house had two rooms, the wounded man lying in the back one. He dared not to moan, in fear to be killed if they heard. Chachar brought him some food and came back anxious. “He has a fever… What can we do?”

Thomas waved aside with irritation but Oleg replied first. “I’ll go to sleep there and see to him.” He stood up.

“Maybe you will stay at the table for a while?” Chachar said briskly. “Men love to feast! I can bring some old wine — a couple of jugs I still have in my cellar.”

“We’ve had a shattering day,” Oleg replied. On the threshold of another room, he turned back and nodded at Thomas. “But sir knight might amuse you with his stories. He’d been fighting the Holy Land free, storming Jerusalem…” He shut the door behind him, fell down on the bed. Its planks were knocked together roughly. The wounded man held his breath in another corner. Oleg put his hands behind his head, fell fast asleep.

But he had touched his charms before, so his dreams were full of blood and fear.

Early in the morning, he was awaken by merry voices outside. Thomas, naked to his waist, was washing his face near the barrel with water. Chachar poured water on his hands, laughing, trying to splash it on his back — white as woman’s but muscular as a proper man’s, with two bluish scars under the shoulder blade. The knight squealed, jumped aside: the water was icy cold, taken from a spring.

Oleg stepped aside from the window on his toes. The knight’s armor lay on a wide bench, clean and polished to a shine, which could have hardly been done with Thomas’s own hands. The huge sword hung on two iron hooks in the wall. The steel-plated gauntlets were on the windowsill, beside flower pots… However, the woman was in terrible danger only last night and the knight was crucified, burnt, and tortured just a day before. Gods endowed Man with great vitality. They must have prepared him for a hard life.

The door slammed. Thomas entered the room, disheveled and smiling. His tanned face looked as if it had been stolen from another body — the tan ended abruptly at his throat. “How did you sleep, sir wonderer?”

“Well, thanks,” Oleg replied, staring at the knight. “And you have circles under eyes. You can stay here and have a rest.”

“And you?”

“I’m leaving after breakfast,” Oleg replied with no further explanations.

Thomas looked embarrassed. He put his clothes on hastily, paced up and down the room. “Sir wonderer… We are both heading north. May we ride together to Constantinople at least? You have no way to escape it, neither have I. All roads from Asia lead to this second Rome — the only place where Europe meets Asia!”

“Why do you want it?”

“Sir wonderer, I’ll be frank with you. It is the woman.”

Oleg looked at the young knight intently. “What are you going to do? Sell her? We drove the rapists away but we can’t stay here to guard her innocence.”

Thomas sounded unhappy. “She has… entrusted herself to us. Her husband — or maybe her patron, I didn’t understand and felt no need to elicit — was killed last week. They took the horses, so she got stuck in the house. She begs to take her away from this scary place.”

Oleg came to the window, looked over the yard and Chachar at the green valley, the olive grove and curly bushes, at the blue merciless sky with not a hint of rain. He shrugged. “She did not beg me.”

Thomas looked miserable as he was at that moment. “Sir wonderer… I have my hands full with the cup. Maybe you could?..”

Oleg brought his quiver from another room, checked the arrows quickly and put it on his back. With a desperate look on his face, Thomas watched the strange pilgrim adjust his belt in a very professional way, drag the two-handed sword from under the bench. “Do what you will,” Oleg replied. “I have no interest in women.”

“She’s not a woman! She’s a victim. We are bound to help her. Don’t your gods tell you to help the weak?”

Oleg cast a piercing look at him. “But Pagans are bad, aren’t they?”

“Not that bad!”

“Sir Thomas. I am looking for salvation for all people in the world.”