The Grail of Sir Thomas

“So you let each single human die?”

Oleg paused, then asked abruptly, “What your woman wants?”

“My woman? Sir wonderer!”

“Well, not yours then, though she thinks otherwise. What does she want of you?”

“She asked to take her to any big city.”

Oleg thought for a while. His shoulders, heavy as big stones, moved reluctantly. “Two days journey… We’ll be there by tomorrow evening. I can stand it. Then I’ll give you the horse — you need a spare one in all your steel. A remount, I mean.”

“And you?”

“On foot, as I’m used to.”

Thomas did not fathom why to go on foot if you could ride, but he didn’t want to anger his comrade and said nothing.

After they broke a hearty fast — Chachar put on the table all of her stock — Oleg went to the horses. There were six of them left by marauders. He saddled three as remounts and prepared the most beautiful one for Chachar, a highborn lady. At least Thomas very much wants her to be that.

When Thomas put his armor on — Chachar must have helped him — and stepped heavily out on the porch, three saddled horses were pawing the ground impatiently under the window. Three remounts were loaded with bags, packs, and bundles. The wonderer was searching the dead men, turning out their pockets, collecting coins and rings. He had fastened the captured sabers and darts to the remounts. Each spare horse also carried a water skin.

“Sir wonderer,” Thomas said with surprise, “are we crossing a desert?”

“There are no wells on the short cut. Without water, we’d have to make a hook and over.”

“A hook? And over?”

“This is Rossian for a longer road. I mean we can take a shorter way if we have own water supply.”

Thomas’s face expressed hesitation, as if he could not decide whether a shorter way was better. They say: he who cuts his way will never get home by night, and he who rides straight gets to devil. He turned his head and called Chachar. Her clear voice replied from inside, a clatter of dishes joined it. Thomas gave Oleg a guilty smile and went into the house.

Chachar came out in men’s clothing and a traveling cloak. She lingered on the porch, staring at the wonderer as if she’d never seen him before. Thomas also stopped, gazing at his comrade in the stone quarry.

The wonderer had left his cloak in the house and came out in a short sleeveless wolfskin jacket, its fur outside. The skin was open, allowing to see his breast, as wide as a granite slab, and his bare shoulders, massive and glistening like rocks. His longs arms seemed to be carved of a dark oak, so thick and strong they were, bulging with sinews and muscle. His body was mighty but his face still and humble. His fire-red hair was tied with a silk lace over the eyebrows. Thomas found this look strangely attractive,

The wonderer’s trousers were made of curried leather. His belt was thick, with iron pendants that threw sunbeams all along it. A flack and a narrow knife were suspended on rings on the left of his belt. Two rings on the right — for a short sword — remained empty.

“A sword, an axe, a cleaver,” Thomas offered. “Would you take any?” He descended from the porch, still staring at the transformed wonderer. Back in the stone quarry Oleg had not pined: on the contrary, he had fleshed out with dry muscle. Now his big body has not a drop of fat, as if it were forged of steel.

“I’ve left the axe on a remount,” Oleg replied indifferently. “I don’t like to carry much steel.”

Thomas stroked his armor involuntarily. He thought that such a bull as the wonderer was born to carry mountain ridges. “Wolf skins were worn by barbarians who sacked Rome,” he said ironically.

“And destroyed it.”

“So they did,” Thomas agreed reluctantly. “But you are vulnerable like that!”

The wonderer turned the hem of his jacket back. On the inner side, two knife handles glittered side by side, identical as peas from a pod.

“Knives?” Thomas said in surprise. “What for?”

The wonderer stooped. Thomas pulled a knife carefully. It went out of the leather case in a reluctant, balking way, as if it didn’t want to leave its nest where its twin remained warm.

While Chachar walked around horses, shifting the saddle bags in her way, Thomas turned the knife in hand, watched the blade in enchantment. He remembered the throw with which the wonderer had cleaned their way out of the shape-shifter Baron’s castle.

The blade was razor-sharp, no longer than a palm, but heavy, thickened on the end. The cutting edge is on one side and on the other, for some strange reason, a stripe of base copper riveted to the excellent steel. The gleaming blade is seated on the straight shabby bone of a handle covered with small notches. To prevent fingers from slipping, Thomas guessed. Once he saw the throwing knives of Assassins, members of a secret Saracen sect, but those had wooden hilts. In the best knives, the wood was stretched over with shark skin, so rough that even sweaty fingers would never slip off. He scratched the sparkling spot of damask steel on the top of the hilt: the blade was set through it, the upper end bent down to keep the bone in place firmly.

“Why this strip of copper?” he asked with displeasure. “It ruins the beauty!”

“Beauty?” Oleg smirked. “What is beautiful about murder?”

“A murder holds no beauty,” Thomas replied with dignity, “but a joust does.”

“Yes. The more complicated and magnificent ritual, the less the murder itself is seen… This stripe protects against stabs.”

Thomas was surprised. “Fencing with such a short thing?”

“You’re still to be convinced that there are other lands than Britain?”

Chachar mounted at last, tired of waiting for the knight to help her, when Thomas checked himself. She sent him a charming smile from the saddle. He smiled back guiltily, handed the knife back to the wonderer and mounted his huge stallion.

Oleg outrode the knight and the young woman to let them chat without him in the way. The day was bright and sunny, the bloody night left behind, as well as the house with the wounded man in the back room. He remained whole save broken bones, so he will go robbing and plundering again as soon as his broken leg knits.

The woman’s happy laughter and the knight’s manly voice were behind Oleg. He went deep into brooding. As his hand touched the charms habitually, a vague fear started creeping into his soul, breaking through clean and sublime thoughts about the secret purport of life and being. One charm stuck in his fingers too frequently — the one showing swords, arrows, fierce griffons and heavenly fire… The world is dangerous: villains rob on the roads, marauders break into villages, wolf packs wait for a traveler, but charms are silent about such daily mess, trifles and small inconveniences. That’s the ordinary life — but now dangers seem to be beckoned from every side, dragged onto our way!

Oleg looked himself over, then shot a glance back. The knight was telling Chachar of heroic deeds and battles, throwing out his chest proudly, bursting with laughter. Is he dangerous? An ordinary knight, one of many in this land captured by Arabs and then invaded by European hosts? Or is it the woman?

Oleg missed the moment when the woman’s laughter had stopped. Suddenly, he heard Thomas nearby. “Sir wonderer, what’s the good of that copper?”

Oleg started, gave the knight a puzzled look. Thomas rode stirrup by stirrup with him, keen curiosity written on his face. Woman rode behind in resentful silence.

“I’m interested in weapons,” Thomas explained. “Surely, knives are no knightly weapon, but while a unite commander in the assault of Jerusalem, I learnt to use different… Not for myself, for I am a noble knight of Gisland, but for my men I had to… Do you understand, sir wonderer?”

“When you slash with swords,” Oleg said, annoyed with being returned to mundane matters, “they collide and slide. The fight gets clumsy, ill-predictable… Parrying a blow with my knife, I know exactly where the enemy’s blade is. Copper is soft, a blade will not slip along it but stop.”

He took the knife out, handed it to the knight. Thomas turned it in hand, his gaze shifted to the wonderer’s big hands. “Isn’t the handle short for you?”

“Three fingers fit into? That’s it. And there’s room for a thumb on another side. That’s enough for a good