The Grail of Sir Thomas

He heard a rustle above. Minstrel was coming slowly down the slope, bow in hands, arrow on the string. He kept his eyes on the blood stains on the ground and leaves while walking carefully, not running. He stared at each blade of grass, his eyes, a match for Oleg’s, missed neither a grasshopper jumping nor a lizard darting in the grass. Meanwhile, he seemed to notice what was going on around him and even behind.

Oleg clapped himself mentally on the shoulder: he had left the bottom of the gully on time. He lay hidden in the grass, almost in the open space. Such places are never looked upon closely when sided by thick bushes. A wounded prey would usually hide behind branches, so the minstrel kept away from the shrubs, his hands ready to shoot an arrow at any suspicious move.

Oleg felt his face muddy. He got dirty all over, like a pig, while crawling on his belly along the bed of a lately dried-up stream, but that made him lost to view among boulders, grey and muddy the same. His body was plastered with leaves and dry grass blades, the clots of earth dangling from his cheeks.

The minstrel stepped with caution. He not only looked at the bloody trace but glanced around. The red stains led him to the logs that had kept Oleg in his fall. The four of them, with their branches tangled, made a perfect hide. The singer’s lips curved in a ghost of a triumphant smirk but he kept moving on in a guarded and tenacious way. He was an excellent hunter, easy to trace and kill a wounded bear or even a lion.

Oleg lay, clinging to the ground, hardly daring to breath. With his left ear pressed to the ground, he heard every step, every move. He could not see the minstrel but his intuition informed that he had passed by and was leaving.

Oleg raised himself a little on trembling arms and saw a bent back in twenty steps ahead. The singer was sneaking, ready to wheel round at any moment, to jump aside or fall where the shrubs would protect him. He had the bow half-drawn while peering at the tangle of roots and branches of stout fallen trees. The iron arrowhead glittered like a wet tongue of a big snake.

Oleg struggled up, trying not to step on his right leg, numb and disobeying. The singer made ten more steps away. Oleg aimed clumsily, as if it were his first throw in a lifetime, and flung the knife. Everything went dark before his eyes, he lurched and stretched his arms, trying to keep his feet.

He heard a convulsive sob ahead. The minstrel wheeled round, his arrow flew over Oleg’s head. The singer’s eyes were goggled and mad, the last blood flowed away from his cheeks, and his face went pallid yellow. He seized a second arrow briskly, shot at Oleg. A click — and the arrow missed. The minstrel bared his teeth, reeled, blood trickled out of his mouth. He kneeled slowly, staring at Oleg with astonishment. The bow slipped off and down into the grass.

Oleg came up, limping heavily, dragging his foot. The minstrel coughed, spattering blood on his chin. “You did it…” he croaked. “I underestimated…”

“Who sent you?” Oleg demanded.

The minstrel waved his head a little, his eyes flashed. “You won’t make me… I’m dying…”

Oleg nodded sullenly. If the knife struck where it should have, then the point of the blade had cut through the spinal muscle and into the heart. “Should I burn or bury you?” Oleg asked.

The blood was gushing out from the singer’s mouth unevenly, as his heart clung to life still. His breast rose heavily, with a squelch inside, as if a big fish were splashing there. “I worship fire,” he said in a fading voice.

“All the four elements are sacred,” Oleg added at once. “I can bury you according to your rite. Would you say it?”

The minstrel’s eyes were closing, as he rocked on his knees. Oleg barely heard him whisper, “Take my sword… Worth forty cows and two horses…”

“In the name of Zarathustra,” Oleg demanded in Farsi. “Who sent you?”

“The Lords of the World…”

He fell face first, already dead. Oleg tugged the knife out of his back — it had actually reached the heart! — and wiped on the minstrel’s shoulder. He took some gold coins that he found in the dead man’s pocket before starting a hard climb above. Although his bleeding had stopped, he felt too weak to defend against a sparrow. He would have not been able to bury the singer in European way if even he wanted to. Luckily, the faith of fire worshippers prohibits the bodies to be buried in earth, burnt or thrown into water: as all the four elements are sacred, they should not be defiled by corpses. A dead body should be left open for the predatory birds and animals to bury it in their stomachs, with the remainders picked up by ants and bugs.

He fainted twice until he came back to the shelter. The bodies of Ganim and crossbowman were all covered with a quilt of green flies, and big yellow ants had trodden ways to them. While the ants rushed to the bodies, their bellies were tucked in. Those who returned had their bellies swollen, red fibers of flesh in their tiny jaws.

The horses snorted, backed from the man covered with blood. Oleg raked out the bag of gold coins, cursing himself for having hidden it that deep, tied it across the saddle of Ganim’s horse and mounted, with great difficulty, the crossbowman’s one.

When he rode up to the gate of Gorvel’s castle, he found guards with naked swords waiting for him. The gate swung open hastily. Gorvel hurried to meet Oleg, helped him to dismount. The face of the red-bearded lord was grim, his eyes flashed like lightnings. He clenched his fists and roared at the guards.

Thomas came rushing, in full armor, only his visor up. “Been in a fight, sir wonderer?” he cried anxiously from the distance. “Is anyone left there?”

“Your minstrel with friends,” Oleg replied gloomily. He was combating sickness with the last of his strength. “If you want their songs… you’ll have to go there. They are not likely… to climb out of the gully soon.”

Chapter 9

They lingered at Gorvel’s for two more days and nights. The lord yelled, insisting on two weeks, referring to the terrible wound of Sir Wonderer, which the joys of feast and hunt should help to heal. However, to Gorvel’s distress, the wounds of Pagan (whom that pilgrim no doubt was) were healing surprisingly fast, due to Christ’s inexplicable mercy. In the second morning, the wound was replaced by a hideous scar, which, in turn, was subsiding before their very eyes, losing its bluish color, whitening to match the rest of skin.

Gorvel glowered at the wonderer. The knight’s world had been clear and simple before Sir Thomas, his companion-at-arms, and this Pagan pilgrim arrived: that was a beginning to strange things. His minstrel disappeared and turned out to be an assassin… But he was a wonderful singer indeed! Let me, Sir Gorvel, be a blockhead who knows nothing of poetry, but Lady Roveg also enjoyed that strange man singing! And his lady might have been wrong too — just a woman! — but other lordly knights would reward him for his songs and win him from each another! Gorvel failed to understand what could have make the pampered minstrel leave his warm seat by fireplace and go out into the night to hunt a stranger…

And the person of pilgrim calls forth even more questions. If his scars resolved that fast, his smooth skin might have already had some more terrible wounds resolved on it. Wounds of wandering and fighting. The one who has them is usually no stranger to sword. And arrows… he was good with them too, as Sir Thomas and that woman, Chachar, had told Gorvel with delight. The odd pilgrim hardly could have mastered archery in peaceful prayers, fasts or contemplations of navel!

The minstrel was talked over for a while and forgotten, but the excited rumors of five thousand gold dinars taken by the wonderer from villains were still on. The confessor monk, in a heat of temper, abused the Mother of God, for she had given such wealth to a Pagan. Thomas interceded for the Holy Virgin and all but beat the fool up. Gorvel reminded them sullenly that villains had not been giving their gold at will and not any man could have taken it that way. Definitely, the pilgrim was helped by Holy Virgin. Perhaps he’s not a hopeless Pagan. The Virgin is no fool, she sees a future Christian in him. He may already be somewhat Christian, though unaware of it himself!

On the same day when Oleg came riding back to the castle, reeling in the saddle, he asked Thomas, “Think of your powerful enemies. Do you have any?”

Chachar was dressing his wounded side with care, admiring the strength of muscle. Thomas poured wine into the wonderer’s cup, his brow contracted. “Well… maybe Sir Gregor the Splendid… Or rather Sir Baldan. In a joust, I threw him off. He fell straight down to the feet of peerless Burnilda…. Down into the mud, at full tilt…”