The Grail of Sir Thomas

Chapter 10

The thief had been in too much hurry to hide his tracks. Oleg whipped his tired horse: he wanted to come upon Gorvel before dark. Thomas tried to exchange a few words with Chachar but she looked at him with eyes full of anger and resentment. She didn’t seem to be bothered much with the fate of civilization. Thomas came up with Oleg again and asked insistently, “Are culture and civilization not the same?”

“No, they aren’t, Sir Thomas. They aren’t!”

Thomas paused, rode silent for a while, frowned. When he spoke, his eyes were full of suffering. “When we climbed the walls of Jerusalem, shedding them with our blood… and the blood of enemies, it was simple! And now? I’ve always thought civilization to be at the side of good. I thought of myself as a civilizer!”

“Sir Thomas, civilization is an axe. With it, you can cut a tree down, cut some dry twigs to make a fire… or butcher a man. The higher civilization, the sharper axe you have.”

“And culture?”

“Culture is the invisible fingers that seize your arm when you brandish at a human. It is the moral law within you.”

The night was falling fast, the shadows of trees were already black as coal. Oleg drove his horse to the thicket where, he supposed, a small spring was hiding. The trail of Gorvel’s horse was very fresh: they would have come up with him if not the nightfall. However, Gorvel will also ride nowhere at night. Many hamster burrows here, his horse would break legs.

Thomas unsaddled the horses, tethered them, tied bags of oat to their snouts. Oleg made a tiny fire, hiding it from a stranger’s sight thoroughly behind thick shrubs, brought some slices of bread and meat.

Thomas asked awkwardly, “Sir wonderer… What about Christ? Does he support our Western civilization?”

Oleg dropped his eyes, feeling embarrassed by the clear, honest eyes of the young knight. “Culture, Sir Thomas. He supports culture! Satan is much more civilized, don’t you think so? He knows more than Christ, can do more things. He makes wonders at every occasion. He’s free, brave, with a broad outlook, not bound by any rules: neither inward nor outward. A vigorous guy! As against him, Christ looks simple-minded and not very clever. Just a bungler! But he’s kind, eager to give his life for us, mean and ignorant! And he gives it — for them who are no fit to hold his candle! And then there’s a rum go: people get ashamed and start climbing up to the light and goodness. The sacrifice of Christ was not vain! That’s what Satan, with all his great wits, fails to grasp. He still wonders why he, so daring and brilliant, is always defeated!”

Silence fell for a long time. They supped, horses snorted in the dark behind. Then Chachar asked, in a soft voice, “And why is he always defeated? If he’s more daring and clever?”

Oleg smirked faintly. Red lights played on his face. “It’s not enough to be clever. And daring. It’s never enough for man…”

As they went to sleep, Chachar started settling herself between the men. For a long time she complained of being cold, asked to warm her from both sides, her nose, palms, and back. Thomas coughed in embarrassment. Oleg felt that the knight’s thoughts were still far from the fire and the young woman fidgeting between them. “Civilization is not pure evil,” he comforted. “Your Lord, as far as I know your verities, has as much culture as he can, and some civilization as well. So it’s possible…”

Early in the morning, once the dawn painted the clouds red, Oleg woke Thomas and Chachar up mercilessly. At night, she had managed to wriggle, like a grass snake, into the knight’s iron embrace, but Thomas used to sleep in his armor while in field, so in the morning she struggled herself out scratched and bruised. Poor Thomas was so upset by the loss of the cup that he didn’t even notice her trying to compensate it, to make him a night of love.

Chilled horses were bursting into trot, or even a gallop, but Oleg held them, as he watched the trail. They hardly rode a mile until they found a burnt spot, its ashes still warm. Thomas grunted in annoyance, hit his forehead with a fist.

Oleg checked his bow, moved his shoulders to adjust the quiver on his back. Thomas looked askew with his blue eye, his iron hand began to tug the sheathed sword, tap on the battleaxe. Chachar tried to ride ahead. Both men shouted and hissed at her to stay put and keep behind. She got resentful, dropped behind and rode there, paying no attention to the men at all. To show her slender body once again, she would lean down from the saddle at a tilt and snatch flowers. Thomas and Oleg rode watchful, their eyes searching around. Over the distant shrubs, magpies were crying, flying in circles. The men exchanged glances, adjusted their swords.

In a hundred steps ahead, four mounted men on warhorses rode out onto their road, alerted and gloomy. All of them looked very dangerous. Two n were clad in heavy European armor, their necks protected with the nettings of mail falling on shoulders from beneath their helmets: a good protection against sabers, but not Frankish swords, heavy as hammers, or Frankish axes, massive as forges.

Other two men are definitely Saracens, lean and swarthy. Their fast Arabian horses, nervous and savage, gnaw at the bits and paw the ground, longing for a breakneck pace for which they were born and trained. The riders are clad in gleaming light armor of Damask steel, not common even for Arab nobles. Their bare sabers sparkle with blue: a distinct mark of blades made of the very best Damask steel. Their faces are haughty and still, but their posture and shoulders speak readiness for a swift fight: so swift that it will be all over before the heavy European knights have time to spur their stout warhorses.

“Oleg,” Thomas said softly. That seemed to be the first time he called the wonderer by name. “I think that’s a good day start.”

“I don’t like my road blocked,” Oleg replied sadly.

“A flimsy fence!” Thomas objected. “Just four planks in it!”

“But sturdy ones.” He looked askew at Chachar. The woman stiffened, her palms pressed to the mouth, eyes wide open in fear and bewilderment. Just a moment ago she was picking flowers, she had already thought up a pretext for presenting them to the shy knight — and now these four thunderclouds, with flashing blades of lightnings, emerged in her blue cloudless sky! What would happen to her if her protectors perish and their enemies survive?

“I’ll fight the Franks,” Thomas said arrogantly, in a tone allowing no objection. He lowered his visor with a clang of steel, hiding his face that became arrogant and angry. “And you distract Saracens. Entertain them.”

“You’re always taking the best part,” Oleg accused.

“The next time you will have it,” Thomas promised.

All the four enemies sent their horses ahead. The Saracens were motionless in their saddles, bare sabers gleaming in hands. The armored warriors exchanged looks and smirked with malice. One bellowed out, “Try to die at once, Angle! And you, pilgrim, can go to your Pagan hell. Sure, we’d rather strip three skins of you… of you alive, sure! But we’ll have all our joy on the wench. Trembling as she looks forward to us, huh! Feels real men! I swear she’ll have all and more of it before her soul is out!”

They reined up in ten steps against each other. The Arabian horses snorted and gnawed at the iron bits, while the heavy mounts of Franks could be mistaken for stone statues if not the idle waving of their tails. Thomas saw the foes meant no fast attack, so he flung the lance away and drew out his sword in a single swift move. All the four enemies had curved sabers waving in their hands. Oleg had an old habit of calling that kind of weapon a Khazarian sword.

Confused, Oleg slapped his pockets, searched his bosom on the left and on the right. Suddenly a happy smile lit his face, as if he’d caught a pernicious louse. Four enemies burst in a mocking laughter. The Saracens laughed in a restrained way, feeling their full superiority, while the Franks swayed in their saddles. Thomas frowned with shame for the wonderer, moved a bit aside, as if to show he had nothing to do with him, but the laughter of enemies only grew louder and more wicked.

Oleg pulled something out of his bosom. His hand made a sudden swift move, Thomas saw a flash. Oleg flung his hand again, turned to the angry knight. “Looks like my enemies are done,” he said with perplexity. “Please lend one of yours.”

The Saracens rocked in their saddles. The man with the knife handle in his mouth collapsed face first on the horse neck. Another jerked his hands up, gripped the hilt of Oleg’s knife stuck in his throat, in a finger above the mail collar. Blood ran out in two gushes, the air hissed in his stabbed throat. The Saracen got reeling stronger, fell