The Grail of Sir Thomas

The men with small wounds were taken by arms and led away, the motionless one carried after them. A new score of warrior monks ran out, armed with poles, spears, and sabers. Some even had strange flails: the likes of those were used in Russian villages to thresh the sheaves of wheat. The monks stopped at the gate, talking to each other in shrill chirping voices. Like a big flock of small forest birds, Oleg thought. One was sent by senior monk back to the monastery. Seems he was told to deliver a message and be back in a flash.

Oleg came to his horse, pulled the sword out, turned his face to the monks. Thomas stood in two steps, casting jealous glances, as he compared the length of their weapons. The wonderer’s sword did not look shorter, though Thomas’s one was the longest in all the crusader army. Moreover, Oleg’s sword was obviously heavier, as its blade was half as broad again as Thomas’s. The senior monk, as the knight had spotted, couldn’t take his eyes off the wonderer’s blade sparkling with bluish lights. However, he gazed at Thomas’s huge sword, as long as any of monkish spears, in the same way. Like a rabbit enchanted by a cobra.

That time no one came running out of the gate, screaming, jumping, and swaying a thin rite spear in complicated ways. They heard a bass gong in the monastery. A very old monk appeared in the gate, clad in a sumptuous oriental robe embroidered with gold and a multistoried hat with little bells and ribbons. The staff in his hand was decorated with silver, its knob was shaped as a head of furious dragon.

“That must be a senior sorcerer,” Thomas said quietly.

“An abbot,” Oleg objected in whisper. “Or even a bishop!”

Thomas snuffled indignantly but, out of respect, said nothing. The local sorcerer (or bishop) looked the battlefield over from beneath his senile swollen eyelids, advanced his trembling hands. Monks came running from both sides to support his stretched arms respectfully.

“Who are you, strangers?” the dressed-up sorcerer or bishop (or maybe an abbot) asked.

“Pilgrims,” Thomas replied respectfully. “We ride in no hurry from the Holy Land, bother and offend no one… You see, the monks of your monastery have greeted us by a strange rite, but even sir wonderer, though a Pagan, knows: when in monastery, do as monks do. In some places a guest must wipe his feet, while in others he must not…”

“I’m a preceptor of this famous monastery,” the old man said in a rasping voice. “Here we study the martial art of mao shui, the best in the world. We revere great heroes, even the wandering ones, and invite you to honor the ancient walls of our wonderful monastery that has the only true rules with your visit.”

“Well… we are not quite great heroes,” Thomas mumbled with a stunned look.

Oleg slapped loudly on the knight’s metal shoulder. “Let’s go, or no seed will remain of these men. They lay themselves out just to show their hospitality!”

On an open porch, there was a table of polished walnut set for them and mats to sit on. Oleg managed to seat himself, with his legs crossed in the way he had learnt from Saracen (though it made his joints crunch as snow), while poor Thomas tried to settle himself this way and that and ended pulling his breastplate off fiercely. His body was warmed, Oleg smelled at once that the noble knight hadn’t washed it for a long time. Thomas sat down on his iron armor, put his glittering helmet on the floor besides. His hair, the color of reap wheat, poured over his shoulders, lighting the walls with golden shine.

Glancing at each other across the table, they snatched quails roasted in dried white breadcrumbs and stuffed with nuts and lard. The birds were so juicy and tender that Thomas gobbled them down with bones. The peacocks, partridges, and starlings cooked skillfully on spits were even more tender, and those baked on griddles were just melting in the mouth. Thomas barely had time to squeeze big walnuts and small hazelnuts in his strong teeth before they were served a new course on huge plates: ham seasoned with Eastern spices, set densely with whole nuts, sprinkled with crumbled nuts and shredded fragrant grass.

A large plate with a pile of smoked sausages was placed in front of Oleg. They were so thin and red that he mistook them for earthworms and moved the plate away with disgust. Thomas seized it at once with both hands, dragged closer. He must have known this course, as he had lived among Saracens, or guessed it.

However, Thomas was the first to get full. He loosened his belt, started to pant, and ended leaning back from the table and looking with envy at the wonderer who, staying perfectly calm, gulped down lots of roast birds, baked fish seasoned with a sour sauce, fine shreds of young venison sinking in big juicy berries, then fruits, berries, and meat again: roast, baked, dried, and smoked… Finally, Thomas couldn’t help saying venomously, “Hermits feed on honey and locusts! And you, valiant sir wonderer, are eating up the second boar!”

“When in monastery, do as monks do. You said it. So eat what you are given, don’t be squeamish.”

“Would you have preferred locusts?”

“With honey,” Oleg reminded modestly. “But now I’m out of small reclusion, did you forget? And in the Great Reclusion, I lead the same life as others. No standing out, no excelling.”

Thomas said nothing but his blue eyes spoke out clearly how non-excelling the wonderer was while setting to the third boar, washing it down with falls of heady drinks and barley beer, eating lots of boiled crabs after, guzzling jugs of red wine dry. Without batting an eyelid, he gobbled fat spotted snakes and frogs and jelly-like oysters, which Thomas was afraid even to look at: his face went green and his body spotty, making him look like those frogs and pythons.

Down in the yard, monks were training tirelessly. Young and old men, all in the same orange robes, jumped, somersaulted, fought with poles and wooden swords. Oleg feasted his eyes upon a separate group who swung wooden flails. He had often seen village boys fighting with flails, but the monks did wonders with those. Their flails are much lighter and shorter, however, but one should mind they are small people. These fellows might fail even to raise a Slavic flail, but brandish easily the lighter ones of theirs, called nunchaku, shift them between hands swiftly, whirl over heads…

In the far corner of the garden, the strongest monks (or the most skillful ones, Oleg and Thomas did not know exactly) had their practice. Anyway, there was a crowd of gapers around: gasping, squeaking, crouching with awe. One of the skillful (or strong) would break two boulders, one topped on another, with the edge of his palm, the second — a thick stick with a terrible blow of his fist, and the third, with his muscle bulging fiercely, would tie an iron rod, as thick as a rake, in a bundle. After he had a rest, he would bend or tie the next one.

“Monks?” Thomas said with disapproval. “They are Pagans who haven’t seen the light of Christ!”

Oleg chopped off a weighty slice of juicy fragrant brisket, salted it, peppered, spiced with mustard, sprinkled nicely with ground roots and shedders of greenery. “But they know good food instead. There are many ways to gods. The way of these robed men is exercise. It’s the same as fast is for you Christians. Fast is the triumph of spirit over base flesh, isn’t it? Here, the same high spirit makes men exercise until they fall like dead. They live in monkhood: no women, no dancing, no wine! They only have exercise instead of praying. And on different ways of serving gods…”

“God,” Thomas corrected with displeasure. “He is single!”

“And angels. archangels, cherubs, seraphs, and so on — aren’t they some smaller gods? Well, I just meant that people on different ways need different food.”

Thomas could not take his eyes off the green garden full of cries, squeals, dry thuds of wooden poles. “Let’s go and have a look?.. I don’t understand many things here.”

“Just many?” Oleg was surprised. “Happy you!” He wiped his mouth with a sleeve, cast a regretful look over the table to which silent monks kept serving food and drinks noiselessly from all around. As befits a hermit who exercised in hunger for years. Thomas was already up his feet, pulling on the breastplate: he made no step without it and neither went to sleep. He also put on the helmet, though visor remained up, and glanced back warily at the huge sword: its polished handle glittered ominously in the corner, together with Oleg’s sword. “We are guests!” the wonderer whispered softly to him. “I don’t think they’ll break the law of hospitality.”

“Laws are different in different lands.”

“This one is common.”

“Even for the guests who broke into?”

Oleg said nothing: he also started to think that fearless monks could not be willing to invite two strangers into their impregnable monastery. His fingers slid reassuringly by the knife hilts on the inner side of his jack.

Thomas saw it. “You shouldn’t have left the bow,” he grumbled.