“It would look strange.”
“You could say that’s a part of your costume. A ritual ornament! Once I’ve rode past a savage tribe whose leader ornamented himself with spoons, tin cups, and pans. Can’t recall the name of that country: it might have been either Rus’ or Ethiopia…”
As they approached the garden, the cracks, thuds, and battle cries grew louder. Down at the last stair, the prior sat on a small bench. A sullen monk, strong in shoulders, stood motionless behind him. Both had beautiful staffs in hands: gilded, gleaming, decorated with elaborate carving, little bells, bright feathers. Both kept their eyes on the excercising monks. Sometimes the standing monk would cry out a command, and the ones in the garden would speed up at once. Both observers glanced back in fright, as they heard the metallic thunder of Thomas’s steps. The monk helped the old man up his feet, both bowed to their guests from the waist.
The knight bowed in return with effort, as Oleg did. The small of Thomas’s back grinded. The monks gave a new, even more polite bow. Thomas and Oleg replied with the same. Oleg heard a squeezed protesting sob in his stomach. “Strange rites can be a burden!” Thomas said through gritted teeth.
“Not for everyone,” Oleg replied, but looked with compassion at the iron plates on the small of knight’s back, as they came over each other, rasping, rubbing the rust away.
“Who knows how much bows remain,” Thomas whispered. “Which is their sacred number?”
“It’s often three,” Oleg replied after thinking for a while. “Three epic heroes, three heads of a dragon, three sons… But, on the other hand, a house has
Thomas groaned, straightened up with effort and stopped bowing. The prior and the monk also stiffened in a polite half-bow. “We sent the fastest rider for Libryuk and Chaknor,” the old man said in a rasping voice. “They are the greatest warriors of our land. They’ll come at night, so next morning you’ll have an opportunity to fight them!”
Thomas froze as if he got ice-bound. Oleg gulped down a lump in his throat. “One thing on top…” he said politely. “Why two of them? One would do. The good sire dreams of battles, jousts, and combats. There’s nothing, even your bread and wine, he likes more than fighting!”
“And you, a great hero of Hyperborean?” the monastic elder asked warily.
“I live up to other monastic rules. Good meal and good sleep, that’s all I need.”
“A very interesting monastery,” the prior said thoughtfully. “I’d like to go there on pilgrimage.”
Thomas stepped down from the stone stairs, strolled across the garden. He left a trace of deep footprints, like a walking iron statue. The excercising monks started to glance back. A stir spread upon their rows until all of them stopped, stiffened with respectful attention, then started bowing altogether. Thomas sniffed with displeasure, bowed his head with a great effort, his armor gave a rasp. The local strongmen gave an even lower bow eagerly. Thomas grasped there would be no end to that and pretended to see nothing. He turned to the stairs where the prior and his assistant remained. “Is it really difficult?”
The monastic elder got up with the monk’s help, crossed the garden slowly and poignantly. He stopped in two steps from Thomas and ringed out, “Would you break the brick? To do it, one needs to please our gods. Besides, our fighters exercise in it from dawn till dusk! A year after year…”
Thoughtful, Thomas turned to the group of fighters. They stood with their sleeves rolled up to elbows, all sweaty and powdered with the red dust of crushed boulders. A red pile of bricks was seen aside, and one boulder lay prepared on a huge granite block that had sank by a third into the ground under own weight.
Thomas tapped on the boulder with a finger, heard a dry ringing sound. He looked around, as though expecting a catch in it, his eyes full of fear and agonizing hesitation. One of the monks caught his sight, put one more red stone eagerly on the top of the boulder. Thomas bowed his head slowly and bent a finger. The monk raised his eyebrows but added the third boulder obediently. Thomas thought for a while, ordered by gesture to lay one more. The monk hesitated, looked around those present. His eyes were astonished and frightened, but he put a stone on and retreated hastily into the crowd.
Oleg walked around the granite block, examined the pile of stones thoroughly, slid his finger over the red crumbs. “Want to break it?”
“Well, it’s important to them for some reason…”
“Do it,” Oleg approved. “The thing is not ours to take care of.”
Thomas raised his hand, aimed, and struck with force. A terrible crash, a flash of long white sparks, a smell of burning — and he stood in a thick red cloud of brick dust setting down slowly. The boulder had broken in two pieces that lay in front of him, each driven into the ground almost by half. There was a strong smell of burning and something more scary. Everything was yellow around, as if the golden fall came suddenly in the middle of green summer. All the monks, including the elder one, lay on the ground, shielding their heads with arms, covering with a yellow hem of cloak or at least a sleeve.
“Why the slab too?” Oleg grunted.
“Who knew their stones were so fragile…” Thomas muttered, startled.
“No stones here, sir! Just clay. A fired clay! It’s what they call bricks!”
“That’s something,” Thomas drawled with disappointment. “They could make them of sand either… A childish way, I swear on the innocence of Holy Virgin!”
The monks started to stir and rise. Their swarthy faces turned out to be whiter than those of Norwegs, and their narrow eyes opened so wide that the monks gained resemblance to eagle-owls from the woods of Moscow or Gisland. Oleg clapped the knight loudly on his iron back, to take him out of the state of embarrassed rigidity. Both started a walk back to the porch where the table had been changed in their absence, replaced by a broader one. Oleg, with his keen eye, spotted ram side served with porridge, baked turkeys stuffed with garden apples, not to mention various small things, which he decided to sort out immediately.
On the way, they bowed politely to monks who had been hitting, with the edges of their hands, all the day long, a thick log fixed upon heavy boulders. At the moment, the monks were not knocking it with their horny hands but stood stiff, like hamsters near their burrows, goggling at the pilgrims from North.
As Oleg went by, he shook his head, gave a mettlesome hem, struck the log. They heard a terrible crush, wooden splinters flew up and sideways with force. The halves of log thundered down on the ground, only their very ends remained on boulders. The motionless figures of monks had vanished: some fell down, some were thrown away by splinters. Only the strongest ones managed to run aside.
Thomas looked at him with reproach. Oleg shrugged with the air of independence. “It’s rotten. Nibbled by worms.”
“And bark beetles,” Thomas sympathized. “The hot climate drives them mad. They even damage the stone here!”
They looked at each other and smirked, feeling the terrible strain subsiding. They hugged each other by shoulders and went upstairs. In fact, they were dragged on there by the powerful magic of fragrances of the table served.
Chapter 17
They feasted in a proud solitude, save for silent monks who appeared noiselessly from behind strange paper walls, took the empty dishes away, put full ones instead. The new courses smelled even more magical, stupefying.
Thomas had loosened his belt to the very last hole in it and Oleg was slicing a young boar when a thickset, broad-shouldered monk jumped through the window onto the porch. He somersaulted, gave out a terrible screech, which Thomas and Oleg had already got used to, waved his hands abruptly.
Startled, Thomas and Oleg watched him pull some glittering thing from his wide belt, swing his hand swiftly once more, and for the third time…
Thomas heard a thin tinkle against his iron breast. He looked with surprise at the monk who stood pending,
