The Grail of Sir Thomas

the pompous monk firmly.

The monk backed, bowing frequently, his bottom pushed the door open, he vanished in the corridor. Thomas sighed, started to get up from the table, his breath heavy and strained, his pale face reddened.

Oleg slapped on his forehead. “At last I got it, why you never take your steel off! To keep control of your paunch, yeah? At the table you can go too far, but your armor knows where to stop, doesn’t it?”

Thomas moved his eyes with displeasure, took his sheathed sword from the corner, put his baldric on. Oleg also belted with sword, adjusted the ties of bow and quiver of arrows on his back, and followed Thomas out.

The father superior, supported under his arms and followed by two old monks, ascended to meet them. At the sight of two giant figures he stopped, took pause for breath, and made a low bow. Thomas grumbled, as though he had only swallowed boulders for lunch and now they were rolling inside his steel armor.

Oleg bowed in response, knowing his back would endure. “We are ready,” he said briskly. “And the two invincibles… Have they come?” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Thomas holding his breath, leaning forward to devour every word. The knight’s lean face kindled with desperate hope.

The prior made a lower, more respectful bow, fold his palms together, replied in a thin rasping voice. “They came late at night. Our guard of honor met them.”

The knight’s face went dark. He lowered his visor. For a while, three monks only saw his sky blue eyes through the slit in his steel helmet. Then Thomas raised his visor, spoke in a dull, absolutely flat voice. “We, sir wonderer and I, are ready for the tournament. Let the herald deign to declare the local rules and customs.”

“Did you look after our horses well?” Oleg asked the prior. “If we are to fight on the horseback…”

The prior glanced at his assistants, but they dropped their heads to hide their eyes. He folded his palms by his chest, bowed low. “We have caught them and placed into other stables. Don’t worry. They have the very best oats, fragrant and medicinal herbs, spring water…”

Oleg alerted with foreboding. “What’s wrong with them?”

The prior glanced at the monks again: all kept their eyes down. He sighed and went on in the same thin rasping voice that sounded like dishes clattering on a potter’s jolty cart. “They… got angry for some reason. Or just wanted to play? Anyway, they smashed their stalls, broke the manger, started to offend other horses and… touch fillies. Then the black stallion decided to scratch against the main pillar that supported the roof… Strangely, the pillar broke. The roof collapsed… Both stallions got scared.”

Thomas frowned, shot an indignant look at Oleg. His warhorse, never frightened by wild howls of Saracen trumpets and terrific beats of Persian drums, was said to have been scared by some collapsed roof! A slander!

“Scared,” the prior said again, paying no heed to the fact that Oleg frowned too, “they ran away, struck against the wall…”

“Come, come,” Oleg encouraged.

“The wall collapsed. The stallions burst into the garden. Other survived horses followed them. All the night long, the monks tried to catch them. Your horses ruined the sacred garden, which we were growing for three thousand years. They guzzled the roses of heaven brought from the Lord of Heaven by his beautiful daughter to the brave son of Emperor Fak at the dawn of time… Then your horses drank water from the sacred spring, scared away the sky frogs who deigned to rest there and broke the thirty-year-long silence of the great ascetic Tsob Tso Bae…”

“What did he say?” Thomas asked with fascination.

The prior’s wrinkled face became thoughtful. He choked, then spoke hastily, “How can I, a paltry worm, memorize the spells of ascetics? Then your horses brought down the monastery wall on the side of Bump, our sacred mountain…”

“Scratched themselves again?” Thomas asked with concern. “Sir wonderer, could they have picked up a mange? We need to check.”

“So you need,” the prior agreed hastily. “After that, they ruined the indestructible war tower — it had stood for two thousand years, endured two hundred and three wars, five hundred eighteen storms, and twelve strikes of lightning… they scratched against it too. Then they ran after the young filly, which was raised to carry the ruler of our land. They ate the garden of bonsai, the dwarf trees, mistaking them for grass. Finally, they got to the larder where we kept all our stock of wine…”

“They drank wine?” Thomas gasped. He wheeled round to Oleg with all his shining body, his blue eyes flashed with lightnings. “Sir wonderer, it was your unproven horse who seduced my honest friend at arms! With whom I passed fire and water, Crimea and Rome, saw the priest’s pear tree, stormed the Tower of David…”

“And here he stormed a tower himself,” Oleg pointed out. “A war horse, who would argue? If he had never broken into a wine cellar before… maybe he just had no opportunity?”

The prior gave some timid coughs before he dared to interfere. “In fact… it was your stallion, sir iron knight, who started to lick first… At that point, we managed to catch both and lead them into a new stable… after we moved all the monks away from there, moved our library, carried ancient manuscripts away. The white stallion got drunken and lay down into a puddle of wine…”

“Our Lady!” Thomas cried in terror. “How much time will it take to wash him clean?”

“I think they have a good wine,” Oleg said thoughtfully, “if even horses got dead drunk… Holy prior, where do you store it?”

The prior backed so hastily that he would have collapsed if his trembling assistants did not catch him under arms. “Your horses have drunk all of it! Now they sleep in the lib… the new stable.”

Oleg listened and grasped, at last, the meaning of the intermittent dull roar that had been disturbing his soul and sleep. He wanted to inform the haughty knight venomously that his noble knightly horse of blue blood snored like a plain cart horse from village, but at that moment a barefoot monk came running from the far barn, started to whisper in the prior’s ear, looking at the scary strangers askew with his eye, as dark as a bird’s.

The prior staggered. Two strong monks supported him by shoulders. His dark eyelids flickered like a butterfly’s wings in the wind.

Thomas turned his head to Oleg. It looked like a turning observation deck on the top of a watchtower. “After us,” he said in half a voice. “To fight the invincibles.”

Oleg nodded, adjusted the sword baldric up — he’d almost forgotten its unkind weight for the past years — moved his shoulder blades to check whether the quiver was in place. “Holy father, we are ready. Sir Thomas just need to be whistled up — and he will run to the world’s end for a good fight! Pugnacious as a cock. I wonder whether all Angles are like that.”

The prior shifted a desperate gaze between his guests. Down at the stairs, a large crowd of monks had gathered. All barefoot, belted with plain ropes, no usual poles and rural threshing flails with them.

“Great warriors,” the prior rasped, “we hate to upset you and kindly beg your pardon. We understand that your brave hearts are burning with desire to display the full scope of your martial art, that you crave for fight and sight of blood splashed around, that you have a fervent thirst for crunch of bones, for violent blows received and landed… received and landed… received and landed…”

“Don’t pull the cat by… paw,” Thomas interrupted. His soul could be seen reviving: a happy presentiment of the dream come true flourished as a bright crimson color on his cheeks, as white as chalk. “Where are they? In the yard? In the dueling hall?”

The prior drooped his head in grief. He would have kneeled if not kept by the monks: they were right to think they would have more trouble getting him up. “I beg you, iron knight… and you, hairy Hyperborean turnskin, to forgive us kindly! The invincibles left at dawn. Without saying goodbye… without saying a word at all, two on one horse…”

Thomas breathed out loudly, as though an iron stake he had been writhing on till the night before was removed at once. He even subsided a bit, seemed to become smaller in height. Oleg also felt a great relief: he liked it without fight, but the poor prior misinterpreted it. “Please don’t tear your brave hearts with this unheard-of grief!” he cried pathetically. “It’s not our fault it happened that way!”

“We shall not blame you,” Oleg promised. “Never!”

“Did they say anything at their leave?” Thomas asked with utmost caution. “A challenge, maybe, or a wish to meet us in another place?”

The prior shook his head guiltily. “Nothing! That’s surprising. Their leave was very quiet.”

“Hmmm… and what did they do when they came? Why that sudden?”

The prior responded slowly. His voice grew stronger, sounded with a note of fury. “That’s a great mystery for