glancing impatiently at him.
They trotted out of the monastery gate briskly. The iron horseshoes made a ringing clatter on the fragile folds that lay on the ground, as they had collapsed from the mighty roar of Sir Thomas’s battle horn.
Chapter 18
They had barely set off before the sun hung straight overhead. Oleg was dripping with sweat, and Thomas had even harder time: in his iron armor, he felt like a fish boiled on a blazing fire. No wind, not a single cloud!
“What was our food there?” Thomas said tensely. “Sir wonderer, would I disturb your pious reflections if I… rend the air on this immense space a bit?”
Oleg waved his hand uncaringly. “Do it.”
He heard a loud rumble. The knight breathed out with relief. His shoulders lowered, he looked back at the vanishing walls of the yellow monastery where the blast wave had gone to. “It’s the best time of my journey! As we rode to this monastery, I was, to tell the truth, all of a tremble! I even — would you believe it, dear sir wonderer? — was going to make a turn.”
“Fear takes molehills for mountains,” Oleg agreed. “There’s nothing worse than shaking too much before it begins. A pity to discover it didn’t deserve that… But our life is treacherous. In a place that looks peaceful, we can be ambushed by some terrible thing worse than our nightmares! In that grove, for instance…”
Thomas alerted, flung his hand onto the sword hilt with a clang of steel.
“It was just an example!” Oleg comforted. “Actually, there may be nothing. But, on the other hand, there can be a thing far more terrible than I said or imagined…”
Thomas went pale. His hand drew the sword out by a half, his voice gave a quaver. “You offer strange comfort, holy father! May we better bypass it? Just in bloody case?”
“We can bypass a grove but not the life. You had your meal and rest, now be ready for everything. The Secret Seven have lost us but… will find again.”
“We can’t bypass a life,” Thomas admitted, “but the grove… May I rend the air once more?”
“No, no,” Oleg said hastily and drove his horse aside.
“Is the smell strong?” Thomas asked guiltily.
“Not at all,” Oleg reassured. “Just irritates my eyes. Turn to the grove. There we’ll find shade and — I see it by crowns of trees! — a spring from the depth of earth. Its water will put out the fire in your stomach.”
Thomas was getting tense. He stiffened, with his eyes fixed on the approaching trees, then unsheathed his sword, rode on with bare steel across his saddle.
Oleg came under the green shelter first. At once, he felt as if a burden fell off his shoulders. His chest straightened out, inhaling the cool air deeply. Trees ahead were parting until he saw a big glade surrounded by mighty forest giants with stocky trunks and tangled branches.
In the middle of the glade, green and studded with flowers, there was a huge boulder of dark red and a lake, so tiny that Thomas’s shield would have covered it all. A small spout of water raised golden grinds that whirled and fell down. The boulder had a hollow that contained a small mug made skillfully and elaborately from clean pieces of bark.
Oleg vaulted off, took the mug. His horse pushed him with his warm side, reaching for water. Oleg hastened to lead the stallion away to the trees and tether.
The mug was made not only efficiently, in no hurry, but also painted with wonderful flowers, birds, and ornaments. There was the upper sky with its waters, the middle and even the lower one, but no underground at all, though enough space for it at the bottom. Oleg realized that the painter was Pagan.
The water burnt his mouth, made his teeth ache. It seemed to be running straight from the highest mountains covered with eternal, never melting white snows.
Thomas took the full mug of spring water from the wonderer’s hands. He gulped for a long time, watered the horses after they’d got cool. When the unsaddled stallions went to graze, he took the fragile mug with both hands again, twisted it before his eyes, as if he could not believe in such a miracle. “There is still in this damned world, full of treachery and blood, violence and perfidy… there is still beauty and love! The stranger could spit into this clear spring, spoil or foul… but instead he cleaned the hollow, dragged the stone closer — see the old furrow where he pulled it? — and made this fragile beauty of linden bark! There
Oleg’s face twisted in a sulky smirk. “Except the two of us? A third man, I see.”
The light fragile mug looked like a newborn butterfly on a huge gauntlet, as Thomas sat on the boulder with the thing in his palm, unwilling to part with it. His blue eyes that in a fit of temper would turn cold, cruel, and merciless, like ice, now looked as clean and unprotected as a child’s. “May Our Lady help you in all your affairs, noble man,” he said piously.
The wonderer laughed. “What if he’s no noble?”
Thomas was surprised. “How can he? Everyone who does a good deed is noble… and helped by Our Lady!”
The wonderer was luxuriating in the shade. He looked skeptical, and Thomas got angry. “Don’t you believe me?”
“Not that much,” Oleg replied evasively. “A young girl with a babe in arms… What help of her? It’s not like appealing to those sturdy lads: George the Victorious, Michael, or the Forty Martyrs…”
“Sir wonderer,” Thomas said with great dignity. “Be it known to you that Holy Virgin has sometimes helped even knights! I can tell you of the case I witnessed. It happened when we gathered for the annual tourney in honor of Saint Boromir. The bravest of the brave were coming from all the ends of Britain. The knights taught their horses and servants new tricks, while their ladies prepared their dresses. In two days before the tourney, we were all in place, looking forward to the arrival of our friend: valiant Aragorn, a heir to an ancient house whose roots go into remote antiquity… But the day went after day, and the brave Aragorn was still not there when the heralds announced the beginning of the tournament!”
“Probably he went whoring,” Oleg supposed coolly. “A long way… He could spend a night at some widow’s.”
“Sir wonderer! What happened to Aragorn was a marvel indeed. He set out three days before the tourney, like all of us. But as he rode through a small town, he saw a black smoke ahead and heard shouts. He spurred his trusty steed and, fast as a whirlwind, burst onto the square where a terrible sight opened to his eyes! A chapel of Holy Virgin was on fire. He heard women crying inside.
“Sir Aragorn, without hesitation, as it befits a knight, lowered his visor and galloped straight to the barred door, with smoke and flames bursting from beneath it! The door shattered of the knight’s blow. Sir Aragorn stormed into the hell of burning walls and church plate. In the fire and smoke, he managed to find a poor young woman: she got so mad with terror that she resisted him picking her into the saddle. Sir Aragorn took her out of the fire and left to the care of townspeople. He also left his destrier, lest his luxuriant mane be burnt, and rushed back into the fire! He was not seen for a long time. The townspeople on the square started to cry with pity for the young knight when he came out of the blazing church: staggering, burnt all over, but clasping to his breast the icon of Holy Virgin he’d saved!”
“Was it worth the risk?” the wonderer muttered, though he listened with interest. “Icons are the same wood as spades, aren’t they?”
“Oh, sir wonderer! Surely, he’d swallowed so much smoke that he collapsed like dead. They needed a long time to bring him to, and he was weak as a nestling. The best doctors nursed the brave hero back to health, as the woman whom he’d saved was a daughter of a grand seignior, and the icon was a gift from His Holiness of Rome. Two days passed before Sir Aragorn was able to mount. At once, he hurried to the tourney in Gisland…”
“Surely, he got late,” Oleg said skeptically.
“Sir wonderer, you have evil wits. As Sir Aragorn approached the jousting field, he heard the silver trumpets heralding the end of the tourney…”
