The Grail of Sir Thomas

With an indignant look, she made her way to the closet door, sniffing, moving her hips in a provocative way, her undershirt still in hand. Like a marrowbone before the nose of a dog who’s led to the knacker’s, Oleg thought/

She vanished behind the door. Oleg latched the entrance, threw his cloak hastily on his bow and quiver, fingered the hilts of knives.

There was a loud knock on the door. Oleg hurried to spill wine over the table and scatter the remnants of food. “What the devil there at night?” he shouted in a hoarse angry voice.

“What night, dear?” a merry, cheerful male voice cried back through the door.

Oleg walked to the door slowly, stamping and dragging his feet. He dawdled with the latch, grumbled loudly, posing as drunken barbarian. Standing in the corridor, there was a stocky man in light armor tempered by winds and sea. He had a broad smile on his face, his teeth white and shiny, but his eyes took in the whole room at a glance over Oleg’s shoulder: the spilled wine, picked bones, an amphora lying on its side and another one standing on the windowsill.

Oleg stepped aside, reeled, asked the visitor in with a broad gesture. The man entered eagerly, with his broad smile. He was merry, full of strength and health, belted with a short sword in ornate scabbard.

“I only have wine of Chios,” Oleg told him hoarsely. “Would you?”

“I’d rather have mead,” the visitor replied after a brief pause. “Or a gulp of beer.”

The barrel of dark beer was at the closet where Thomas had thrust it. “Drink wine,” Oleg grunted. “It won’t kill you. Or get out.”

“Well, I’ll have wine,” the guest agreed easily. He swept the crumbs off the bench with disgust and sat down at it. “My name is Fish. I’m a professional soldier, a mercenary. I left the legion for a better job. Now, for instance, I’m at command of three score of cutthroats who I chose myself. This house is surrounded by them. Reckless lads — and skilled, which is more. I know people, so I have picked the best men, believe it! As we are paid high, that was no problem. They won’t let a fly out, not to speak of you and your friend. By the way, where’s he?”

He cast a keen glance around, which stopped on the closet door. Oleg scratched himself lazily, hemmed, as if he had a difficulty to digest Fish’s words. Suddenly, his fist darted ahead. Fish was incredibly fast: he managed to toss his head and, at the same time, slap on the sword hilt loudly. Oleg’s fist sent him flying across the room. In his fall, Fish smashed the table to splinters with his back.

Oleg raised him by collar, flung onto the bench. Fish was half-stunned. Oleg tied him up with the rope prepared beforehand, took his sword and two hidden knives with heavy ends.

Fish shook his head, coming to himself. His tongue felt bleeding gums. “You knocked out my foretooth, barbarian!”

“Don’t twitch,” Oleg muttered. “I could strike you like a rabbit, between ears, no marks then. You can have a golden tooth instead.”

“You are quick,” Fish remarked. His sharp eyes searched the mighty figure of the barbarian who showed not a trace of drunken sluggishness. “And strong. I’d hire you. For a double salary. That’s really much!”

“I am hired already,” Oleg told him. “You see, I didn’t want to smash your lips.”

“It’s what I’m paid for,” Fish said philosophically. “But the inn is surrounded, as you know, and my lads wait me back. With a reply.”

“Which?”

“The cup.”

“And we?”

“You pose no interest to our master,” Fish told him with displeasure. “It’s none of my business, thus. The cup is mine, and you may go to hell!”

Oleg frowned. The names of the supreme magicians of Secret Seven flashed in gallop across his memory. Veterans don’t count. It must be one of the fresh. The new generation of Secret Seven can be cruel, much more brutal than the elder, but they don’t kill without necessity. They would only kill for business, not for vengeance or any other emotion. “Is your true master waiting somewhere in the street?” he asked slowly.

Fish spat a dark clot of blood at the floor, felt his bleeding gums anxiously with the apex of his tongue again. “The one who made an order. Whether true or not, it’s no concern of ours, is it?”

Oleg moved the bench, with Fish tied to it, closer to the window, for those in the street to see his head and shoulders. Fisk looked derisively, grinned, baring his teeth. He still had plenty of them, good and beautiful.

Oleg filled a cup with wine, held it out to Fish. “Take it.”

Fish played his brows in surprise. “It seems I have my hands tied. Who could have done it? Do you know?”

“I don’t force you to drink,” Oleg snapped, “but take it. Your elbows are tied, but your fingers free. When the door opens, let them see you sitting peacefully with a cup of wine in hand!”

“Why would I hold a cup on my knee?”

“Because you are loaded full but still want more of it.”

“It does look like me,” Fish agreed. “What if I don’t take it?”

At once, Oleg set a knifepoint against his right eye. “I’ll put out one of your eyes, then another, and then…”

“Give me the cup,” Fish interrupted. “But mind you will be in our hands then! The master has no interest in you, but I feel like starting to have it myself… How do you, barbarians of North, put it: a tooth for a tooth? So you should better treat me with respect.”

Oleg listened to the steps in the corridor: they sounded at the other end of it and died away soon. “You need to take us first,” he reminded.

“I have the soldiers whom I passed the Saracen war with!”

“What are Saracen as against Drevlyans? Think you have seen no true war.” He smirked, baring his wolfish teeth, and saw distrust in the mercenary’s face. Fish was holding the cup, its long stem set on his thigh, his gaze shifted between the window, with the silk girdle on it, and the door.

They had a short waiting before there were resolute steps in the corridor, then the door flew open, as though kicked, and clanged against the wall. Two men with bare swords emerged at the doorway. When they stepped into the room and saw Fish sitting in a casual pose, a cup of wine in hand, one said something back over his shoulder. The third man entered, kicked the door closed without looking back. He had a drawn crossbow in hands, its metal pieces gleaming.

Fish sat with his back to the window, his face was shaded. The two men came almost close to him when the first of them gasped, wheeled round with raised sword to Oleg who was sitting on the bed with a drowsy look. Oleg threw both knives at once, with both hands. A difficult trick, but missing the aim in five steps is more difficult. The next moment he ducked, as though plunged into water: an iron arrow from the crossbow swished over. He snatched the sword from the corner.

The crossbowman drew a saber. Oleg leapt over the corpses, in a hurry to finish fighting as fast as possible. His first blow was parried by a saber, which slipped deftly under his arm: Oleg barely had time to recoil. Yelling, he landed a terrible blow. The soldier dodged skillfully, but Oleg caught him at that: the wonderer’s knee crunched into his lower jaw. The hireling jumped, feeling the hash of teeth in his mouth. Oleg’s punch sent him flying into the corner.

As Oleg took a breath, some strange feeling made him duck. Some steel swished overhead, clanged on the sword he held up. Blindly, he elbowed at the place where the enemy should have been, heard a crunch and a sob, but strong fingers clasped at his throat. Gasping for air, Oleg snatched the invisible enemy by head and pulled, twisting his neck. A crunch, and fingers on his throat went limp at once. Oleg wheeled round, released his grip on the attacker.

The body that collapsed on the floor was Fish: his legs still tied to the bench but the ropes on his arms had been cut by a sharp blade. One of his soldiers was wriggling on the floor, Oleg’s knife in his throat, a saber in hand. Dying, he used it to cut the arms of his boss free.

“You had good soldiers,” Oleg agreed, breathing heavily. “But I didn’t want to kill you, fool!”

There were three corpses in the room, among scattered things and broken fragments of the table and chairs. The fourth man, if even he lived, would never taste again the manly joy of picking bones, getting the sweet marrow out, spitting out such tiny bony splinters that even a starving dog would not gnaw at them.