The Grail of Sir Thomas

felts swung from the wall to the rail, his feet far behind, he dragged them like some cast-iron pillars.

He barely had time to hug the rail when a man in armor came rolling downstairs, head over heels, followed by another one, rolling in the same way, clad in fine Saracen mail. Thomas raised his sword, but lowered it at once and half rushed, half plodded on. He heard some shouts, clang, and ringing above again. Much higher.

All but crying with impotent malice, he dragged himself up the damned stairs that seemed to be endless. Twice he splashed through blood puddles, steeped over guards who moaned and scratched walls and stairs.

When Thomas climbed on the very top, clinging to his knightly pride rather than the rail and the wall, he saw the world waving, as if he was sailing a Viking ship. He heard the rumble and pounding of blood vessels bursting in ears. Coarse black snow was falling before his eyes.

The stairs ended at a wide open door. In the depth of the big room with strange furniture, the wonderer stood with bare sword. In three or four steps from him, a frail man, in a long robe and a knitted cap, sat in a deep soft armchair. He was unarmed and cornered between two blind walls.

Thomas sobbed in utter exhaustion, slipped down the doorpost onto the floor. The wonderer wheeled round abruptly, his eyes opened wide. “Sir Thomas, are you wounded?” he inquired with anxiety.

Thomas made a sluggish gesture to show he was all right, Oleg could set to the black mage, not to let him out of sight, as he, Thomas Malton of Gisland, a noble knight, disliked them who sold their souls to devil and had nothing to do with them, that rather befitted a Pagan…

“Who are you?” Oleg demanded harshly from the man in armchair. “What is your name?”

The man stretched his thin bloodless lips in a wary smirk, spoke slowly. “You seem to know who I am. Who are you, that is the question. You look like a savage barbarian. Maybe a chieftain of those? A new star on the northern heavens? The one who will shake the universe, like Attila? Do you know who Attila was?”

“I do,” Oleg replied briefly.

The man in armchair watched him through narrowed eyes. Oleg felt the way his mighty brain worked in: analyzing, calculating options with lightning speed, tenacious, missing not a slightest nuance, quick to reject wrong solutions. “You are no barbarian,” the man in armchair said suddenly. “It is only a mask! But you could become not only a supreme chieftain of barbarians but also a rich man here, in Constantinople…” Suddenly his eyes widened. He tried to stand up but fell back into his armchair at once. His eyes goggled, as he gave out an astonished whisper. “Impossible!.. You… you are Oleg the Wise?”

“I am,” Oleg replied in a flat, lifeless voice. “You see I was the first to know you, Baruk.”

“Yes, I’m Baruk,” the man in armchair whispered. The knitted cap on his head went shaking: he laughed. “Sorry… it’s nervous. Now I see why all the attempts to take the cup, all those… ha ha!.. absolutely reliable ones failed… We were informed the cup was borne by some brass-headed fool, with a beggar pilgrim plodding at his side!”

Through the noise and rumble in ears, Thomas could barely hear half of it and understand hardly a thing, but, sitting on the floor, he snapped out hoarsely, “Sir wonderer is no beggar!”

Baruk shot a derisive, disdainful glance at the knight, gave out a short laughter. “Sir wonderer?.. I see your sense of humor, so unnecessary for the new world… What a blunder our agents made! They showed their hair, as you Ruses put it… Yes, we had to learn much about Rus’. The Secret Seven are mostly busy with it now!”

Oleg seized the scabbard without looking, drew the huge sword in with a thud. Baruk grew more confident, and Thomas alerted, started to pull his cast-iron legs closer, breathed deeply, in a haste to tame the blood pounding in ears.

Baruk leaned back deeper in his armchair, his sharp eyes flashed with predatory sparkles. “You do not look a giant… An intellectual giant, I mean. This kind of power can be felt in each of the Seven, in many grand masters and even masters. And you degraded… Wise? To make accurate forecasts, you need to perfect your mind and will rather than to gad along roads, playing a barbarian, a mercenary, or a merchant… I heard you once were the strongest one. Weren’t you? Well, a feeble will turns strong if trained, a weak mind gets working as well as a dozen of strong ones, but strong brains fade if not used… I never had any doubts about out way, but now I see how right we are!”

“You never had any doubts? Then you are hopeless.”

“A play on words?”

“Why do you need the cup?” Oleg asked gloomily.

Baruk said nothing. He grinned, as he looked at the matted-haired barbarian standing before him. The magician leaned back in his armchair haughtily, his eyes became cruel. Thomas clenched his teeth, started to get up, clinging at the doorpost. He felt a gross insult for his friend who had to stand before the black magician, a devil’s servant, and be looked at as a common man, a puny tramp, even called a beggar!

“Why?” Oleg asked again.

“A decision of the Counsel,” Baruk replied. His eyes laughed.

“No one’s personal idea,” Oleg said thoughtfully. “It makes a difference…”

“It does,” Baruk agreed jeeringly. “I heard of what you did to Fagim, a former head of Secret Seven… But will you stand up against the power of all Seven?”

Oleg was silent for a while, his face darkened. “What’s special about that cup?” he asked in a dull voice of a worn-out man.

Baruk shrugged, his eyes glittered defiantly. “The blood of Christ. Didn’t you know it?”

Oleg shook his head, his eyes kept on Baruk’s face. “It’s important for my knightly companion, but not for the Counsel. The Secret Seven knew lots of prophets! They have the rod of Zarathustra, the belt of Moses, the cloak of Buddha, the hammer of Tor, the sandals of Mahomet, the club of Heracles, the spear of Gilgamesh… and many other things of heroes, prophets, and sages stored in their secret cache. You value them as a collection, some curiosities. You are practical people, free of any superstition. I don’t believe you could apply so many efforts only to add a new item to that collection. I wonder how the cup could survive, in spite of you driving every emotional thing away…”

“Why?” Baruk asked innocently.

Oleg answered, as he felt something concealed behind that simple question. Shaping own thoughts into words can help a solution or an eyeopener to present itself. It may seem accidental, but in fact it’s the help from the inmost soul. “Your god is Progress, Civilization,” Oleg said in an even, measured voice. “And civilization has no need of such things. Moreover, they are harmful or even dangerous to it. They only make difference for culture…”

Baruk’s eyes narrowed. “You’ve answered your own question,” he told Oleg through gritted teeth.

“So… only to keep the cup away from me?”

“From any culture bearer. This brass-headed fool is one of them, as well as you, though he thinks of himself as a civilizer. He’s hundred times purer than you, that’s all the difference. He has an innocent baby’s soul.”

Oleg looked fixedly at him, his voice became thoughtful. “You did not say what true value the cup has… For us! However, that’s out of your power if that was a decision of the Counsel, not your own. Hey, Baruk, you made several attempts to kill us. Would you deny it? And I have a perfect moral right to pay you back with your own coin. You see? So, if now you swear you shall never disturb us again, we leave at once, and you can resume your observations of stars. As you are the greatest expert at heavens!”

The pounding in Thomas’s head ceased, but pain came instead, as if red-hot pig iron was tucked into his skull. The brain was boiling, filling its bone armor to the brim. Thomas got up with effort, leaned against the wall, his feet still shaking, a stitch in his side at every breath. Thomas regretted he could not stop breathing and remain alive.

“What if I shan’t?” Baruk asked. His voice remained derisive and gave no quaver. Thomas felt a chilly blow of fear.

“I’ll kill you.” Oleg sounded like a sudden blow of northern wind in that strange room piled up with thick manuscripts with Cabbalist signs on their covers.

Baruk did not stir. He watched Oleg with contempt, even with disgustful pity. “You won’t… You could do it to protect yourself… but a man sitting in peace, like me? A cripple confined to his armchair? No outlaw but the world’s best expert on stars, a researcher of the secrets of universe?”