The Grail of Sir Thomas

“But you can kill a man sitting in his chair, can’t you?” Oleg asked in a constrained voice.

“I serve civilization! Progress. While you serve mere culture. We have different laws.”

Incensed, Oleg gripped the hilt, pulled the sword out slowly. He heard the ominous scraping of metal: it was like a barely audible whistle. Baruk pressed himself into the back of the armchair. He went pale, his eyes flickered with fear, but his lips managed a smile. “Oh, stop it… A play of fury. You failed to take into account that we had a long talk, so I had time to calculate and measure you. Neither you nor this brass-headed friend of yours can kill me. Just because I’m defenseless. You are hampered by your culture, and he — by his knightly prrrinciples!”

“Are you laughing at us?”

“I can’t help it! You were the ones to disarm yourself. What you are proud of is a root of your failure. I calculated both of you for a day and night ahead. I know the Brass Head has his left heel sore. In three minutes, that dump one will slip and elbow a cup off the table… And you in two minutes will scratch your nose and look at the ceiling… Can you forecast that accurate?”

“I’d love to. But I can’t,” Oleg admitted.

“You are all in vague visions and prophecies, while we have exact knowledge! Hey, wasn’t it what you strove for? The past is concealed from us, new members of the Counsel, but there are rumors that in the great antiquity you were the one to rise against the dominance of mages and magic, to uphold the knowing, knowery… I mean the research method, which now tends to be called simply science… Was it that way?”

Thomas heard everything, but understood very little of it: his head was buzzing. To avoid being an obedient fool in the damned mage’s hands, he made two steps along the wall, away from the table with a high crystal cup. Oleg glanced back at the metal sound of his feet, scratched his nose thoughtfully. There was a faint tapping above. Oleg looked up quickly. “Is anyone there?”

“They won’t come in,” Baruk dismissed. “Students.”

Hastily, Thomas backed one more step, dumbfounded at the wonderer’s having scratched his nose and looked up exactly as the warlock had foretold. Thomas felt a stitch in his left heel, staggered on his numb legs, stumbled over his own sword (it was lying on the floor since the exhausted knight had climbed into the room) and crashed down. Furious, he got up, heard a malicious laughter, gripped the sword hilt menacingly and turned round with a haughty look.

A big red apple rolled up to his feet. Thomas turned his head to the table. It lay on side, two manuscripts sprawled on the mosaic floor. Apples had rolled away in all directions, and in the middle, there were gleaming splinters of the cup.

“All exact?” Baruk asked with triumphant laughter. “The more I see of you, the more information to predict every your word, move, deed. I already have enough for a week, a month, half a year…”

Oleg gave Thomas a quick nod. “Sir Thomas, it’s time to leave. He’s a lost man. And you, Baruk… you are making a big mistake! A man, apart from his mighty mind, has a soul too! And it’s unpredictable. It has very deep caves, hard to peep into.” He turned to the entrance.

“You miserable!” Baruk shouted in fury. “Open your eyes! Nothing on earth will save you from a terrible death now! It’s clear enough even for you to see!”

Oleg stepped to the opened door, his face as dark as a thundercloud. “Off chance you’ll know… what strength is hidden in the soul,” he said in a dull voice, without looking back.

He went past Thomas, and Thomas stepped to the man in armchair, raised his giant sword. His arms were still heavy, and the sword seemed to have the weight of a warhorse armored for attack. Astonished Baruk goggled his eyes, wriggled into the soft back of the armchair, jerked his trembling arms up in fear, as if he could stop a heavy blade of high-class steel whetted to match the sharpest razor.

The sword cut the air with a swish. There was a squelch, a flop of wood on the floor, a gurgle, and a soft slap.

Oleg glanced back with disgust at the bloody jumble: the knight had cut Baruk apart together with his armchair! — and looked with amazement in Thomas’s face tired and serene.

Thomas picked up the knitted cap, wiped the bloody blade clean with it. “Let’s go?” he asked briskly. “Or take something from here?”

Oleg shook his head in astonishment. “No, my innocent baby. We need nothing from this place. Let’s go.”

They went down the damned winding stairs, but it was far easier than the same way up. Thomas livened up, the high color came back to his deathly pale cheeks, as he spoke to Oleg with animation. “At last I’ve guessed the true meaning of your mysterious ‘off chance!’ I got not a damned thing of what you were talking about, but I saw you twinned round with the black mage’s spells! It was scary, but I recalled the nail of the Savior’s cross in my sword hilt… I called for the Holy Virgin to help me withstand the demon, a servant to Satan! You are a Pagan, after all, nearly a relative to demons, so you feel awkward about fighting them. I would never raise a hand against my kin myself. Otherwise I’d have crushed those brothers long ago, and Krizhina would not shed her bitter tears…”

As Thomas walked, he shifted the bag from his back to belly, patted the prominence of the cup. Oleg recoiled instinctively, alerted in expectance of either a flash or a thunder to strike the naive knight who had just killed a cripple. But the knight’s face was clean and calm, his honest eyes gleaming. He had destroyed a fiend that came out of the Hell and went back there. It’s sinful to kill a man, but killing a demon is a feat…

Oleg sighed, accepting the new reality of the new culture, and mended his pace.

Chapter 25

They left Constantinople early in the morning and paid a double duty for their leave. Thomas could not fathom it: if they had paid their entrance to the city, why should they pay when leaving it? The guards on the gate, seeing his enormous figure and long sword, decided not to bully. They explained he had an expensive armor on and could probably sell it to barbarian chieftains, the enemies of the capital city. Thomas got furious and yelled that so- called barbarian kingdoms had plenty of own weapons: his armor was forged by Angles, while smiths in their rotten Constantinople could only hammer bad iron and good steel was brought there from East!

“And from North,” Oleg added helpfully. “From Kiev, where good Haraluzhian swords are made. The Carolingian and Merovingian swords are also valued more than the pieces of iron made here…”

He paid the duty for both of them to angry guards who’d already cried legionaries from neighbor posts for help and surrounded Thomas. The knight was itching to fight. He spoke of his knightly honor insulted, of the pride of noble Angles from the banks of Don. At last, he asked Oleg with irritation, “Sir wonderer, didn’t they offend us?”

By that time, they had passed the gate, but Thomas kept his hand on the sword hilt. “So what?” Oleg replied indifferently, immersed in his secret thoughts. “They offend, but we don’t take offence.”

Thomas looked in his calm face with inquiry, then spat angrily in the road dust. “I don’t understand you Ruses.”

“Off chance you will, sometime…”

“Oh, that mysterious ‘off chance’ again!”

Oleg smiled absent-mindedly. Thomas noticed that was the first time, for many days, when the wonderer did not grip his charms every now and then. The dome of the sky, from one horizon to another, was blue. The road went across green plains with no winding, nor making loops like a running hare. On both sides were well-groomed fields, neat white houses. Fat cattle were moving lazily, as they grazed along the edge of the forest. The air was clean and seemed especially sweet after the sewage stench of Constantinople.

Horses ran briskly into a wide stream, raised a cloud of silvery spray. Thomas looked with envy at the wonderer who had no burden of armor on him and could act in Scythian way: stoop from the saddle at full tilt, scoop the clean water with hands, splash it on to his face, screwing up with joy.

Hares darted across their road, quails flew up from the thick wheat. Twice the travelers saw a herd of wild boars at the roadside. Involuntarily, Thomas seized his useless sword, cast begging looks back at the wonderer. Oleg rode on, straight as a candle, his face seemed to be carved of stone. Before leaving the city, they had bought