The Grail of Sir Thomas

wooden things were impious, Pagan, but the Holy Virgin, in her unfathomable mercy, allowed their existence still. Nothing on earth is done without Her leave.

“If we don’t buy there,” Thomas said decisively, “we’ll change!” On the way ahead, he could see five houses, a score of sheds, and the sweep of the well reaching for the sky. A goat for sale was unlikely to be found there, not to mention horse, so he would have to dismount, getting his body troubled but soul relieved.

Oleg glanced slantwise at the knight who rode like a tower bound with iron: unshakeable and indestructible. His blue eyes went dark and dim, as though his brave soul was wandering in doubts, so unusual to it. He seemed to be still among the wonderers, smelling unwashed bodies, hearing the clang of heavy chains, seeing horrible sores left by fetters that had worn the live flesh through to the bone. And he recalled his valiant friend, also a wonderer, explaining in a strange pitiful voice, with his eyes turned away, that only wonderers were humans, while others — pre-humans. Back then, Thomas had flared up with just indignation, righteous fury for the profane words, but now he returned to them silently, turning them this and that way.

When they were eating the roast liver, Oleg asked venomously what is the difference between man and animals. Thomas blurted out that man can speak and animals can’t, so the difference is speech and mind. But Oleg said that animals also speak to each other: in howls, chirps, or squeaks. So man is also the cleverest of animals… and the most violent, as he even kills the likes of him, but still only an animal. What is the difference indeed?

May it be fetters? Thomas thought angrily. He cast curious furtive glances at the wonderer who walked on the right of his horse, raising road dust with each step. The wonderer got grey all over, his bronzed shoulders and jack of the same color, his face glistened with sweat.

Surely, Thomas went on angrily, no animal will impose fetters or other heavy thing on himself. Neither will any man, common or noble. And what is man? According to the wonderer, that’s still an animal, a pre-human. But there are men who came from animals into humans. They are few, that’s why they seem strange and unfathomable to most people. But what is fathomable to everyone? The one who’s neither a fool nor a wise man, not too weak and not too strong, his heart neither too faint nor too brave… And strongmen, wise men, heroes, prophets — they are all strange. They seem odd to ordinary people. Someone might have found strange even the quest of his: from a rich peaceful land, from own castle on Don into the strange world where death waited for him at every step, where he starved, suffered, had hard times, fell from tall towers, often slept, like a dog, on a hay of straw… And was it normal that he kept bearing the mortally dangerous cup, instead of leaving it and rushing to embrace his loved one?

The wonderer walked deep in thought. Thomas, high in his saddle, was the first to notice a rider on the road far ahead. “Oho! I’m afraid we’ll have to fight!”

The rider rushed towards them in heavy gallop. Thomas cheered up, leaving his reflections, so uncommon for a noble knight. The stranger’s horse looked like a rock of black basalt, while the rider looked a smaller rock, but massive, heavy, menacingly huge all the same. Black crows were flying over him. Thomas felt cold between his shoulder blades as he grasped those were no crows but clods of earth hit off by the giant horseshoes.

The stranger was impossibly broad in shoulders, thickset and stout, some ancient beastly might felt in him. He was clad in a coat of thick metal rings, his head in a glittering helmet, as large as a beer caldron, the left side of his breast protected with extremely broad shield: the size of a barn door. Thomas expected to see a sword, but the man had a heavy spiked mace hanging on his right elbow instead. Across his saddle, in no knightly way at all, he had a thick spear with head of plain steel.

The rider pulled up. The travelers stopped in five steps from him. The stranger’s eyes measured Thomas in an open, impudent way. Thomas frowned, straightened up haughtily, his hand moved to lower the visor, but he retained from it: he knew that kind of jealous looks. Brigands attack for plunder, but there is another sort of strange… yes, strange humans! In the young Britain, that sort is called errant knights. They wander along the roads of that land, still semi-wild, in search of the fight itself, persist in it until they find a stronger knight and even then try to get even with him. From bloody combats, they gain nothing but wounds and injuries. Thomas had been one of them, and remained one of them still but, whether influenced by Oleg or unsettled by the recent meeting with forty wonderers, he spoke to the stranger first, and spoke peacefully. “Greetings to you, sire! May your road be short.”

The rider gave him a gloomy once-over and did not stir, just bellowed in a deep voice that sounded like a roar of angry bear. “Short? Are you the one who will shorten it?”

“I may try. Why not?”

“Let’s see who is stronger,” the unknown warrior agreed. “I’ve met none of my equals yet, but you look a strong young oak… And I don’t recall you among champions. But work is first, and fun second. Where do you wend your way from?”

Thomas noticed the rider glanced at Oleg with evident unfriendliness, while Oleg watched him with sympathy and some strange compassion.

Before the knight could flare up of the stranger’s demanding question, Oleg replied in an even, placid tone. “From Jerusalem. Bowed to the Holy Sepulcher, which the crusaders won from Saracen last year, bathed in Jordan, been to cypress groves… Now coming back home.”

“Through Tsargrad?”

“No other way available.”

“How is it there?” the rider demanded menacingly.

Thomas frowned, put down his visor with a thud. With a broad gesture, he slapped on his thigh where the sword hilt was jutting up.

“Unrest,” Oleg replied peacefully.

“New nations attack?”

“Barbarians? They too, but now an Idol is said to have appeared there. He and his have plundered some churches, threw icons out, covered their horses with chasubles…”

The rider went crimson and scarily huge. His prominent eyes got bloodshot, he croaked in a fierce voice turning a beastly roar. “How could you allow?”

Oleg moved his shoulder in vexation. Thomas felt pleased for his friend, as he saw Oleg watching the giant warrior with not a ghost of fear. “Has it been a long time,” Oleg spoke with displeasure, “since we Ruses plundered Tsargrad? And now we defend it?”

“Our Christian shrines are there!” the rider bellowed.

“Not mine,” Oleg said in a dry voice. His face darkened. “Not ours at all, you blockhead.”

Thomas interfered, fearing that the rider may mistake the wonderer’s words for weakness or cowardice. “We don’t care a damn of your right-cephalous shrines! I’m left-cephalic, and my noble friend, though he walks on foot — a hero with his oddities — professes the old faith of his forefathers, or maybe his great-grandfathers…”

“Shut up, your iron thing!” the stranger barked, without turning his big head to the gleaming knight. “And you, wonderer! Aren’t you ashamed? I’ve met you once and heard more of you. Twice as strong as me, but wandering by roads, careless as a song bird that pecks dung! You lack boldness, and skill too. You should have taken the vile Idol by paw — or what he has instead? — and smash against the wall, for all the palace to shake, the domes to drop from churches! A wet spot you’d leave of him, and there’d be an end to it.”

Thomas puffed in rage, his sword half-bared. He excited his horse with the bit, choosing a good position to strike.

“Why should I matter a scuffle within a foreign city?” Oleg replied in vexation. “Each month a new Idol appears there. With his supporters! They call their leader a prophet, and the leader of others — an Idol, and others do it the way round, though I can barely tell them apart. Tsargrad is a rotten city. If her people don’t mind who rules them, why should we mind it?”

The hero goggled his eyes, his breath got heavy. “How dare you… What do you say? Tsargrad is a holy city! There’s the Patriarch of the Orthodox Church. That’s the place our Russian faith comes from!”

Oleg’s face got darker again, he gnashed his teeth. He looked as though he had a stabbing, bitter heartache. At once, Thomas felt a savage hate for the stranger, drew his sword, turned his stallion and made him back, to have a good running start.

“Russian,” Oleg repeated in a flat voice. His cheek gave a twitch, he stood as pallid as a dead man. “Your Patriarch bows and scrapes before the Idol, the basileus, before any prince who holds him in fist. Those left, Catholic believers don’t bow, after all! They see faith as faith and power as power. Fool you are! A fool of short memory… But is that your fault?”