he lost consciousness, his lips curled in a smile.
“Sir Thomas,” a stern voice over him called insistently, “come to yourself, now! Or you’ll die.” Once Thomas heard that familiar voice, he plunged, with effort, out of the black oblivion. The back of his head was still aching of the blow landed by the axe butt. He felt salty taste in his mouth.
The smooth marble floor was a pleasant cold to his bashed body. He and the wonderer were in a great hall: tall marble pillars on three sides, instead of usual walls, supporting the massive vault. The mosaic ceiling pictured flying cupids, goat-like satyrs jumping in embrace with naiads, maenads, and other impious characters of Hellenic Paganism. Oleg’s anxious face hung over Thomas, covering the ceiling: his eyes in dark circles, his cheek blooded. Behind him, the sun was shining brightly, and the wonderer’s face seemed completely dark.
In three steps, a red-bearded man in rich clothes was sitting on a high carved chair that looked like a throne. The eyes on his puffy face were cold and cruel. Two stocky guards with battleaxes stood near him, goggling their eyes. Two other guards shifted their feet impatiently near Oleg, touched his ribs threateningly with iron spearheads. The jailer with branded forehead and three hunters stood near the pillars.
Thomas moved his hands, but the iron chains kept them firmly. The wonderer stood with his shoulders leaned back, trying to relieve the pain in his arms pinioned behind.
“If doesn’t come to,” a new voice said, imperious and impatient, “throw him to dogs!.. And you answer: why are you chained while he is not?”
Two guards grabbed Thomas by hands, dragged across the hall. When they approached the stairs, the sun came out of the edge of the ceiling, shone into his eyes. Thomas closed them, groped for the guards’ arms, caught them, and pulled on. Both men collapsed, shrieking. Thomas squeezed their necks with joy, got up to his feet heavily. The guards remained lying in odd poses, their heads wrenched in a strange way.
Two men with battleaxes recovered their wits, rushed to him. The sun glared on their raised axes.
“All stop!” the man on the carved throne shouted. The warriors stopped, their eyes watched every move of Thomas in a guarded way. He shot a glance at the wonderer: Oleg did not move and gave Thomas a sign to stand still too.
Thomas turned to the master. “Why do you keep us?”
The man descended from his throne, stopped in three steps before the knight. His dark eyes looked with perplexity: that way a wolf could look at a hare who dug his suddenly big teeth into his paw. “Who are you?”
“Thomas Malton of Gisland,” the knight cut short with dignity. “A noble knight, seven generations of noble ancestors! Championed over the Black Knight on the tourney in Manchester. The first crusader to rise on the Tower of David. Commander of the hundred who broke into Jerusalem.”
The man waved away, as though driving an importunate fly. “Never heard of that. The Tower of David — where’s it? Jerusalem — what’s it?.. Here are different lands, noble captive. I’m a man of Sezuan. I’m known as Rocambole the Quietest. I took you in my lands — and have a right to do what I wish to. And I will do it. But listen to your excuses first.”
“We are not going to give any excuses,” Thomas said angrily.
Rocambole turned his head a bit, cried over shoulder. “Gnusak! Prepare the torture chamber. Make a
The branded man bowed, rushed across the yard. Rocambole turned to Thomas, his lips curved in a predatory smile, his eyes goggled like a rare sea fish’s. “You will tell all of it, noble knight! Not the first to be carried out of my cellar in pieces. Or fed to dogs while alive — I always keep them half-starving.”
Thomas scowled, his eyebrows collided on the bridge of the nose. “You are no Saracen but European! How can you…”
Rocambole roared with laughter. “Saracens have never even dreamed of what we do in our cellars! We are young nation, still wild! We can do everything.”
There were fast steps on the stairs. The branded man came in sight, cried out, panting, “All is ready, master! Executioners wait, the fire burns… Pinches and hooks sharpened!”
Rocambole bared his teeth in a predatory smile, nodded to guards. Thomas and Oleg were encircled by shining spears, two spearheads pierced Thomas’s back from behind. Rocambole nodded again, and captives were driven away from the hall.
They were coming downstairs into the yard, when a ringing clatter of hooves came from far ahead. Five riders, armed to the teeth, in iron helmets, on clothed horses, jumped over the low fence into the yard. The first of them was… Gorvel!
Some blooded cloths peeped from under his solid cylindrical helmet. His right shoulder was bound tightly by a white towel with large red-hot spots of blood on it. Gorvel was followed by four gloomy warriors, all big and armored. It took Thomas some time to recognize Paul and Stelmah among them.
Gorvel reined up before the stairs. “Aha!” he cried in a strained voice. “Got you at last! Slash these stinkers! Slash them now!”
The four warriors drove their horses in a slow pace to the marble stairs. Sabers in their hands glittered in the sunlight, casting bright sparkles.
Rocambole stepped ahead, on the topmost stair. “Who are you?” he bellowed in an angry, enraged voice. “Who allowed… in my lands?”
Gorvel shot a fierce glance at him and told angrily the dressed-up, like a peacock, master of the sumptuous palace to go to very far lands. Gorvel’s men laughed, sabers in their hands scattered fine sharp sparkles around.
Rocambole grew crimson, made a step back, waved his hand abruptly. Stelmah rode up to Thomas, raised the saber over his head with a malevolent smirk. Suddenly his fingers unclenched, the saber fell down and went bouncing on the white marble. Thomas looked up and recoiled: a crossbow bolt was in Stelmah’s forehead, it had broken through his iron helmet.
He heard a loud clang of sword aside. Paul leaned back in his saddle, his arms outstretched wide, as though to grapple all the world. A steel bolt was between his eyes. Behind the pillars, three more crossbowmen shouldered their weapons, aiming at Gorvel and his men. The first two crossbowmen turned wrenches hastily, drawing the steel bowstrings.
From the stone barns in the yard, even from the stables, armored warriors came out: two or three scores in total. Gorvel and two of his survived soldiers got encircled with malicious glitter of swords, axes, jagged spearheads.
Rocambole was covered with shields from both sides. He spoke in a loud cold voice that sounded like death itself. “What would you say as your excuse, worm? I’m ready to listen, though I’ll treat you as I wish… Gnusak, is the furnace burning?”
The branded man rubbed his hands with joy, shrieked with delight. “If short of firewood, I bring new in my teeth! Three more came, eh! Came running by themselves, no need to search!”
Gorvel fidgeted in his saddle, looked over the cruel smirking faces in fear. He was surrounded tightly, reached for by predatory hands to drag him down, and the damned crossbowmen — seven of them! — kept aiming at him. He jerked his hand up hastily, to drive Rocambole’s attention, made a strange move across his breast, as though drawing an acute angle.
Rocambole’s eyes opened wide, he started back, as though pushed on the breast. Warily, he put his fingers together, drew a strange sign in the air. Gorvel bent his head. “All back!” Rocambole said, very reluctantly, hoarse of his voice at once. “These are no enemies.”
His warriors retreated, grumbling like animals when driven into cages. Swords and axes, which were raised overhead, went down but remained in hands, while scabbards and covers empty. Their sullen faces showed severe disappointment. Four of them picked up the bodies, dragged away, leaving bloody traces on the white marble stairs. The dead men’s saber and sword were taken away then. The crossbowmen lowered their weapons, but stayed on spot, with drawn steel strings.
Gorvel rode up to Thomas, his voice a dull thrash in the steel basket of his helmet. “You didn’t escape, our mortal… and my personal enemy!”
Thomas, with complete ignorance of the heavy rider hanging over them, turned to Oleg. “This scoundrel is doomed to Hell… but he’s already got it here, in his lifetime!”
“Spit,” Oleg advised him. “Stop even thinking of him.”
