Yury Nikitin - The Grail of Sir Thomas

Thomas pricked up his ears. “Well,” he said warily, “maybe he was a distant ancestor of Malton family…”

“He was also the founder of Olympic games,” the wonderer added.

“What is that?”

“A sort of games.”

“Pagan games? No. Pelop was none of my ancestors.”

“A sort of knightly jousting. And he also was the first champion.”

The knight’s honest, half-washed face displayed inward struggle. Oleg put the remaining onions down for Thomas, got up. His voice was heavy. “You have enough gold coin to buy a horse in Kiev. The road ahead is relatively safe. Across countries not so wild as those we passed.”

Thomas got out hastily, pulled his knitted clothing on his wet body, climbed into his armor. Only then he looked in the wonderer’s green eyes, which now were dark like two forest lakes. “And you?”

Oleg shook his head. “I need nothing in Kiev. I’m a hermit, a cave dweller, and all the caves are on this bank.”

They embraced, then the wonderer turned round and walked away hastily. In silence, Thomas watch his tall figure wear thin gradually in the moonlight. A last flash of sparkles on the polished sword hilt, and he vanished in the dark.

Thomas felt miserable, though in his nomadic life of knight errant he had parted with more than one fine friend. Some died, other settled in the bestowed lands, someone came back to his native castle, another left in the same way: after a short embrace and a wish of good luck, to recall his old friend and far lands briefly some day when he is old.

With a sigh, Thomas sat down on the edge of moorings again. He had no more hunger, so he sighed again, put the remnants of bread and meat down on the broad soft leaves, which looked like elephant’s ears. I need to take a first ferry to the city, buy a horse, or better two, and hurry across civilized countries to come back by Saint Boromir’s Day. Due to the dragon serpent, I made half a way in two days and nights and now I have at least a week of time left!

The night was leaving slowly, the eastern edge went slightly red. The knight’s eyes, accustomed to the dark, discerned the most delicate hues.

He seemed to hear a creak of logs behind. Glad of the wonderer’s coming back for some forgotten thing, he wheeled round abruptly. A flash in eyes, then a tight loop fell down on his shoulders. Thomas seized his sword, felt a pound in head, dropped the blade and collapsed prone on the wet logs.

He came to all but at once, tried to jump up but managed only a twitch, as he was tied up firmly into a likeness of caterpillar. Some dim shapes moved over Thomas In the twilight of dawn. He discerned voices. “I’d rather kill him… Knife in back, that for his sort!” – “You afraid?” – “An’ you? No me face such man for all gold on earth!”

The sound of steps got closer. Thomas jerked up his head with effort, twisted with sharp pain in the back of it. Before his face, there were high hunting boots, a dim glitter of spurs. He turned his head, clenching his teeth not to let a moan out.

A familiar voice, strangely hissing, came from above. “Well, Sir Thomas… what would you say now?” A strange man stood over him, resting on one leg. His sight made Thomas tremble all over and froze his blood. The man had a hump, his left shoulder higher than the right one, both arms in fresh scars. Instead of left hand, he had a small red stamp with white protruding bone. His clothes were baggy, his head hid beneath a helmet completely.

“God keeps patience for long,” Thomas croaked, “but he does strike, Sir Gorvel!”

“He strikes best who strikes last,” Gorvel’s husky voice rustled from behind his iron mask.

“Let’s kill him now !” a different man said anxiously. “I’m afraid.”

“A member of the Counsel of Secret Seven is to come,” Gorvel hissed. “To see whether he has some magic powers.”

“But it was one went away who had magic!”

“I can hear the steps of her!” Gorvel snapped in a husky angry voice. “You may kill him straight after.”

The warrior gave Thomas a kick. “At last you parted with your friend!” he said maliciously, twisting his mouth. “You, iron-bound scarecrow, don’t know he was the only match for me, Black Warrior. Once he injured me, left this scar on my face, but it was just because my foot slipped… He destroyed the Khazarian host I was leading against King Rumal… Killed ten of my brothers, lords of eastern lands. Only I and my elder brother Karganlyk survived… You were a fool to part with him!”

Through the lapping of Dnieper waves, he heard patting of feet. A small woman in a man’s cloak emerged on the moorings. The hood was pulled over her eyes, but she moved it back on her shoulders at once. She was fragile, her face pale and innocent, her eyebrows raised in surprise, an offended look in her big brown eyes. Thomas wished to shield her from danger immediately, to save her even from the morning chill and river dampness.

She cast a brief glance at him, spoke in a low husky voice, which made Thomas’s heart ache sweetly. “No need of it… but thank you, all the same. Where’s the cup, Gorvel?”

Groaning, Gorvel stooped to pick Thomas’s bag. “Here it is!”

She took the bag with no look within, made a nod in the side of Thomas. “Why is he here?”

“For you to see,” Gorvel replied in a very respectful tone. “He is too viable, strangely viable… Does he have any magic?”

The small woman looked closely at Thomas. He felt invisible fingers running on his chest, shivered in fright when those fingers reaching under his heavy armor, froze in fear while her fingertips examined his heart and brain quickly… Her eyes went dark, she spoke out in a restrained voice. “No magic. But immense courage and will!”

Clasping the bag tightly, she started a walk on the moorings back. “Your Might,” Gorvel said respectfully but with a well-hidden mockery in his voice, “we could leave together…”

She glanced over at him coldly. Her voice was razor-sharp. “Gorvel, you are not even a grandmaster! You are still closer to a plain hangman than to the members of Secret Seven!”

Gorvel trembled, fell down on his knees. The woman left. Thomas caught a last glimpse of her straight back, removed hood – and his own bag with the cup lost forever.

Gorvel turned his head slowly to the witness of his humiliation, his eye, blazing with fury, flashed in the slit. Thomas felt disgusted. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the Black Warrior taking a knife out of his belt. Thomas froze. The Black would knife him like a sheep, like a chicken, killing a man is the same to him as adjusting his belt. A civilizer. A champion of progress…

The Black smiled maliciously. He spotted the fear in the knight’s eyes, his desperate attempts to release hands or at least to jerk his head away from the knife. The Black brought the blade to Thomas’s throat, his grin went broader. “Finish!” Gorvel croaked. “Finish off now!”

Thomas’s lips moved silently, as he made prayers. His eyes were fixed on the gleaming blade. The sun finally came out, the tip of the knife blazed with a terrible orange glare, as though burning hot.

Suddenly the fingers faltered. The knife blade made a wary swing, like the head of a snake about to jump. Then the fingers unclenched, dropping the knife. With a dull thud, it went into the log before Thomas’s face, all but cutting the tip of his nose. Perplexed, Thomas wrenched his head: the Black Warrior was falling on his back, his mouth gasping. In his left eye socket, a feathered arrow end trembled voluptuously.

Gorvel started, with either astonishment or the strong blow heard clearly to Thomas: a long arrow cut through the mail, went deep into the left side of the chest. The Black Warrior collapsed with a thunder that made the moorings shake, sprawled like a tall tree. Gorvel sank down slowly on his corpse, sobbing with fury, grasping at the arrow with his stump.