Yury Nikitin - The Grail of Sir Thomas

Thomas went crimson and began to puff up, but Oleg said meekly, “Thank you, good people. We’ll spent the night with you.”

“Have you made a long way?”

“Very long.”

The merchants asked no more questions. If a man can’t or doesn’t want to speak, he should not be forced. One must not count money in the pockets of others, as many like to do. Neither one should pump others for what he wants to know. They’ll tell you if they like.

Thomas took some lard and a head of cheese out of his bags: it doesn’t befit to eat only the food of others and hide what you have. The merchants found a skin of brew, and it went from hand to hand around the fire. After the meal, they started a cautious conversation about who the travelers were and where they were heading for.

Questions were asked in a way that allowed to evade easily. You never know whom you may meet in woods, so you’d better hurt no one. It’s the time of trouble: princes lay hands on everything, foreign missionaries scour around, some trying to win people over to another faith, others persuading princes into close unions with either Kazimir or the Polovtsians, or whatever other dark and far-going aims they have. We merchants can’t always see our benefit at once, so we’d better offend no one but watch, listen, and sniff for whatever we can gain from all that stuff.

When the skin got half empty, they began a sedate and wise talk about how to make Rus’ better, how to live right, how to bring peace and order at last to the lands that had always been in disorder, where the order was only promised, to where long ago they’d even called Germans, in hope they would make order, but even Germans failed: it was Rus’, no Deutschland of theirs.

The wonderer squirmed, then asked, “Germans? Was Rurik a German?”

“A Kraut,” the merchant confirmed, then thought for a while, scratched his head. “Or a Yid. No way to know for sure.”

At the height of the revelry, when Thomas was going to try his luck in game, as play and way is where people show their true colors, in play and bath everyone is equal, playing is not stealing – there was a sudden rustle in the tree tops. The air went trembling, some blue sparks flashed and died out at once. Branches broke with a crunch, as a bough… not, a whole log was falling onto the ground.

The log tumbled down and appeared to be hollow inside. Before anyone could say knife, a lean and tiny old woman got out of there, like a giant bark beetle. Her face was wrinkled like a baked apple, she had no teeth but her eyes were sharp. She dusted off hastily: wooden crumbs were stuck in her shaggy grey hair, as if she were really gnawing at the wood. “Hail to everyone,” she said quickly. “Don’t be afraid, I shan’t hurt you. For some reason, I feel really sated today. I’ll only warm by the fire if you don’t mind.”

The eldest merchant made a hiccup, forced out, “We don’t… We don’t mind it at all. Not at all!”

The old woman came closer. She was clad in rags hanging from her body like the wings of an old bat used to sleeping among cobwebs. Her pin-sharp eyes measured at once the motionless figures of Thomas and Oleg. Thomas kept his palm alerted on the hilt of two-handed knightly sword. There was a nail from Christ’s cross in it, hammered deeply. The nail sprinkled with the noblest blood has the power to protect against all the crafty designs by devil and his servants. Surely, it would only protect those who’s devoted in their faith. My chaplain promised that. Oh shit, it’s another sword I have now!

“The news of the two of you have spread over all the earth.”

Oleg, finishing the stale slice of cheese, objected with his mouth full, “Hardly all of it!”

“All of ours,” the old woman specified.

“Sit down, warm your bones. A knowing woman?”

“Now they call me witch. People know nothing about the old knowledge and us who keep it. And they don’t want to know.”

Oleg clenched his jaws. Again, like many times before, ignorance comes into the world with triumph. In past, literacy could be promoted by force, but this new faith of the weak and poor in spirit proclaims those weak, dirty, and ignorant the most pleasing to the new god. And literacy is from devil. Beat and burn the literate!

Thomas looked with disgust. He didn’t cross himself (it did not befit a man to be afraid of a woman, even a witch) but set aside, lest he touch her by accident with his iron elbow and get his armor rusty.

The witch lifted her hands. A rustle in the tree tops again, crunch and fall of boughs. The merchants darted sideways. A patterned tablecloth spread on the green grass, some narrow-necked jugs, the likes of which Oleg had only seen in Hellas, tumbled on the ground. Two colossal winebowls, one of home brew, another of heady mead, emerged silently, small scoops plopped down, and in the middle of the tablecloth, moving other things aside, a roast boar appeared with an apple in mouth.

“Paganism!” Thomas said with disgust. “Devil’s work!”

“Don’t eat,” Oleg suggested.

“What next,” Thomas was insulted. “Devil might think I’m afraid of his servants!” He was the first to take out a dagger (narrow and very sharp, the only fit thing to finish off a knocked-down knight by thrusting the blade into his visor slit), stabbed the boar with joy, as though taking a Saracen’s life. There came a smell of fragrant meat. The boar was young and juicy. It seemed to be no forest animal but the one fattened in the warm and care, with milk and fresh bread.

Oleg, laughing up his sleeve, snatched the slices of roast meat from the fire. The merchants exchanged glances and reached for scoops. The eldest one pushed his cross deeper into his collar, scooped the brew at once and took a slice of meat from Oleg, tasted the brew, listened to himself. A contented smile appeared on his face.

The merchants ate and drank the witch’s treat with caution at first, but when the brew got into heads, there were born Pagans drinking and bellowing songs by the fire. One even raised the hag to dance, and when some yellow eyes, definitely not wolfish, started to gleam from behind the trees in the night, no one caught at his cross. The eldest one even made an inviting gesture: the tablecloth would feed everyone if the hag spoke truth. In the night woods we are all brothers.

When the embracing merchants bellowed obscene songs, the witch turned to Oleg and Thomas. Her voice fell to a whisper. “What have you done?”

“And what have you heard?” Oleg asked back.

The witch paid no heed to him. Her small sharp eyes were piercing Thomas.“What do thou bear… with thee or in thee, that thou are spoken about even in the High mountains?”

Thomas hesitated, glanced at sir wonderer. Oleg said in a louder voice, “What does it matter to you? Eavesdropping is bad.”

The witch looked him over with disdain. “Tell me… Are thou with him?”

“I am. What did you hear?”

The witch turned her piercing eyes on the knight again. “They are rather afraid of something. Bad sound, but I grasped they were sending to stop you…”

“They came to stop me,” Thomas grunted.

“And what?”

“They’ll come to no other place. Unless dragged by devils.”

The witch examined him with growing interest. She ignored the knight’s irritation, Oleg understood why. An ignorant angel. Just a child, however big and strong he looks. A capricious, quick-tempered child of the new world. Not the best one: still a long time before we can see what this world is truly worth, so now it’s simply new. How can one be angry with a child? “Very proud words… And thou are not the one who cringes. That’s laudable.”

“He cringes,” Oleg said venomously. “Before no dragon but before the cross, bones, splinters, a footprint in stone… He also spits over shoulder, crosses himself often, whispers, crooks his fingers behind, scared of something like a hare.”