Yury Nikitin - The Grail of Sir Thomas

Thomas burst out of the shadow with roar, bent down to the horse’s neck, his lance pointed ahead. The two closest villains froze on the spot, advancing their daggers. Thomas pierced one through like a leaf, his bones crunched under the lance, another was trampled by his destrier. The night filled with terrible cries. Men were running away from the house, falling. In the ghostly moonlight Thomas saw glittering silver feathers in their necks, backs and breasts. The arrows went easily into the flesh of half-naked villains.

Thomas’s lance had been left behind, so he pulled out a sword, slashed the third villain slantwise, brandished at the next one but saw a white bloom opened at his chest, with a wooden stem. The villain fell to his knees, blood gushed out from his mouth. Thomas yelled, shook his sword at Oleg. The rest three were fleeing along the road, their coal-black shadows darting ahead of them like night birds. Thomas bellowed and drove his warhorse after them.

Oleg rode out of shadows slowly, an arrow on his bow string. He watched and listened, but there were only death rattles and moans in the night. Soon he heard the thud of hooves that amplified to thunder. A big ferocious knight burst out onto the lawn in all his magnificence, a huge sword slantwise in hand, big drops falling on the ground from the blade. He seemed to be just out of butchery, even his horse splashed with blood.

“You killed all!” Thomas barked at Oleg. “Could you have been a slower shooter?”

“As a child, I was taught to have seven arrows in the air.”

“We are not in your Pagan Rus’! Here, in the Christian world, men can barely shoot at all.” He pulled up, made a circle around the lawn. The wounded men tried to crawl away, moaning, leaving dark traces of blood behind. Soon they got silent and motionless, with their fingers dug into the ground.

The door was opened with caution. A pale female face appeared in the slit, then her thin hand. Making sure of no villains on the porch, the woman came out silently: small, thin in waist, her eyes big and scared.

Thomas waved his metal hand at her. The sword, dark with blood, was still in it. The knight checked himself, wiped the blade hastily and sheathed it. Oleg took the bow string off, hid the bow in its case. The woman ran down briskly, her heels tapped on the porch as a squirrel’s paws. She bent over a wounded villain, turned him to his back.

Thomas touched the reins, his stallion moved closer to the woman, like a dark mountain, the ground trembling and thumping under his hooves. The woman jerked up her head, her face pale, her eyes wide with fear. “Thank you for your interference, noble knight,” she said quickly.

“It’s my duty,” Thomas replied gallantly.

“Now… please help me carry this man into the house.”

“What for?” Thomas wondered.

“To put him to bed, to dress his wound!”

Thomas’s gauntlet slapped on the saddle. “Woman! You feel pity for a beast who wanted to take you by force and kill you! Let him die. As a Christian, I’m never angry with the dead.”

“Then you should have killed him at once!” she objected passionately. “Now the fight is over, it’s time to lick wounds. I won’t have a man die at my door! Even if he’s no man but an evil wolf!”

Oleg dismounted. “Open the door. I’ll help.”

He seized the wounded man by his collar and belt. The woman ran up the porch. Thomas dismounted, his good spirits lost. This silly woman knows nothing. The beginning was fine: a cry for help, a brief fight, a woman saved – but then all of it turned folly. Province! And the wonderer could be expected of even less so. A Pagan, uneducated, just out of caves where any good manners can hardly be learnt.

While the men was put to bed and Oleg dressed his wounds and the woman – Chachar was her name – warmed some water, Thomas examined the bodies outside. Five dead, two wounded badly: unconscious, hardly able to breath. Thomas was glad the merciful woman had not noticed them. He took out his misericord, a long narrow dagger made to finish wounded knights off through a visor slit, and stabbed their throats.

Five villains were killed with arrows: shot in head, in throat, two shot in heart, and Oleg’s arrow in back had also reached the heart. One man was span with lance like a bug with a spin. The one trampled by the destrier had been carried to the house. On the road, Thomas had run down and slashed three more. Overall, he had sent to the Hell five – as many as the wonderer.

Cheered up a bit, he tethered the horses and started to pull the arrows out. The force with which the wonderer had sent them was amazing. Some men were pierced through. By the moment he plucked all five arrows, he got all covered with blood again, like a butcher. Bow is a dreadful weapon. The Holy Church had a purpose to oppose it and to prohibit crossbows, or arbalests, at all. With a bow, even a coward can slay a hero. If heroes die and ambushed cowards remain safe, it will put an end to courage. Battles should be honest: breast to breast, face to face!

He wiped the arrows clean, washed himself in the barrel of water near the porch and went into the house.

Chapter 6

The small woman’s house was neat and tidy, with fire blazing in a big stove and stew gurgling appetizingly in pots. Chachar served bowls to the table. Her cheeks reddened and eyes glistened while she stared at Thomas and Oleg in joy. She was young and tempting, her ripe breasts almost bounced out of her low-necked dress – so light in that southern heat that it did not hide her sinful, as the Christian faith put it, body but draw seductively its every detail.

Oleg, a Pagan, feasted his eyes upon the young woman gladly, but Thomas began to feel uneasy. Twice he choked with tiny pieces of meat. Chachar kept serving him more and more of it, pouring with sauces, sprinkling with herbs, spices, red and black pepper – and looking in his eyes, moving her whole body closer to him, all but whining and waving her tail like a pup. Her lips, plump as ripe cherries, came apart, showing pearl-white teeth, as pointed as a child’s. Her whole being caught every desire of the brave knight.

Oleg ate unhurriedly. He did not listen to the conversation but replayed the fight in his mind’s eyes and approved own behavior gloomily. He had felt no desire to kill, no warrior’s delight – he was just annoyed and blankly sad. That meant he could keep his bow and arrows: they would not make him go astray. Neither would they obscure his search for Truth.

The house had two rooms, the wounded man lying in the back one. He dared not to moan, in fear of being killed if they heard. Chachar brought him some food and came back anxious. “He has a fever… What can we do?”

Thomas waved aside with irritation but Oleg was the first to reply. “I’ll have a sleep there and see to him.” He stood up.

“Would you stay at the table for a bit more time?” Chachar said briskly. “Men love to feast! I can bring some old wine, a couple of jugs I still have in my cellar.”

“We’ve had a shattering day,” Oleg replied. On the threshold of another room, he turned back and nodded at Thomas. “But sir knight might amuse you with his stories. He’d been fighting the Holy Land free, storming Jerusalem…”

He shut the door behind him, fell on the bed that was knocked of planks roughly. The wounded man held his breath in another corner. Oleg put his hands behind his head and fell fast asleep.

But he had touched his charms before, so his dreams were full of blood and fear.

Early in the morning, he woke up to merry voices outside. Thomas, naked to his waist, washed his face near the water barrel. Chachar poured water on his hands, laughing, trying to splash it on his back – white as a woman’s but muscular as a proper man’s, with two bluish scars under the shoulder blade. The knight squealed, jumped aside: the water was icy cold, taken from a spring.