Yury Nikitin - The Grail of Sir Thomas

Oleg stepped aside from the window on his toes. The knight’s armor lay on a wide bench, clean and polished to a shine, which could have hardly been done with Thomas’s own hands. The huge sword hung on two iron hooks in the wall. The steel-plated gauntlets were on the windowsill, beside flower pots… Just yesterday night, this woman was in terrible danger, and the knight was crucified, burnt, and tortured just a day before. Great is the vitality Gods endowed Man with. They must have prepared a hard lot for him.

The door slammed. Thomas entered the room, disheveled and smiling. His tanned face looked as if it had been stolen from another body – the tan ended abruptly at his throat. “How did you sleep, sir wonderer?”

“Well, thanks,” Oleg replied, staring at the knight. “And you have circles under eyes. You can stay here and have a rest.”

“And you?”

“I’m leaving after breakfast,” Oleg said with no further explanations.

Thomas looked embarrassed. He put his clothes on hastily, began to pace up and down the room. “Sir wonderer… We are both heading for the north. May we ride together to Constantinople at least? You have no way to escape it, neither have I. All roads from Asia lead to this second Rome – the only place where Europe meets Asia!”

“Why do you want it?”

“Sir wonderer, I’ll be frank with you. It is the woman.”

Oleg looked at the young knight intently. “What are you going to do? Sell her? We drove the rapists away but we can’t stay here to guard her innocence.”

Thomas sounded unhappy. “She has… entrusted herself to us. Her husband – or maybe her patron, I did not understand and felt no need to elicit – was killed last week. They took the horses, so she got stuck in the house. She begs to take her away from this scary place.”

Oleg came to the window, looked over the yard and Chachar at the green valley, the olive grove and curly bushes, at the blue merciless sky with not a hint of rain. He shrugged. “She did not beg me .”

Thomas looked miserable as he was at that moment. “Sir wonderer… I have my hands full with the cup. Maybe you could?..”

Oleg brought his quiver from another room, checked the arrows quickly and put it on his back. With a desperate look on his face, Thomas watched the strange pilgrim adjust his belt in a very professional way, drag the two-handed sword from under the bench. “Do what you like,” Oleg replied. “And I have no interest in women.”

“She’s not a woman! She’s a victim. We are bound to help her. Don’t your gods tell you to help the weak?”

Oleg cast a piercing look at him. “But Pagans are bad, aren’t they?”

“Not that bad!”

“Sir Thomas. I am looking for salvation for all people in the world.”

“So you let each single one die?”

Oleg paused, then asked abruptly, “What your woman wants?”

“ My woman? Sir wonderer!”

“Well, not yours then, though she thinks otherwise. What does she want?”

“She asked to take her to any big city.”

Oleg thought for a while. His shoulders, heavy as big stones, moved reluctantly. “Two days’ journey… We’ll be there by tomorrow evening. I can stand it. Then I’ll give you the horse – you need a spare one in all your steel. A remount , I mean.”

“And you?”

“On foot, as I’m used to.”

Thomas did not fathom why go on foot when you can ride, but he didn’t want to irritate his comrade and said nothing.

After they broke a hearty fast (Chachar put on the table all of her stock), Oleg went to the horses. There were six of them left by marauders. He saddled three as remounts and prepared the most beautiful one for Chachar, a highborn lady. At least Thomas very much wants her to be that.

When Thomas put his armor on (Chachar must have helped him) and stepped heavily out on the porch, three saddled horses were pawing the ground impatiently under the window. Three remounts were loaded with bags, packs, and bundles. The wonderer was searching the dead men, turning out their pockets, collecting coins and rings. He had fastened the captured sabers and darts to the remounts. Each spare horse also carried a water skin.

“Sir wonderer,” Thomas said with surprise, “are we crossing a desert?”

“There are no wells on the short cut. Without water, we’ll have to make a hook and over.”

“A hook? And over?”

“This is Rossian for a longer road. I mean that with own water supply we can take a shorter way.”

Thomas’s face expressed hesitation, as if he could not decide whether a shorter way was better. They say: he who cuts his way never comes home by night, and he who rides straight gets to devil. He turned his head and called Chachar. Her clear voice replied from inside, a clatter of dishes joined it. Thomas gave Oleg a guilty smile and went into the house.

Chachar came out in men’s clothing and a traveling cloak. She lingered on the porch, staring at the wonderer as if she had never seen him before. Thomas also stopped, gazing at the one who was his comrade in the stone quarry.

The wonderer had left his cloak in the house and came out in a short sleeveless wolfskin jacket, fur outside. The jack was open, allowing to see his breast, as wide as a granite slab, and his bare shoulders, massive and glistening like rocks. His longs arms seemed to be carved of a dark oak, so thick and strong they were, bulging with sinews and muscle. His body was mighty but his face still and humble. His fire-red hair was tied with a silk lace over the eyebrows. Thomas found this look strangely attractive,

The wonderer’s trousers were made of curried leather. His belt was thick, with iron pendants scattering sunbeams all along it. A flack and a narrow knife were suspended on rings on the left of his belt. Two rings on the right – for a short sword – remained empty.

“A sword, an axe, a cleaver,” Thomas offered. “Would you take any?” He descended from the porch, still staring at the transformed wonderer. Back in the stone quarry Oleg had not pined: on the contrary, he had fleshed out with dry muscle. Now his big body had not a drop of fat, as if it were forged of steel.

“I’ve left the axe on a remount,” Oleg replied indifferently. “I don’t like to carry much steel on.”

Thomas stroked his armor involuntarily. He thought that such a bull as the wonderer was born to carry whole mountain ridges. “Wolf skins were worn by barbarians who sacked Rome,” he said ironically.

“And destroyed it.”

“So they did,” Thomas agreed reluctantly. “But you are vulnerable like that!”

The wonderer turned the hem of his jacket back. On the inner side, two knife handles glittered side by side, identical as peas in a pod.

“Knives?” Thomas said in surprise. “What for?”

The wonderer stooped. Thomas pulled a knife carefully. It went out of the leather case in a reluctant, balking way, as if it didn’t want to leave its nest where its twin remained warm.

While Chachar walked around horses, shifting the saddle bags in her way, Thomas turned the knife in hand, watched the blade in enchantment. He remembered the throw with which the wonderer had cleaned their way out of the shape-shifter Baron’s castle.

The blade was razor-sharp, no longer than a palm, but heavy, thickened on end. One side has the cutting edge, while another, for some strange reason, a stripe of base copper riveted to the excellent steel. The gleaming blade is seated on the straight shabby bone of a handle covered with small notches. To prevent fingers from slipping , Thomas guessed. Once he saw the throwing knives of Assassins, members of a secret Saracen sect, but those had wooden hilts. In the best knives, the wood was stretched over with shark skin, so rough that even sweaty fingers would never slip off. He scratched the sparkling spot of damask steel on the top of the hilt: the blade was set through it, the upper end bent down to keep the bone in place firmly.