Yury Nikitin - The Grail of Sir Thomas

“Why this strip of copper?” he asked with displeasure. “It ruins the beauty!”

“Beauty?” Oleg smirked. “What’s beautiful about murder?”

“A murder holds no beauty,” Thomas replied with dignity, “but a joust does.”

“Yes. The more complicated and magnificent rite, the less the murder itself is visible… This strip protects against stabs.”

Thomas was surprised. “Fencing with such a short thing?”

“You’re still to be convinced that the world has other lands than Britain?”

Chachar mounted at last, tired of waiting for the knight to help her, when Thomas checked himself. She sent him a charming smile from the saddle. He smiled back guiltily, handed the knife back to the wonderer and mounted his huge stallion.

Oleg outrode the knight and the young woman to let them chat without him in the way. The day was bright and sunny, the bloody night left behind, as well as the house with the wounded man in its back room. Intact save broken bones, so he’ll go robbing and plundering again as soon as his broken leg knits.

The woman’s happy laughter and the knight’s manly voice were behind Oleg. He went deep into brooding. As his hand touched the charms habitually, a vague fear began to creep into his soul, breaking through clean and sublime thoughts about the secret purport of life and being. One charm stuck in his fingers too frequently – the one showing swords, arrows, fierce griffons and heavenly fire… The world is dangerous: villains rob on the roads, marauders break into villages, wolf packs wait for a lone traveler, but charms are silent about such daily mess, trifles and small inconveniences. That was the ordinary life – but now dangers seemed to be beckoned from every side, dragged onto their way!

Oleg looked himself over, then shot a glance back. The knight was telling Chachar of heroic deeds and battles, throwing out his chest proudly, roaring with laughter. Is he dangerous? An ordinary knight, one of many in this land captured by Arabs and then invaded by European hosts? Or is it the woman?

Oleg missed the moment when the woman’s laughter ceased. Suddenly, he heard Thomas nearby. “Sir wonderer, what’s the good of that copper?”

Oleg started, gave the knight a puzzled look. Thomas rode stirrup by stirrup with him, keen curiosity written on his face. Woman rode behind in resentful silence.

“I’m interested in weapons,” Thomas explained. “Surely, knives are no knightly weapon, but as a unit commander in the assault of Jerusalem, I learnt to use different… Not for myself, for I am a noble knight of Gisland, but for my men I had to… Do you understand, sir wonderer?”

“When you slash with swords,” Oleg said, annoyed with being brought back to mundane matters, “they collide and slide. The fight gets clumsy, ill-predictable… When I parry a blow with my knife, I know exactly where the enemy’s blade is. Copper is soft. A blade will not slip along it but be stopped.”

He took the knife out, handed it to the knight. Thomas turned it in hand, his gaze shifted to the wonderer’s big hands. “Isn’t the handle short for you?”

“Three fingers fit into? That’s enough. And there’s room for a thumb on another side. That will do for a good throw. The shorter handle is the better. Would you like a try? On the average, the thrown knife makes a turn in the air within seven steps, so it will stab the one standing or running in three, ten or thirteen steps.”

“What if the enemy’s in eight steps?”

“Then you make it turn faster. Or slower. That’s all.”

Thomas handed the knife back hastily. “No! A knight is not a kind of wandering Gypsy.”

“Hum… What about wandering knights?”

“Errant!” Thomas corrected indignantly. “ Errant knights! Back in the times of King Arthur and since then, the knights of the Round Table were erring in search of adventure…”

“Isn’t that what Gypsies do?.. Well, well. By the way, you can throw a knife in a knightly way – straight, as if it were a dart. With no turns! That is what the blade ends are made heavier for, and the handle is made of light wood or bone. Would you try?”

Thomas shook his head. “We, Angles of Britain, have an inquiring mind but little love for changes. A good sword and a long spear are our weapons for ever and ever! We shall always remain what God has made us!”

He reined up. Oleg rode farther, alone with his thoughts. Soon he heard the silver tinkle of woman’s laughter behind, then a hollow burst of the knight’s laughter. Oleg marveled at the powers of their vitality and endurance again. Gods must have prepared a hard way ahead for man. Otherwise they’d not give him such powers.

The road rose on a mountain peak and Oleg had time, before a descend, to take the environs in at a glance: green hills, a valley with smooth square fields, small villages – and a high ramparted castle far ahead. At the distance it seemed small like a toy, no details visible, but the road went there, swarmed with galloping riders and slow heavy-loaded carts.

Frowning, he drove his horse down slowly. The road was trodden, gently sloping, sided with old olives with swollen trunks and crooked branches that seemed to be bent in torment. The heat grew torrid. The bright blue sky was getting lighter until it was the off-white color of ashes. The air turned so dry that a breath of it was scratching. They saw hares darting and heard quails chirring in the wheat fields and thick grass along roadsides.

Thomas rode in his armor stoically, only his helmet off and hanging on the saddle hook. The wind ruffled his flaxen hair, tore drops of sweat off his red steamed face. Chachar tried to sing, laughed, kept stealing glances in the knight’s eyes of bright blue color, strange and wonderful in this land of brown-eyed people.

At noon Oleg spotted some rich greenery from a distance, turned there and found a small stream. They made a halt, watered horses. Chachar spread food and spices on the tablecloth. Oleg undressed, rinsed himself with the icy water that made its way upward to the sun from goodness-knows-which depth. Thomas watched him with envy. Finally, the knight could not help stripping naked himself and dipping into the stream, which was less than knee-deep. He screamed and laughed happily, raising clouds of sparkling spray. He also washed his clothes, beat them with stones and spread out in the grass to dry up.

When Oleg untied the bags of oat from horse snouts, Thomas was sitting near the stream, tearing his white skin with nails as hard as hooves, his face twisted with exceptional enjoyment. “Flies…” he moaned through gritted teeth. “Begot by Satan himself for torturing Christian knights. They get under pieces of armor where no Saracen saber can reach…”

“Flies? Really?”

“Disgusting white worms! They make flies, be it known to you, sir wonderer.”

“I know it,” Oleg muttered, “but a noble knight knowing that is a surprise!”

Thomas shook his head, scratching himself furiously. “You won’t believe what silly things are put in our heads as children! To be named a knight, one has to learn trivium and quadrivium, to sing and make verses, to read and write… But I, to tell the truth, went into knightly exercise most of all!”

“I can guess,” Oleg mumbled. “If even kings in Europe can’t read and sign with a cross …”

“It doesn’t matter,” Thomas dismissed with light heart. “As soon as a king receives a letter, he has a Jew caught and brought to him. All Jews can read and write, as required by their faith. The Jew reads the letter to the king. He dictates the answer, the Jew scribbles it, the letter is sealed and sent back with a rider! That’s all. And the king who gets the answer will also have a Jew brought to read it.”