Chapter 6

The house of the small woman was neat and tidy, with fire burning in the big stove and appetizing gurgle in pots. Chachar was serving bowls to the table, her cheeks reddened, 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, which was so light in that southern heat that it did not hide her sinful, as the Christian faith put it, body but draw every detail of it seductively.

Oleg, a Pagan, glanced at the young woman gladly, but Thomas started feeling 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, pointed like a child’s. Her whole being was catching 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 only annoyed and blankly sad. That meant he could keep his bow and arrows: they would not make him go astray, neither obscure the search for Truth.

The house had two rooms, the wounded man lying in the back one. He dared not to moan, in fear to be 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 replied first. “I’ll go to sleep there and see to him.” He stood up.

“Maybe you will stay at the table for a while?” 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 down on the bed. Its planks were knocked together roughly. The wounded man held his breath in another corner. Oleg put his hands behind his head, fell fast asleep.

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

Early in the morning, he was awaken by merry voices outside. Thomas, naked to his waist, was washing his face near the barrel with water. Chachar poured water on his hands, laughing, trying to splash it on his back – white as 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.

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… However, the woman was in terrible danger only last night and the knight was crucified, burnt, and tortured just a day before. Gods endowed Man with great vitality. They must have prepared him for a hard life.

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 replied with no further explanations.

Thomas looked embarrassed. He put his clothes on hastily, paced up and down the room. “Sir wonderer… We are both heading 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? To 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 didn’t 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. “It was not me she begged.”

Thomas looked miserable as he was at that moment. “Sir wonderer… I’ve got 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 will,” Oleg replied. “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 the 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 of you?”

“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 stout one in all your steel. A remount, I mean.”

“And you?”

“On foot, as I am used to.”

Thomas did not fathom why to go on foot if you could ride, but he didn’t want to anger 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, as Thomas wants her to be very much.

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’d 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 will never get home by night, and who rides straight will get 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’d never seen him before. Thomas also stopped, gazing at his comrade in the stone quarry.

The wonderer had left his cloak in the house and came out in a short sleeveless wolfskin jacket, its fur outside. The skin 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 that threw 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 has 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.”

Thomas stroked his armor involuntarily. He thought that such a bull as the wonderer was born to carry 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 from 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 the end. The cutting edge is on one side and on the other, 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.

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

“Beauty?” Oleg smirked. “What is beautiful about murder?”

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

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

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

“You’re still to be convinced that there are 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 the back room. He remained whole save broken bones, so he will 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 started creeping 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 traveler, but charms are silent about such daily mess, trifles and small inconveniences. That’s all ordinary life – but now dangers seem to be beckoned from every side, dragged onto our 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, bursting with laughter. Is he dangerous – an ordinary knight, plenty of those 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 had stopped. 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 while a unite 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 returned to mundane matters, “they collide and slide. The fight gets clumsy, ill-predictable… Parrying 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 stop.”

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 it. And there’s room for a thumb on another side. That’s enough for a good throw. The shorter the handle, the best. 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 the kind of wandering Gypsy.”

“Hum… What about wandering knights?”

“Errant!” Thomas corrected indignantly. “Errant knights! Back in the times of King Arthur and since that, 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 – straightly as if it were a dart. With no turns! That is what the blade ends are made heavier and the handle is made of light wood or bone for. 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 remain what God 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 in the environs 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: their trunks swollen, their crooked branches 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 the drops of sweat off his red steamed face. Chachar tried to sing, laughed, kept shooting glances in the knight’s eyes of that bright blue color, strange and wonderful in this land of brown-eyed men.

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 couldn’t 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, spread out in the grass to dry up.

When Oleg untied the bags of oat from the 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 needs 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, it’s required by their faith. The Jew reads the letter to the king. He dictates the answer, the Jew scrabbles 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.”

“Very convenient,” Oleg agreed.

Thomas did not catch the sarcasm. He reached an itching place between his shoulder blades and groaned with joy. “Call Chachar,” Oleg offered. “She has a cat’s nails.”

Thomas glanced back warily at the woman. She was sitting half-turned in few steps, listening. Her cheek and pink ear were blush red, hands moved awkwardly, dropping meat, eggs and onions. “I can’t,” Thomas replied finally. “She’s a woman of noble birth! I can’t make her do this plain work.”

“Surely, a common woman would have scratched your back better. But she’s not to be found here.”

After the lunch and a brief rest, they continued on their journey. Soon they rode in a hundred steps past a strange ancient building. It stood in a flat valley, high thick grass swaying around it, the entrance overgrown with shrubs, thick green ropes climbing up the walls, clinging to the cracks, their leaves glistening like wax. The building was enormous, gloomy, formed by huge grey stone blocks. Having been abandoned for centuries, dented by winds and heat, it was a silent memory of ancient empires and vanished nations.

Oleg felt anguish gnawing at his heart. It is known that Black God would not allow Man to climb out from wildness and ignorance to the shining peaks where the Fair Gods dwell! He plots and impedes, but people are helped by Fair Cods who created them. However, there is still more loss than success on the thorny path. A seat of culture is barely created when the wild hordes sent by Black God would ruin its prospering cities, burn libraries, destroy dams and canals… It is raised from the ruins – and ruined, burned and butchered again by beastly men. Endlessly, all the time… Too much loss, blood and suffering.

Surely, the Man is moving to the shining peak. Though rolling down almost to the bottom after each disaster, he then climbs a bit higher than he did the last time. The young European kingdoms, despite their ignorance and violence of savages, are more humane in their heart as compared to the ancient empires that left the ruins of colossal circuses where live men – the gladiators – had been fighting to death. The empires had built pyramids, lighthouses and temples where thousands of people were sacrificed, while in the new Barbarian faith there was only one human sacrifice the last and the greatest one: Christ, the founder of the faith, gave his life. Since that, people are not sacrificed any more, the battles of gladiators are replaced by the races of chariots…

The evening was falling. They headed for the crimson half of the sky: it looked like covered with dry blood, dark and brown, bright purple drops let out in the ruptures only. The sun was half below the skyline, long reddish shadows lay across the evening land.

The road led to the castle that stood out gloomily against the crimson sun and expanded with every step they made. Oleg looked at it with a sullen eye, urged his horse on, so that to pass by it before dark. The lands around the castle looked swept by a terrible storm. Everything was broken, trampled, and soiled. Wide stubs glistened in place of the grove, for the trees had been sawn down almost at the ground level. The castle stands in the middle of trampled field – freshly built, its watchtowers still not roofed. No annexes: only a great square keep of four floors and stables and a rampart surrounding a large area of the roughly loosened ground. The main building has holes instead of windows, some with fresh-forged grates in them. A flag with eagles, dragons and roaring bears is flying over the castle gate.

Thomas was telling Chachar loudly and competently that shrubs and trees had been cut down and grass burnt in order not to allow a wicked enemy to get close without being seen. The land is still Saracen, Christian warriors need to consolidate the captured lands urgently. After that, they will be able to extend their noble rule to other Pagan nations.

They had passed the castle when the gate opened and two riders burst out at full tilt. Both shouted loudly, waved their hands. Thomas reined up and turned his horse slowly, his lance pointed menacingly at the strangers who were approaching. Oleg rode aside, took his bow and draw the string briskly. Chachar hid behind the back of the shining knight.

Two unarmed, except for daggers on their belts, young boys in very bright clothes came to them unhurriedly, stopped in three steps. One of the boys raised his palm. “I am a squire of Sir Gorvel, the noble knight!” he said in a clear ringing voice. “My lord asks you, tired travelers, to do him a honor of your visit! You are invited to have a rest in the castle. Your horses will be fed by choice corn, and you will be woken up in the morning… if only you don’t prefer to stay for few more days.”

Oleg took in a breath, intending to refuse firmly, when Thomas cried happily. “Gorvel? We climbed the walls of Jerusalem together with him, like two evil monkeys! Arrows swishing, stones flying, and two of us standing back to back… Is it his castle? He’s a seignior now?”

“The king granted him these lands,” the squire replied with such pride as if he had been granted with them. “There are only seven of us. The rest are Saracens, hireling, and vagrant folk, but the location is perfect – the crossing of caravan roads!”

Thomas waved imperiously for Oleg to come to, drove his horse along the road to the castle. Chachar cast a triumphant look at the wonderer who looked like a wild animal to her. She caught up with the magnificent knight and young squires briskly. Oleg hid the arrow, followed them reluctantly.

The squires shouted to the guards at the gate. One of them blew a horn, though the guards had seen them from the wall before. The squires made way respectfully for guests, including Oleg in his barbarian clothes. He couldn’t help shuddering. He had never liked strangers behind his back, especially when his soul was shrinking with a vague foreboding of evil.

The gate swung open. In their way, blocking the passage, a huge red-bearded knight stood in his armor, his helmet in the crook of right arm, his shoulder-long hair, as red as fire, ruffled slightly by the wind.

Thomas vaulted off the horse heavily with a clang of steel. The red-bearded knight came to him. They embraced with such a thunder as if two forgers thrown by giant hands collided. While they clapped each another on shoulders and shouted happily, it sounded like an iron gate being knocked out by a ram, with sparks scattering around.

“Sir Thomas!”

“Sir Gorvel!”

The squires and a handful of guards were standing around in a sparse circle, looking at the mighty warriors in silent awe. Finally, one man dared to raise his sword and cry glory to the Crusader army.

The squire took the reins of Oleg’s horse. “I’ll take them to stables,” he said with an air of importance. “You go to the servant room, have dinner there.”

Oleg nodded, jumped off and squatted, stretching his legs. He thrust the bow and quiver into his bag over shoulder. He left the axe at the saddle but took the sword. Chachar flew down as a butterfly, threw the reins gracefully to another squire.

Thomas released himself from the embrace of the read-bearded lord. “Wait, sir wonderer!” he cried to Oleg hastily. “Stop, you deaf devil! Sir Gorvel, this man is no servant to me but a brave companion-at-arms. A co-fighter, as they say in Rus’.”

Gorvel put his hands in thin mail gloves on Oleg’s shoulders in a friendly manner. “Welcome, Sir… wonderer. My castle is your castle. Please feel at home! Angles say: my home is my castle, but we are another sort of man – all wide open, our hearts on our sleeves…”

His tanned scarred face expressed astonishment: his gauntleted hands seemed to be lying on round granite boulders.

“We don’t need much,” Oleg said sulkily. “A pitch of hay for horses, a corner for us to sleep in, a slice of bread for dinner.”

Gorvel clapped on his iron hips, upset. “What is not, that is not! Poor horses will have to eat choice oats, guests – to be content with feather beds in chambers. As to dinner, we can only serve pies, sweet cookies, and sandwiches instead of bread. We’ll also find something for you to wash those dry things down your throats!”

Thomas looked at Gorvel attentively and laughed. “If you are the same, I beg you not to serve wine in barrels! Several jugs of it will be enough.”

“Of course,” Gorvel comforted him. “It’s enough… to start with!”

Date: 2015-02-03; view: 701