Chapter 14

They ran past the first belt of stones, then the second one – and clashed suddenly with Hazars, only two of them. A villain fell with his head cleaved but the Hazars were slashed, and the party rushed down, stamping their boots. There was no point trying to conceal themselves anymore: before the barbarians died, they’d screamed, and a scream answered from below.

Twice they were caught up by Hazar parties gathered in a hurry. Gorvel and marauders passed through both of them and lost no men. Only the last of brigands, the Black Beard, fell down, transfixed with two arrows. Dying, he broke the neck of a screaming sturdy Hazar who was tattooed all over.

For the third time – they had already changed from run to walk, almost sure they’d thrown Hazars off – a big party came upon them. A fierce battle struck up, and no one ran away. A savage beast awoke in every man. Hazars screamed, scratched, bit, and even spat, but marauders also went bestial: if they lost their swords, they gnawed at enemies.

When the fight was over, only three men stood on their feet among many bloodshed corpses: Gorvel, Roland, and one of his soldiers. The three of them bared their teeth, breathing heavily, too exhausted to move or speak. The valley was silent.

Gorvel raised his sword. “We have to get away,” he said in a hoarse voice. “We broke through but there are lots of devils back in the camp. And that horned monster!”

The eastern edge of the sky was going lighter. Gorvel could see the tired faces of his random companions. The stars were fading gradually. In the twilight of the dawn, some dark half-ruined rocks were seen here and there. The three men, making no common plan, hurried into the same conglomeration of stones. Once the sun rises, the Hazars will pursue us ahorse.

The clouds in the sky blazed red, as if they were splattered with blood, the air became clear and transparent – when the ground was knocked away from under their feet at once. Gorvel and marauders were so sure they’d left Hazars behind that they had no time to draw swords when half-naked bodies seemed to emerge out of thin air. A huge boulder flew up. Gorvel only had time to see that it was actually a shield, deliberately caked in mud, and glimpse Karganlyk’s ferocious face under it.

Gorvel gripped the sword hilt. A massive hulk fell on him, blocking his breath. He moaned and saw a glitter of evil joy in small malevolent eyes. He clenched his teeth, struggled away, but Karganlyk squeezed his body with more force. Gorvel’s bones cracked, a groan burst out with his breath. He tasted hot and salty. “To the valley!” Karganlyk ordered Hazars. “These ones will be dying a very long time, for our gods to rejoice!”

Gorvel was tied up to a stout pole. Four Hazars shouldered it, hastened down to the valley. Roland was carried behind. Gorvel heard curses and grasped that the third of their party had also been taken alive. He roared and swore dirtily but stopped in the middle of a sentence, Gorvel heard a muffled thud, as if a stone were hit by a thick stick.

The radiant edge of sun appeared over the horizon when the captives were eventually brought to the camp. Hazars tore clothes off them, threw Gorvel’s armor down in a heap, then pulled it on a wooden block. Roland clenched his teeth, gloomy and enduring, but another marauder, as he came to, reviled the torturers again: threated, mocked, and spat at them. Hazars went furious but no one, in fear of their formidable leader, dared to finish the captive off, which he obviously strove for. They spat on the three captives in return, flung clods of mud at them.

They were stretched face up on the ground, their limbs tied to dug-in stakes. Gorvel gritted his teeth, trying not to let a moan out, as his joints cracked, his sinews all but burst at the strain. He saw nothing but the sky and, in times, the laughing mugs of enemies. Ugly and tattooed, they jumped, grimaced, screamed. Many of them used the opportunity to water the sprawled enemies. Soon Gorvel was bathed in stinky urine. His head remained free, he could shake it sideways. Hazars laughed and slapped on their bare knees when the proud knight closed his eyes tight. Some ready-witted one fetched a wooden funnel, thrust it into the knight’s jaws, and watered into it, screaming happily and jumping, while Gorvel coughed desperately and choked. The mob around roared with laughter

Karganlyk appeared suddenly, furious. He kicked Gorvel, the knight heard the crunch of own broken ribs. “Where’s the Old Sorcerer? One with green eyes?”

Gorvel winced with pain in his broken ribs, but his lips curled in a malevolent smirk. “You haven’t got him?”

“I would if only I met him face to face! But he killed nine my best warriors! I will torture him for long, very long!”

“Catch him at first,” Gorvel croaked, feeling evil strength still in him. “Nine under your very nose? This wolf will kill all of yours, like sheep. He only plays a pious man… When devil is old, he shall take monkhood…”

Karganlyk kicked him again. That time he smashed the knight’s cheekbone to bleeding with joy. “Hey you, at the fire! Irons ready? Let’s see how tough he is.”

Hazars went darting eagerly around the fire. There was a crackle, a smell of iron burnt hot. Roland, crucified on Gorvel’s right, cried to cheer him up, “Hold on, sir! Let’s show these monsters how a European dies!”

“Show the infidels how the soldiers of imperial guard die!” another marauder shouted, interspersing it with curses.

“I need no encouragement from scum like you,” Gorvel told them angrily. “Shut up! Everyone dies alone.”

Karganlyk snatched a rod from the Hazar who came running. Its crimson end emitted dry heat. “When you trample on the faith of others”, he roared wildly, “you confirm your own! It’s the behest of our forefathers.” His eyes glittered with madness, yellow saliva foamed in the corners of his mouth. Looking in Gorvel’s face, he started bringing the red-hot rod to the knight’s eyes.

Gorvel tried not to wink. He looked straight at the rod, despite his face burnt with heat and his eyebrows crackling. He smelled burnt hair.

Karganlyk touched Gorvel’s nostrils slightly with the red-hot end, then took it away, watched the knight grimace helplessly, suppressing a cry. As he started bringing the rod down again, he promised, “You’ll be screaming for very long…”

Suddenly, he shuddered from head to feet, straightened up convulsively, his back bent in such a way as if the small of it were hit by a log. His mouth opened for a silent cry. A wooden shaft topped with a white feather was in his left socket. The arrowhead had broken through his skull and gone out from the back of the head, dripping with blood. In spite of terror and disgust, Gorvel spotted that the arrowhead looked no iron but a strange silvery metal shimmering like moonlight!

Karganlyk sobbed, raised his hands, as though to grip the injured place. His fingers unclenched, the red-hot rod dropped on Gorvel’s bare chest. Karganlyk swung back and forth, hanging over the sprawled Gorvel, then collapsed slowly on his back. The hard heavy body hit the ground with a force that made it tremble and lurch.

Disbelieving, Hazars watched their invincible leader whose face was now covered with dark blood, red bubbles rose from the gurgling mass in place of his socket. Immortal Karganlyk, the awe and demigod of their tribe, the hope of rebirth of their bygone glory… lay in dust, as dead as a road stone!

Someone screamed in terror, turned and ran away. Other backed, their widened eyes fixed on the ruin of their leader. A dreadful shriek burst out from them before they wheeled round and fled without choosing their way. The tread of bare feet was everywhere, along with the stiffing dust raised by them, the clatter of stones. Mad Hazars were climbing up the slope, having abandoned their horses, things, camp, and captives.

Roland and his man stopped cursing, turned their heads after the runaways. Gorvel groaned through gritted teeth: the damned Hazar had dropped the red-hot rod on his naked body and before it got cold, a furrow was branded in his flesh! The knight smelled his own burnt flesh as he breathed.

When the footfall died away, the strange pilgrim, a friend of Sir Thomas, showed up. He walked unhurriedly, without looking around, the bow and quiver of arrows jutted out over his shoulder. On his go, he drew a knife, cut Roland’s hands free in two easy moves.

The leader of marauders goggled his eyes. “Why they took such a flight? Three score men!”

“Karganlyk was a live god to them,” Oleg explained. “Without him, they are nothing.”

Another marauder, still stretched on the stakes, swore. “You know how to treat them, holy father!” he said with a malevolent smirk. “You know… The arrowhead no iron – it’s silver! I have keen eye for such things.”

Wincing, Roland kneaded his swollen wrists. His back was numb, he bent forward with effort to untie his feet. “Barbarians!.. We, soldiers of imperial guard, would have fought to the last man. Whether the Emperor alive or dead, we are personalities! No wild mob.”

Oleg nodded. “Look here, personality. See a hundred of Hazar horses over there? No, twice that number. Unsaddled, but that’s how they do. Such horses are a fortune for you, aren’t they?”

Roland bared his big teeth. “Holy father! May your Pagan gods reward you for your kindness. This is our Christian God, and all the saints and martyrs, who speak with your mouth now. Two poor former soldiers of imperial guard do have a great need of two Hazar horses. Of four, if to count spare ones!”

He tossed the rope off his feet, got up. A saber abandoned by some Hazar glittered aside. He took it, cut the limbs of his comrade free. Supporting each other, they plodded to the horses that grazed in the thick green grass. As they walked, they picked up things left by Hazars: weapons, clothes, boots. Roland’s comrade glanced back at Oleg thievishly, as he grabbed Gorvel’s thin coat of mail and expensive sword of Damask steel. Oleg nodded as a sign that Gorvel had no further need of those. Smirking openly, the marauders caught horses and rode away. Each of them had taken two remounts.

Behind Oleg, Gorvel croaked with his dry throat, “It’s time to unbind me too!”

Oleg turned to him with a still face. “Faithful Christians are saved by angels, as your legends say. Are you a Christian? No, because you serve the Secret Seven.”

“Damn you! What do you want?”

“Nothing,” Oleg replied sadly. “Before I came here, I’d been to our cleft. Yes, I found Sir Thomas.” He turned his back to Gorvel, made a couple of steps away, turning the scattered Hazar things with the toe of his boot.

Gorvel twitched helplessly, being stretched in the sturdy ropes, cried after Oleg in a strained voice, “You are worse than Hazars!.. That’s a war! One of us had to die. I had to kill him, and I killed…”

Oleg picked a bag up, thrust his forearm inside, searching, Suddenly, his motionless face lit with a condescending smirk. He pulled out the familiar cup with greenish edges, looked it over, tossed back into the bag and then told Gorvel with a slight surprise, “Why do you think you’d killed? Thomas is a knight, not a thinker. His weak point is his heart, not head.”

He shouldered the bag and made his way to the foot of the mountain. Gorvel groaned, as he had nobody more to conceal his despair in front of. Some dark points sprang up in the blue cloudless sky. They expanded slowly, moving in uneven circles. Bathed in own sweat and the urine of others, Gorvel suddenly felt cold under the scorching rays of southern sun. He did not know who were first to come to the battlefield in these lands: crows, griffons, eagles, vultures, or jackals, but he had no doubt that soon he would know it.

He closed his eyes convulsively, almost feeling a strong beak pecking on his eyeballs.

* * *

At the fork in the road, Oleg reined up in hesitation. The mountain and the valley where the last Hazars – barbarized offspring of the proud founders of Khazar Kaganat – had terminated their existence was behind them. Chachar and Thomas, still pallid, rode mighty Frankish horses. Behind each of them, two remounts carried their load.

Thomas suffered of pounding in his ears. He did not mind where to go. All he wanted was to get as soon as possible to his native Britain where beautiful Lady Krizhina counted in fear the days that remained before Saint Boromir’s Day. The next morning after it, her brothers, hating Thomas, would force her to the altar with abominable Meloun who had no virtues but a long pedigree and a pair of short legs!

Oleg hesitated. The broad road straight ahead is broken, in some several hundreds of miles, by a narrow strait that separates two worlds: Asia and Europe. On the opposite shore, there lies Constantinople: the city of cities, the second Rome. And if they ride straight for some more hundreds or thousands of miles, the road will lead them to the next channel, with gloomy rocks on the other shore of it: the cold shore of Britain. “We’ll spend the night here,” he resolved suddenly. “Something wrong about the city ahead.”

“Sir wonderer,” Thomas said in a faint voice, “it seems to me we’ll have to winter among Saracen!”

“Sir Thomas, you don’t cling to your life, but what about the cup?”

Thomas touched the bag involuntarily. Now he would not allow the cup away from himself even for a moment. He carried it on his mount, mistrusting other horses.

“Sir Thomas, you’d better lie down,” Chachar said hastily.

“If it’s an invitation…” Thomas began hesitantly.

“You look unwell,” she hurried to explain.

They dismounted aside from the road, in a bunch of trees. Oleg unsaddled horses, while Thomas and Chachar went for brushwood. Chachar boasted she knew herbs from her grandmother, a famous witch, and promised to gather them. Thomas gave Oleg an awkward look, warning him not to expect any wood to be brought then.

Oleg gathered some dry twigs himself, made a fire and peered at the dancing flames. He saw distinctly the riders galloping, birds flying, flapping wings of dragons and ferocious faces of warriors, hands raised in begging, the glitter of sabers… In fire, everything changes swiftly, vanishes and comes back in a different shape, showing only a bit of its nature, a hint. But sorcerers are taught to know the trouble by a flash, as a hunter knows the bird by its feather and the animal by its single hair!

He felt his hair raised with fear. A mortal danger waited for them just before the city gate! Something vague but related to blood, axes, horse hooves. If they went left, then across the river, on the other side of the ferry, there was an ambush of Saracen assassins. They’ll shoot point-blank from strong crossbows – who gave British crossbows to them? – and finish us off with curved Damask sabers. The road on the right was barred by something indistinct. but abominably dangerous. We’ll definitely fall into its dreadful spider clutches if we go there…

His hair stirred with terror and revulsion. He raised his hands with effort, clutched at his charms, like a drowning man clutches at the tree roots hanging down. His fingertips darted on the tiny wooden figures, searching for a consolation, a salvation, any loophole among the surrounding traps, snares, and pitfalls.

Thomas came back, against expectation, with a huge armful of big thick poles. When Oleg asked about Chachar, he shrugged and pointed vaguely at the north. Oleg boiled a herbal potion. He would collect herbs at any occasion, even stoop from the saddle on the go to pluck flowers. In case of need, he stopped, dismounted, dug the whole plant out, trying not to damage its roots. He filtered the potion to remove scum, let it settle. Thomas lay near the fire with a faint smile: the very smell of the potion was enough to stop his headache, to add some strength.

The shadows cast by nearest trees were growing longer until they merged into a thick black veil. The crimson sunlight moved up the trunks, threatening to fly up over their tops soon and vanish. The light blue sky was turning navy blue. In its right half, a pale crescent showed itself, the first stars flashed. “Where the hell is she?” Oleg said in vexation.

“Searching for herbs,” Thomas replied awkwardly. “Doing her best, sir wonderer. I’m not glad myself that I’ve taken her as a burden, but… it happened this way.” Moaning in times, he climbed out of his armor, put the iron pieces near the fire to fry the maggots of pernicious flies.

“Where did she see herbs here?” Oleg grumbled with a contempt he could not conceal.

“Behind the grove. She wanted to please you. You look so formidable, severe. She’s afraid of you.”

“Behind the grove?” Oleg repeated anxiously. “Too far. Not enough time for her to come back by night.”

“She took a horse,” Thomas said in a guilty voice. “Doing her best! It’s sinful to blame such a sheep she is. That sort is forgiven by God.”

“She’s a featherbrain, Sir Thomas! But how could you let her go?”

Thomas looked aside awkwardly, his cheeks flushed. “Sir wonderer. I was in a difficult situation. I told her about my fidelity to fair Krizhina, and she told me we wouldn’t be seen! I said that the Holy Virgin condemns even sinful thoughts, and she said you were already sleeping. Or busy cooking a hare with those spices that set our blood on fire…”

Oleg sat grim and silent. Thomas’s voice sounded muffled, as if his ears were full of wool. The fire blazed, flames changed swiftly: bloody-dark shadows gathered there, highlighted by orange, almost white flashes. Ghostly riders galloped swiftly, arrows flew, towers collapsed, cities burnt…

“Should we search for her?” Thomas offered feebly but did not stir.

Oleg glanced at the dark sky swarming with stars and shook his head. “Too dark to see tracks. If she’s not back by dawn, we’ll ride to find her then. Summer nights are short here. You can barely have a sleep before the day breaks.”

Chilled, Thomas woke up of cold. The fire had burnt down. Against the lightening sky, he saw a figure of giant carrying saddles, sword baldrics, and Thomas’s lance away. Horses were snorting aside, rich grass crunched in their teeth. Not until the dark figure came to the horses and started to saddle, did Thomas shake his sleepy torpidity off and jump up, shivering and flinching. “She didn’t come?”

“I’ve missed her,” Oleg replied sullenly. “Let’s go and find her.”

“Forgive me, sir wonderer. It’s all my fault… My double fault. We’d better have left her in that house.”

They mounted. Thomas checked himself and thanked the wonderer with a casual nod, as he was not obliged to saddle the knight’s horse. A common man, but a free yeoman, not a landed villein. If he shows me respect, I must treat him the same, as ordered by Our Lady. “To the grove?” Thomas asked.

“Go there. And I’ll ride to the left. There’s a slope down to a stream sided by rich grass. Lots of different roots. Both medicinal and poisonous.”

Thomas dashed to the grove while Oleg drove his horse in an easy trot, watching the grass closely. The prints of deer and boar hooves were frequent, and the green grass blades were trampled down where smaller animals had been lying.

As Oleg rode across a narrow valley overgrown with sparse shrubs, he heard a move behind far branches. Instantly, he rolled off the saddle and on the ground, to escape an arrow shot or a knife thrown at him, stopped behind a thick bush and became all ears.

The valley was silent, except for carefree grasshoppers chirring. Butterflies fluttered everywhere, undisturbed, even over that suspicious bush. Oleg’s stallion remained in place, nibbling with a crunch at the fresh green leaves. His ears twitched angrily, as he drove away a big dragonfly that kept trying to seat itself on their upright hairy ends. In a soft whisper, Oleg ordered the horse to stand still – the master knows better – and started to move in short quiet rushes, stooping behind shrubs, his throwing knife ready in hand.

On the other side of the bushes, a saddled horse grazed peacefully on a green lawn. Oleg returned noiselessly to his own horse, mounted and rode around the shrubs, looking for the rider, either dead or alive.

At the sight of Oleg, the empty horse gave an anxious snort, alerted but did not run away. On the contrary, it went toward him in a careful pace, greeted his stallion with a quite neigh. Oleg recognized the horse of Chachar, stroked the leather of its saddle. His fingers got sticky with blood.

Feeling creepy all over, Oleg seized its reins, spurred his stallion. Both horses dashed on at full tilt. Oleg kept his eyes on the hoof prints, barely visible on the hard ground.

Judging by tracks, Chachar’s horse had been strolling without the rider, stopping to nibble at the grass, then turned to drink from a stream, ate the tops of shrubs in two places. Thick grass was crumpled where the horse had been lying, kicking up and down playfully.

The sky was darkening too fast. Oleg looked up and groaned helplessly: a large dark cloud was coming upon, with bitter brief flashes of lightnings in its black depth. The wind blew in his back. That damned rain will wash the tracks off, as faint they are!

At a tilt, he stood up on his stirrups, looked around. The wind bent down the blades of sparse grass, the clouds climbed upon each other in many floors. Suddenly a white glare came inside one cloud, a menacing rumble came moments after. Nowhere in the steppes, as far as he could see, no one was lying, sitting, or waving at him.

He had to bend lower, peering at the blurry tracks until his eyes ached. In the dark that fell, he would have not noticed an arrow shot at him, a lasso thrown, or even one jumping onto his horse. The tracks were often lost… Suddenly his blood ran cold: he saw traces of two unshod horses on the left. Judging by the hoof prints, the horses were light and slim-legged, as most horses in this land, and their riders had no heavy armor on. Maybe they wore leather jacks: those would do to block a strike of light saber or a shot of homemade bow.

As traces told him, the riders had taken a brief counsel and ridden apart, searching for tracks of others. Once they got certain of a lone rider on their way, they rode on his tracks about a hundred of steps before they realized it was an empty horse. They could have seen it before. That was when they retraced and urged their horses at a slow pace on the tracks of a pedestrian, often stopping to peer at the trampled grass and faint footprints.

Oleg whipped his horse. It was much easier to follow the tracks of two horses, so he galloped, jumped over shrubs. He saw the hoof prints were quite fresh. In some places, trampled grass was straightening before his very eyes, in others the milky white juice was still oozing from grass blades broken by sharp hooves.

In the falling dark, a fearful branchy lightning flashed, dazzling him. If her glare did not illumine the thickening twilight, Oleg would have bumped at full tilt into a couple of Arabian argamaks who stood in a narrow green valley. Somewhat farther in the valley, two shaggy ragged men, knives on their belts, were coming to Chachar with loud laughter. She backed, but one man rounded her in a wide arc. Chachar stopped, jerked her head up proudly. She was pale, her hair disheveled. Her eyes flashed with the same lightnings as the sky.

Oleg reined up, snatched his bow. The villains spotted the stranger, turned round to him: both sturdy, hardened, and reckless, clad in leather armor of buffalo skin, with plain hunting knives on their belts. Oleg drove his horse forward, stopped in ten steps from them. The huge hilt of two-handed sword looked out over his shoulder, an arrow on his bow string aimed at the men. Its iron head had an evil glitter. Both villains could see the stranger had no light Saracen bow but a formidable lamellar one: an arrow shot of it would go through steel armor.

“Chachar!” Oleg called loudly. “Are you all right?”

“Yes,” she replied in a thin voice and added hastily, “I’ve gathered many herbs! But these two fools hampered my way back.”

Oleg looked at the villains, though, actually, he never let them out of his sight before. “What do you want?”

One glanced at his comrade who froze at spot, his gaze fixed at the arrow. He estimated the distance to Oleg, to their horses left behind the armed stranger with cold green eyes – and spread his arms wide with a smile. “We just wanted to see. If she needs help. People must help each other. It’s what Christ wants, yeah?”

“It’s what all gods want,” Oleg said coldly. “And they want our help to be disinterested.”

The villain, feeling the danger passing by, broadened his smile, backed away from Chachar, trying to reach own horse in an arc. “Only disinterested! Otherwise it’s no help.”

“And deserves other reward,” Oleg agreed. He turned in his saddle, while his horse stood still, watched the villains round him cautiously, making no spare moves, mount quietly, ride a hundred of steps away in a slow pace. Only then they dared to whoop and gallop away.

Oleg turned to Chachar, nodded at her horse that stood behind still. “Mount! Quick!”

She darted to the horse with exaggerated obedience, climbed into the saddle. Her big eyes were fixed on his angry face. On her back, she had a tightly stuffed bag. Tender stalks with round blue leaves looked out of it through a slit. Oleg said nothing, as he had no wish to praise the woman. She would try to consolidate her position then. However, he noticed she’d really collected the herbs of great healing power. And picked up in the correct time of the day, which is extremely important.

* * *

The two of them sat by the fire. Chachar gnawed at the roast quail wing and Oleg sorted the herbs out, trying to let nothing but polite interest show in his face, when they heard a clatter of hooves. Far away, there was the gleaming figure of the knight.

Thomas vaulted off, with easiness that had always surprised Oleg. The knight looked paler than usual. He limped, his armor was dented in two places. The right side of his helmet was matted, his eyebrows stuck together with sweat, his sky blue eyes dark with pain. “I ran into them on my way,” he replied with vexation to the anxious looks of Oleg and Chachar. “I can’t make way for strangers! What if they’re of lower birth?.. The fools pushed forward on me. The last two of them guessed to make way, but it was late…”

Chachar dashed to the knight anxiously, helped to unclasp his heavy armor, dropping the pieces on her legs. “Damn the steppes!” Oleg said sarcastically. “So little space that one can’t turn round!”

“Sir wonderer! That’s a matter of honor!”

“Would you like to eat?”

“I am saturated with the fight,” Thomas replied proudly, in the best knightly traditions.

Oleg did not try to persuade or argue. He even seemed to be glad. “That’s well! Then you will drink a potion we made.”

Thomas recoiled from the horribly stinking caldron of black liquid, with floating yellow blades of grass, which he would not throw even to his servant’s horse, and nasty bubbling foam. From time to time, sharp little claws emerged from inside, as if the wonderer had boiled bats or toads there. “Sir wonderer!..”

“You need it, dear sir. The Holy Virgin would have treat her knight to the cup of healing potion herself if only she was not that busy.”

Chachar hurried to take a full scoop, brought it to Thomas, trying to spill not a single drop of the precious potion, for which she’d suffered so much, got scared to a piglet’s squeal.

Oleg smiled derisively, as if he had little belief in the knight’s valor.

Thomas held his breath and took the scoop of nauseating potion with a firm hand.

Oleg ate unhurriedly the meat around the bone. His strange green eyes looked slowly over the lawn, overhanging branches, the ground trampled by hooves and feet. Chachar sat on the other side of the fire, eating quickly and accurately. She took the bones with two fingers, sticking the little one out. She neither spat out the bones nor blew her nose at the table, holding each of her nostrils in turn, in Saracen way.

Oleg tossed the bone away, wiped his greasy fingers. “Thomas, it’s our good luck that Chachar got lost.”

The knight started. “What’s the matter?”

“We had guests. While we galloped over groves and gullies in search of the maiden lost, they rode up to our fire from three sides, to encircle us. Behind that tree, I found a track of crossbow arc: someone was drawing a crossbow with its plate set against the ground. I think there were other crossbowmen as well.”

Thomas jumped up, his eyes were searching around anxiously. “Where are they?”

“They thought we had left fire as a lure before we rode away. By northern road, surely! At least their tracks go north.”

“They went after us? Then they’ll see their mistake soon…”

“You’ll have enough time to drink your potion,” Oleg assured. “Would you like some more of it? You are weak, and in this life you’ll need your strength earlier than you expect.”

Thomas looked at pale Chachar, put his hand to his heart and bowed.

Oleg got up, took the heavy bag off the saddle. “Three scores of well-armed warriors have been there. Chachar did us a great turn: she saved us from this fight. We must do the same to her.” He dropped the bag on the ground, it gave a ringing tinkle. Thomas raised his eyebrows, then his face lit up with a guess. Oleg untied the bag, his forearm plunged inside. “Sir Thomas, do we number in two or three?”

“Sir wonderer,” the knight replied with great dignity, “the woman entrusted herself to our protection!”

“There we have five thousand in gold. I divide in three?”

“Women always need more, sir wonderer.”

“I know it. Who doesn’t?”

Chachar shifted a confused gaze between the men. Oleg poured the coins out on the ground, fingered them apart into three piles: one a bit larger than the rest. Thomas, with his broadest smile, picked that pile on a big kerchief, tied the knots. Chachar looked with embarrassment at Thomas rising up and tucking the kerchief of gold into the saddle bag on her horse. Meanwhile, Oleg poured the remnants into the bag they’d been in, tied it, started to pick up the caldron and blankets. “What does it mean?” Chachar asked.

“We see the city walls over there,” Oleg told her in a sweet voice. “It’s the city we promised to take you to. Sir Thomas and I would rather keep your company, but… you see what a dog’s life we lead? Sleeping on the bare ground, attacked by all the scum of these lands, as if we were smeared with honey… And there may be even worse nights waiting ahead: spent in bogs or on the wasp nests.”

Chachar shifted her indignant gaze to Thomas. The knight nodded and turned away to his horse, lest he see her accusing eyes. “Take your money back then!” she flared up. “Pious bloody men! You think I rode with you for money?”

Oleg patted her with affection on the head. “We have to leave. The assassins may come back here.”

At the fork in the road, Chachar whipped her horse and overrode them at once. It seemed to Oleg that she jerked her small nose up proudly only to prevent her tears from coming out. Her back was straight, her hair fluttered in the wind. Her horse trotted briskly, feeling the stables with other horses, fresh oats, and a long rest in the city soon.

When Chachar vanished from sight, Thomas gave out such a mighty sigh as if he had dropped a heavy boulder off, a boulder he had carried for such a long time that he went oblivious of it. “How fine… Sir wonderer, do you grudge the gold?”

“I’m a pilgrim,” Oleg reminded him. “A wonderer. Do you?”

“I’m a knight errant!” Thomas replied proudly, his back straightened up the same way as Chachar’s. “Sir wonderer, will we number in two all the rest of our way?”

“If only you…”

“Never!” Thomas said fervently. “I swear it on the cup, on my sword, on the hooves of my horse!”

“Even in your Christian mythology,” Oleg pointed out, “the sin came out of Satan’s left ear and the woman was made of a left rib, that’s why she shall go on the left of a man, and the man’s left shoulder is seated by all the evil…”

“By demon,” Thomas corrected. He looked at the wonderer with great respect. “So one shall spit over the left shoulder… Do you Pagans spit too?”

“Sir Thomas, I have to upset you. We are turning our horses back to the south.”

Thomas leaned back in the saddle, as if a log socked him between eyes. His palm clapped on the sword hilt habitually, his face flushed angrily. “Sir wonderer…” he spoke in a constrained voice, hardly keeping his temper. “Krizhina waits for me!”

“Sir Thomas,” Oleg persisted, “I promised to ride with you to Tsargrad… to Constantinople, I mean. That’s why I’m ready to make a hook and over, sharing the danger with you. It’s not me hunted. Neither me bearing the Holy Grail!”

“Why south?” Thomas screamed in a blaring voice. He sounded as though in death throes. “My way lies north!”

Oleg stretched his arm to point at the road. “Straight to the north, a big party of hired robber knights with a score of crossbowmen is coming on us. To the west, there are assassins waiting for us. To the north-west, some strange people lie in ambush: charms only gave me a warning but did not show how they look… We will come back to the north. I live at the north myself. But we’ll have to round the city and its lands in a broad arc.”

Cursing like Black God, Thomas drove his horse after the wonderer’s fast stallion.

Date: 2015-02-03; view: 570