Chapter 15
They galloped without rest, remounted often, tangled their tracks, rode at night, avoided villages and hamlets, hid at the sight of people on the road. Even the most peaceful travelers have long tongues. Those are the most dangerous weapon now. Many would remember a formidable knight in gleaming armor, with a lance in right hand and a triangular knightly shield on his left elbow, with strange sigil: a sword and a lyre on a starry field. Oleg, in his wolfskin jerkin, with wooden beads on his bare chest, was memorable as well. They would also spot his bright green eyes, so unusual in this land of dark-eyed people.
Once, Thomas couldn’t help saying pleadingly, “Sir wonderer, would you finger your wooden Pagan things more often? What’s waiting for us?”
Oleg glanced at him slantwise with a puzzled green eye and smirked. “But they are Pagan! Isn’t your faith against it?”
Thomas fidgeted in the saddle for a while. “When I led a party of knights across the desert, I had a Saracen scout,” he replied with displeasure, but with dignity as well. “The information he brought was always accurate. I’d have to be a fool to refuse his help! Faith is one thing and life is another, sir wonderer.”
For a long time they rode in silence, too tired to talk. In the evening, after their horses were unsaddled and tethered and the two of them lay down after a sup, Thomas asked, “And those… Secret Seven? Can they finger charms in the same way? See us, guess our destination, know what we are doing?”
After a pause, Oleg told him with no confidence, “We are completely different. They rely mostly on accurate calculations. Civilization and progress! But in this world, bare calculation is not enough. Neither is bare civilization without culture.”
“And what enables you to see the future?”
“Intuition,” Oleg replied reluctantly. “Sometimes it fails, but in general it allows me to see farther, gives clearer and brighter images. Intuition, Sir Thomas, relies not on knowledge, but understanding. And understanding is the core element of culture…”
Thomas said nothing. He sniffed quietly, fast asleep, as a dead-tired healthy man with a clear conscience. The last thought remained in Oleg’s mind. At the damp dawn, when they lay wrapping themselves up in blankets, he called, “Sir Thomas, are you awake? Please resolve my perplexity. Why doesn’t the Holy Grail blaze up in your hands? In my wild land, I heard this cup can only be touched by sinless hands. But I look at you, Sir Thomas, and wonder: do you have no sin at all? Your superstitions… your commandments, I mean, say man is born sinful!”
Thomas squirmed under his blanket, waking up and trying to get himself warm. Finally, he got out with a twitch of shoulders, as delicate white as a woman’s. “Brrr! We have warmer nights and this is called a hot desert! I think the least sinful man is implied to be sinless. Searching for a completely sinless one means to hang… or at least to flog all mankind!”
“Hmm… You think the Holy Grail had been grabbed by so many sinful hands it lost sensitivity?”
“I’m afraid it had, sir wonderer. It was forced to bring its requirements down, wasn’t it?”
Oleg took some cold slices of meat wrapped in wide leaves of medicinal herbs out of his bag. “Move closer. Are you the most sinless of all Franks, including kings, emperors, and other leaders of the Crusade?”
“Only Sir God is sinless!”
“But others are more sinful than you?”
“The Holy Grail thinks so,” Thomas replied modestly. “Who I am to dispute it?”
They rode all the day long. By night, their horses could barely drag their hooves along. Oleg allowed them a whole day and night of rest. After he’d gathered brushwood and shot a hare, he only lay by the fire, looking dreamily into the sky. “Do you smell the rhododendron?”
Thomas glanced with suspicion. “Yes, I do. I have a nose,” he grunted but sniffed, just in case, and winced aristocratically. “Rhodode… Ugh! I thought it was bloody Sir Ogden again!”
“What’s the matter with him?” Oleg wondered.
“He often has indigestion. And the smell…”
Oleg looked around. “Isn’t your Sir Ogden in Britain?”
“The wind is from there,” Thomas dismissed with great negligence. He tossed more twigs into the fire, then Oleg heard a thundering sound nearby: the iron knight finally lay down to rest. “I like to look into the fire,” he said dreamily. “All our life is like the flames…”
“Why is it?” Oleg asked with interest.
“Why should I know?” Thomas wondered. “Am I a philosopher?”
In the morning, Oleg told him they had to ride into a village to buy some oats. Besides, they had no more salt and bread: the last slice had been eaten two days before. Since that, they lived on meat only.
The village blacksmith examined the hooves of their horses and reshod one remount. As he worked, he gave a solemn warning, “You’d better turn before it’s too late. The way to the right is across mountains, to the left – across deserts. For any of them, you’ll have to leave the horses. But if you barge straight forward, it’s sure death! The land of invisible warriors there. Evil and merciless, they allow no strangers at all. Destroy and sacrifice any foreigner.”
The knight glanced askance at the bluish mountain peaks far to his right, shivered. “I’ve crossed mountains once. I still wake up shouting when I dream of it!”
“You’ve also crossed deserts,” Oleg added in a droopy voice. “The hosts of Baldin the Third perished there, not of foe’s sabers but of heat and thirst… What’s special about those warriors?”
“They’re invincible. Practice martial arts for a lifetime. Know many secrets. Should such a warrior fight ten enemies at once, he leaves ten corpses in the field and goes without a scratch!”
Oleg saw undisguised fear in the knight’s blue eyes. “That is beyond even Sir Lancelot of the Lake… And Sir Galahad too, and Sir Gawain even less so… My God! Why do they need that martial skill? Are they at war?”
The smith shrugged. His eyes were sympathetic. “They took no side in the Crusade. They would only fight each other; the strongest ones survive. Their monastery is high in the mountains… For thousands of years, its monks invented special ways of fighting.”
“Monks?” Thomas said indignantly. “Shouldn’t they compete in holiness?”
The smith cast a sharp glance, mocking and sympathetic at once, at the knight. “Our faith is young, theirs old. They have their own rites. They do no plowing, no reaping, no sowing – only jump and scream with arms. From dawn till dark.”
Thomas shuddered. “This is the way to train a hare to defeat a wolf. Every day from dawn till dark, year after year… Brrr! And the desert… how broad is it?”
“Just a week’s journey. On fast camels.”
Thomas glanced slantwise at their exhausted horses. “Which way would we take, sir wonderer?” he asked hopefully. “What do your gods tell you?”
“And yours?”
“Mine… high and inspired they are! They set the world going. And yours are simpler. They have better knowledge of mundane life.”
“Our gods teach us to take straight roads. I don’t think Christ would object to it either. Let’s strengthen our souls and ride straight!”
Thomas’s face darkened, he fell silent for a long time. Finally, he put his palm down on his bag where a side of the cup showed through. “You are right, sir,” he told Oleg with a heavy sigh. “We should pick straight ways, and the Holy Virgin will not leave us till our death hour!”
They spent a night at the hospitable smith’s place, rode out on the road at dawn. Thomas frowned, checked the easiness of drawing his sword out more frequently than he did usually, flinched at every rustle. Oleg hung the quiver with arrows on his back, though in the hot air it started to chafe straight away, nasty trickles of sweat ran down to his waist. He kept the bow string on. Thomas needed no words to understand that the wonderer was anxious and alert. “We’ll cope,” Thomas said in a loud but shaky voice. “The Holy Virgin never leaves her faithfu
l knights!”
The wonderer hemmed. “I wanted to ask you this question long ago…” he said loudly. “Why do you swear on the Virgin? I thought your main gods were Christ and his Father whose name I forgot, and the Holy Spirit whose name I can’t recall either – followed by Nicholas, Michael, Gabriel, George… And the Holy Virgin – what sort of patron can she make? A young woman with a babe in arms!”
Thomas shot a fiery glance at him, snuffled. “Men can defend themselves, and Virgin Mary has a need of defenders! That’s why we, noble knights, are warriors of hers!”
“Er… Is it you protecting her?”
Thomas winced. Usually, he would avoid discussing divine matters with that Pagan, but now, being put on the spot, he decided to counterattack. “And why do your Slavs who turned to the faith of Christ swear on some Saint Nicholas? He’s no main god either! Your Slavic princes, I’ve seen many of them in the Crusade, had Saint Nicholas, not Christ, on their banners! And I’ve heard Slavic warriors talking that when the God of Christians dies their Saint Nicholas will take his throne! What did they mean?”
Oleg shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m the sorcerer of Old Faith.”
“A Pagan!”
“An Old Believer,” Oleg corrected. “A Rodian!”
“The new always wins! No way to stop it.”
“The old is replaced by new, according to Rod’s decree, every six hundred years. Six centuries after Rod was born, the White God came into this world, followed, after six more centuries, by Targitai, then by Zarathustra, then by Gautama also known as Buddha, just in case you didn’t know… Six centuries after Buddha, your Christ was born. But he’s not the last one! Six centuries after him, a new prophet came into the world.”12
Thomas recoiled, spat with disgust. “He’s no prophet to me.”
“Why?”
“Everything was said by Jesus. Nothing to be added.”
“Really? I kindly advise you to read the Koran before you argue on it. If the new is always the better, then you should adopt the faith of Mahomet without reading the Koran at all. And if it isn’t, then you shouldn’t attack Old Believers. Even less so, as you are an Angle! I’ve spotted that Saxes and Angles revere their ancestors and traditions. You have so much love for antiquity that after you’ve destroyed the ancient Britons, you keep calling the captured land Britain!”
“Not all of us,” Thomas replied with displeasure. “Some fools try to call it Saxony… Though this way it gets confused with the old Saxony where we once came from. Also, it is called Anglo-Saxony…”
“Maybe you should call it just Anglia?”
“It would be unfair,” Thomas objected but smiled contentedly. “Saxons had landed on this new island too, and their number was not smaller than ours.”
“What did you see to be fair in this world?” Oleg wondered. “Scythians perished a thousand years ago but we are still called Scythians! And our Slavic lands are named Great Scythia!”
The next day, their road came to the bank of a broad river. They saw some boats, both fisher and merchant ones, far away but the crowd on the wide log mooring was waiting for a ferry, which, enormous and slow, was crawling along the cable from the other bank.
Thomas looked across the river with glassy eyes. Far away there, almost at the horizon, the yellow walls of a strange fortress could be seen, well-lit by the morning sun. Oleg nudged a small hook-nosed man who looked like a gaunt mournful bird. “Whose castle is it?”
The man gave him a strange look, moved away carefully. His neighbor, swarthy and hook-nosed the same, cast an apprehensive glance around. “I see you are Frank,” he said in a warning tone. “Mind you not say that in the presence of monks. It’s no castle but a holy monastery! A cloister to warrior monks.”
“A cloister? Do they come out of it?”
“Their duty is to wander by-roads and preach good. And since most roads are dangerous, monks are taught to fight so that any of them can defeat ten robbers armed to their teeth! With his bare hands, surely.”
“And if… not bare?”
The hook-nosed man shook his head. “Armed? Well, only gods may withstand then! Or they may not…”
The ferry crept up to the mooring, pushed against it with iron-bound logs: the travelers felt a quiver beneath their feet. Two ferrymen jumped on the mooring, tied sturdy ropes, threw a wide wooden gangplank across. The crowd began to flow onto the ferry.
A sullen ferryman was leaning on the rope to have some rest. He cast a surprised look at Oleg and the knight in gleaming armor, as they led their horses upon the wooden planks of the ferry. “Franks? Where to? Monks don’t like strangers.”
Thomas gulped down, his voice suddenly got hoarse. “We only need passage across these lands! We have our own food and oats. We won’t offend or disturb anyone. We are no enemies!”
The ferryman spat into the yellow water bursting noisily from beneath the ferry, turned away. “If you are tired of wearing your heads…”
Some carts had their wheels coupled on the gangplank. The ferryman bellowed, his assistants dashed there with raised poles, thrashed both horses and their masters. Soon the matter was settled down, the carts pulled apart and placed properly.
Several scores of hands seized the rope, helping to move the ferry. Thomas and Oleg stood aside with their horses. From time to time, Thomas felt the cup through the bag and shot suspicious glances around.
The river lapped on the ferry, spraying it with water. Thomas pulled a long face, his eyes became scared. Oleg followed his eyes to a poorly clad villager. “I saw it myself,” he told other men, waving his hands. “They tried to stop him on the road, with spear heads advanced, sharp an’ gleaming. He tore his shirt in rage, barged on them with bare chest! An’ them set spears on him, one on his very throat, but no scratch on him! He went an’ thought o’ the High, and spears bent…”
“Five?” one of the listeners asked with a flash of interest. “I saw three of ‘em bend.”
“All five of ‘em!” the storyteller swore it with such pride as if it were his chest blunting the needle-sharp spearheads. “But them brave, seasoned warriors! No one dropped spear till it bent like yoke… an’ drew sharp swords! But what sword against a monk of martial arts?” His listeners shrugged. Thomas’s face was growing more and more miserable. “He laid all five of ‘em. Faster than any of us claps hands!”
Oleg saw Thomas moving his iron palms apart and together quickly. The knight went pallid, with dark circles under his eyes. He was fingering the cup anxiously through the thick leather of the bag.
“All five of ‘em dead,” the storyteller specified. “Each at just one touch!” The rest nodded silently, their thoughts written clearly on their faces. It was clear he only hit once, that’s how the masters of fisticuffs do it. Who would bother with a second strike if the first one is enough to send anyone flying into the dust, with their necks and spines broken?
The gloomy bank was approaching fast. The men began to stir, to elbow their way to the edge, striving to be the first walker off. The ferryman’s assistants pushed them away, swearing. The ferry hit heavily against the thick logs. The two lads jumped on the mooring, fastened the ropes quickly to fix the ferry, covered the slit with the trampled gangplank. The crowd streamed ashore after them; hurrying, elbowing, pushing the ferrymen aside.
Oleg and Thomas waited till everyone, including the carts, got off the ferry, then led their horses onto the wooden mooring, mounted it with an air of doom. The crowd broke apart, heading to the left and to the right – and they drove their horses straight ahead, where the yellow-walled cloister of warrior monks could be seen over distant hills.
On the way, they met strange oxcarts with huge wheels, higher than their wooden sides, loaded with firewood and hay in fragrant stacks, pulled by strange furry bulls, which were called yaks there. The villagers, dozy on the stacks, glanced at the knight in his gleaming steel with bored interest and gave the tanned barbarian in his wolfskin jerkin only a brief once-over: everyo
ne had their own business to mind, and the knight and the barbarian rode without a stop, severe and frowning.
At the road turn, Thomas reined up. The walls of the monastery towered half a mile ahead. Green branches and bunches of grass were dried on its flat roofs. The road went past the gate. No way to turn off: a scatter of stones on the right would break the legs of horses. On the left, there’s a crop field, but they were not in Britain to ride across a field that belongs to others.
Over the monastery roofs, yellow banners with grinning dragons, lions, and tigers quivered in the light breeze. A two-wheeled oxcart rolled through the distant gate, the drowsy driver urging his slow-paced yaks on. The gate was flanked by men in long orange robes. They stood motionless, their clean-shaven heads gleaming in the sunshine.
Oleg made a move to ride on, but Thomas stopped him with his arm stretched. “Just look what they do!”
From the top of the hill where they stood, they had a good view of the green field behind the monastery wall. Three score of men in the same clothing jumped, somersaulted, brandished long poles. The tall wall around prevented any stranger from spotting their fighting ways from a close distance, and from the hill, one could barely make out their tiny figures. A monk, definitely one of those great warriors of whom the man on the ferry spoke with terror and awe, jumped up to a stout tree, started thrashing it with his bare hands. Pieces of bark flew sideways.
Thomas breathed out with a heavy groan, his stallion trotted down along the road sadly. Oleg moved his shoulders to adjust the quiver. Thomas rode with no look back, straightened and staring ahead. The monastery approached slowly. Its walls were whole, not formed by huge stone slabs, and Oleg realized they were made of yellow clay mixed with straw.
Their horses were within half a hundred steps of the gate when a score and a half of men came out of it to block their way, all shaven-headed, in the same orange robes, all sturdy, lean, and muscular. All the monks were much smaller than Oleg and Thomas but sinewy, and their posture and accurate moves could only belong to skilled fighters.
The monk who stood in the middle raised his hand imperatively. Thomas and Oleg pulled up. Thomas checked anxiously whether the sword hilt was in place, his fingers tightened their grip on the lance, his left elbow with the shield on it moved slightly to cover half of his breast.
“Stop!” the senior monk cried in a thin, clear voice, which would have sounded childish if not for the ringing of metal in it. “Who are you?”
“Sir Thomas Malton of Gisland,” Thomas replied, trying to keep his voice firm. “Coming home after the triumphant conquer of the Holy Land. This is Oleg, a peaceful pilgrim. He comes from the land of Hyperborean, also known as the Great Scythia.”
“Why are you crossing our lands?”
“It’s the shortest way,” Thomas explained. He cast a warning look at the wonderer. “The host marched around your country in a wide arc, but we know that no harm is to come from two peaceful riders!”
The senior monk watched them suspiciously. “Peaceful? Why do you have a lance and a long sword then? And your companion, a peaceful pilgrim, has a battle bow and arrows!”
“The roads are dangerous. Robbers, thieves, night murderers…”
The monk glanced back at his silent companions. “If you tried to cross our lands without arms, you’d have a chance. Though a little one… We tolerate no strangers. And kill they who come armed.” He sounded stern and dooming. Other monks did not stir, but their muscles bulged and stiffened. “You’ll have to fight!” the senior monk said with a malevolent smirk.
Thomas glanced back at the silent wonderer. “We’d rather not fight…” the knight begged. His voice gave a quaver.
Ghosts of smiles appeared on the still faces of monks. “If you win – ride on!” the senior said coldly. “If you lose…” His slanting eyes glittered coldly, his face remained stony.
A sturdy, sinewy monk stepped out of the line. He joined his palms by his breast, made a low bow. Thomas tilted his lance slightly; every man of civilization should respond to a greeting, and a man of culture all the more. Oleg pressed his palm against his heart in reply, bowed his head.
The monk made a swift move with his arms, took a strange fighting stance.