by Yury Nikitin
Chapter 37
That was how they flew till midday. The wonderer did not come to himself, though he stopped writhing. Twice Thomas corrected the dragon that, like a horse with one blind eye, persisted in trying to turn and fly in a circle, but Thomas watched the sun; fortunately, their flight was above the clouds most of the time. He adjusted for the movement of sun the itself; by God’s decree, it rises on the east, creeps across the vault of heaven to the west, goes into the hole there to be dragged underground all the night long by damned sinners to the eastern edge of the earth. During the summer, the sinners get tired, in autumn they move slower and slower and in winter – like sleepy flies. By spring, the patience of the Underground Lord runs out, so he hurls the draggers into Gehenna and harnesses fresh ones instead. Maybe the next team would include Gorvel and his Saracens.
The dragon turned his head only once. Thomas flung two slices deftly into the jaws and the third one missed; the dragon started to turn away at that moment. Thomas swore, following the heavy slice with regretful eyes. He felt a move in his stomach, a plaintive croak.
Thomas squirmed. Having a meal on the back of a flying dragon seemed rather stupid, but Thomas was really hungry and the bloody dragon’s champing made his mouth water.
He untied a sack, then a second one, found the bundle of aurochs livers. He took one of them out; quivering it was, as though still alive, and slick. He had to dig his fingers into the very bleeding middle lest he drop it. His teeth dug into the juicy flesh with a crunch, blood splashed out on his hands, but Thomas imagined himself in the native woods on the bank of the Don. With his loyal suite, they would chase down a deer, cut it on the spot, throw the guts to dogs, and divide the liver among themselves quickly, while it was warm!
He gave a start, all but dropped a slice when a hoarse voice said behind, “He’s gobbling… And the dragon?”
The wonderer raised his head. His eyes seemed reproachful, some strange sparkles glittered in them. Screaming happily, Thomas rushed up to his friend, tucked the liver into a slit on the go, lest the wind blow it away, seized him by his tightly bound shoulders. “Sir wonderer! Are you… awake?”
“Did I snore?” the wonderer asked. His green eyes were clear, he looked attentively at Thomas, then at his own body tied up tightly with ropes.
“Just a bit,” Thomas assured. “Though I and the dragon heard none of it.”
“Was it you to tie me?”
“Er… the dragon was busy. Flapping his wings. Our friends the Seven of Secret sent a bad dream on you, so I…”
Oleg nodded, winced. “Now their attack is gone. Untie me.”
Thomas looked with shining eyes, a load was taken off his mind, but his hands jerked away from the knots. “Are you sure… it won’t come back?”
Oleg shook his head. “Now I’m sure of nothing. But next time I will not allow it to take me that suddenly.”
“But you… Sir wonderer, don’t take it as offence, but how can I be sure you are not guided by them now? When demons possess a man, they can make him do what they like! Sometimes he does not even know he is possessed.”
Oleg kept his eyes, as green as usual, on Thomas. They were full of pain. “Sir Thomas, you deserve to be a leader of knightly detachment! I thought you were just a bold brass head, but you are no fool. And I am not possessed. I have no proof of it, but if you don’t untie me I will die soon of the stopping of blood. Your ropes are very tight, Sir Thomas.”
“You are too strong,” Thomas protested, feeling guilty. He hurried to undo the knots on the wonderer’s hands, and Oleg helped him to release the legs and body. Caringly, Thomas tied a thick rope around the wonderer’s waist, while the other end had been fixed beforehand on the comb. The wonderer only smirked, glancing at the knight with respectful surprise.
Wincing, Oleg rubbed his swollen arms, while Thomas kneaded his legs, blue from stopped blood. Once Thomas left it to feed the dragon. When he came back, the wonderer asked, with mockery in his voice, “Why are you gorging on raw liver? Doesn’t your religion forbid you to eat anything with blood?”
“I’m a Christian, not a Jew,” Thomas replied with dignity. “Jews cut and throw away a slice of bread if a drop of blood from their own gums gets on it!”
“Ah, yes,” the wonderer replied tiredly, “I confused you Christians with Khazars… Sir Thomas, I’ve never seen such a bold man! Till I woke and saw you sitting on the dragon’s hump and gobbling the meat prepared for the dragon!”
“I had no other thing to do,” Thomas said as his excuse. “The beast flies in the right direction, you sleep. No women here, no wine, and a long way to the tavern, while I am cold and scared…”
“Scared? Really?” Oleg wondered. His eyes were laughing.
“Really,” Thomas confessed, moved his shoulders with a shiver. “You Pagans see plenty of flying frogs, and I, a warrior of Christ’s host, am a stranger to this animal!”
“But you are sitting on his hump and gobbling.”
“A need will teach you to pay no heed,” Thomas grumbled, “as one of my friends from Scythia… er… Rus’ has once said.”
Oleg leaned back tiredly, resting his back on the broad comb, his face deathly pale still. “We have already made up for four days,” he said.
“Four?” Thomas was astonished. He went pink, a faint hope fluttered in his heart.
Oleg closed his eyes, like a dead tired man. “Look down,” he whispered. “We are flying over the loop of the Don river.”
“Don?” Thomas started, unable to believe his ears. “I’ve never flown in these lands before, sir wonderer! I’m not used to recognizing them from here above… yet.”
“Don… but neither Anglic nor Slavic… wherever Skolots, our common ancestors, passed they named rivers Don… that was distorted by present living nations into Dno, Dnieper, Dniester, Donegal…” His voice broke, he fell asleep in the middle of the word.
Thomas sighed with relief; he had no wish to confess that his neck had gone numb from his superhuman efforts to keep his head straight, to avoid a look down, into that creepy abyss. Heart was scratching in his boots, about to break out! The valiant sir wonderer hurried too much to praise him for boldness, how could he confess cowardice? He should hold the knightly honor high.
He kept glancing at the terrible horned head crushing through the air in some three or four score steps ahead. Is the dragon starting to turn its head or that’s just my imagination? And why does the corner of his predatory mouth twitch?
The wonderer woke up an hour later. His face went pink, his lackluster eyes got some glitter. His shoulders shivered with cold. “We should have taken a couple of blankets… Though we had none of those. Are we flying the same?”
“Northwest,” Thomas replied, struggling to restrain his ecstatic rapture that the wonderer was awake and available to take the bigger part of concerns on his shoulders.
“You know the map well,” the wonderer told him with respect.
“I have no need of petty maps,” Thomas replied haughtily but felt the hot blood rushing up to his cheeks and stooped hastily to redo the knots on the sacks of meat. “I look at the sun!”
“Sir Thomas, you are a real match for ancient heroes who flew dragons!” Oleg admired.
“Did they… fight mounted on dragons, like on horses?”
“Exactly!”
With a shudder, Thomas looked at the back of dragon’s head. He remembered that snout and those teeth. “Why did they stop it?”
Oleg thought for a while, waved it away uncaringly. “People changed… Meanwhile, dragons are just big frogs with wings; drowsy while replete and grabbing everyone without choosing when hungry. They can’t discern allies and foes in the battlefield.”
The dragon made a sudden steep turn. Cursing, Thomas stabbed at the slit between slabs with his sword habitually, held Oleg who leaned all his weight upon him. “I fed this fool too well! He’s frisking…”
Oleg kept glancing at the angry knight silently. The dragon made a couple of f
laps, spread his wings to the full again. Thomas screamed, went crawling on the withers to the dagger stuck between the plates; the sun shone straight into his eyes.
When he leveled the dragon and returned to the wonderer, they cuddled each other to keep the last of their warmth. Thomas thought of a tent. No. Wind would blow it away like a flake, and they’d miss the moment when the dragon got hungry. Involuntarily, he touched the sacks of meat.
“It’s cold,” Oleg said sleepily, “so he eats often. In heat, once a day is enough. And one bull.”
When it started to get warmer, which meant the ground was close, the dragon flapped its wings fiercely, and Thomas, with his teeth clenched habitually, clutched at the horny excruciations. At every flap his numb fingers all but unclenched, he was thrown up, then pressed into the bony back with force that made his eyes pop out like a lobster’s. His guts were squeezed outside, his fingers almost flattened… before his legs were torn away and he hung on his fingertips and the rope, alerted beforehand to the next moment the dragon would jerk up and Thomas would be flung down on his hard back.
Finally, the wings stretched to the full, unfolded like an elephant’s ears. Thomas was not hurled, like a frail ship in a storm, anymore. Oleg waited till it was over humbly, as he was a wonderer and hermit. Thomas sighed with relief and crossed himself, watching over his invisible cross that was staying off the flying beast. “It’s better ahorse,” he sighed drearily. “The earth is holy… and so solid!”
“And afoot, a staff in hand?” Oleg added. “You walk slowly enough to see even bugs and butterflies, these are God’s creatures. Greet the passers-by, think of the Great Truth. God’s world is all around; steppes, woods, fields, cows.” He wiped off tears caused by biting head wind.
Thomas at last started glancing down, into the fathomless abyss where green bumps of mountains moved very slowly, all but standing still. He clenched his teeth, asked in a shaky voice, “Are you sure we made up for four days?”
Oleg stretched his neck, all but leaned over the dragon. “Five,” he said thoughtfully. “And started the sixth day.”
“Sixth?” Thomas gasped.
“The dragon rose very high,” Oleg explained. “The dark spot moving over there is a nomadic tribe, either Polovtsians or Kumans, of Khan Kotyan. And our dragon looks either a lark or a falcon to them…”
Suddenly the giant head turned, looked at Thomas with creepy eyes, each the size of a basin, a dim glitter of bony excruciations over them, puffs of steam bursting out of its nostrils with noise. The dragon flung open his broad jaws, his palate and tongue a bright purple blaze framed with sugar-white teeth. Thomas was carried away by the sight of the creepy tunnel of its red throat, with the wet slimy glisten of its walls.
He felt a push on his shoulder, glimpsed the wonderer’s hand with a slice of meat. A crash of colliding rocks, and the tunnel vanished. Thomas was faced by the dull snout of either lark or falcon. The jaws moved for a while, then the mouth opened even wider. Thomas regained his senses, threw several slices in, and the dragon turned away majestically, while he continued to grind his food evenly, like a cow grinds its cud. “Isn’t it great?” Oleg asked with gloomy fun.
“A magnificent beast,” Thomas answered earnestly. “What wonders can the Lord create! And that’s not the most… In my journeys, I’ve seen really wonderful monsters! One of them as tall as three bulls standing on each other, but five times as heavy as those, his ears hanging on both sides, like leather cloaks, and fangs in his mouth – would you believe it? – as long as my arm, and his nose longer even than an intestine. With that gut, he plucks branches to gorge! Picks things up from the ground without stooping and gorges them too! Would you believe that?”
“The world is rich with wonders,” Oleg replied.
“But the most wonderful is that local people went farther than those great heroes of yours! They can ride those animals, plow on them, drag huge stones and thick logs. The beasts are kept in the same way our peasants keep cows or horses; in barns, enclosures, pastures. And they are not fed in plenty – just enough to prevent death by starvation.”
Beneath them, bony plates rubbed against each other, cracked and crunched. Oleg put his hand into a slit between bony slabs that had once been scales, to warm his numb fingers; the dragon’s back was warm. He heard wheezing and rattling sounds beneath; the dragon must have caught a chill in his cold damp cave. At a halt, it will be good to make potion of herbs and roots… er… trees and shrubs to cure the animal. Though no need of him tomorrow, we may just let him go, but one should return good for good even to a beast. It is entrusted by the old gods.
The sun started sinking to the west, and the dragon was flying evenly the same way. Thomas wondered how long he would keep flying, any bird would have had a rest by that time, but the wonderer could not reply; he was sleeping, leaned on the comb. His invisible battle against the Secret Lords of the World was really hard.
Thomas spotted the first anxious move of the rollers of the dragon’s ears. Once the dragon turned his head, Thomas started to fling slices of meat into his jaws, aiming straight into the gaping tunnel of his throat. Maybe his windpipe is there too. Will he choke or not?
The dragon only resembled a lark in his eating while flying, and the huge slices of meat to him were the same as flies to a lark. The wonderer woke up, set to helping the knight at once, though Thomas did not seem to consider his work disgraceful; even kings at times would feed and wash their warhorses themselves, and dragons, as he believed from the wonderer, once were war mounts. “Sky… lark,” Thomas breathed out when another slice went into dragon’s mouth.
“Who?” Oleg asked.
Thomas hurled another blooded slice. The dragon finally turned away, with his cheeks swollen. “A falcon hunts in the sky but he eats on the ground. And we are throwing flies to a skylark.”
Oleg hemmed, wiped his palms on the bony plate. There was constant movement beneath, as though Thomas and Oleg sat on a flock of migrating turtles.
“We only have meat for one feeding!” Thomas reminded him anxiously.
“Let him chew that,” Oleg replied with discontent. “Gorged like a hamster. We can see his cheeks from behind!”
The dragon’s cheeks were bulging. He chewed evenly, the wind blew saliva off the corner of his mouth, Oleg recoiled in time, and the basket-sized drop plopped down on the knight. Cursing, he started to disentangle from the sticky slime, completely oblivious, in his fury, of the dragon’s flapping his wings again in a swift ascent. “Isn’t that beast tired?”
“Don’t know,” Oleg replied warily. “I haven’t flown for a long time.”
“I look after my horse,” Thomas reproached. “When winded, he’s not fit for saddle.”
“I have no horse,” Oleg growled. “We should take care of our soul! But we put it last.” Nevertheless, he looked with doubt at the dragon’s stretched neck. The beast was flying in a craned way; legs tucked up, while the neck and combed tail stretched in a line. “Night is soon,” Oleg said unwillingly. “Need to find a place to spend it. And let the beast take a breath. He may be like a horse that falls dead at a tilt!”
Thomas looked down apprehensively. The wooded hills under them looked like marsh hummocks. “How to make him land? I’ve only flown down from horseback. And once from a tower – a stone tower of forty feet! Down on the stone-paved square, in my full armor.”
Oleg gave the knight a respectful glance, climbed up to Thomas’s dagger, stabbed in a different place. “Hey, Skylark! Get down to the grass. The one we call a forest.”
The dragon uttered a shrill scream, made a sharp turn aside, as though a fish in water, folded his wings suddenly and dropped – like no stone but a whole rock! – down. Thomas’s heart stopped beating, his legs and bottom came off the dragon’s back. He hung in the air, with only the rope to hold him. Their fall got faster and faster, the air swished and screeched around.
Oleg pulled the knife out hastily, his face went white. He stabbed in a diff
erent slit, the dragon made a slight turn but kept falling like a rock that had slipped off a mountain top. The ground rushed to meet them, tiny houses were sprouting up, dark points turned to mice, then cows.
Thomas struggled his heavy head up, saw the tops of trees darting by, very close. The dragon flew over the forest, his wings spread, a huge ugly shadow rushed before him. Then there was a broad glade, even a small field, covered in sticking-out stumps and gaping pits. The dragon was driven straight onto the stubs. Thomas felt sick, closed his eyes, and pressed himself into the slits between plates.
The back beneath them suffered a sudden terrible jerk. The wonderer swore through gritted teeth. Thomas was hit in his face, his mouth filled with blood. The rope almost tore him in half, but held. Thomas opened one eye. Trees were darting past him ten steps away, as the dragon ran on the ground, with his wings advanced to reduce the speed, his breath rattling and sniffling, his nostrils steaming. His wings lowered gradually, with a dry rustle, and folded.
Oleg cut the rope with a single move. Thomas gripped a bony protuberance with both hands, his feet clung at another one. If he had not a helmet with lowered visor on, he would have also clutched at the dragon’s withers with his teeth. Oleg moved his lips apart. Well done, knight, you hold like a mite on a young goat. He clapped Thomas on the shoulder.
Thomas suddenly came off the solid back, turned twice while rolling down a slope, at last hit the ground and remained lying there, with his arms wide spread, staring vacantly into the evening sky.
The wonderer’s anxious face emerged over him. “Sir Thomas! Are you all right?”
“I am,” Thomas rasped. “But for my being completely well, this damned skylark should have not hatched out!”
“Are you hurt?” Oleg gasped. “I seemed to hear of you falling down from a forty-foot tower. In full armor, into a stony yard.”
“I did fall!” Thomas snapped. “But not from the very top! I climbed just three feet up before they pushed me off.” Moaning, he got up, glanced back at the grey-green hill of a dragon. The animal had his head advanced and laid on the ground. His eyes were dark with tiredness, his wings, which had pushed the knight off so uncaringly, lay on his back like old sails, the comb completely covered by them. The long tail was still, only the very tip twitching slightly, the sharp needles on the comb were lowered and stiffened.
Thomas moved his shoulders, the bones crunched, as though the dragon had chewed him instead of meat, and spat him out.
“I’ll gather brushwood, and you feed the beast,” Oleg suggested.
The sacks lay where they fell, thrown off the back by the dragon’s wings, two score steps away, behind the tip of the dragon’s tail. Thomas measured that flying lizard with his eyes, counted about forty feet from tail to head and over forty-five the other way round. “May I gather the wood?”
“You said you used to feed and clean your horse!”
“Cleaning this? I’d rather make three fires.”
Oleg, with no burden of armor on him, dragged the remaining sacks up quickly. The dragon opened one eye a bit, sighed with grief. Oleg knocked impatiently with the toe of his boot on the lower jaw, as though on the door of an inhospitable hut. Lazily, the dragon opened his mouth a bit. Oleg tried to squeeze the whole sack of meat through but failed, so he shook the meat out before the monstrous mug. Huge nostrils started to move, then stretched, became wide like foxholes. Oleg shoved the blooded slice into the tightly clenched lips. Reluctantly, the dragon moved his jaws apart. Oleg thrust the rest of the meat in with force, the mouth closed, and the tired dragon fell asleep, with his cheeks swollen like a thrifty hamster’s.
Thomas kindled a bonfire, making it providently behind the trees, in case the dragon does not like the smoke. When Oleg came back after a short hunt the kettle was boiling with water. The bigger twigs had burnt down, crimson coals twinkled invitingly.
Thomas took two hares from the wonderer, shook his head. “I thought we have the aurochs liver… How much you eat. Though a hermit!”
“We shouldn’t eat the dragon out of food,” Oleg explained. “We’ll have nothing to feed him tomorrow. Have you thought of that?”
Thomas disemboweled the hares, threw one into the boiling water and resolved to roast another one on coals, which he, to tell the truth, had prepared for that purpose, as he knew the wonderer. “And you?”
“There are whole herds grazing in the steppes.”
They had their meal in silence, tired, though all the day long they did nothing but sit on the flying dragon. Thomas was first to hear the dry thuds of unshod hooves, threw his spoon aside, gripped his sword. Oleg finished the soup hastily, got up too. The bow and arrows were on his back, his sheathed sword by the fire.
Mounted men rode out onto the glade; short, neatly built, with black hair and black eyes. Each one has a bow behind, a strange felt hat on his head. Their horses are rather small but look hardy and evil. Thomas counted twelve of them, and a dense wall of riders that could be discerned at a distance…
The men raised their hands, cried something out in guttural voices. One of them dismounted, walked forward slowly, advancing his palms. Oleg nodded to Thomas to stay in place, walked slowly to meet the man. Thomas, with his hand on the hilt of huge sword, watched Oleg tensely. The latter came up fearlessly to the black-haired man who was all but a head shorter, they spoke in low voices. The black-haired man pointed at the riders, even moved his hand in the direction of those behind the trees, told Oleg something in a fast guttural voice, with several nods at the dragon; he slept at the other end of the glade, his mighty breath bending the trees before him, their leaves had fallen down from his loud snoring.
Oleg glanced back and shouted. “Sir Thomas! Have your rest. I’ll go round to the nomad camp. Get to know the news. I haven’t been to Rus’ for a long time, and they ride just from there.”
“Are you safe?” Thomas cried anxiously. “Aren’t they Polovtsians?”
“They are,” Oleg replied. “Kumans! Those Polovtsians who become our friends get the name of Kumans. When I am back, I’ll tell you more.”
A horse in ornate harness, in a colored horsecloth with gold embroidery, was led up to Oleg. The black-haired man pointed at Thomas with his finger, Oleg shook his head negatively. He jumped into the saddle with no touch to the stirrups. “When are you back?” Thomas cried in fear.
“In the morning,” Oleg replied. “You sleep!” He urged his horse, the riders galloped to meet the long shadows. Evening came fast; before the sun sank beyond the horizon completely, the glittering moon was followed by the first stars. The sky went dark, studded with stars from end to end; not that bright as those in Jerusalem, but sharp and prickly. We need to fly with care tomorrow, not get too high, lest we get our backs cut on those sticking-out nails.
He woke as though pushed. There were distant voices, an anxious horse snorting. Thomas snatched the sword from under his head. Half awake, he took a fighting posture, as he’d just dreamed of the attacking chivalry of Saracens.
In the pale light of dawn, scores of men were bustling about the edge of the glade. Thomas smelled fresh blood. One of them was distinctive by his stature and broad shoulders. When he turned, Thomas recognized the wonderer.
Oleg waved his hand. “Good morning… Sir Thomas…” His voice was feeble, he staggered, but the others riders seemed to be treating him with friendly respect. Thomas lowered his sword. Soon after, all of them save the wonderer jumped on their horses and galloped away, while the wonderer dragged himself to the dying fire, by which the noble knight had taken his firm stand.
Thomas gasped. The wonderer looked exhausted, hardly able to drag his feet. His face had become yellow, his eyes glassy, his lips dry. He trudged up to the fire and collapsed. He obviously felt frozen. Hurriedly, Thomas threw some dark twigs on the dark crimson coals, blew on them, bulging his cheeks. A whole cloud of ashes flew up, sprinkled the knight all over, but the coals flared with bright orange flames, which caught the twigs and the
fire blazed up.
Oleg jerked his shoulders, his eyes seemed to be closing by themselves. “I’m getting too old for such things… But nothing to be helped. I’m Pagan. A man of that old, cruel world…”
“What,” Thomas cried in fear, “did those animals do to you?”
Oleg moved his hand, spoke in a lifeless voice. “There’s meat of young cows. A present… Drag it up – I can’t even stir my finger.” His head dropped, he fell asleep while seated. Thomas, trembling with both pity and fury, ran up to the presents and checked them; forty sacks of juicy meat, five times that number they took with them the last time. And some bunches of sweet-scented herbs. The meat was also interlaid with fragrant leaves and whitish roots.
Clenching his teeth, he fed the dragon quickly; first threw the biggest slices into its hungry jaws, then forced the smaller ones into its mouth till the dragon growled and covered his snout with his paws. Thomas dragged the other thirty-nine sacks onto the back of the replete dragon, tied them doubly tight along the comb, stretched two rows of ropes to walk, or at least crawl, along, put the rest of the fire down quickly, packed the kettle into an empty sack.
The wonderer was sitting in the same pose, his chin rested on his chest. At times he gave a snort or a start. Keening over the tormented man, Thomas lifted him up, shouldered and carried him carefully to the dragon who was also sleeping, full up.
When he was tying the wonderer as tight as possible, lest he be blown off at flying up, Oleg came to himself and muttered, “Thank you, Sir Thomas… You are true friend… And me too…”
“What happened there?” Thomas asked quickly.
The wonderer’s lips made a sluggish move. “Wild people, you see? They have wild customs. But I’m no Christian to recognize only the customs of my own. When in Rome, I do as the Romans do.” He tried to get to sleep.
“Were you tortured?” Thomas asked, ready to tear the wild Kumans with his bare hands for their satanic deeds.
“Oh yes, I was… I said I’m getting old for such rites… All the night long – only naked girls! Singing, dancing, snuggling… I lost the count of them after the first two scores. This is the land where Targitai managed his thirteenth feat! Their chieftain wanted to send girls to you, I hardly reasoned him out of it. They don’t know, wild men, that you’re a Christian and made a vow of fidelity to beautiful Krizhina…”
“What custom is that?” Thomas asked, dumbfounded.
“They are wild, I say. Bring their most beautiful virgins for the night to those considered heroes. To improve the breed! And here we come flying on a dragon… So they did their best! Once I thought it was over with the girls but then saw them dragging new ones from the camp, in such a hurry! When they grasped I was capable of nothing more, the chieftain wanted to send them to you again. I all but scuffled with him. Fool, he knows no principles of Christianity. I had to accept those ones myself too.”
Thomas darkened, said through gritted teeth in a strange voice, “Thank you, sir wonderer! I’ll never forget this service.”
“Always… for a friend…” Oleg began snoring, hung in the ropes like a cheap doll with its sawdust out. Furious, Thomas even forgot he did not know how to raise the dragon into the air. Cursing the Kumans and his noble friend, he woke the dragon, made him take a run, and once the dragon jumped up Thomas turned him northwest.
The wonderer woke up for a moment, mumbled with his eyes closed. “Sir Thomas, you here? Don’t forget to feed Skylark… or he gobbles us both. I’ll have a little sleep, okay? Don’t forget to scratch him; the fresh scar on the left of his withers is itching. And tap him between the ears with the butt – he loves it… If I don’t wake by noon, you awake me…”
He fell silent, his jaw dropped again. To Thomas, he looked like a corpse who gave his life to thirty or some other number of virgins, as he lost count of them before, and then accepted even those whom the chieftain of Kumans was sending him, Thomas Malton, who had seen no petticoat for several months by that time!
Damned Pagan, Thomas said angrily. I need to discuss the principles of Christianity seriously with him when I have an opportunity. Fool, he does not understand that only Pagans have their soul and body as a whole, as though it were white and yellow clay mixed up in the same basin. And Christians have soul separate from body: carnal values and spiritual values. The soul cannot respond for carnal joys, as the body is sinful and the soul is godly! No sin – no repentance, no repentance – no salvation. And if the Pagan understood nothing, as the doctrine of Christ was for selected few, Thomas would tell him resolutely and firmly to leave the judgment of Christian values to him. Just look at this goer-in-everything-himself! Smells like a barrel of wine. Must have drunk for two of us as well, a viper.