by Yury Nikitin
***
They rode all the day long, only at noon allowed their horses a brief rest and had a snack themselves without making a fire.
“What’s the name of this country?” Thomas wondered.
Oleg was surprised. “What’s wrong with your memory? I’ve told you: Rus’.”
“I see that,” Thomas dismissed, “but it was Rus’ yesterday and even the day before. And whose lands are we crossing today?”
Oleg hemmed. “You’ll get your tongue sore of asking that. You may ride a horse, crawl a snail, or fly a bird – anyway it will be Rus’ tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, and the day after that. And princedoms… All of them belong to Rurikids. One brother has this one, another has that, the third one has the third. All taken together, they make Rus’. The Rus’ of Rurikids.”
Thomas was silent, looking incredulous. At last he spoke with doubt. “Marvelous are the works of God… In our host there was a force of valiant Sir Rodoslav, a brave warrior and merry knight. His men were known for strength, discipline, martial skill. Everyone marveled at them standing any hardships without a grumble. Now I recall: they’ve had the same arms and armor I see here. Does it mean they came from this land?”
“Probably even from this very city. Vyatichi, for instance, also took part in those campaigns, but they use other kinds of equipment.”
Thomas was astonished. “Do Vyatichi come from here too? I’d have never thought so. I thought they were Vikings. They stood to the Duke of Tuleb’s left, covering the flank of King Henry Bluetooth. Brave and fierce warriors too! Your works are marvelous indeed, O Lord!”
While saddling the horses, Thomas imagined the way far ahead, all those woods, marshes, cities and villages they had to cross, sighed and said vexedly, “That’s what I can’t fathom: you are a wizard of considerable power and you don’t use it! Except when pushed to the wall. And even then you’d often rather die than use magic. For me, it looks like having two fast horses and walking on foot in their dust! You already are doomed to Hell’s fire! What more is there to be afraid of?”
He expected no reply from the wonderer who used to avoid such talks, but now the sorcerer was in good spirits. He laughed. “I could say that’s my vow. It would explain everything to you, wouldn’t it?”
“Er…”
“Well, it’s really a kind of vow. Though not to demons: forget that. It’s a promise I made to myself.”
“But why?”
“How shall I put it? Just imagine: I also want to reach the kingdom of heaven. And I am going the right way. But each use of magic throws me back into the darkness. Magic is impious… not quite in the way you see it, but you grasp the general meaning of it. Magic is based on implicit faith, and I hate implicit faith. Magic is not less slavish than Christianity. Every time I save my bacon with magic, I feel disgraced. You are right: sometimes it is better to die than be rescued by those whom you struggle against.”
Thomas looked with wide-open eyes. “Then you have more knighthood than any paladin of the Round Table!”
“Thomas, actually I would endure any shame or disgrace, as I’ve endured many things before, but the use of magic is trampling on more than life. It’s trampling with dirty hooves on the very purpose of my being! On what I live for.”
It was like the sky opening over Thomas. The wonderer appeared to bear his own cross that he, a knight and Christ’s warrior, could barely imagine! He had only seen and felt the very edge of it and still was dumbfounded. A dangerous man was riding with him. Really dangerous.
By evening the breeze dropped, the fragrances of late herbs and fallen leaves hung in the still air. The huge crimson ball was subsiding slowly to the edge of the earth. Coal-black shadows moved on the dark-red ground ahead of the riders, grew longer, merged with the shadows of rocks, stones, and trees. The world was wild and unknown: only the two of them and their horses seemed alive in it.
The sky darkened gradually. At first there came a barely visible crescent, then a star flashed on, and another one. Now Thomas and Oleg rode under the deep-blue cup, its lip rested on the brinks of the earth.
By night, in a sparse birch forest, they bumped into some merchants. They had put their loaded carts in a circle, kindled a fire, fetched the brushwood. A thorough preparation for night, to avoid any surprise…
There was a big cauldron gurgling and ringing its lid on a tripod, and some dark broad slices roasted over the hot coals on the barked twigs. The smell of roast meat with exotic spices stung their nostrils. Thomas gulped saliva down noisily, and his stallion mended a pace at once as if he wanted to eat the meat before his master did. “Greetings to you, noble sires,” Thomas proclaimed into the space; he obviously did not know how to address merchants. “Pax vobis. God bless you!”
The merchants watched them with interest. One stood up. “The same to you, if you mean it. I’ve never seen a priest in steel before! It’s night, so you may stay with us. We’ll protect you.”
Thomas went crimson and began to puff up, but Oleg said meekly, “Thank you, good people. We’ll spend the night with you.”
“Have you come a long way?”
“Very long.”
The merchants asked no more questions. If a man can’t or doesn’t want to speak, he should not be forced. One must not count money in the pockets of others as many like to do. Neither should one pump others for what he wants to know. They will tell you if they like.
Thomas took some lard and a head of cheese out of his bags: it doesn’t befit to eat only the food of others and hide what you have. The merchants found a skin of brew, and it went from hand to hand around the fire. After the meal, they started a cautious conversation about who the travelers were and where they were heading.
Questions were asked in a way that allowed them to evade easily. You never know whom you may meet in the woods, so you’d better hurt no one. It’s the time of trouble: princes lay hands on everything, foreign missionaries scour around, some trying to win people over to another faith, others persuading princes into close unions with either Kazimir or the Polovtsians, or whatever other dark and far-going aims they have. Merchants could not always see their benefit at once, so they preferred to offend no one but watch, listen, and sniff for whatever they could gain from all that stuff.
When the skin was half empty, they began a sedate and wise talk about how to make Rus’ better, how to live right, how to bring peace and order at last to the lands that had always been in disorder, where the order was only promised, to where they had even called Germans long ago, in the hope they would make order, but even the Germans failed – it was Rus’, no Deutschland of theirs.
The wonderer squirmed, then asked, “Germans? Was Rurik a German?”
“A Kraut,” the merchant confirmed, then thought for a while, scratched his head. “Or a Yid. No way to know for sure.”
At the height of the revelry, when Thomas was going to try his luck at a game, as play and way is where people show their true colors, in play and bath everyone is equal, playing is not stealing – there was a sudden rustle among the tree tops. The air began to tremble, some blue sparks flashed and died out at once. Branches broke with a crunch, as a bough… not, a whole log went falling onto the ground.
The log tumbled down and appeared to be hollow inside. Before anyone could say knife, a lean and tiny old woman got out, like a giant bark beetle. Her face was wrinkled like a baked apple, she had no teeth, but her eyes were sharp. She dusted off hastily. Wooden crumbs had got stuck in her shaggy grey hair as if she were really gnawing at the wood. “Hail to everyone,” she said quickly. “Don’t be afraid, I shan’t hurt you. For some reason, I feel really sated today. I’ll only warm by the fire if you don’t mind.”
The eldest merchant made a hiccup, forced out, “We don’t… We don’t mind at all. Not at all!”
The old woman came closer. She was clad in rags hanging from her body like the wings of an old bat used to sleeping among cobwebs. Her pin-sharp eyes measured the motionless fig
ures of Thomas and Oleg at once. Thomas kept his hand alerted on the hilt of his two-handed knightly sword. There was a nail from Christ’s cross in it, hammered deeply. The nail sprinkled with the noblest blood in the world had the power to protect against any crafty designs by the devil and his servants. Surely, it would only protect those devoted in their faith. The chaplain had promised that. But, God damn, it was another sword!
“The news of the two of you has spread over all the lands.”
Oleg, finishing the stale slice of cheese, objected with his mouth full, “Hardly all!”
“All of ours,” the old woman specified.
“Sit down, warm your bones. A knowing woman?”
“Now they call me witch. People know nothing about the old knowledge and those of us who keep it. Neither they want to know.”
Oleg clenched his jaw. Again, like many times before, ignorance comes into the world with triumph. In the past, literacy could be promoted by force, but this new faith of the weak and poor in spirit proclaims those weak, dirty, and ignorant the most pleasing to the new god, while literacy comes from the devil. Beat and burn the literate!
Thomas looked with disgust. He didn’t cross himself (it did not befit a man to be afraid of a woman, even a witch) but sat aside, in order not to touch her by accident with his iron elbow and get his armor rusty.
The witch lifted her hands. A rustle in the tree tops again, the crunch and fall of boughs. The merchants darted sideways. A patterned tablecloth spread on the green grass. Some narrow-necked jugs, the likes of which Oleg had only seen in Hellas, tumbled on the ground. Two colossal winebowls, one of home brew, another of heady mead, emerged silently, small scoops plopped down, and in the middle of the tablecloth, moving other things aside, a roast boar appeared with an apple in its mouth.
“Paganism!” Thomas said with disgust. “Devil’s work!”
“Don’t eat it then,” Oleg suggested.
“What next,” Thomas was insulted. “The devil might think I’m afraid of his servants!” He was the first to take out a dagger (narrow and very sharp, the only fit thing to finish off a knocked-down knight by thrusting the blade into his visor slit), stabbed the boar with joy, as though taking a Saracen’s life. There came a smell of fragrant meat. The boar was young and juicy. It seemed to be no forest animal but the one fattened in the warm and care, with milk and fresh bread.
Oleg, laughing up his sleeve, snatched the slices of roast meat from the fire. The merchants exchanged glances and reached for scoops. The eldest one pushed his cross deeper into his collar, immediately scooped the brew and took a slice of meat from Oleg, tasted the brew, listened to himself. A contented smile appeared on his face.
The merchants ate and drank the witch’s treats with caution at first, but when the brew got into their heads, there were born Pagans drinking and bellowing songs by the fire. One even raised the hag to dance, and when some yellow eyes, definitely not wolfish, gleamed from behind the trees in the night, no one clutched at his cross. The eldest one even made an inviting gesture. The tablecloth would feed everyone if the hag spoke truth, and in the night woods we are all brothers.
While the embracing merchants bellowed obscene songs, the witch turned to Oleg and Thomas. Her voice fell to a whisper. “What have you done?”
“And what have you heard?” Oleg asked back.
The witch took no notice. Her small sharp eyes were piercing Thomas. “What do you bear… with you or in you, that you are spoken of even in the High mountains?”
Thomas hesitated, glanced at sir wonderer. Oleg said in a louder voice, “What does it matter to you? Eavesdropping is bad.”
The witch eyed him with disdain. “Tell me… Are you with him?”
“I am. What did you hear?”
The witch turned her piercing eyes on the knight again. “They are rather afraid of something. Bad sound, but I grasped they were sending someone to stop you…”
“They came to stop me,” Thomas grumbled.
“And what?”
“Now they will come to no other place. Unless devils drag them there.”
The witch examined him with growing interest. She ignored the knight’s irritation, Oleg understood why. An ignorant angel. Just a child, however big and strong in looks. A capricious, quick-tempered child of the new world. Not the better one – it’s still a long time before we can see what this world is truly worth. As for now it’s just new. How can one be angry with a child?
“Very proud words. And you are not one who cringes. That’s laudable.”
“He cringes,” Oleg said venomously. “Before no dragon but before the cross, bones, splinters, a footprint in stone. He also spits over his shoulder, often crosses himself, whispers, crooks his fingers behind, being scared by something like a hare.”
“So superstitious?” the witch wondered.
“He also believes in dreams and sneeze, in a black cat, a woman with empty buckets, a priest on the way and Friday, the thirteenth.”
Thomas snuffed angrily. He feared no visible enemy – God was his witness, as well as the Saracens he had defeated. But the Faith told to be afraid of the invisible enemy, the Archfiend!
The witch snapped her fingers, raised her hands. Two big broad cups fell from above, the witch caught them deftly, lest they touch the ground. The brims of those cups were a dim shimmer in the firelight. Thomas detected that both were bound with old silver.
Oleg took a cup from her, smirked, glanced at Thomas. He looked at the cup again, shook his head when his eyes met the witch’s. She waved him aside negligently: drink, don’t make difficulties! Look at your friend who doesn’t mind anything…
Meanwhile, Thomas drained his cup and poured some rough wine from the jug: the boar had been sprinkled with eastern spices, so the knight’s mouth was burning. He tossed it back then tasted some mead (he’d got to know its taste and charm in Kiev), gulped it down with some more wine, filled the cup again straight away.
Oleg had no wish to speak in front of the merchants. They are listening, glancing at each other. In their trade one may drink, even get drunk, but for the one who loses his head, his first trip as a merchant will be his last. And those were tough, experienced trade wolves. Even too tough for such a simple market trip from one princedom into another.
Anticipating the witch’s new question, Oleg asked them respectfully, “Oh, you have come a really long way! You’ve seen countries far away and people overseas! You’ve beheld with your own eyes what we only know from songs, which the new faith orders to name byliny. Please tell us about the wonderful things you’ve seen in your last voyage!”
Flattery makes even the wisest one stupid. For some reason Rod let it be a human’s vulnerable place, one of many. The merchant’s sharp eyes went oily and dull at once. Stroking his luxurious beard, the eldest one said grandly, “We’ve seen tall towers of Bagdad and the sea as blue as sky. We’ve seen sands and strange animals. We’ve beheld the world where winter brings no snow, where people are black like tar or coal! We’ve seen mighty tribes in which even chieftains walk around naked and eat humans…”
The witch shook her head. “How awful! You must be lying! Where can such monsters live?”
“Far away. But the greatest miracle happened on our way back, across the scorching sands. Our party was few, as we’d sold everything save three horses, not to mention two carts with gifts for our families. The road was said to be safe and empty, so we let our guards go. There were just a couple of versts to the city, and we rode, happy with coming back home soon…”
He sighed, wiped his forehead. A ghost of fear flickered in his eyes, as if he was going through some scary thing once again. “And when we could already see the city walls, some robbers came upon us out of the blue. Two dozen of them against the three of us. Each of us can stand up to two, or even three if he gets angry, and that’s not a boast, but the third of us was ill then. We carried him in a cart, and with two we could not–”
“Come on!”
&n
bsp; The merchant said with delight, “That would have been our end if not for the marvelous warrior who came at the very last moment! He was like menacing lightning in God’s hand. His stallion was black, with mane and tail flying in the wind. The sword in his hand shone like the brightest star in the sky of Bagdad. When he dashed on the robbers, the ground moaned and a flock of black crows soared behind.”
“Which crows?” Thomas didn’t get it.
“The lumps of earth kicked off by his stallion’s hooves! The warrior uttered a scary shout. Many robbers collapsed, and the rest had their legs turned to water. And when the warrior came on them with his sword raised, only five dared to attack.”
“Come on,” Thomas asked impatiently.
The merchant took a breath. His chest straightened proudly, as if it were him fighting those robbers. “He threw all five down with three strikes! I don’t know how he managed it, but I saw three terrible blows, which splashed the grass ten sazhens around with blood and lay the robbers slashed like ram carcasses. The hero did not bother to dismount. Just smiled, wiped his sword, and turned his horse. In vain we cried after him, eager to pay homage, offering money and rich gifts for our miraculous rescue! He did not even tell us his name. Fortunately, one of us had seen him before and knew him!”
Thomas asked with respect, “So who was that marvelous warrior, as much modest as he is valiant? The world has few knights endowed with such wonderful virtues. I thought all of them used to sit at the Round Table.”
The merchant said solemnly, “It was Michael Uryupinets himself!”
The wonderer gave an understanding nod. He seemed to have heard of this valiant hero. The merchant crossed himself piously, Thomas did the same. Both looked at each other with patronizing negligence: what could one expect from a fool?
Actually, each of them looked like a boor from the point of view of another – one made a cross from his right shoulder while another from his left. They did not know yet that the first one would later be called an Orthodox and the other a Catholic.
***
With drunken surprise, the merchants peeped into the winebowls that never grew lighter. Finally, the youngest man turned one over. A scanty splash of brew came out and vanished before it could reach the ground. At once the winebowl became empty, even dry, as if it had been held over the fire. The ill-starred merchant failed to shake out even a single drop. They let him have it, and the second winebowl was now handled with care; they all but bowed to it.
The boar managed to sate everyone, so fast it was getting new meat on, juicy and odorous, already roast, larded with garlic and onions. The eldest man turned out to be the most enduring – he ate and drank for twelve, loosened his belt, then took it off. His friends leaned back one by one, falling into drunken sleep, one began to snore with a bone still in hand. The witch took the bone out carefully, put it into the bag on her belt. Oleg saw it and nodded. She slipped up. Left out of her account that they are not that toothless. Her yellow stubs of teeth would only take off small fibers of meat, but the men’s strong teeth, in search of marrow, had ground what the boar could not be resurrected without. She’ll have to look for a stronger spell, as getting a new pig is more difficult. And she may fail in it. The ancient skill of witchcraft is dying out, never to return.
When the eldest merchant gave up, fell on his back and began to snore, only Thomas and Oleg remained at the magic tablecloth. The witch ate almost nothing, while the knight and the wonderer satiated themselves in a manly way, unhurried and sedate, with the skill of getting their fill in advance, like old wolves do.
The witch looked sideways: no strange ears, just merchants in their heavy sleep. “So who is watching you?”
“They were,” Thomas corrected proudly. “Now devils watch them, tossing firewood under their pots.”
“Tossing it where?” the witch asked.
Oleg explained condescendingly, “It’s from their doctrine of the afterlife. Never mind.”
“Oh,” the witch drawled. “Yet another new faith? Well, there were lots of them. I hope this one won’t last either. You’ve crushed some foes, but what about others?”
“No others,” Thomas replied angrily, wounded by what the witch had said about Christ’s most holy faith. “We’ve destroyed those godless robbers.”
“In fact they were Christians,” Oleg did not fail to sting.
“Destroyed all?” the witch disbelieved.
“Killed the chiefs. And their flock, if any, will scatter. Who would dare fight us now that we’ve defeated the strongest?”
The witch watched the young knight with regret: proud and happy he was, in raptures about his victory. He advanced his chest and squared his shoulders as if he were already welcomed by the king and showered with royal bounties. He did not know yet that nature abhors a vacuum.