"Cornwell, Bernard - Vagabond" - читать интересную книгу автора (Cornwell Bernard)

passed since Christ had been born, but he was not sure which day
it was. It was easy to lose count. His father had once recited all the
Sunday services on a Saturday and he had had to do them again
the next day. Thomas surreptitiously made the sign of the cross.
He was a priest's bastard and that was said to bring bad luck. He
shivered. There was a heaviness in the air that owed nothing to
the setting sun nor to the rain clouds nor to the mist. God help us,
he thought, but there was an evil in this dusk and he made the
sign of the cross again and said a silent prayer to Saint Gallus and his
obedient bear. There had been a dancing bear in London, its teeth
nothing but rotted yellow stumps and its brown flanks matted with
blood from its owner's goad. The street dogs had snarled at it, slunk
about it and shrank back when the bear swung on them.
How far to Durham?" Eleanor asked, this time speaking French,
her native language.
Tomorrow, I think," Thomas answered, still gazing north to
where the heavy dark was shrouding the land. She asked," he
explained in English to Father Hobbe, when we would reach
Durham.
Tomorrow, pray God," the priest said.
Tomorrow you can rest," Thomas promised Eleanor in French.
She was pregnant with a child that, God willing, would be born in
the springtime. Thomas was not sure how he felt about being a
father. It seemed too early for him to become responsible, but
Eleanor was happy and he liked to please her and so he told her
he was happy as well. Some of the time, that was even true.
And tomorrow," Father Hobbe said, we shall fetch our answers."
Tomorrow," Thomas corrected him, we shall ask our ques-
tions.
God will not let us come this far to be disappointed," Father
Hobbe said, and then, to keep Thomas from arguing, he laid out
their meagre supper. That's all that's left of the bread," he said,
and we should save some of the cheese and an apple for break-
fast." He made the sign of the cross over the food, blessing it, then
broke the hard bread into three pieces. We should eat before
nightfall."
Darkness brought a brittle cold. A brief shower passed and after
it the wind dropped. Thomas slept closest to the byre door and
sometime after the wind died he woke because there was a light
in the northern sky.
He rolled over, sat up and he forgot that he was cold, forgot his
hunger, forgot all the small nagging discomforts of life, for he could
see the Grail. The Holy Grail, the most precious of all Christ's
bequests to man, lost these thousand years and more, and he could
see it glowing in the sky like shining blood and about it, bright as
the glittering crown of a saint, rays of dazzling shimmer filled the
heaven.
Thomas wanted to believe. He wanted the Grail to exist. He
thought that if the Grail were to be found then all the world's evil
would be drained into its depths. He so wanted to believe and that