I swallow hard. “You kept England safe?”
He nods and pulls me over to a bench. We snuggle together and he carries on talking. “We dragons were not always popular with humans, but that did not matter. What always drove us was our duty.” He chuckles. “Well, that and the gold.”
“There are more of you?”
I regret the question as soon as I ask it, because his face grows sad. “There were once many, but time and mankind have made us less. Now there are few. I do not know of any others in England, but I have cousins in Norway and Finland. They do not protect now. They have moved into acquisitions.”
“Acquisitions?”
He smiles, and it’s nice to see it on his face again. “The myth of dragon gold is not a false one, Cary. We like possessions. Many of my extended family are now bankers. We have left our wild past behind us.”
“Have you?”
“To a certain extent. I outgrew my fighting ways many centuries ago, but I was always happier with hoarding books than gold. It is why I became a professor for many years and wrote scholarly books on long forgotten myths. But my cousinsoversee my assets. In return, I have to appear in Norway where they will feast me twice a year and lecture me on fiscal responsibility.”
“You really were a professor.”
He nods. “I can only do it for so long, though. You humans grow suspicious about a man who does not age.”
“Not if you live in Hollywood. They’d just give you an Oscar and talk about how brave you are.”
He laughs. “So, I would do that for a while and then retire and turn up somewhere else.” He sighs. “And then came the time when I retired from the world.”
I snuggle closer, putting my hand on his, watching as he turns it over to examine the palm before dropping a kiss there. He closes my hand as if to keep the kiss safe, and something about his solemness makes me smile tenderly at him. “Why did you retire?”
He settles back against the bench, staring at the distant statue of Arthur. “Truthfully, I was weary of everything. When you have lived as long as I have, you eventually feel that you have seen everything. I was alone and lonely, and I grew tired of always waiting for something that seemed as far away as it was when I was a small dragon.”
I look at him curiously. “Waiting for what?”
He kisses my temple, inhaling as if taking my scent into him. “It matters not now,” he says solemnly. “But I was tired. I was living in Wales, and one day I just flew away and never went back. I took the coastline, and I travelled the length and breadth of England until I came to Porthcurno. It was a windy day, and I sat on the rocks listening to the sound of the sea, and suddenly I heard snatches of poetry.” He shakes his head. “Ah, it was beautiful, Cary. Shakespeare’sThe Tempestspoken on words that flew on the wind to me, and I took to the air and saw the small theatre on the rocks.”
“The Minack?”
He nods. “And I knew that I was finally home. I made a hall for myself under the gorse and stone, and I settled down where I could be alone and yet never feel so lonely when I could hear poetry and plays and see the lights of the Minack. And there I waited.”
Silence falls. “I’m sorry you were sad,” I finally say. “I hate that.”
He runs his fingers through my hair slowly and almost reverently. “But that is forgotten now.”
“Is it?”
“But of course.”
His surety is curious, but doesn’t seem to invite further questions on the topic. So I ask about a different one. “You spoke about your duty to protect England. Albion,” I correct myself. “Is that still your duty?”
“It will always be my duty as long as I remain here.”
“Do you have somewhere else to go, then?”
He takes my fingers and squeezes them. “Into the Sunlit Lands. Many of my kin took the journey when they grew tired of this world.”
“But not you?”
He shakes his head, his gaze fastened on the statue of his old friend. “Nay. My friendships bound me, and I still love this world. Besides, I would not leave before—" He draws in a breath. “One day, maybe, but not now,” he finishes.
“Does anyone know that you have this duty?” I sit up straight. “Do they know they could have a dragon to help them?”
“It is a secret handed down from king to king, but I believe that they no longer have faith. I have become a legend like Arthur and his knights, and so I have been left in peace.”
