“I’m bound to you,” he said in reply. He said this without a hint of romance, irony, humor, passion, without any emotion at all. It was a statement of fact and nothing else, like a physical string was tied between my head and his and he was merely recognizing it. It made me feel the complete opposite of assured. I loved him and I knew he loved me, but whatever this thing was—the way he had tied himself to me—I couldn’t compete with that. It was such an incompatible way of thinking that yes, in that moment, I couldn’t reason with it. To me, that mindset was as much an existential terror as the approaching warrior king.
On the thirteenth of June we packed a small bag of provisions. Early on the fourteenth we tied it to the donkey and embarked on our six-hour trek to Kirkdale. Simon was stony and morose, walking slowly behind me and the donkey. I didn’t know how we were going to last the whole journey like this. But before we were too far from the house, Simon stopped walking. He asked that we say a prayer.
I said sure of course—trying my hardest not to sound flippant or ungenuine—and I joined him, on my knees, side by side, while he prayed, which was something we had never done before. He did so silently. I wasn’t sure what to do. He said nothing.
We knelt in silence. I listened to the woods surrounding us. I thought back to that first day I had arrived in this strange new world—nearly a year ago. That was the last time I had prayed. That nonsense, primal cry to no one. Well maybe not to no one, I thought, because I couldn’t deny that it had worked, that I had been saved. Then again it was still 1301 so maybe I hadn’t, butmaybe that was my own fault and I should have been more specific, all I had done was sputter and cry. I wondered now, with fear and trepidation, if I should ask for it for once. What if I just wished myself back to modern times? Did I want that? I breathed out and shuddered.
“George, I have something I need to tell you,” Simon said. He had finished praying. I opened my eyes and looked at him. He was looking away, into the forest. “I have to tell you about something that happened to me before I met you.”
“OK,” I said carefully. He was trembling.
“It happened the day before you arrived in Greenwich. It was the night before. And I know how this is going to sound to you, so I’m just going to tell you exactly what happened and what I saw. That night, in my room... an angel appeared to me.” Tears formed in his eyes as he looked straight ahead. I felt a shudder run through me. I had no other choice but to take him seriously.
He continued. “An angel appeared in my room that night and told me that you would appear the next day, that I would meet you, that you would be my new lord and I should pledge my life to protect you. It said that we’d escape together, that we’d love each other. And that one day you’d receive a summons by the king and that would be my sign—my token that all this was real, that there really was an angel in my room, and that all this was meant to be and I was on the right path. I swear to you, George, just like I’ve sworn my whole life to you, that this really happened, that there was an angel dressed all in white, a brilliant halo of light—and it told me all of these things that were going to happen and now they’re happening and I’ve reached this point where I don’t know what’s going to happen next, George, I don’t know what’s going to happen and I’m afraid.” He began to shakeand cry uncontrollably. “It’s like I don’t know who I am. I don’t know what’s happening to me.” He grabbed onto me and I held him there, both of us still kneeling on the ground. His crying made me start to cry and I felt the rush of the unknowable, the mystery of life in all its majesty. I hated how callous I had been about the summoning.
I kissed the back of his neck. I stroked his hair.
“I love you, Simon,” I whispered. “I’m devoted to you. I love you and I believe you.”
He shuddered in my arms and whispered a heartbreaking sound. I barely heard it. “You don’t,” he said.
“I do,” I said, but through my own tears my voice was warbled and unsteady. I didn’t know what else I could possibly say. I wiped my eyes and was resolute. I did love Simon, truly. And I knew we would be all right. “We shouldn’t be afraid,” I said. “If everything’s happening just as this... angel said it would, then we’re on the right track. We’re doing what we’re supposed to be doing and God or whoever is going to help us. We just have to love each other and keep going. We know that’s what we both want. I love you, I love this home we’ve made. I’m not going to leave it. We’ll be all right.”
Simon nodded and rubbed his face, but his upset didn’t seem to have reached a clearing. I tried to wipe his eyes and he tried to stand up and pull himself away from his fear but he couldn’t. He shook his head. “I just—” His voice broke all over again. “I’m worried. I’m scared. Because, George, I’m beginning to think—I’m beginning to worry—that maybe it wasn’t an angel.”
9
We made it to Kirkdale at exactly three o’clock in the afternoon, and I knew it was three o’clock thanks to the sundial above the doors of the small church on the banks of the creek where we met the man named Piers Gaveston. If it were any other day, Simon and I would have marveled at the sundial, amazed at such simple tech, and wondered if this church was the same church whose bells we could sometimes hear ring from the top of the hill behind our smallholding, but this wasn’t any other day, because this was the day we met Piers Gaveston.
Piers was youthful, clean, and breezy. There was a concerted styling effort in his whole look—the waves in his hair, the buttoned linen shirt, the jewelry—that seemed wholly modern and out of place. He looked like a teenager, actually—the first teenager I had seen out here that I could honestly say looked like a teenager, not some prematurely aged, ruddy thing. He looked soft and faux-gallant, bratty, yet somehow in possession of authority over a cavalry of twenty men who had accompanied him.His accent was laced with a French inflection and he had an easiness about him, a pseudo-intelligence that I instantly felt the need to measure myself up against. He seemed clued in to something beyond everyone else, with eyes that cut through circumstance, and I guess what I’m trying to say is that I felt, for the first time in nearly a year, self-conscious. Earlier that day I had been crying on the ground with Simon, who had been praying for our lives, but here everything seemed business as usual: you’re late, let’s get a move on, leave that donkey here, take this horse.
Piers briefed us on the king’s movements. His Majesty’s time in the county was short, as he had an audience at Durham the next day and couldn’t be delayed. His son, Prince Edward, was coming up from Manchester to join with his own battalion, everyone grouping up and heading to the border at Berwick. “So whatever the king wants you for, it must be important. Don’t waste his time.” We were briefed on formalities and protocol. Piers was serious enough in his speech with us, but also let out a huge, cloying yawn. This was just another day at the office.
As we rode out, people gathered on roadsides to watch us pass. Simon and I had been so isolated, spending most of our time at home, going into the nearest hamlet occasionally or quick trips to Scarborough, but essentially anonymous. Now I felt the buzzing sensation of being perceived. Onlookers watched us, noticed the men we were with, noticed our ragged clothes—clothes I didn’t know were ragged until now. I was certain Piers Gaveston and the other well-dressed men escorting us didn’t have terrified visions of angels or sloppy theories about time travel. They all seemed to have an insular self-assurance powering their cores,which made them stable, unbothered, eerily modern. I half expected to look over and see Piers scrolling away on a phone, smirking at something on the screen.
Simon had calmed down a bit but remained stoic. He was quick to subjugate himself, obeying our handlers while still taking care of me—helping me with my horse, carrying my satchel—and not in a chivalrous, romantic way. There was an element of debasement to it and I wished he’d stop. Where Piers and the men felt modern, I felt clumsily stuck in the past.
We reached Thirsk late at night. An encampment of canvas tents had been erected on the outskirts of the town and everything glowed orange from within. Soldiers visited and ate around open fires, others were readying supplies and horses for the next day’s continuing journey. It was the largest crowd of people I had seen since London and I was reminded again how completely on the outside of things Simon and I had become. Not that there was an “inside” I could be privy to, but in another life it was easier to see the world passing me by on a more regular basis. Here it was a shock all at once.
We got off our horses and Piers took us inside a private tent. We were brought food and ale. Simon and I ate in silence until the tent flap opened and in walked another unmistakable teenager. This one was equally handsome, blond, and his skin was the smoothest skin I had ever seen.
“Piers!” he cried the moment he entered the tent. Piers got up and ran to him and bizarrely, the two of them kissed. Passionately. They kissed each other on the lips and embraced. Simon looked up and watched this just like me but expressed not as much surprise.
Piers composed himself and turned to us. “Gentlemen, I present to you His Royal Highness, Edward, the Prince of Wales.”
Simon stood up and I followed. He bowed his head. I did too.
“Prince of Wales. It feels good to say that,” said Piers. He kissed the prince again.
“It feels silly,” said Prince Edward. He conversed for a moment with Piers, then motioned for Simon and I to come with him out of the tent. Despite his youth, his sense of command was inherent, with no second-guessing. Simon and I did what we were told and followed him.
The prince locked arms with Piers as we strode through the encampment. He spoke over his shoulder to us. “I apologize for the disruption to your lives. My father can lose himself in his fantasies and tends to overdo things. You’re not the first unsuspecting peasants he’s pulled from the muck for an interrogation and you won’t be the last, but you’ve nothing to fear. He’ll chat for a moment, hopefully not accuse you of anything, then get depressed and send you on your merry way. Just don’t play into it.”
“Into what?” I said.
“Well, the whole King Arthur of it all. He’s paranoid about these resurrection stories from the Welsh and his suppression tactics haven’t been the kindest. He dug up the king’s grave and reburied him in England and that’s only made things worse. My new title didn’t help things either.”
“He thinks King Arthur’s real?”
