The prince got up and stepped a safe distance away from the table before yelling back at his father. “You recognize the union between these two peasants and yet fail to respect the oath of mine own!”
“I respect courage. I respect the devotion of kin and land—notthat of two battle-bored bedfellows. I respect one England, one rule, and men who understand that, not opportunist charmers, and so far before me”—he looked around the room, from his son, to me, to Simon, suddenly realizing his age—“I’ve yet to see such easy miracles. I’m running out of fools to waste chances on.”
He put the plastic Coke bottle back in the wooden box and slammed it shut, then called his guards and servants back inside, dismissing us. Men entered the tent at once. The meeting the king had called—which had intercepted Simon’s and my life, sunken it into a month of preparation and fear—was now over. He was ready to move on to the next. I had the vision of a showboating CEO who parachutes into the office for a blitz of town halls, spouting thought-leader clichés, then moves on before anyone can ask what he does all day.
“George,” the king called just as we were being led out of the tent. Everyone froze and waited. I turned around. The king sat at the table alone, a gaunt, stretched-out man of a thousand years. He stared at me with an expression that suggested he knew and had witnessed all the world’s capacity for folly.
“If you are what you say you are, then erase this history from whatever future awaits us. You ride at dawn.”
10
My head was a swarm of nonbelieving thoughts. There was first the rush of living history: seeing a king of England. Then the nonreality of my reality: a medieval warlord holding a bottle of Diet Coke. And there were dragons. No, there wasonedragon. One dragon and somehow it was connected to the Coke bottle. It didn’t make sense how the king had explained it. The dragon was breathing fire and leaving behind plastic bottles from the future? It was littering? And the plan was for me to be used as a sort of bait to find and slay the dragon—but not slay, “bring under control,” and what did that mean? It was possible the dragon might not actually be a properdragonbut something more abstract, enough of a threat for the king to hear about but not enough for him to get involved directly. What I felt more than anything was my outsider status. Surely I had missed some key opportunity back there, I had misheard something, and now it was too late and I was caught up in this uncontrollable swirl.
I tried to think. I tried to think out loud. But Simon was making himself more subservient than ever, which made me feel more on my own in my thinking, and I was irritated. Still he wrapped his arms around me in our private tent that night. Still he assured me we would find a way through this, he would stand by me, God would provide. He was delusional. God was a clown—that’s the only thing I knew for sure now—complete with a honky red nose and an earth full of balloon animals, squeaking and squealing, popping in and out of time.
“He threatened to kill us, essentially,” I said, laying out the facts. “To kill us over something we have no control over, something we don’t have anything to do with. And we don’t know what his son’s going to do. We can’t have him and a bunch of soldiers coming back to our place. They’ll trample the land, terrify the animals. And there’s no dragon—there’s no such thing as dragons! How are we supposed to satisfy that? It feels like we’re being set up.”
“What would you like me to do?” Simon asked.
“Stop. Don’t be like that.”
“I’m here to help you.”
“You’re not,” I said. “What was that back there? ‘Servant and helpmate’? That’s not how I want you to be. That’s not how I see you and you know that. You’re not my servant.”
“But I am. I’ve sworn to help you—”
“Then help me understand what we’re supposed to do.” Our heads were pressed together. “We’re getting wrapped up in something I don’t want us to be a part of and you’ve barely said a word. You were terrified of all this before we left and now it’s like you’re checked out. What changed?”
“Nothing’s changed,” said Simon. “It’s just, in this kind of world, I think whatever you think is probably the best move. This is your territory.”
“Simon.” I looked into his expansive blue eyes but only saw my darkened reflection in them, the glow of campfire outside the tent. Again I felt that strange distance between us, like our relationship—his idea of what a relationship should be—was completely foreign to mine, and here I was on an upward slope looking down at him, paces ahead of him but lost, completely out of my depth. I didn’t want to be served. I had spent so much of my life doing that, lost in the same role Simon was now immersed in—I didn’t know how to suddenly be on the receiving end of that kind of devotion. I couldn’t be. I refused. I had been the servant so many times before, with all those men, and I would not let Simon become the same. I thought of Callum from work, the way I had melted for him.
“You’re too nice.” Callum called it out one night.
I had sublimated myself for him just like Simon was doing for me. All that yearning for something I could never put into words, dying for it so many times.I’ve sworn to help you—I had practically said those same words myself.
“No, c’mon, mate. You’ve done so much for me, George, tell me what I can do for you.” Callum had said this to me at dinner with a twinkle in his eye. We were out after work. This was during the zenith of my devotion to him, my servicing, my worshipping. We had been to work, been to the gym, and now we were at a cocktail bar. Eight a.m. to eight p.m. I had spent twelve whole hours with Callum and suddenly with these words, with this look in his eye, there was the potential for something concrete to be announced, a stamp beyond approval. “Tell me whatI can do for you. For once,” he said. “Seriously.” He reached out and touched my arm.
I froze. Involuntary nerves fired throughout my body and I couldn’t speak.
“I’ve actually never said this to anyone...” Callum began.
My heart leapt. I tried to harden the maturity of the emotions I felt clamoring up from inside me. He had recognized my inability to let out my greediness, and he was going to reward it himself before I could even ask for it, before I could plead for it.
“This is kind of personal, so don’t tell any of the lads, but...”
My breathing stopped completely. I waited. Best friends be damned, we would become something more. I watched his parting lips.
“Alex’s dad owns a hotel out in Tenerife and I think I’m going to go help set up and run a second location.”
A valve somewhere inside me snapped shut. The waves of intimacy backfired and soured too quickly.
“Who?” I said.
“Err—Alex, my wife. Her dad owns a hotel in Tenerife and wants to open a second location. He’s in Costa Adeje now but he’s just bought a property on Lanzarote.” Callum went on to explain that he was quitting his job at the firm to go run a hotel—or at least thinking about it, or at least, like, maybe, “Depending on our bonuses this Christmas. If I triple my commission after these next client trades, I can pull it off. I’ve already doubled my target this year, thanks to you.” He winked. I stared. “Just kidding—well, not really—seriously, thank you for your help. And that’s not to say I don’t want any more special George-favors, because I might need some more coming up.”
George-favors?
