The vicar’s discomfort remained right at the surface of his expression. “Well,” he said. His eyes darted left then right. A seagull cawed in the sky. “You need to come to evensong. I insist. There’s another Lord you should always remain in service of.” He winked. He blessed me. He left.
I went to evensong that night and sat in the back of the church. The vicar and clergy sang their incantations and while their voices found little melody, it was nice to sit in the pew, on a cushion, and watch the angels in the stained glass windows shape-shift and shudder in the glowing candlelight. Their halos were perfect circles. Their robes were bright red and blue. I felt the vicar watching me from the choir as he and his clergy droned on in half Latin, half mumbles, the gist of which was a plea for forgiveness for us sinners and fools. When they finished, like a bubble popped we were forgiven, it was that easy. The parishioners relaxed their shoulders and I wished, in a moment of childlike wonder, that I had done this more often, that I had run here after every mistake I had ever made no matter how small so that I could have grown accustomed to the sensation of its erasure. IfI had ever been forgiven of anything, I had never learned how to accept it. I couldn’t feel it. I didn’t believe it.
After the service there was soup, bread, and ale, and I stayed near the back of the nave, keeping to myself. The vicar still shot glances my way through the crowd. I thought over what he had said earlier about Simon, calling me his squire—hadn’t he recognized our relationship all those years ago? He had blessed us, called it a romance. Simon and I had held hands in these pews. Simon had kissed me in the churchyard. Had that all been just a brotherly, servitial love to the vicar? Was something lost in translation all those years ago? Suddenly I felt unwelcome and uneasy.
“Sodomite.”
I heard a man say the word. I homed my attention in on a group of men and women. Someone said it again. It was the first time I had heard the word said in a wholly derogatory way. They were discussing the king.
“He can’t bugger Gaveston anymore so he’s buggering the whole town.”
“I’d bugger a sword up his ass but I’m afraid he’d enjoy it.”
I had no reaction. I didn’t feel insulted by what they were saying, it was clear they were venting more about the state of the nation than anything else. The land, titles, and castles King Edward II had given his lover over his little time in power had already caught up to him. He was nearly bankrupt, and the knife-edge victories his father had left for him were only just that. Still the malice from the congregants felt oddly modern. It tickled something inside me that had gone dormant long ago.
“Couldn’t keep his dick clean so the country’s gone to shit. He’ll burn in hell.”
I listened to all this, fascinated. There was even a gay couple among the group, but they also relished this new weapon, this shade of homophobia that was hatching. I felt a trickle, almost, of shame. I found it all puzzling and maybe not unwarranted, but certainly ungodly. I went and thanked a member of the clergy for the meal and quietly left the church. But in the darkened street as I walked back to the inn, the vicar caught up with me.
“Wait, George! Why did you leave so soon?”
“What are you doing?” I whipped around and instinctively touched the handle of the knife I kept in my tunic. “What do you want from me?”
“Please, just come back,” said the vicar. He was breathless, having run to catch up to me. “I swear I don’t mean you any harm, but I just need you to come back to the church.” We were alone on a darkened lane at the top of a hill. All of humble Scarborough was dashed out below us, houses faintly lit if at all. The castle hung over everything like a ceiling of black stone.
“Are you the one who wrote me?” I asked.
“Yes,” said the vicar, but he stood there flummoxed and unsure. He shifted uncomfortably and wiped sweat from his brow.
“There’s been another dragon,” he said finally.
My breath caught on itself. I felt the prickle of a chronic cough. Suddenly I was aware of every candle flickering in every window along the street, like I could smell each thin line of smoke.
“How?” I asked.
“It comes at night,” he said. “It’s terrorizing the countryside, eating all the sheep, it’s burning women and children alive.”
“That’s impossible.”
“Please, George.” The vicar grabbed my arm. There was genuine desperation in his eyes regardless of the unbelievable claim—not unbelievable, but veiled by something else, his expression ultimately unplaceable. “The attacks are happening more frequently. All of Scarborough is at risk and now with the siege and all the pressure we’ve been under... I just need you to come with me. Please, George, please if it’s the only thing you do. There’s someone who wants to meet you.”
Dragons don’t eat people. They don’t eat sheep. They eat rubbish and spit up what their fiery bellies can’t digest. They fly through time as they please and sleep underground and live for centuries without end. And there’s only one—there’s only one dragon and I killed him.
I knew the vicar was lying. The more I questioned him as I followed him back to the church, the more extravagant and false his claims became. The dragon flew in from the sea, it snatched children with its talons and carried them away into the night, it had bewitched the water supply. It was insulting to listen to but still I followed him back to the now empty church, up the nave and past the choir, through a door into his private quarters. His hands shook as he hurried me inside and told me to wait just a moment. He left me alone. Somehow, through all the unease and strangeness, it dawned on me what was happening. I smirked, even when the vicar slammed the door behind him, even when a figure stepped out from a darkened corner of the room and raised a bow and arrow. I held up my hands in submission but couldn’t pretend to be surprised by who was there.
“Hi,” was all I said.
King Edward II stood alone and trembling, barely able to keep the arrow held aloft. Silent, desperate tears streamed down his face. I wasn’t going to flinch and he wasn’t going to shoot me, we both knew this. He put down the bow and cursed.
“You don’t need to make up stories about dragons to get my attention,” I said.
The young king shook his head. He wiped his eyes and rubbed his face. Edward had aged handsomely over the years. His hair was longer and coiffed. His clothes were stately but pared down, presumably in order to be here incognito. “I’m not making anything up,” he said. “There’s been another dragon sighting.”
Impossible. I bit the inside of my cheek and said no. It was strange to be on this side of disbelief for once. “I killed the dragon,” I said, definitively.
“I know you did,” said the king. “I remember the tooth you sent my father and there’s been no sightings since. But I sent my men on a search for it—for the bones, I mean—and while they were out there, they saw it. They saw it from a distance. It flew right over their heads.”
“Well, your men are lying to you.”
