Redeemer

As the riggers struggle to keep the red and white tent aloft, cold misery drizzles down from a leaden sky. Soon, they will set the riding ring beneath. Locked in my wagon, I am overwhelmed by the scents of the season, mud, leaf mold and decay. An anniversary of sorts.

Ours is a small circus. One score and seven souls spread like tinkers across a dozen brightly painted wagons, plus me in mine. And a menagerie, if I dare call it that. Franque used to bill it as two by two until hard times settled over us. My curse has followed me across the ocean. When America descended into civil war, brother against brother, I had fled eastward, always eastward. Ireland had slipped deeper into poverty. Then with the death of her lover last year, the queen had fallen out of public sight. A dark pall hangs across her land like the long, gray veil of an English autumn.

Now we can barely afford canvas. Most of what we have has been patched and restitched a hundred times. Like the silk that forms my costume. But in the footlights, no one will notice.

The ancient lion and the mangy bear growl nearby and pace their cages. They haven’t been fed in days. Soon, we’ll have to slaughter another mule. Not until we reach Hull or York, Franque says. Besides, hunger makes them roar. The same way it keeps Satan mean while he prowls the grounds at night on massive yet silent paws. I always reserve a few scraps for him so he will linger near my door. My canine companion. My one true guardian, now as before. Besides, I hate seeing any of God’s creatures suffer. Not that Franque feeds us much either. He pays to keep us thin. But I don’t need as much as the other women anyway.

I wonder about the name this place. I feel a pull like it’s the namesake of somewhere I’ve once been. I know we’ve crossed the Humber and are deep in the East Riding of Yorkshire. I ask Franque through the bars of my window when he comes knocking.

“Spalding Moor,” he calls as he walks away, “Land of Nod or something. Just a village where we can earn a few crowns. Now get ready to take your place.”

I paint my face up bright like the wagons, not that anyone will see. Prudence and Patience have taught me a few tricks from their homeland including how to rim my eyes with charcoal. I brush my hair until it gleams like obsidian velvet. Where once it shone like spun gold, it had come back in as black as midnight after the war had burned it away. Then, I thought it a badge of honor. Now, it is my stain.

I don my little brocade vest and a simple, white silk kirtle, both slit in back to accommodate my features. I fumble with the hooks and buttons, my fingers stiff and cold. Finally, I dab a little rose water with the tiny stopper from a cut glass bottle, wrists, ears, and a thin trail descending into my vest. Clutching my brush and slippers, I huddle beneath a heavy cloak and wait.

Soon, one of the Brothers Dunkel comes to escort me, Mattheus tonight. He turns the key and releases me into the circus yard. The rain has eased. With the slap of a hand against his thigh and a quick “here, boy,” he calls Satan to his side. The black mastiff bounds over from beneath the cages where he was sniffing around for fallen meat.

We slip between the shadows of the wagons, Mattheus the athletic Teutonic warrior in his harlequin tights, me a hunchback in my cloak. We both dodge the deepest puddles, trying not to spatter our costumes with mud.

We slide into the back of the sideshow tent through an untied slit in the canvas. The other women are already in their places along the dark path the patrons will wend through. The Seven Heavenly Virtues of Human Oddities and Arielle the Fallen. A private collection of bustiers, corsets and whalebone stays modeled by the exotic freaks of womankind. Close enough to the gawking crowd that an ambitious hand might brush silk, and often did.

Franque has a cruel sense of humor, renaming each of his women according to his unholy wit. Chastity the bearded, Charity the legless, Love the eyeless, Faith the midget, Hope the giantess, Prudence and Patience the Siamese twins. Prudence is trussed up like a proper English lady, Patience partially undone like a Parisian tart. Two torsos, one pair of legs. Two girls, one goal. Franque’s little joke. Even the hyena no longer laughs.

Many of the other women speak no English, or, like Hope, some dialect I can barely understand. I should be drawn to them like sisters but they are weak, exploitable, too much like my lesser brethren in the war. We had sought to rule this place but never envisioned our freedom would look like this.

I have no idea where Franque discovered them, or whether, like me, they had sought him out. From the whispers I’ve heard, I suspect not. But they are fed in a time when many poor, deformed Londoners starve to death.

Like the others, my body is my attraction and my disgrace. In a niche out of reach, I sit on a stool behind a black curtain with two oval floor mirrors stationed to either side. For my protection Franque says, just like the lock on my wagon door. Their position conceals my face, but sidelights shine across my body. Each night, I play the country lady brushing her long, loose hair at a dressing table in her little vest and kirtle, the village voyeurs beyond the window unnoticed. My fair, unblemished skin set off by raven hair.

The antique, rippled glass obscures the view. Franque says that makes the encounter all the more titillating. But my risqué attire is a sideshow to his sideshow. All anyone really wants is to catch a glimpse of my wings. An angel in the footlights.

The patrons tour our tent before the show, never after. With us, Franque throws in his small menagerie. Pharaoh the lion, Goliath the bear, Hared the purportedly laughing hyena, Pilate the Burmese python, Charles and Emma the unruly chimpanzees, and a pair of unnamed ostriches.

The crowd starts through, mostly anonymous men masked in stale sweat, dung-spattered boots and bawdy laughter. A few young women with high giggles behind the rustle of their skirts. No children. Ever. We are not a sight for under-developed eyes, not at half a crown. No circus is. Franque has three riggers stationed throughout the tent in case anyone lets his imagination rule him. Satan sits guard before my curtain, snarling and snapping if anyone strays too close. A little fun with the other girls is fine. No one takes so much as a step toward me.

Night after night, I brush and stretch, touch up my makeup, twirl my hair, apply more rose water, trace the outlines of my vest, all just as I’ve been taught. None of this is instinctive. I have never gotten used to my gender since the day I’d been cast into it. This is my lot in life now, waiting to be chosen, waiting to fulfill another’s dream. A lady in waiting. They also serve the penance of the damned.

Midway through the night’s procession of prying eyes, I freeze mid-brushstroke as I sense a gaze upon me, cold and naked. This one has a different hunger. I can smell the stain upon him like the gin he drinks like water and wears like cheap cologne. I shrink away, wishing I could hide. I am thankful he cannot see my face, though I’m certain he spots the color rising from my chest. He lingers long enough that Satan sits up and growls then grumbles as he resettles.

Minutes after comes the lull. The main show must have started. In the quieter moments, I hear the rising and falling susurration of the crowd like the faint, wheezy breath of a dying man. The order of the acts is well established by applause. First, the four Brothers Dunkel, imported directly from the Rhineland, tumbling and juggling in their parti-colored tights. Then Yuri the Cossack, captured in Crimea, cantering his pale horse around the ring, standing or handstanding bareback, then slipping under and around, all while brandishing his wicked saber. Rafael the Spanish blade swallows a flaming sword of the finest Toledo steel then nips the tassels from Temperance’s already scanty costume with his toothy little knives. Franque, armed in his bright red waistcoat and coal black top hat with pistol and whip, sprinkles his acts between. He tames the lion, baits the bear, wrestles the serpent, guides the chimps dressed in genteel country finery through a proper English tea. Gabe the clown announces each new act with a flourish of his horn, and keeps up a running commentary of ribald jokes and double entendres.

Temperance, when her back or side is not pressed against Rafael’s target board, plies the crowd with shots of cheap gin from a tray slung around her neck. Most of the men are more interested coaxing her naked shoulders within arm’s reach in hopes of caressing her burgundy dress or black crisscrossed tights. She assures me these encounters are tamer than her previous profession. I only shrug. I’ve done my time as both a diva and a whore.

I have never witnessed the performances from inside the big tent. None of the sideshow women have. But I have watched all the men practice daily from the confines of my wagon for more than a year. I have sniffed out all their dirty laundry. The Dunkels are Dutch not Deutsche, and aren’t really brothers. Yuri was born in Chester. The closest Rafael has come to Spain was the month we traveled Kent. Gabe is a Frenchman but that would never sell. I don’t know from what distant land Franque first hailed, or what ill-conceived bargain he had crafted that had brought him me. Only the women and animals are exactly what they seem.

Soon, another Dunkel escort arrives to chaperone me back to my wagon, once again under wraps. This time it’s the twins, Marcus and Lucas. We dodge across the fair grounds, Marcus keeping watch then waving Lucas and I on once the way is clear.  Nearly home and dry, we almost run smack into the path of a charging Goliath as Franque furiously drives him back to his cage.

Before the heavy wooden door seals me in, I hear Franque call out to Marcus, “Generous crowd tonight. Tell her to get ready for an encore.”

A few hours later it’s Johann, the last of the Brothers Dunkel, who retrieves me. He also collects Satan who lies curled beneath my steps. The camp has been quiet for nearly an hour. All the guests have gone, at least for the moment. Soon, in ones and twos, a select few will file back in concealed by night.

The moon peeks out shyly from between the clouds. I shiver. A chill has moved in after the rain. Beneath my cloak I still wear the diaphanous silk shift and my little vest. We quickly traverse the campsite, careful now to skirt the freshly added dung. We slip into the main tent shrouded in darkness.

Soot, sweat and stale gin from the previous performance mingle with scent of wet canvas. By flickering footlights we navigate to the pole in the center of the ring. I can almost make out the small, circular platform like a crow’s nest near the peak of the tent. Clutching the built-in handholds, I begin to climb.

I crouch in the tiny space beneath the pointed cap of canvas. The riding ring looks like a half-buried bone china saucer so far below. I am not afraid. Encores are the one freedom my existence now allows, as close as I come to returning to my true nature from before the war. The riding ring is a tight circle for my performance, but if Yuri can cling to it at a gallop so can I.

Slowly, the tent refills, all men this time. Temperance dodges amongst them with fresh gin. Franque keeps the lights low. Our performers and riggers ring the crowd with stout Irish cudgels. Franque is once again armed with his pistol and a whip as if these patrons are yet more wild animals to be trained. I wait to make my appearance until they all are nearly falling down drunk. Tonight’s crowd is more sullen than most.

The tension builds until scantly suppressed violence ripples around the ring. I sense him near the center of it, his scent much bolder this time. Once again, I shiver beneath my cloak despite the heat from all the bodies and the footlight flames trapped up here.

Gabe blows a brassy flourish on his horn. My cue. I step to the edge of the platform and drop my cloak, which flutters to the ground. Someone uncovers the burning quicklime in the lantern, haloing me in a pool of light. As all eyes in the crowd ascend, Gabe darts across the ring to snatch up my cloak. He will be waiting with it by the back vestibule when I finish.

I stand on my toes at the edge of the platform. A hush falls. I feel their eyes tracing out the edges of my costume and roaming across my skin. My chill turns to excitement.

Slowly, I lean forward like a denuded Norwegian spruce long hammered beneath the axman’s blows until there is nothing left below me but empty air. I plummet like a javelin, or a falcon stooped upon its prey.

My loose hair whips behind me. The silk of my skirt plasters itself against my bare legs. The lantern follows as if its light is tied to me by a cord. An instant before I crash to earth, I spread my wings and soar around the ring. I swoop and dive, bank and glide. For a few brief moments, I am free again. Redeemed.

I know my freedom will be short-lived. The gas to feed the limelight is expensive, the mechanism finicky at best. Always make them walk away hungry, Franque says. Like a succulent meal, it’s best to leave them wanting just a little more.

On my second pass, their eyes are still all locked upon me. Above the reek of mud and gin, I smell envy tinged with lust. Their minds tell them that it’s well disguised wirework, but every one of them wants to believe what he sees. They all harbor secret dreams of flight.

I feel his eyes again as I ascend to make a final pass. The ring is small. The turns are tight. This time, I cannot get escape his gaze. Then, as I circle the central tent pole, everything goes wrong.

The limelight suddenly snuffs out, plunging the tent back into semidarkness. Curses rise above angry voices. As silent as a barn owl on the wing, I glide above the fray. The riggers push back the drunken crowd with the persuasion of Irish oak. Undaunted, the men of the moor surge forward. Satan charges in from the back vestibule, disappearing into the melee, a dog possessed. Deep within, I hear a yelp followed by a long, low whine. Outnumbered, the riggers fall back. Someone kicks a footlight. Fire spills along one side the ring.

I alight on the ground in the rear vestibule. Folding my wings, I pluck up my cloak from where Gabe dropped it. I throw it across my shoulders and hurry out. No escort awaits me. Inside, Franque’s pistol barks above the angry mob in a futile effort to command silence. They do not heed. Like Goliath or Pharaoh spurred by Franque’s whip, I sprint headlong across the camp toward the safety of my cage, heedless of the puddles. Cold mud splashes up my skirt and runs down my legs. By the time I reach the wagon, my cloak is sodden and caked with it.

I fly up the steps, slamming the door behind me once I’m safely inside. I fall back against it, relieved. Then, I see his blade shining in the moonlight. I know he will use it. He has before. I can see the mark upon him now. He is the ruler of his own domain.

“I’ll scream.” I lie. He’s been chosen and there is nothing I can do.

He shakes his head. “No one to hear, love. They’ll all be busy quite some time.” He steps closer, the naked steel hanging loose in his hand. He is a nasty looking piece of work, brutish and short. For this, we were cast aside.

“Satan follows everywhere I go. Any minute, he’ll bound through this door.” I fumble with the latch behind my back.

“That mutt won’t be coming round any time soon.” He laughs, close enough that I can smell his breath. Gin and rancid turnips. A red sheen slickens his knife in the moonlight. “How bout you quit playing hard to get and shuck off that cloak? May as well we get to know each other.”

I do as he commands, knowing the pain the knife will bring. I am no longer immune to it. Or worse.

“Now, twirl round. Slowly. I want to see if they are real.”

I shiver as I turn to face the door. His blade is sharp. At first, I miss the sting of it, but when it comes I cry out, no longer a soldier.

He hums approvingly as blood from my second shoulder trickles down my back. “I’ve done a lot of pretties in my time but never quite an angel.”

“You don’t need the knife,” I whisper. “I’ll give you what you want.”

“Willingly?” The stink of his breath caresses my ear even as his knife presses against my back.

“Willingly,” I say. “Tell me your desires. I’ll make your dreams come true.”

“My dreams are evil,” he says. “The priest of St. Michael’s told me so just before he tossed me out. ‘Yours is the temptation of Lucifer,’ he said. ‘You dream of a dance with the Devil, Kayne, not the messengers of God. Our Lord has deemed that no mortal man can fly.’”

A little sigh escapes me. I will live through this encounter. I know it. Small men have small dreams.

“Is that your only dream?” I ask with the bitter taste of hope, “To fly?”

“To fly,” he repeats, his voice suddenly distant like a child’s.

“While?” I ask, my voice quavering, anticipating his answer.

“While,” he confirms, a man again as his callused hand turns me by a shoulder to face him.

Button by button, he liberates my vest with tiny little flicks of his knife. I admire him in a way. He is strong and arrogant, like my scattered band of brothers. He takes what he wants, what he knows should be his by right not bestowed by providential favor. In that, he is truly no one’s servant. But that I am the object of his freewill, I feel a twinge of envy. Then he nicks me just for fun. This time will be hard.

My mind escapes by listening to Pharaoh growl and pace out the corners of his cage. He is nervous and hungry. I wish I could calm him by stroking his tangled mane but I cannot. There was a time I could have lain down in the cage beside him, curled up and gone to sleep unharmed. Those days are long to the west of here and guarded by flaming swords.

My mind returns as we step outside. The camp is eerily quiet. A scent of dead smoke hangs in the moist night air. In the distance, a dog howls, in loneliness or in pain, I cannot tell. I wonder if it’s Satan and whether he keens for me.

Kayne prods me with the knife. I clamber onto him. I try not to think about what comes next, just the purity of flight. I am not afraid. My virtue is no longer intact. I have trouble remembering when it ever was.

For a small man, he is heavy. It’s a miracle we get off the ground. Beat by beat, we climb the night. The air grows colder as we ascend toward the stars but remains clear. On opposite horizons, the lights of Hull and York twinkle like celestial realms wracked by malicious laughter. I tingle with a freedom that the enclosure of the riding ring could never offer.

Then the tip of his knife pricks my shoulders with a series of tiny kisses. His teeth lightly bruise my neck like a biting butterfly. We strive against each other like Roman wrestlers, or enemy soldiers struggling to control a loose bayonet. Soon we are sheened in sweat. Twice, I nearly lose my grip. I reach for him afraid he will escape my grasp. At last, I lock my ankles just to maintain my hold.

He pants like Satan in the dog days of summer, whether from exertion or excitement I do not know. Suddenly, he clings to me like a dying man. I clutch him like one of my wounded brethren in the war. For an instant, we hang in midair, united, one mind, one body, one incandescent soul. In the limelight of the moon, my ancient sins are briefly washed away.

And then my redemption betrays me just as I did it so long ago for a whispered promise of liberty and false equality. My reality comes crashing down in wave after wave of unwanted pleasure as our spiritual fraternity burns itself away.

Finished, he slumps within my arms. I am tempted to release him, to let gravity guide him back to earth. Up here, I can almost smell the Channel. The estuary would not be far. Just another lost soul cast up by the sea.

But I don’t. My penance would be a dozen more just like him only spiteful. And I could never condemn another creature to that slow, tumbling, terrifying fate. That dream still drenches me at night.

Instead, I return him to the desolation of the moor. My approach scatters a congregation of rock doves from their nightly roosts. Their shadows ascend toward heaven like crows to a fresh-laid battlefield. On the ground, an ancient church stares down at me, empty eyed and ruinous, like the decisions I once made.

Gently, I lay him in the shelter of its shadow like a castoff orphan, his knife clutched across his chest like the treasure of a pagan king. For a moment, I watch him sleep, exhausted yet so peaceful, a child in the cradle of its grave. I pity these poor creatures and their solitary lives. I wonder what dreams might come to him this night, what tales he will tell of them tomorrow.

Clutching the tatters of my garments, I take back to the air seeking salt to bathe my wounds. As the cold sea numbs my pain and washes his scent away, I remind myself that this is the price for our rebellion. My eternal act of contrition for participating in the war.

Across the long, dark water, I am driven eastward, always eastward. The Black Forest, the Carpathians, perhaps the frozen city of St. Peter. By moonlight, I circle, searching the countryside for another striped tent, another torchlit sanctuary where I can begin again. Another earthly prison where I’ll once again be damned to serve as the redeemer of someone else’s dreams.

© 2012 Edward P. Morgan III

Last Christmas

Our church has been here for two thousand years. It was founded by Saint Thomas. We have survived the Sassanids, the Arabs, the Mongols, the Ottomans, and our own dictator. We will not survive our liberation.

Thousands have fled to the monasteries, to Arbil then Sweden and the Commonwealth, some even into the arms of our liberators. Half our population is gone. The extremists say they will kill us if we don’t flee or give them money. Only a few are wealthy enough to pay. Like the Jews before us.

I have not fled our village. I am the last. I am no longer young, with no living family, no heirs. Only their graves to tend. One day, my neighbors will kill me, too. In the way of both our martyrs, I almost welcome it.

The stones of our sanctuary were laid as a mountain refuge in the time of Tamerlane when our people were forced into hiding by the bloody locusts of his horde. Now, the doors stand open, their hinges broken, the cutout crosses of their handles scorched from within. The holy symbols have been burned, the sanctuary ransacked. The priest was abducted and the elders fled the across the mountains. To the south, the red patriarch sits in the capital, quietly murmuring his prayers in our oppressors’ tongue. Only the graves have gone unmarred. I am uncertain how long their soil will remain consecrated. Or if it ever was.

Each morning, I gather a bucket, a broom and the stiff-bristled brush my wife and daughters once used to scrub our kitchen. Each day I fill the bucket with clean water from the river and wend my way through the deserted village to the church.

For thirty-nine mornings I have scrubbed soot from its walls and bloodstains from its floor, stone by rough-cut stone. I work the brush until the water in the bucket becomes as murky as our river filled with snowmelt in the spring, as tinged reddish-brown as the Tigris after Tamerlane. Winter has come early this year. The water numbs my fingers until they creak with age and ice.

I rise as bent and sore as the old woman who used to perform this task for the priest each week, as village women had done for centuries. I don’t know why I do it. Perhaps I think I can lure our people home again. Perhaps I just want the church to be clean before our neighbors convert it to a mosque.

I keep hoping that one day I will sweep out the last of the tainted water, that the floor will come as clean as a newborn on the day he is baptized in the font. Today is the last day. Tomorrow, I rest whether the church is clean or not.

Since my release from the army a quarter-century ago, I no longer go to Mass. My wife and daughters were the religious ones. The church was their domain. They attended each Sunday with the rest of the village. I only accompanied them on Christmas and Easter, the two highest of our holy days. After surviving being drafted at the age of forty-two, I thought my life was such that I could afford to seek forgiveness only twice a year. Now, I don’t care that there is no priest to hear my confession or direct us in the service. Without my wife and daughters, without my grandchildren, how could I celebrate tomorrow as a holy day?

Three generations had disappeared in the time it took to dial a mobile phone.

I used to run the liquor shop in our village. My eldest daughter’s husband would have taken over soon. Today, the shelves are empty, the counter and floors swept clean of broken glass. The foreign aid workers have fled for the safety of Arbil. The foreign soldiers retreated months ago, waiting to see who will win before they begin their long journey home.

Years ago, our women dressed much as theirs and walked the streets unmolested. Then came our liberation, and with it returned oppression as a tyrannical majority insisted we conform to their more conservative ways. Now, our blood once again stains these streets as it did when my father and grandfather were young. Our own soldiers only watch, content as long as the violence points away from them.

My father was educated abroad, just after the English had liberated us from the Ottomans. I followed in his footsteps, spending a full year at university in England before the first coup called me home. At the time, many of our people thought a republic would free our country from the corruption of the Hashemite kingdom and foreign intervention. Until coup begot coup and war begot bloody war. The spirit of nationalism was repaid with dictatorship, though even he left our congregation mostly intact. Unlike the men and women to the north he wanted us to gas. Now, the Kurds offer us sanctuary as we flee our mutual enemy. But I know the enemy of our enemy will not forever remain our friend. A hundred years ago, we fled the other way.

Now, even the English are allies where once they, too, were enemies. When I was young, we wanted to be just like England. We filled their universities with young men like me eager to study science and engineering. At home, we modernized and improved our country, and hoped they would respect us. We thought we were building a secure future. We thought oil would be our salvation. Like children with their parents, we thought one day they would treat as equals. We were wrong.

That was a lifetime ago, back when my hair was unmarked by gray, my face unlined by fear. The cruelty of growing old is that I can recall the details of that one Christmas spent abroad better than I can remember the beauty of my wife’s face.

England was full of shiny new optimism that year, much like we were in the first days of liberation. Petrol rationing from the Suez crisis had ended a few months before I arrived. So many buildings were newly finished after being rebuilt from damage in the war. We still remember with shame that we tried to choose the wrong side in that global conflict. In our defense, we were uncertain at the time whether England meant to be our friend, our enemy or just our secret master. Much as today with her more powerful ally who occupies our land.

My roommate invited me home with him for Christmas that year. I remember how privileged I felt at spending the holiday with him and his family instead of alone in London. Christmas was a time for family, and I had none in his country. Just like here today.

His village was so distant from dismal, dreary London. As the train rolled west, the countryside glowed with life, so verdant, lush and fertile, even in winter, unlike the sparsely treed mountains near my home. England had an abundance of water, falling nearly daily from her leaden skies. If my country could be colored brown and blue, England would be captured best in greens and grays, now gently trimmed in white. I was used to snow in winter, but nothing quite like this. In our mountains, snow meant hardship. Here, it was like a warm, winter blanket tucked around the land, securing it till spring.

When we arrived at the station, we found the village decorated as though it had been beset by a thousand Persian fairies. Their Christmastide was more inviting than our own celebrations that remained discretely veiled from view. Each door displayed a woven evergreen circlet with tiny ornaments tied to it with bright red ribbons, like a cheery English marker to ward off Pharaoh’s final plague. Each shop and home was lighted as if by a thousand candles from within, their windows warm and welcoming despite the cold and snow outside. Like our church at Christmas bathed in light from the votive candles we burned in memory of the dead. It was the first time since arriving that I’d seen how welcoming this foreign land could be.

The family’s home was adorned with all manner of Christmas decorations. On the table, an arrangement of sharp-leafed winter greenery with red berries. In the front room, an evergreen draped with glass ornaments, electric fairy lights and shiny strips of metal, with a guardian angel perched on top. Friends and family sent each other special cards to mark the day that were then displayed on a hutch beside the fire. I marveled at the shear expense directed at this one of our major holidays, the least important of two. I was amazed that every home had electricity all day and night without interruption, a telephone, a television, most even a car. At home, my family was considered wealthy but we could afford none of these things.

They suspended bright stockings from the fireplace that were filled with gifts by Christmas morning that concealed the tangerine tucked in every toe. The children received mostly small toys and candies. The adults, things more utilitarian. There was even one for me with items I could use at school, pencils, ink, a pair of woolen socks, mittens and a scarf. And drinking straws, plus a little tea and chocolate.

Beneath the tree larger gifts were wrapped in brightly printed paper. When we each opened them in turn on Christmas day, I found my roommate had given me an umbrella for the unending London rain. I gave him several boxes of his favorite Turkish cigarettes that I had acquired from a family friend near school. The packages marked for his younger brother contained miniature racing cars, a building set and a jigsaw puzzle. The kind of gifts I wished I could have afforded for my grandsons to this day.

Christmas Eve, the family attended the village church, and I accompanied them. Outside was an ancient graveyard with the tomb of a patron-knight slumbering in chiseled stone. My roommate’s father tried to impress me with the church’s age, roughly the same as ours at home, not realizing that our sanctuary was considered young by the standards of our country. His village church had begun to show its age and lack of upkeep as his country slowly began to drift away from its traditions. My roommate told me it was only full a few times a year with people much like me, men and women who only attended for the festivals not the weekly sermons. I still wonder if it stands today?

Inside, the floor was polished wood instead of dusty cobbles. They sat on long, wooden benches with low backs where we sat in rows of high-backed chairs. Their doors were solid, their windows small with lead-latticed glass, their interior bright, white plaster offset by nearly black wooden beams. Our church had large, arched windows open to mountain sky. Our interior walls were all rough-cut stone.

The service was not our Mass, but very reminiscent. Their priests had divorced themselves from ours centuries ago, but kept many of the same traditions. The service was conducted by candlelight in English, a thought that would have brought a frown to our village priest. And where we recited a different liturgy, the English liked to sing, creating an odd mixture of reverence and communal celebration. One I could have gotten used to had I stayed.

That and the table full of food for Christmas dinner, all of it rare, exotic, and cornucopian in quantity. Until our wars decades later, I never suffered hunger, but have never seen so great a bounty. A great bird stuffed with spiced breadcrumbs served with a tart berry jelly, miniature cabbages from Belgium, potatoes soaked with butter, wine infused with spices, a special cake with snowy frosting and romping plastic deer, a special pudding with brandy sauce and cream, a mince pie finished off with sherry trifle.

After dinner, we listened to music on the radio, Handel’s Messiah I think, and a service of Nine Lessons and Carols from Kings College, near where we went to school. Then the family gathered around excitedly to watch the Queen’s first televised address. I remember her talking about the speed with which the world changes and the need to hold onto our religion to guide us in public and private life. I remember her welcoming Ghana and Malaya into their Commonwealth and longed for my country to be added one year soon. How I envied them that day.

I had always hoped to take my wife and daughters back with me one day so that they might finally believe my tales of that foreign Christmas. Now, I never will.

Each Christmas Eve, I recounted my story to them like a patriarch or a prophet, though last year only the grandchildren feigned interest. My daughters had grown as cynical as their husbands. Even Leyla only graced me with a tolerant, spousal smile.

But we still celebrated in the way I had imported from that foreign land, as much as our circumstance would allowed. For decades before liberation, everything was rationed, even petrol in our oil-soaked country. One year, my wife saved all her spare household money to buy a string of fairy lights that we hung around the doorway of the shop. Another year, she bought a plastic tree from China, its needles all silver, sparkly and new.

After the liberation, the foreigners whispered and snickered when they came to buy their holiday beer and wine. I pretended not to notice. Despite my English, I don’t think they knew I had been educated in their country. I would never go into their homes and insult their traditions, especially if they were patterned on my own. Like insulting a child for not being able to afford his distant cousins’ ways.

Now, the needles of that tree have tarnished and thinned. Many of the fairy lights have flashed and flickered out. Like our dreams quickly after liberation. Our holiday may now be recognized officially, but last year Mass was cancelled in Kirkuk.

There is a gift for my wife waiting beneath that tattered tree, wrapped in shiny blue paper sprinkled with little silver doves. Like prayers for the peace we did not have. Inside is box with a pendant on a gold chain like one she’d seen in an aid worker’s discarded magazine. She had mentioned it to our daughters as she’d thumbed through the pages one slow, sunny, autumn afternoon. My middle daughter pointed it out to me.

I bartered a week’s profit in the form of beer and brandy to a foreign soldier who purchased one just like it for me on his mobile phone. He delivered it, pre-wrapped from the company that sent it, the Saturday before my wife and daughters attended Mass that final time. Once he had loaded the cases in his truck and driven off, I delicately undid the tape to confirm what really lay inside, then carefully rewrapped it, refolding the paper like a military map. I placed the box beneath the tree after she left for church to tease her when she returned like I always did.

My wife would always wait until Christmas morning to reveal her gift to me. Even now, I haven’t discovered where she hid it. It would show up somewhere unexpected, wrapped in cloth or brightly-colored scraps of paper tied with simple yarn. Some years, it would appear beside my bed, or with my breakfast on the kitchen table, or in the cash box of the shop.

There is no box waiting when I arise on this Christmas morning. There were chores to attend before I performed my final duty at the church, wood to chop, water to carry. We no longer have intermittent electricity or sporadic running water. Even fuel for the generator is hard to find, though I’d rationed off enough to run the remaining fairy lights for an hour or two today.

My aging body protests at carrying through the new morning routine. Increasingly, it is not a matter of which joint aches as which doesn’t. I dress in layers of my best lambswool, like a Kurd, before pocketing Leyla’s gift at the last moment and setting off for center our village.

Overnight, the streets had been dusted with snow. Just like my year in England, though I find little comfort in that memory now. The wind is sharp and cold, the sky heavy and leaden. Clouds flow down the mountains, much like those winter mornings in the English countryside, only the air is dry and dusty, the scenery dun and sere, and none of the homes I pass are warmly lighted. They all stand deserted, their doors intermittently complaining at being abandoned to the wind. The village emptied when the army finally arrived and said they could no longer keep us safe. As if it were they and not the foreign soldiers who ever had.

By the time I arrive at the graveyard, the sun has risen high behind the clouds and casts a tarnished silver light. I wish I’d cut a wreath from the evergreens in the mountains above our village to lay beside my family’s graves. But that would have meant pilfering red ribbons from one of my granddaughter’s dresses, a prospect I could not bear. And I had no glass ornaments to make it sparkle anyway, only tears.

As I enter through the arched gate, I hope my girls will recognize me as I whisper my love before their graves. I hope Leyla would remember that I kissed each of our grandchildren’s markers in turn, like she did their foreheads each night before bed, if I saw her again one day soon. After the scenes I’d witnessed during the first of our unending wars, I’m not sure I believe the stories the priest told us of reunions in the afterlife. But I want to. I so badly want to.

Inside the church, I set upright the last of the intact chairs. Where the alter used to stand, I light all the votive candles I had salvaged, one for my wife, one for each of our three daughters, their husbands and all our grandchildren. For a moment, the interior glows like that English church at Christmas, the candlelight casting out the stains that stubbornly remained. Like a summer day blinding you to any ugliness with the brightness of the sun. I watch the candles burn like the bright future I once pictured for my grandchildren until they slowly flickered out.

The sun is low when I departed through the graveyard to say a final goodbye to Leyla. I remove her gift from my pocket and leave it on her gravestone. I know the box will go unopened, but can still imagine the joy lighting up her face as she discovers what I’ve done. I will need that imagined memory to bear me through the winter. I know I won’t return to this place before the flowers bloom at Easter, if even then. I am no longer young. Winter could easily claim me as it has many of our old each year. As I turn to leave, the wind slices through my coat like a Kurdish knife. The snow begins to fall again like softly frozen tears.

My feet crunch home through the echoing and deeply shadowed streets. At the threshold of my door, I spot a box wrapped in a bright red paper neatly tied with a silken bow waiting beneath a fine layer of snow. For a moment, I am confused, as if waking into a better dream where the past two months do not exist. Perhaps someone else had survived, someone who, unlike me, remains in hiding. I look around the snow-blown streets, but see no one, not even an eye peering from behind a shutter. I hear nothing but the stalking wind. Even our dogs have defected to our neighbors’ warmer homes.

Carefully, I pick up the package, weighing it in my hands. The box is heavy but doesn’t rattle when I gently shake it as if I am a child, my head cocked to listen for the slightest sound inside. I sniff it. It smells like new paper, with perhaps a trace of perfume, jasmine maybe, like Leyla sometimes wore. Could she have hidden my gift with a friend who now is passing it on to me? The wind stings my eyes, nearly freezing them shut. I miss her so, her and all our daughters. How I long to see them all one final time. To tell them that I love them before they trundle down the road to an unknown future.

I carry the box to the relative warmth inside, setting it on the table before I hang my coat on the peg behind the door. I settle in a chair and stare at it as the snow from my outer garments begins to drip like the tears rolling down my face. Even as I begin to untie the bow, I anticipate the gift that awaits me.

© 2010 Edward P. Morgan III

To Slay the Dragon

"Forgive me father for I have sinned."

"When was the day of your last confession?"

"One year past, but I have never confessed this crime."

"And what is the nature of your sin?"

"I killed a man."

"Many men have killed in battle, my son."

"I didn't kill him in battle, father. I killed him while he slept."

---

Men think of me as a soldier. I am no soldier. My father was, but I am not half the man as he. That day, I had no sword, no axe, no hauberk, not even a spear, except the one I'd stolen. Only a leather jerkin and my ever-present saex. Back then, I wasn't a kingsthane, just a smuggler. Until yesterday, men followed me because they thought I'd killed the Dragon. In that, they are right. I killed him. But not in the way they sing.

You must remember, father, this was a score of years ago, half a lifetime past. Before the Danes set fire to Lindesfarne. Before King Offa had completed his dyke. Before he went mad and began killing all his kin.

I was there the day Offa conquered Scropp's Fort for Mercia. With that victory his westward expansion was almost complete. We thought he was destined to be the High King of all the Angles and Saxon that day. All that remained was Northumbria and consolidation. The Severn would form part of the boundary between his kingdom and the foreigners.

Foreigners, that was what we called them, though it was our boats that had landed on their shores generations ago. We built our kingdoms as we pushed them toward the setting sun. For their part, the foreigners called us after our ever-present knives. Saex in our tongue. Saesneg in their own. They had become intimately familiar with them when Offa granted a bounty on the ears of any foreigner found within his territory without his permission. In retaliation, they killed our Saex-wielding men wherever they were found. Not for money, but for joy.

Or so the story goes.

Where our leaders and warriors call them heathens, I know better. They had converted to the one true faith generations before we arrived. Unlike our people, a few of whose grandfathers still remember the old gods' ways, hammer, sword and sacrifice.

In those days, I didn't care about another man's language or religion. The color of his coin told all I needed of the tale his character. The foreigners had goods my people wanted. I am not a brave or ambitious man by nature. Bartering was easier than stealing. Sneaking goods across the border cheaper than paying tax or toll. The true reckoning wasn't with Offa's easily bribed ealdormen, but with the ever-shifting alliances of these temperamental foreign kings. They called themselves dragons.

It wasn't the dragon of Powys whose seat of power King Offa had stolen that worried me the day Scropp's Fort fell, but the dragon who dwelled in the dark hills of Gwynedd farther north, bordering the sea.

His was an ancient line. Six generations past, Caradog, one of his great-grand sires, had captured a noble Christian maiden named Gwenffrewi, sister-daughter of a local saint. He threatened to ravage her if she would not submit willingly. When she resisted and fled for sanctuary, Caradog struck her head from her body in a rage. Where her shining tresses came to rest, the earth wept in sorrow at the foreshortening of her beauty. Our Lord paid her wergild with a bounty of his tears. A holy, healing well sprang forth, consecrated by her uncle, Beuno, God's own venerated overseer, whose piety made her whole and returned her to this life.

At least that is the tale the foreign bards sing for the pilgrims drawn to Holywell, or Treffynnon as they call it. I suspect the truth is much less noble. It often is.

That day, another Caradog sat atop Gwynedd's throne, one with a son with a cruel reputation they simply called the Draig. The Norns told me our world would be a better place without him.

When Scropp's Fort fell, I was in the midst of a bargain, Anglic cattle, Saxon silver and Kentish tin for a like quantity of Gwynedd copper and Irish gold, with some local honey wine thrown in for equal measure. The mead was my true interest, the one part of the deal that would turn a profit when traded farther south and east.

The King of Powys thus believed I had betrayed him, leading Offa's thanes to the hall where we were to negotiate our exchange. I was as surprised by Offa's actions as he was. Had my sister not been in Scropp's Fort that day, I simply would have dismissed the failed venture as God's will.

As soon as I heard Offa's men were on the move, I ran to get her out. Too late. Winifred had wisely fled the market at the first news of Offa's approach. From there, she made her way to a farmstead tun near a ford on the Severn where I had been gathering cattle for our trade. Straight into the teeth of a retaliatory raid. The Norns had conspired against me.

Ours was a three-party deal brokered by the King of Powys between he and I and the Draig of Gwynedd. Scropp's Fort was our exchange point and Powys' hall, Amwythig in their tongue. It was the ancient seat of his people's power, his last stronghold east of the Severn. What had begun as a negotiating raid by Offa to intimidate Powys into paying tribute had ended with all the foreigners retreating across the river to protect their amassed trade treasure from being seized. Offa quickly found himself in control of the hilltop motte, as surprised as anyone. How he had found out about our trade, or whether he knew at all, I do not know.

All that mattered was the foreigners thought I had betrayed them. The Mercians put any stragglers to the sword that day, with the women given to the warriors for sport. Powys was too busy trying to hold the fords and keep the Offa's axemen on the east side of the river to deal with me. The Draig wasn't so constrained. He had no border to defend and fifty household guards accompanying him, all cousins, to see his bounty safely home. Which is what he meant to do, in trade or no. I now believe Caradog betrayed us both, Powys and myself, to escape Offa's wrath, weaken his southern rival and profit a small herd of Anglic cattle at my expense. I suspect that Offa knew, or at least turned a blind eye, as I had not sought his permission before initiating the trade from within his lands.

I lathered my horse getting back to the farmstead. The tun, as its name implies, was enclosed but its walls and manor were meant to hold against small bands of raiders not an attack by fifty warriors who knew both the land and their profession. A mile away, the rising smoke foretold that I had not ridden hard or fast enough. Though if I had, I would have shared the villeins' fate.

The manor house was still smoldering as I watched it from the wood. I saw no sign of either work hands or foreign warriors. With the exception of the roof collapsing, the tun was as quiet as an open grave. When the wind shifted, only smoke watered my eyes, not the hint of rancid bacon left too long by the fire. For a moment, hope swelled my heart.

Had anyone hidden safely in the wood, they should have spotted me and signaled. I told myself a tale that they all had fled to a neighboring farmstead and would return again come morning. I sniffed around the ruined manor, reluctant enter. The smoke still smelled clean, as it did from the smaller buildings that had also been set alight. Then, I noticed the thatched-roofed cow byre still standing, well away from the house. My dread grew as I approached. Any hope I'd felt earlier died forlorn.

The byre doors stood open. The smell of rotting compost assaulted me from within. Inside, I found all the men along with every boy above the age of ten. The sound of the ropes and rafters creaking beneath their combined weight continues to haunt my dreams. They swayed in the noontide breeze like a dozen ripened sheaves of hops or malt over-wintering to dry, their faces contorted by blood, their bowels and bladders empty.

Of the women and maidens, including Winifred, I found no sign even as I stirred the ashes in the manor house and other ruined buildings. I knew their fate, driven back across the river with the cattle. The wives would become slaves or chattel, the maidens rewards for the Draig's warriors, or prizes sailed across the Irish Sea. That was the way of these foreigners. No wonder Offa ordered his thanes to take the ears of any foreigners they found east of the Severn. Not that they needed much encouragement. Mercians still say these foreigners are as barbaric as the Danes who raided Lindesfarne. More so because they purport to be Christian.

When the wind swung around again, I found two infants and a toddler along with a resistant mother in a burned out cottage beyond the enclosure wall. The moment I saw their twisted, blackened bodies, I knew as a true Christian man exactly what I must do. Kill the Draig. And retrieve any of the women that remained in his possession.

As I said, father, then I was no warrior. I had no army of housecarls ready to ride at my command. The Draig and I had never looked each other in the eye, had never seen each other face to face. I would use that to my advantage. As a prince of Gwynedd, he would be simple to find, harder to approach. There would be no help from Offa, whose ambitions were sated for the moment. I had to craft a cunning plan, plotting in secret, biding my time alone.

Discretely, I met with my trading contacts, careful not to betray my desire for revenge. I sent children into the tuns, baileys and market fairs to gather rumors. As today, orphans were everywhere and largely went unnoticed. Between the berry harvest at Lammas and the Feast of St. Matthew in the fall, a plan slowly emerged in my mind.

At first, I thought about a pilgrimage to St. Winefride's at Holywell. I had heard the Draig would pay tribute there on her feast day, two days after the celebration of All Saints', in thanks for his successful raid.

But there wasn't where I planned my confrontation. I knew the ways of these foreigners, knew their superstitions. On the eve of All Saints' Day there would be an ancient festival, disguised to fool the church. That night he would sacrifice one of my cattle grown fat on summer grasses before he gave away his captives as rewards the next day. Dark spirits were said to roam from house to house that night. I intended to be one of them.

I also knew that Caradog did not abide by the old ways in the same way as his son. He would have nothing to do with the ancient rites, at least in public. Which meant the Draig would have to go elsewhere. My urchin network said he would celebrate on his way to Holywell, in a manor near a church village called Llan Sean Ior. There, I would intercept him.

A month before All Saints' Day, I began my journey. For a week, I'd planted rumors in the Scropp's Fort market that I was chasing a new deal in Kent. I made certain to be seen hurrying away southeast down Watling Street one morning with a donkey loaded for a long journey. Three days later, near the village of Wall, beyond the haunted, stone ruins of Wroxeter said to be a foreign capital more ancient than Scropp's Fort, I abandoned the old road in favor of the forest paths and trading tracks I knew so well leading deep into the archdiocese of Lichfield. Ten days after that, I exchanged the donkey for penitent's clothes at a small, isolated chapel outside of Chester. Then, I drifted toward that ancient fortress settlement on the River Dee with the handful Saxon pilgrims bound for Holywell to make offerings and draw a little healing water. From Chester, I crossed into Gwynedd unnoticed, hidden among the diseased and lame that no one wanted to look upon in their dark, Anglic wool.

Here, my journey became more perilous. Outside of Holywell, I was forced to give up my first disguise. People would notice a pilgrim moving in the wrong direction along the ancient road paralleling the stormy sea. I had little knowledge of the lands or terrain I traveled through. I spoke some of their foreign tongue but it always felt like gravel in my mouth. I would be quickly marked as an outsider. So I darkened my hair and made myself into a mendicant tinker, a skill I had become acquainted with through trading metal for many years. It didn't take me long to establish a reputation of passable mediocrity as I seeded the story of working my way to Deganwy for the itinerant beggars' bounty to be found at Caradog's generous hand on All Saints' Day. Only I knew I would never see his court. I just hoped I would arrive at Llan Sean Ior in time to rescue Winifred from whichever foreign lord or warrior was destined to be her fate.

Winifred was both young and pretty, desirable qualities to these foreigners in a second wife or servant. And a virgin, which gave her greater worth as a reward. My deals and trades in recent years had been focused on accumulating her a dowry, to make her an attractive match, perhaps to a housecarl or ealdormen, even a foreign lordling, anyone who could improve our family's fate. Both hers and her children's through a good marriage, and mine through better contacts for trade. I wasn't picky on which side of the border Winifred was wed. Upon the death of our parents, responsibility for her upkeep had fallen to me. I intended to be repaid. I would not be denied the benefit she would bring. No foreign prince was going to milk my cow for free.

For two weeks, I meandered toward the Draig's manor house as autumn crept toward the harvest moon. Along the way, I found work as a laborer on days when my meager tinker skills would not keep me fed. I paralleled the old road that itself paralleled the coast. The land was as foreign as the language I was forced to speak. The woods dark and untamed. These foreigners raised more sheep than barley and even those on hillsides ringed by trees. In the distance to south each day foreboding mountains loomed, some already frosted with snow like the thinning hair atop an old man's head. The foreigners called them aeries, the nesting places of their noble eagles, hidden strongholds too formidable to approach. I prayed Winifred hadn't been spirited away to one already or she would be beyond my reach forever. On days when the north wind sliced through my peasant's wool and worn leather jerkin, I could almost smell the Irish Sea.

I stalked the Draig along uncleared, hilly tracks overshadowed by ancient trees between remote villages. Squat, round towers were nestled like griffin eggs abandoned amongst the forest glens. I was as miserly with the miles I traveled each day as a dragon spending its horde of gold. Along the way I learned the Draig was in residence in his manor at Llan Sean Ior. I reached my destination just hours before sunset on the eve of All Saints' Day.

The churchyard was marked by a low, stone wall, a graveyard separated inside by another wall and a gate. The church itself was a chapel of dark stone, as small and durable as a minor fortress. A furlong outside the churchyard gate, stalls and trestles packed a market festival. Outlying villagers and itinerant craftsmen sold everything from copper pots to dyed woolens to roots ready for winter storage to sharp steel knives to salt gathered from the sea to glowing spoons and bowls of yew to pouches of medicinal herbs to small charms of ivy and hoops of wild roses to turnips carved into candle lanterns with wicked, evil faces. The air was full of the scent of roast mutton still crackling from the fire, and of speckled bread fresh from the sanctioned brickwork ovens. These foreigners liked raisins and currants in their bread instead of just plain, hearty barley. Or maybe it was a local specialty baked just for this occasion. Other stalls sold freshly churned butter by the brick or by the knifeful, and honey by the pot or spoon.

I had collected enough local coin over the previous fortnight that I could afford to eat well. They had little brown ale but cups of the honey wine that should have been mine in trade were in the hands of almost all the men and several of the women. These foreigners liked their celebrations sweet. As I ate from a crusty bread trencher, I made certain my saex was safely tucked beneath my shirt, inside my jerkin, as it had been since I crossed the borderlands. To be caught as a Saxon and a Mercian this close to the Draig's court would surely mean the rope once they determined who I was.

Such a revelation seemed unlikely. When they weren't eating mutton and drinking mead, the foreigners were singing and dancing to unfamiliar tunes laid upon a harper's strings. Unlike the son of a Saxon king, the Draig didn't hide from his people on feast days. He wandered amongst the crowd, silver cup in hand, laughing, singing and dancing, slipping coppers to the children and peasants, including me, who he didn't treat much like Offa did his villeins.

All afternoon and evening, I nursed my mead cup like my hatred, making certain my face revealed no such emotion. Others weren't so stingy with their coin for drink. As I watched the revelry approach drunkenness, of Winifred I saw no sign. I thought she and the other captives would be held at the Draig's manor house awaiting his court tomorrow where they would be given away after morning mass.

As the sun broke through the leaden sky late in the afternoon, the Draig hung seven criminals from a sturdy gallows near the long shadows of the woods before the cheering crowd. Thankfully, I recognized not a man among them, though I could see several were Saxon. I wanted to kill the Draig then, to drive my saex deep into his heart. But that would not free my sister. So, I had to wait. In that moment I felt what drove Offa to unite our people and conquer these tribes of foreigners hiding in the hills.

At dusk, two huge bonfires were lit and left to rage as shadows danced on the gnarled trees beyond their flames. People paraded between them as an act of purification. They drove the cattle through next. My cattle. The Draig slaughtered not one but two as a sacrifice to his people. Later, their bare bones were cast upon the flames. All the other fires in the village and manor were extinguished to be relighted tomorrow from a common flame. Only the church did not accede.

As the gloaming deepened toward full night, the foreigners began to make small offerings to a fey queen and the spirits of their dead. The name of each person in the village had been inscribed on separate stones placed upon a special fire that was allowed to burn down. The owners of any stones that went missing by the morning would die within the year. Or so the people said.

Once the women and children were safely abed, the Draig's young warriors, dressed in white tunics with masks or blackened faces, stalked the other celebrants, who mocked fighting them with spears. By midnight tales were told of a dread black boar roaming the darkness in search of unwary children to devour, of a headless woman on the prowl through the forest, of tailors stitching bewitching spells into the garments of unsuspecting people with needle and magic thread.

Unlike the other men, I was as still as sober as a boy before his first feast day. Though as a Saxon trader, I knew how to pretend to be much drunker than I was. As the mead loosened men's tongues, I listened at the edges of their conversations. Talk soon turned to the captive women to be awarded the next day. I quickly learned they were not in the Draig's manor hall, but within the sanctity of the stone chapel, guarded by the village priest. Men avoided the churchyard that night as they thought it a place where spirits gathered, along with stiles and crossroads. I knew then how Winifred and I would escape. If I could steal one of the Draig's horses, so much the better.

One by one the foreigners lay down and fell asleep near the warmth of the dying bonfires. None, including the Draig, sought the shelter of either house or hall, despite the night having turned clear and cold. As the full moon climbed the silent sky without the barest breath of wind, the clearing became as still and quiet as a barrow at midwinter. I feigned sleep awhile, until the volume of their snores allayed my fear and uncertainty.

Quiet as a cat in a churchyard, I rose and looked around. No one stirred. The night cut through my peasant wool like the north wind through the cracks of a villein's rough-cut door, barely pausing at my tinker's jerkin. I knew if I started shivering, I would give myself away. Near the ashes of the fire with the naming stones, I spied a white, woolen tunic one of the youths had discarded. A plan formed within my mind. On padded feet, I crept toward it. First, I donned the wool and immediately felt warmer. Perhaps it was the only the proximity of the now dead fire. Cautiously, I scooped my hands into the ashes, wary of any lingering embers but finding none. I laved my hands in soot then rubbed them over my face and hair. That quickly I had transformed myself from a peasant tinker into a spirit of the dead.

Slowly, slowly I searched among the stones for a name. While I can no more read or write than any respectable warrior or trader, I had seen the Draig, like all vain men, made certain his naming stone was larger and more unusual than any of the others. Careful not to clink one against another, I searched the pile until I found the oblong stone, a rampant dragon carved into its surface by the type of craftsmen these foreigners favored to decorate even the items of their daily use. Quietly, I tucked the token inside my shirt. It further warmed my heart, which I took as a sign from God. A good omen.

Again, I surveyed the sleeping men until I found the Draig curled upon his side in a place of honor near the warmth of both bonfires, silver goblet near one hand, the other loosely curled around his spear. I crept upon him between the fires, using their dwindling flames and heaps of glowing embers to shield me from all but a few eyes should any open. Carefully, I removed my saex from hiding before taking those final steps. I knew I should do the deed quickly. Every moment was one in which a warrior or a peasant might arise to drain his bladder or go in search of a warmer bed. Instead, I couldn't help but watch this young man sleep, so peacefully, unaware that the Norns were about to snip short the skein of his fate. As I said, father, at this point in my life, I had never killed a man. Even the necessary slaughtering of livestock I usually left to others.

The Draig breathed heavily but evenly. The sleep of the drunken, the innocent or the just. I knew he was neither of the latter two. A part of me wasn't certain how to go about it, how to kill this sleeping man in cold, cold blood. So I stood a moment, watching him breathe, watching his chest slowly rise and fall. I stood transfixed so long that I began to detect the pulse in his neck, just beside his Adam's apple. Something in that rhythmic beating echoed within my head until all I heard was rushing blood, his or mine I am uncertain. That brought a series of quick visions from the byre, visions of men I’d known each fighting for his life and breath at the end of a rope, as the prisoners' shadows had danced against the ancient trees earlier that evening. How did this man deserve to live after what he had caused to befall men whose only crime was where they lived by happenstance?

Without thinking, I bent over to study my foe. My saex, unbidden, descended until its point hovered bare inches above his pulsing neck, the fires flickering along its blood groove in perfect time as if thirsty for his blood. The same light glinted off the rings of a hauberk shirt at his collar like the scales of a true dragon concealed beneath his tunic. Only a man afraid slept in mail, a man constantly wary and wondering about others seeking vengeance for his sins. I became that dark, avenging angel, that spirit of death the night's celebration had been meant to ward away.

I aligned the point of my saex a hairsbreadth above his throbbing neck vein. Deliberately, I positioned my other hand over the bone-work pommel so that I might use my weight to drive my blow home. Still, I hesitated, momentarily uncertain. Until I saw an eyelid flutter. Then, I did nothing but react, as any man would, my right hand guiding my saex as my left forced my full weight behind it, like a man separating a leg of mutton at the joint.

The point of my saex sprayed blood high and hard in a noisy, damp arc against my chest like a young man relieving himself of the past night's ale just before dawn. The blade's razor edge sliced outward as I pushed my weight upon the point, cutting through flesh and vein, windpipe and sinew, a second vein, and out the other side, biting deep into the dirt. Blood then ceased to spatter but pooled on the ground like a black mirror, one reflecting a face I did not know back up at me in the moonlight. A mask contorted by fear and rage with huge, white eyes. A face that still haunts my dreams these nights a score of years later. Only as I glanced away did I hear the faint gurgling from the wound as the Draig stared up at me, his eyes fully recognizing the spirit that had spun open the tap of his life to spill upon the ground.

Weakly, he fumbled with his leaf-blade spear, desperately trying to bring it to bear, a warrior to the end. I gently removed it from his hands, shaking my head in silence. He no longer struggled. His lips moved as a he mouthed Our Lord's Prayer. A moment later, his eyes went glassy as the sounds from his open throat ceased and he stared to his fate beyond this world somewhere in the sky. Heaven or hell, I neither knew nor cared.

I levered my saex from the dirt, rocking it back and forth to free it from its earthen sheath. I wiped the blade upon his tunic before restoring it to hiding. For some reason, I kept his spear with me. Perhaps I thought it would complete my disguise. Perhaps it was a trophy marking my first kill. Perhaps I thought I would need it to intimidate the priest. Or perhaps, I just needed to lean upon it. I also slipped his silver goblet inside my shirt and cut the purse strings to his coin pouch, which quickly followed, scant wergild for the men he'd murdered at the farmstead tun.

I arose like a ghost, a spirit no longer completely anchored to this world. I felt I was drifting and detached. The world, though dark, seemed bright and sharp at the edges, each tiny sound crisp and clear. As I picked my way through the sleeping bodies toward the churchyard, I began to feel giddy, as though long suppressed laughter were welling up inside me. I fought hard not to let it out.

Like a man in a dream, I slipped into the churchyard, avoiding the front door to the chapel that I knew would be barred. The back door opened after a few soft wraps of my knuckles upon the solid wood. I supposed the priest thought he had a penitent come to confess his evening's sins. I know not what he thought as he peered out cracked the door with a candle lantern in hand and found my blood-spattered visage awaiting him. His face went pale. He mumbled something in either the priest's or his foreign tongue. He made the sign of the cross and tried to close the door. He hesitated just long enough for me to easily block his effort with my spear haft, then kick the door open with a foot. Eyes wide and full of fear, he slowly backed away.

The priest caused me no trouble. I said only three words to him that night, all in the foreign tongue. The first was their word for maiden. He pointed to a room behind the sanctuary. I gestured with my spear, which he understood meant I did not intend to let him out of sight. Though from his expression, I doubt he had the courage to brain me with a candlestick. I must have looked the very image of death to him that night, black face, wild eyes, white tunic heavily clotted with blood.

He opened the door. I motioned him to awaken the half dozen maidens sleeping on straw pallets upon the floor, huddled together against the cold. Of the older women, there was no sign. But I could tell by the size of the building that there was no place else to hide them, except in the priest's quarters. I didn't put it past him. "All?" I questioned, narrowing my eyes for intimidation. I needn't have bothered. He just nodded quickly, hoping his cooperation would spare him the fate of whomever was splashed upon my chest. He needn't have feared unless he fought me. He was a priest. I am no Dane.

When he awakened the women, they were frightened, on the edge of tears and crying out. Until I called Winifred's name and spoke to them in their native Saxon, telling them I had come to set them free. What that meant, neither they nor I knew. In truth, I cared what happened to none of them but Winifred. I told them to raid the priest's quarters for cloaks and anything they needed. I reached inside my shirt and handed the eldest the Draig's coin purse. I told her to lead the others east through the woods for many days until they crossed the river and wished them luck. That was all I had to offer.

I turned back to the priest and uttered my last foreign word to him. "Horse." He said something long and quick in the foreign tongue of which all I caught was “plowshare.” I prodded him out the back to show me where with Winifred in tow, shivering in her kirtle against the frigid night. Outside, I pulled the bloody, white tunic over my head, turned it inside out and put it over hers. It helped stop her shivering. I was too anxious and afraid to notice the cold. We needed to put many miles behind us before anyone awoke and raised the alarm.

The priest guided us to a small, open shelter where they kept the parish plow horse. He wouldn't be fast, but was well suited to my purpose. He would have to carry both of us for several days until we reached Mercia. Once again, I felt God had provided for his righteous.

I left Winifred to bridle him and get him ready. There was no saddle, but she managed to conjure up a horse blanket before I returned. I took the priest back to the chapel and locked him with the sacramental wine. The other women had disappeared as if they, too, had been nothing more than spirits on this night, existing only in my dreams. It would be another month before I learned their fate. On my way back to the horse byre, I stole bread and cheese, and scooped another handful of ashes from the cold kitchen hearth, which I rubbed on Winifred's face and hair as soon as I returned, much to her confusion and disgust.

Our ride was long and hard that night. As I'd predicted, the crossroads were all clear owing to superstition. I set off for the old road to the north instead of the hilly track by which I'd come. Upon reaching it I set the horse to a steady canter, galloping through each village astride the road. At the first stream we crossed, I threw the stone from my shirt far beyond the ford. I kept the spear in case we had to ride someone down. We rode throughout the night, walking when we had to, seeking shelter only as dawn bloodied the eastern sky.

We repeated the pattern for two more days. We outpaced the news to Chester, arriving on St. Winefride's feast day. I traded the silver goblet and last of my coin for some decent food and clothing. Again, I kept the spear, my only prize or token from that night. After resting a day, we wended our way back to Scropp's Fort, uncertain of our welcome.

By the time we reached the outer embankment, the news had overtaken us. All of Gwynedd was in chaos. Caradog was left without an heir. Wild tales accompanied the death of the Draig, each more fantastic than the last. Not believing the foreigners' stories of a headless woman riding through the villages on a demon horse driven by a dark, avenging spirit, Offa had quietly offered a rich reward to whoever had performed the deed. Gold, not silver.

At the gate to Scropp's Fort, we were met by Offa's housecarls and accompanied to his hall. He heard my tale but remained unconvinced that I, a minor smuggler and Saxon trader, could have slain such a mighty warrior. I have always been a storyteller, so I embellished my tale, just a bit, replacing my sturdy saex with the Draig's own spear. I was ashamed at having slit a man's throat like a thief common to the night. Offa noted the dragon etched into my spear blade. I wished I hadn't sold the silver goblet or thrown the Draig's naming stone into the river. My sister confirmed what I said, but still he could not decide whether to credit it or not. He sent his spies to find proof my words were true. For a time, my sister and I were entertained as guests of his winter hall, which was just a warmer, better-fed word for prisoners.

Our status changed when one of his scouts rode in to Scropp's Fort several weeks later leading two bedraggled, young women. While I stood silently to one side, they told their tale of a cattle raid on their farmstead tun the day Scropp's Fort fell, of how they were taken prisoner by a foreign prince, of how the older women and younger girls were sold as servants, of how they were held in a stone chapel to be given to away as prizes. Of how they were rescued on All Saints’ Eve by a man covered in blood with a spear who freed them to the woods and took one of their number with him. They both swore my sister was that maiden. When asked if they knew the man who had rescued them, they each pointed a trembling finger at me.

That was the day my fortunes finally changed. The two women were quickly married off to men far away in East Anglia. Winifred was given to an ealdorman in Kent, complete with a dowry of silver from the gold that Offa paid me. I was made an ealdorman myself and given a manor on lands formerly belonging to the foreigners, complete with a small herd of Anglic cattle of my own. Warriors, good, strong men, flocked to my hall, eager to serve as housecarls of the man who had slain the Dragon with nothing but a spear.

As the years has passed, the story grew embellished with each retelling until I rode a horse for war across the long border in a polished mail hauberk with a shield and saex and spear, and slew a scaly, green dragon in single combat, rescuing a maiden from its lair and claiming its glittering horde of gold. Now, even the foreigners tell the tale of such a dragon being slain, though they prefer to credit the killing to St. George rather than a Saxon.

Only now do I suspect how much Offa knew the day Scropp's Fort fell. A year before his death, after a night of heavy drinking, he confided in me how much he had longed for Gwynedd to be heirless on the day Caradog died. At Rhuddlan Marsh he got his wish, though much too late to exploit it. Now that Offa's son is also dead, both kingdoms lay in ruin. I played no small part in the suffering that will cause.

Looking back now as a warrior, I can see the Draig was only defending his father's realm against foreigners intent on stealing his lands and ravishing his women. I know because I have repaid the foreigners a hundredfold for any evil done to me. The Draig was a warrior prince and a better Christian than I fear I'll be when I see Death's wild eyes staring down upon me, dying with a prayer upon his lips.

I, too, will die soon, father. These wounds have done their work. I feel God's hand upon me now. Only I, and now you, know the truth of what happened that All Saints' Day Eve, and how much braver the Dragon was than I.

---

"Can I be forgiven, father?"

The priest sat quietly at the man's bedside a moment, wondering if he had finished or was just pausing to catch his ragged breath, wondering how such a man could think that God would sanction such a noble deed. He would never understand such men. Surely, he knew God was on their side, whatever reversals Mercia might have suffered since Offa's death.

When the silence endured until he was certain the man was waiting for an answer, he said, "May God grant you peace and pardon, my son. I absolve you from your sin. And by the sanctity of the confessional, your secret dies with me."


© 2010 Edward P. Morgan III