George and the Dragon

The princess’s fingers languidly glide down the window, their paleness uneven due to a light distorted by the waving surface of the glass.

“My Lady.”

I announce my presence and await a reaction, but her gaze remains lost in the distance, beyond the horizon, beyond the castle’s walls.

She’s been like this since the incident, and nobody blames her. The memory of the beast is too fresh, and I, a simple servant, can’t begin to imagine what she must feel. So I wait in silence, contemplating her fragile silhouette diffused by the morning’s Sun, until she notices she isn’t alone in the room and looks at me with the faraway eyes of someone watching a dream.

“Maria…” she hesitates, her tongue still clumsy at her awakening, “you must excuse me. Have you been waiting for long?”

“No, Your Highness, I just got here.” I avert my gaze, giving her time to recover her composure. “Would it be too bold of me to ask you what you were thinking of?”

A stiff fabric’s creaking tells me she’s now standing up, but that noise is followed by a too-long pause. Just as I think that I may have overstepped in my indiscretion, my lady talks anew.

“I was thinking… on what happened three days ago. On the dragon and the knight,”

Her tone is somber and, now that courtesy allows me to look back at her, I see her eyes going back to the arched window and what lies beyond its slender pillars.

“Your Highness, it was a terrible thing that you were chosen in the draw, and you know that…” I remember Xavier’s calloused, firm hands in a damp, dark wine cellar, and I turn away with furious fire on my burning cheeks. “If I had still been a maiden, I would’ve taken your place, but it’s long been known that only a virgin’s sacrifice can sate a dragon.”

“My good Maria, I hold no rancor for what fate disposed, neither do I for what Moon and wine settled last Saint John’s eve.” Was that a wink? I may have to settle myself before I try to console anyone else. “Neither would I have accepted you taking my place as a victim.”

“But… why? You’re more important than I am, and if I could offer you this much—” A raised hand bids me silence.

“How long have you been in my service?” Her voice is harsh, unyielding.

“Since I was born, fifteen winters ago.”

“And how old am I?”

“Sixteen, my lady.” There’s a spark of anger in her eyes, but I’m stunned, and I don’t avert mine. With a long breath, she relaxes her semblance and draws on a faint, tired smile.

“And in all these years that you’ve bathed and clothed me, played with me, listened to my nurse’s tales…” Her eyes sweeten, and the commanding voice becomes a caressing murmur. “You are a low-born, yet my closest friend,” she says, ignoring my silence. My withheld gasp. Until she speaks again. “Maria, can’t you think of any tale, any old story from the barbarous people from before the coming of our Lord, that could remind you of my own circumstances?”

Shaken by my mistress’s (friend?) declaration and rushing childhood memories, I babble the right answer:

“The tale of Perseus and Andromeda, mayhaps?”

“Precisely.” Her eyes assent and invite me to sit by her side on the stone bench under the tall window, covered both by light and brocade cushions. “And now, could you refresh my memory? Tell me a story, Maria, as if we were still children and only our nurse would get scandalized if we were to soil our clothes with mud.”

I allow the warmth of the moment and the sweetness of the Sun to seep under my skin, and, closing my eyes, I dive into comfortable memories before I start to speak.

“Wise Greek men tell us that Perseus, a man from Hercules’ lineage, found love at the end of his journeys. He returned triumphant from dealing death to the monster Medusa, the most terrible of the gorgons,” the affected words pour through my lips with the lulling cadence that reaches me like an echo of childhood, “and he soared above the seas on the winged sandals of Hermes, with the joy and swiftness of a bird. But his flight was suddenly interrupted when, doubting his own eyes, he saw a woman of extraordinary beauty chained to a rock. Entirely naked.”

Just for a moment, we both go back to being two little girls laughing shamelessly at the lurid scene, and the worries of days past fade away like morning mist. Then I retake the story’s thread.

“Shocked by the strange vision, he approached the damsel to inquire about her circumstances, and he got this answer: ‘Noble prince, I’m here because of the oracle’s instructions, as the pride of my mother, Cassiopeia, led her to claim that the beauty of the nereids couldn’t compare to her own, and so Poseidon, their guardian god, punished us by first sending a flood, and then a sea dragon. It has been decreed that the curse will cease when it devours me, and on that beach, spectating my sacrifice, are my parents.’ Stunned by the damsel’s fate and madly in love with her, the young warrior flew to speak to the king and queen, who offered the hand of their daughter if he could free them from the monster.”

I take a moment as the memory of our nurse’s rough voice and the fireplace’s crackling wrap around my memory and dilute across my words. Out of the corner of my eye, I watch my lady, and her lazy smile tells me we are sharing both tale and remembrance. Before the spell is broken, I speak anew:

“As soon as the pact had been sealed, the seas stirred, and the black figure of the beast came from the depths, just a shadow under sparkling blue waters. Medusa’s head had not lost any of its terrible power after her death, and it was still capable of turning to stone any living being, so Perseus took it out of his bag and threw it to the sea, where it turned into red coral the algae in which it fell. But the rising snake wasn’t looking in that direction and so avoided the trap. And the Greek man had to resort to a new trick…” I draw the pause long, cherishing the sweet melancholy of this moment until a childish, disgruntled huff bids me to continue. “Flying over the waters, Perseus threw his own shadow in front of the monster, and the dragon, confused, broke the cresting waves with churning foam and mighty roars, ready to devour the dark silhouette it thought to be a swimming man. Taking advantage of the creature’s confusion, the son of Danae and Zeus, as that was his own ancestry, dove from the skies and, with a single strike from the golden sickle given to him by Hermes, beheaded his adversary.”

I take a new breath before continuing without waiting for my companion to get impatient once again… though dearly tempted to.

“But Cassiopeia and Cepheus had already promised their daughter’s hand, and so they laid a trap for Perseus with her other suitor. In the banquet that was to celebrate Andromeda’s savior, hidden among the attendants, there were two hundred soldiers under Agenor’s command. Emboldened by such support (and naught else), he dared dispute the princess’s hand to Zeus’ son. Cassiopeia ordered the hero’s death, and he, despite fighting bravely, had no other recourse than once again using the gorgon’s head, petrifying both the attackers and her fiancée’s parents. In spite of everything, Andromeda had already witnessed twice his peerless courage and, as enamored as he was, acceded to the wedding and accompanied him on his journey back home.

“And…?” She looks at me reproachfully, waiting for the last line of the spell, and I sigh with feigned exasperation.

“And they lived happily ever after.”

We both laugh, innocent and careless, like no one had ever laughed since the dragon came to our lands, razed our fields, and devoured our herds. It’s good to hear this laugh once again, and we allow it to last until our breath falters and our sides hurt.

When I stop at last and turn my head, I see her beauty: the messy blonde hair mingles with the light pouring through it, and the corner of her lids shimmers, wet with tears born of a laughter that still hangs around us. But when her gaze becomes somber, and the veil of gravity once again covers her face, I understand that there’s a reason for making me recite the old story. A reason beyond the echoes of shared childhood and comradery.

“Do you understand the issue, Maria? The difference between Andromeda and me?”

I think and remember, and the vision of the knight upon his horse leaps to my memory. The two of them, covered in white arms, with no more distinction than the red cross of the crusaders, fulgurant in light that did not belong to this world, filled with more strength than what a mere man or beast could ever contain. He was impeccable in manners and temperament, enduring all the praise that chivalry obliged him to when he returned the princess and delivered the beast’s body, but not heeding a single word more. He didn’t even dismount before riding to his next encounter.

“Princess, may you, by chance, be in love with—”

Her impassible mask shatters, and the flushed, stammering princess tries to hit me with an embroidered pillow.

Ah, heart’s woes…

“That’s not it at all!” She clears her throat and recovers her air of dignity, even if an injured one. And I can’t help my knowing grin. “Really, that’s not it, so get that smirk off your face before I demand a strict inventory of the wine cellar.” Surprised, I loudly swallow. Such a merciless ploy… “That’s better. We wouldn’t want to have Xavier fired for petty larceny.”

“You aren’t being serious…”

“Of course I’m not, my credulous friend, but vengeance should be swift when possible. An eye for an eye, a flush for a flush.” And there, yet again, is that roguish grin, the careless one. I had feared the dragon had stolen it away. “But… if we’re being serious… I did fall for him. Somewhat. You saw the way he looked, how he comported himself… and saving me from being eaten alive certainly helped.”

I nod as my only answer. There’s no need for more.

“But… more than him, I think I fell for the story. The hero who faces a beast for love of a maiden, who overcomes all challenges and hardship only to conquer her heart. How many times have we heard this tale? Under however many names?” Her hand goes back to the wavy glass and the uneven light as her gaze gets lost in images of smoke and fantasy far beyond this one room. “It was impossible not to fall for it, not to fall into my own role, the one the tale reserved for me. But, Maria… That wasn’t the tale that was being told. George was exultant when he fought the dragon, when he charged him with his lance, becoming a bolt of white flame, and the beast itself faced him with such fierceness that it was as if every minute of its life, every breath, had met in that instant of monstrous perfection. And their clash, the unique and splendid moment of combat…  I don’t have the words.”

She shuts up, and I accompany her in her silence. I know her. She’ll speak again, and what she’ll have to say will not be pleasant.

“And when it was over, when the dragon laid dead under his horse’s hooves, and the story demanded a chaste kiss, a flower, and a promise of eternal love, the knight looked at me with cold eyes and asked if I was fine. Untied me. Carried me back home.” She closes her eyes and clenches her teeth, as if talking was such an arduous task. “He didn’t care for me at all. He had come to vanquish the dragon, not to rescue the damsel. And, Maria? I don’t think I ever mattered to the dragon either…”

As soon as her voice breaks, I surround her with my arms and hold her against my chest. I remember when she was six years old, and her favorite dress was torn. I remember when she was eleven, and she kissed a squire behind the stables. I remember all those times of sadness or confusion. And, despite everything, an inebriating warmth flows from my heart. Because I remember, as well, that it had been too long since I last hugged my friend.

============

Today is Saint George’s Day, the national book day in Spain, and something slightly more meaningful than Valentine’s Day in Catalonia, where men are given books and women roses (unfair as the trade may seem, roses do get incredibly expensive today). The story goes that Saint George gave the princess such a rose before departing, and it… well, it does fit the themes of courtly love. Of something that is held as precious even if it’s never meant to be consummated.

But this is a little something I wrote more than ten years ago that I just translated with minimal edits (because it has been ten years, and some parts offended my current sensibilities, even if I have preserved most of its warts). This is me not paying homage to the knight and the dragon, but to the one whose story was never told.

It came from a book about mythology that I wrote back then, filled with moments like these. The ones that are only implied or outright absent. It was the last story in a mini-arc in the book, one made from the comedy of Hephaestus stringing up Aphrodite and Ares in a net to complain about his cuckoldry, followed by the tragedy of mad, lonely Medusa talking to one of the statues in her garden, telling him that she could never return his love, as she was pregnant with a god’s children.

Even if she still wanted to be held.

And then came her triumphant killer.

It was a poorly thought-out book, born out of my love of myths and tales. The first book I ever finished.

And today is Saint George’s Day, the day of a knight defeating a dragon, of what may be an echo of the first story to ever be told. And I wanted to share this little piece of it with you.

I hope you enjoyed it. Now, back to writing Wordsworth.