The Dragon Waiting

The Dragon Waiting

A Masque of History

John M. Ford

Fantasy Masterworks Volume 29

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flyboy707

To those who were there at the crisis.

The Empire lay in the imposed order; around
the throne the visionary zone of clear light
hummed with celestial action; there the forms
of chamberlains, logothetes, nuncios, went and came...
These dwelled in Byzantium....
But also in the mind of the Empire another kind
of tale lay than that of the Grail.

—Charles Williams
The Region of the Summer Stars

 A Historical

 Note

IN the second century c.e., Loukianos of Samosata wrote, "Everyone's writing history now, and I don't want to be left out of the furore." Loukianos, who was also known as Lucian the Scoffer, then produced a fantasy story called the True History.

What follows is a work of fiction, which makes use of historical characters and settings in the manner usual to drama. Some events, and all dialogues, are invented, as of course are the overtly fantastic elements. There are as few technical anachronisms as could be managed, though some of the technologies given were not known in the story's locales at the time it is set.

The quotations heading each section are from Shakespeare's Richard III. It, and many other works historical and otherwise, have provided atmosphere and detail for the present book, but all interpretations of character, especially of that most reinterpreted of English kings, are naturally my own.

My purpose has been to entertain, not to raise issues to the dignity of a historical controversy. As Nennius wrote twelve centuries ago, if there was such a person and that was when he wrote, "I yield to him who knows more of these things than I do".

JMF/1982

 Contents

Cover

Title

A HISTORICAL NOTE

HISTORICAL CHARACTERS

Part One: CHILDREN OF THE EMPIRE

1. GWYNEDD

2. GAUL

3. FIORENZA

Part Two: COMPANIONS OF THE STORM

4. ARRIVALS

5. DEPARTURES

6. PASSAGES

Part Three: DIRECTIONS OF THE ROAD

7. UP

8. DOWN

9. ACROSS

Part Four: TURNINGS OF THE WHEEL

10. TRANSITIONS

11. TRANSGRESSIONS

12. TRANSFORMATIONS

Part Five: ENDS OF THE GAME

13. DRAGON

HISTORICAL NOTES

About the Author

 Shadows As

They Pass:

HISTORICAL CHARACTERS

 For those who have some difficulty following the large array of titles common to the nobility of the period, or are simply interested in such lists, the following is a non-exhaustive summary of the real historical figures appearing in the novel. Absence of a name does not necessarily mean the character is not historical, and as explained previously, some liberties have been taken with those who do appear below.

ENGLISH AND SCOTS

Cecily, Duchess of York,

and her three surviving sons:

Richard Plantagenet, Duke of Gloucester, later King Richard III

George Plantagenet, Duke of Clarence

King Edward IV

Richard, Duke of York

Anne Neville, Richard Gloucester’s wife

Elizabeth Woodville, Edward IV’s Queen

James Tyrell, Henchman to Richard

Richard Ratcliffe, ditto

Francis Lovell, ditto

Alexander Stuart, Duke of Albany, Brother to King James III of Scotland

Anthony Woodville, Lord Scales, Earl Rivers, Brother to Queen Elizabeth

Edward, Prince of Wales, later King Edward V

Doctor John Morton

Henry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham

William Hastings, Lord Hastings, King’s Chamberlain to Edward IV

Edward of Middleham, son to Richard of Gloucester

Henry Tydder (i.e. "Tudor," given its correct period pronunciation)

FRENCH

King Louis XI

Franqois Villon, poet and ne'er-do-well

Margaret of Anjou, Queen to King Henry VI of England

ITALIANS

Luigi Pulci, Poet

Marsilio Ficino, Poet and philosopher

Giuliano de’ Medici, brother to

Lorenzo de’ Medici, called ‘The Magnificent’ (official title of the current head of the Medici Bank)

Alessandra Scala, theatrical designer

Girolamo Savonarola

Galeazzo Maria Sforza, Duke of Milan

Federigo da Montefeltro, Mercenary Commander, Duke of Urbino

Dominic Mancini, Diplomat

Doctor John Argentine, Physician

PART ONE

 Children

of the

Empire

Lo, at their births good starts were opposite....

 All unavoided is the doom of destiny..

—Act IV, Scene 4

Chapter One

GWYNEDD

THE road the Romans made traversed North Wales a little way inland, between the weather off the Irish Sea and the mountains of Gwynedd and Powys; past the copper and the lead that the travel-hungry Empire craved. The road crossed the Conwy at Caerhun, the Clwyd at Asaph sacred to Esus, and the Roman engineers passed it through the hills, above the shore and below the peaks, never penetrating the spine of the country. Which is not to say that there were no ways in; only that the Romans did not find them.

From Caernarfon to Chester the road remained, and at Caerhun in the Vale of Conwy there were pieces of walls and straight ditches left where the legionary fort had held the river crossing. Roman stones, but no Romans; not for a thousand years.

Beyond Caerhun the road wound upslope for a mile, to an inn called The White Hart. Hywel Peredur lived there in this his eleventh year, the nine hundred tenth year of Arthur's Triumph, the one thousand ninety-fifth year of Constantine's City. This March afternoon, Hywel stood on the Roman paving below the innyard, and was King of the Romans.

Fields all his dominion rolled out forever before and below him, lined and set with trees that from the height were no more than tufts on a cloth of patchwork greens and browns. Conwy water was a broad ribbon stitched in easy curves across the cloth. The March air smelled of peat and moisture and nothing at all but its own cold cleanness on the sharp edge of spring.

The place Hywel stood was called Pen-y-Gaer, Head of the Fortress. There had been a fortress, even before the legions came; but of its builders too only stones were left, bits of wall and rampart. And the defense of the slope, a field of sharp-edged boulders set in ranks down the hill.

Hywel stood on the road and commanded the stones, soldiers without death or fear, like the warriors grown from dragon's teeth in the story; any assault against them would break and be scattered. Then, at Hywel's signal, his legion of horse would gallop forth from Caerhun and cut down the discomfited enemy, sparing only the nobles for ransom and tribute. His captains, in purple and gold, mounted on white horses, would drive the captive lords before him, shouting Peredur, Peredur! that all might know who was conqueror here

Not far up the road was a milestone; it was worn and half-legible, and Hywel knew no Latin, but he could read the name constant!. Constantine.