Dunstan is overflown

The autumn had been unusually mild, and many trees still wore their ragged leaves weeks after they should have shrugged them off. The days had grown shorter as they should, but the light often lingered in the evenings, and long after the sun set, the horizon would glow with its own dim green fire. Neither the days nor the season seemed to want to die.

Tonight, Dunstan thought with melancholy satisfaction, November had come to lay the seal of winter on the world. The air was so pure that the stars scarcely twinkled, so cold it seemed to suck the warm breath from his lungs. The wind was faint enough that he could not feel it on his face, but in the great stillness he could hear it rustling over the stones and across the lake like the sweeping skirts of a dark lady.

He had been up late with a poem, and he had only stepped outside for a moment to clear his head before going to bed. He would go to bed alone as he invariably did lately, but he was beginning to see why his father’s production of poetry would sometimes dwindle, when he would, as he said, prefer to stay up late with a lady than with a poem – even if only to light a candle and watch her sleep.

Dunstan had discovered that watching a lady was an engaging pastime. Unfortunately, it was nearly the only lady-​​related pastime he was allowed. He had spent so many months dodging the Princess that he had never known what a clever dodger she could be herself. He was afflicted with an acute awareness of her location whenever she was near, but he found it nearly impossible to arrange for his location to intersect hers – at least not when she was alone.

He had also never realized what an obstinate flirt his father could be. Whenever Britamund saw herself cornered, she would flee to his father. His father would promptly ignore everyone in his company – even unto his own wife – and begin making himself utterly ridiculous with the Princess, Dunstan’s bald hints notwithstanding.

Even on his own birthday a few days ago – which was, more importantly, also Hetty’s birthday – his father had all but kept Britamund chained to his side. Dunstan did not know when he would see her again, and soon the snow would begin falling, making visiting difficult. Perhaps he would not see her again until he went home for Christmas. That made for many empty evenings that poetry would only poorly fill.

Dunstan was soon shivering, and even that faint wind blowing over his ears had already made them ache with cold.

He was about to turn and go back into the tower when his head reeled with the dizzying impression that the tower was coming to him. An enormous black form had blotted out the sky over his head, as if the tower was falling onto him. An instant later he was hit by an invisible weight that nearly knocked him over.

As weightless and as formless as it was, Dunstan knew with what force the air could pound against one’s shoulder when it was pushed ahead of the beating wings of a falcon. Thus he was not entirely surprised when he looked up in time to see the trailing edge of an enormous wing pass over his head.

He could not have said how large it was, but the creature flew high enough that it had not come close to grazing the towers, and yet its wings seemed to overspread the entire castle. Dunstan had never seen anything so enormous that was not made of stone.

When it beat its wings again, it twisted its body away, and Dunstan saw behind it a long tail such as he had never seen on a bird of any size.

He watched stupefied as it flapped a few more times, rapidly, lifting itself ever higher into the air even as the steep hill dropped away beneath it. When it reached the lake, it had height enough to straighten its wings and silently glide. At a distance it seemed nothing more than a bird of nightmarish size, except when it curved its long tail away from its body to help it bank and turn.

Dunstan had not spent hours in perusal of his brother’s bestiary for nothing. If this was not a dragon, this was some other, even more fabulous creature.

He stood and watched it glide out over the stillness until its shrinking silhouette merged with the dark hills opposite and he lost sight of it. He stood and watched a while afterwards, but there was nothing more to see. He had never heard anything at all but the rush of air over wings.

At last he turned and hurried into the castle to get his sword and find someone to saddle his horse. He was not sorry he had no lady in his bed to distract him on this night. All he wanted was his obstinate, ridiculous father.