Chapter 8 #2
I looked around at the stony shack we lived in with the dusty roof made of straw, the untamed meadows and impenetrable forests,
and wondered really, honestly, was this it? Was this—and I hated how much I needed it to be—normal?
Maybe what I had with Simon was an oddity in this world after all.
There were no relationship models around to look to.
There was a fraction of the number of people on the planet than where I came from, so there was a fraction of the number of gay people here, which was already a tiny fraction.
Even in modern times, all the gay couples I knew still seemed so searching and undefined.
If any of them were defined, it was always forced—the most confident-seeming gay couples only the product of hijacked heteronormativity, with their Same Sex Weddings and matching classic rings, their GMO-children calling them Daddy and Papa, cosplaying this life as a Lifestyle in the most derogatory sense.
It was either that or the hijacking was inverted, the committed roles reverse engineered into a nonbinary gray soup where nothing mattered, where there were no rules, and tradition was blended into a fluid of purposeful blasphemy—the purpose being so glaring and obvious, the tongue planted firmly in cheek to the point of cringe, and yet it was the whole crux of the union.
Prove them right and prove them wrong. I wanted neither.
I wanted both. They were nothing and everything. Either way, I felt excluded.
The king’s men in all their finery had flagged all the things I wasn’t. There was no outside validation. Could a life like
ours be so unmarked and simple? Simon says yes, I heard in my mind—easy for him to say when all he knew otherwise was slavery. And what about Simon anyway? He had escaped
his station in life, but pointedly with me, thanks to me. He had chosen me, someone who could read and write (kind of), who
possessed a capitalist instinct and Protestant work ethic this world wouldn’t see for at least a few more centuries, and maybe
to him I was this prized oddity he could continue on with to greater things, sex just a surprising new form of nudging me
along. He’d be my “squire” just as the messenger had surmised. I hadn’t even thought to correct him.
No—I knew it wasn’t like that, I knew it was love—or not knew, but at least felt. There was love, but also there were his
eyes, so wide and open, that sense of him pouring into me. A substance like that has to have an end, doesn’t it? And a reason.
I couldn’t help but view it from afar—from London specifically—measure its value, project its quarterly dividends. We had
nothing.
“You know you could just stay home,” I suggested one night. The summons was only for me, only my name was on it after all,
and if Simon was so worried about torture or death, he should stay home. He looked at me blankly and almost laughed me off.
It was as if I had suggested he get on a train to Heathrow, board a plane, and fly somewhere else.
“I’m bound to you,” he said in reply. He said this without a hint of romance, irony, humor, passion, without any emotion at all.
It was a statement of fact and nothing else, like a physical string was tied between my head and his and he was merely recognizing it.
It made me feel the complete opposite of assured.
I loved him and I knew he loved me, but whatever this thing was—the way he had tied himself to me—I couldn’t compete with that.
It was such an incompatible way of thinking that yes, in that moment, I couldn’t reason with it.
To me, that mindset was as much an existential terror as the approaching warrior king.
On the thirteenth of June we packed a small bag of provisions. Early on the fourteenth we tied it to the donkey and embarked
on our six-hour trek to Kirkdale. Simon was stony and morose, walking slowly behind me and the donkey. I didn’t know how we
were going to last the whole journey like this. But before we were too far from the house, Simon stopped walking. He asked
that we say a prayer.
I said sure of course—trying my hardest not to sound flippant or ungenuine—and I joined him, on my knees, side by side, while
he prayed, which was something we had never done before. He did so silently. I wasn’t sure what to do. He said nothing.
We knelt in silence. I listened to the woods surrounding us.
I thought back to that first day I had arrived in this strange new world—nearly a year ago.
That was the last time I had prayed. That nonsense, primal cry to no one.
Well maybe not to no one, I thought, because I couldn’t deny that it had worked, that I had been saved.
Then again it was still 1301 so maybe I hadn’t, but maybe that was my own fault and I should have been more specific, all I had done was sputter and cry.
I wondered now, with fear and trepidation, if I should ask for it for once.
What if I just wished myself back to modern times?
Did I want that? I breathed out and shuddered.
“George, I have something I need to tell you,” Simon said. He had finished praying. I opened my eyes and looked at him. He
was looking away, into the forest. “I have to tell you about something that happened to me before I met you.”
“OK,” I said carefully. He was trembling.
“It happened the day before you arrived in Greenwich. It was the night before. And I know how this is going to sound to you,
so I’m just going to tell you exactly what happened and what I saw. That night, in my room . . . an angel appeared to me.”
Tears formed in his eyes as he looked straight ahead. I felt a shudder run through me. I had no other choice but to take him
seriously.
He continued. “An angel appeared in my room that night and told me that you would appear the next day, that I would meet you, that you would be my new lord and I should pledge my life to protect you. It said that we’d escape together, that we’d love each other.
And that one day you’d receive a summons by the king and that would be my sign—my token that all this was real, that there really was an angel in my room, and that all this was meant to be and I was on the right path.
I swear to you, George, just like I’ve sworn my whole life to you, that this really happened, that there was an angel dressed all in white, a brilliant halo of light—and it told me all of these things that were going to happen and now they’re happening and I’ve reached this point where I don’t know what’s going to happen next, George, I don’t know what’s going to happen and I’m afraid.
” He began to shake and cry uncontrollably.
“It’s like I don’t know who I am. I don’t know what’s happening to me.
” He grabbed onto me and I held him there, both of us still kneeling on the ground.
His crying made me start to cry and I felt the rush of the unknowable, the mystery of life in all its majesty.
I hated how callous I had been about the summoning.
I kissed the back of his neck. I stroked his hair.
“I love you, Simon,” I whispered. “I’m devoted to you. I love you and I believe you.”
He shuddered in my arms and whispered a heartbreaking sound. I barely heard it. “You don’t,” he said.
“I do,” I said, but through my own tears my voice was warbled and unsteady. I didn’t know what else I could possibly say.
I wiped my eyes and was resolute. I did love Simon, truly. And I knew we would be all right. “We shouldn’t be afraid,” I said.
“If everything’s happening just as this . . . angel said it would, then we’re on the right track. We’re doing what we’re supposed
to be doing and God or whoever is going to help us. We just have to love each other and keep going. We know that’s what we
both want. I love you, I love this home we’ve made. I’m not going to leave it. We’ll be all right.”
Simon nodded and rubbed his face, but his upset didn’t seem to have reached a clearing. I tried to wipe his eyes and he tried
to stand up and pull himself away from his fear but he couldn’t. He shook his head. “I just—” His voice broke all over again.
“I’m worried. I’m scared. Because, George, I’m beginning to think—I’m beginning to worry—that maybe it wasn’t an angel.”