I dreamed I was a guest at the wedding of King Edward to Princess Eleanor in Canterbury Cathedral. In my dream, the cathedral was in a wooded valley amid its medieval village. A stony hill a lot like Enchanted Rock loomed to the east, overlooking the valley. As I rode the train into the village, I looked up to the crest of the hill and saw the gleaming pale walls and towers of the castle, washed by a bright midday sun. The valley was lush with bright green buds on all the trees and daffodils and iris blooming in the tall grass on the river banks.
The cathedral had been recently decorated and freshly painted inside, and its walls were covered with rich tapestries in crimson and gold and deep azure blue. Golden stone columns were richly carved, and seemed to grow like enormous trees up into the canopy of fan-vaulted ceilings. The choir and nave and chapels were at ground level, but the altar was reached by grand, arching stairways to either side, climbing to the upper, altar level, with a towering tabernacle behind, tall seats for the bishops, and dark little doors leading into the vast labyrinth of the monastery, and down to subterranean basements and winding passages.
I had some sort of coordinating job, to do with lights or flowers or something, so I was walking all around the altar level, making sure everything was in place when the king and his bride arrived for their rehearsal. This would involve a procession of a huge train of nobles and clergy, and everyone was joyful and joking around, and I tucked myself up in an out of the way corner to watch and see if I needed to do anything.
The king was young, very tall and rawboned and gawky. His crown and golden mantle couldn't hide his lanky figure, boney wrists, and long jaw. His hair was stiff, straight, and straw-colored, his skin very pale and dusted with freckles, and his eyes very large and hazel green. He was one of those people who should be ugly, but was also magnetically charismatic and full of energy and high spirits. I'd heard he had broken his leg being thrown from his horse not so long before, but he didn't have any kind of limp, and was joking with his court and running up the aisle faster than any of them could go. The queen-to-be was small and golden-haired, dressed and veiled in deep blue. She seemed very quiet and self-possessed, but her gray eyes were kind. She was a very clever and strong woman, everyone knew. The kingdom all agreed it would be a good match.
The corner I was sheltered in had a tall window, and as I stood there, looking on and listening in, I was chilled as a shadow cut off the sunlight that had been streaming through. I turned and looked through a small, clear pane edging the more brilliant glass pattern, and all I could see was a deep, obscure darkness, a steely gray that was almost black, like hematite. As my eyes adjusted, I could see scales and a stretch of leathery wing. I craned my head sideways to peer upward through the little clear pane, and I could see a jagged ridge of spines flowing up a long sinuous neck.
I turned back into the cathedral and It had been so dim already that no one had noticed the blotted out sunshine. There was a loud crack from overhead, and everyone froze, stunned. The king cried, "What is it?" as he rushed to shield the queen. I yelled down that there was a dragon, and we needed to RUN. We all ran.
The people nearest the arching staircases fled down them. I followed the bishop and the royal party as they passed through a nearby door hidden by a carved turret of the tabernacle. That was the nearest door to me. We fled down a narrow stair as stone from the ceilings began to crash down onto the altar, glass shattered, and priceless artworks fell to fragments in billows of dust.
The king and court had secret tunnels, far below ground, that led to the castle, and they hurried to these. But I wasn't allowed to follow them. The monks directed me through tunnels that seemed to be carved out of a dull gray wax, glistening with a clammy dampness. It made me think of adipocire crusting over the insides of a waterlogged corpse. I passed by cave-like rooms where relics and gem-encrusted, leather-bound hymnals and other treasures rested behind glass in locked cabinets. There were tourists there gawking at it all, and I yelled to them to stay down here in the cellars, because there was a dragon.
It was my job, I decided, to find anyone who needed to be warned, so I kept hurrying along corridors. Suddenly, I popped out of an archway into the nave of the cathedral. The fan-vaulting high over the altar, at the east end of the nave, was now gaping open to a darkening sky. Perched on the jagged, broken spires was the dragon. It's reptilian head writhed back and forth as its piercing yellow eyes examined all of the interior, looking anyone hiding... or running... like me.
The dragon saw me. I knew I needed to dash into another corridor with a downward stair. The dragon was too enormous to fit down any of the passageways, and once I got deep enough below the surface, I'd be beyond its reach. It's head reared back, and I knew that either the fire or a deadly strike were coming. And then I woke up.
