The Knights of Rhodes. Bo Giertz

      The Dragon in the Marsh

      Back when Hélion de Villeneuve was the Grand Master here, there was a dragon that lived in the swamp on the other side of Mt. St. Stefan, only a half hour from here. He harried that area for many years. First only goats vanished and maybe a donkey or two. But then he began to take children. Then someone complained to the Grand Master, who offered a reward to anyone who would take him dead or alive. But he shouldn’t have done that. Some returned, bloody and muddy, and with leg skins torn down to their calves as if they had been tortured. Others were never heard of again. Those who got away would describe it. There was no doubt that it was a dragon, twenty feet long with a tail that could break a horse in pieces when it struck. A manslayer, he ate men like sausage. One man tried to shoot him with the strongest crossbow he could find. It just ricocheted off the horrid knots on his back. It didn’t bother him anymore than if one were to scratch him behind the ears. So everyone knew that he was hexed.

      This story annoyed the Grand Master. On the whole, the dragon made it unsafe to take any path to the city. He lay and lured far away from his swamp in the mornings when people would go to market. It was next to impossible to see him because he could disguise himself as an old fallen tree trunk. Then when someone came within reach, he scampered out like a lizard, sinking his jaws into a steer or a servant boy.

      The Grand Master, though, didn’t want to lose anymore of the brothers. So he gave an order that no one should go out to slay the dragon. The most vexing part of this was that the Greek priests spread a rumor that it was God’s punishment for us having come to the island and introducing the true faith. They went around muttering that we were excommunicated by the Patriarch of Jerusalem so it was not so incomprehensible that such an abomination would rummage about here.

      But now there was this Gozon, who later became Grand Master. He was a tall man, a lean Auvergnat. When he was a boy back home, he would ride through moors and dry out in the sun so that he was only skin and sinews. But he was strong. There was no one better to send out for a corsair that got away with a galley. He didn’t take the Grand Master’s order seriously, thinking that he could, at least, take a look at the monster. And he did many times. Then he got permission to go home to Auvergne. He couldn’t stop thinking about this dragon and how he might go about slaying it. He was so obsessed with hunting it that he went to his yard and drew a picture of the monster. The smith was a clever fellow, and after a few days he had bent together some bars of iron to act as a skeleton for the mockup. He had put hinges on it so skillfully that the dragon could strike with his tail and open his teeth if you pulled on some straps. Then all they had to do was secure tree limbs to the bars and the dragon was finished.

      Gozon had two squires who were always willing to have a little fun. He taught them to pull the straps so that the wood dragon squirmed as if it were living. Later they tied a long rope to the straps and sat safely while Gozon charged it with his field lance. They pulled as much as they could so that the dragon threw himself at Gozon, jumping and clubbing him with his tail while he tried to stick it with the lance. But it wasn’t just him; he also trained two bulldogs he had not to be afraid of the monster. He taught them to bite on the underside of the body where he saw that the armor was thinner and to hold on fast no matter how much the dragon thrashed about.

      When he thought they trained enough, he gained permission and took the two squires, the horse, and the dogs with him back to Rhodes. Then he gained permission to come and go as he pleased. By the second day, he smuggled his armor out of the capital and over to the mountain. In the evening the two squires came with the horse and the dogs. Then he started to get anxious, so he took a good hour in the church praying before the altar to get as much protection as possible from the dragon and his hellish art.

      Then he set out to hunt. The squires had their orders. He wanted to attack it by himself, alone. If he died, they should carry him back and buy three masses for his soul. Then they were to take the first boat home to Marseille without saying anything to anyone. But if he was successful in piercing the dragon, they should come and help.

      It wasn’t long before they found tracks in the grass, almost as if a tree trunk had been dragged through the forest. They were following the tracks when Gozon suddenly spurred his horse and began to gallop. There wasn’t much time for him to gain speed. The dragon was lying right there in front of him, waiting. At the last second, the horse turned to the side and he missed his mark with the lance. Gozon turned around and tried again. This time, the lance hit its mark just like in a tournament. But the horse was so completely terror stricken that he made a turn, throwing Gozon out of the saddle. The horse bolted and screamed as only frightened horses can do. It ran past the squires, who were scared to death, and climbed up some rocks, thinking that their lord had been eaten. But he got up on his legs and hacked at the dragon with his sword. But the beast was, as I said, hexed. He may as well have been hacking at a Turkish cannonball. The beast tried to bite him. Gozon would jump to get out of the way. He began sweating hard. The hounds tried to help him, holding fast to the underbelly as they had been taught, but the monster simply flung them off. They flew through the air with huge pieces of skin hanging from their teeth. The tail hit Gozon so that he saw stars and fell down. Then the dragon chased after him wildly. But just as he lifted his head, Gozon ran his sword through the underside of the dragon’s neck. The sword broke through the enchanted skin. The dragon shook, and thrashed, but Gozon held firm with both hands. He must have cut the monster’s carotid artery as they were rolling around. Blood spurted and oozed out of his throat like water from a gargoyle in a thunderstorm. The dragon ended up on top of Gozon because he wouldn’t let go of the sword. When the dragon finally had had enough, he sank down on top of Gozon, who had also had enough and fainted in the mud. He might have drowned there if the hounds hadn’t barked and got the squires down from the rocks. When they ventured forth and saw what was up, they put the lance handle and tree branches under the dragon and turned him over. When they had broken Gozon free and lifted up his visor, they saw that he was still alive. They scraped the worst of the mud off of him and put him on his feet. He was fine after he rested a bit. But because it was forbidden to fight with the dragon, he did not want to announce to the watch to be admitted to the city without first going to a farmhouse that belonged to a Genoese. When the Genoese learned what he had been up to, he broke out his best wine and laid the table with cheese, olives, and bread. Then brother Gozon ate with a fresh appetite.

      The next morning a servant came with the horse, loamy, sweaty, and still saddled. Gozon was so annoyed with the cowardly wretch that he took his saddle and gave the Genoese the horse as thanks for the hospitality—on the condition that he could only be used as a work horse and would regularly be thrashed if he thought himself too good for it.

      But then the real story you should hear began. Brother Gozon returned to the auberge with his chain mail full of dried mud, dents in his armor, a black eye, and a whole swarm of sailors and servants behind him whooping and cheering. The rumor had already spread. The brothers clapped for him, and the Auvergnats wanted to have a victory feast. But then came one of the Piliers, the Prior of Aups, and simply asked him if it was true that brother Gozon had fought the dragon alone.

      “True enough,” he said. “Though the hounds helped me.”

      “Then Brother Gozon has disobeyed a given order. I may herewith request Brother Gozon to leave his weapons and follow me. Provost, show the way.”

      The provost showed the way to the prison tower. Down in the cellar, brother Gozon sat in steel vices with ten pounds of iron on his feet. There was a tremendous disturbance on the street, but the prior sent out the guard and drove the people away. Patrols saw to it that no one was able to gather together and stand or talk around the tower. What an ordeal that must have been.

      So what were they to do with Brother Gozon? He could have been shot on the spot. He had broken an order that demanded his life. The very least one could do was to take his knighthood from him and send him home without spurs or sword. But no one really wanted to do that. When the people and the seamen could not gather at the tower, they went to the church and ordered a mass, and that could not be denied them. First they ordered a mass of thanksgiving and then