I watched the procession approach with a suitably solemn expression. Henry was in the lead, wearing a purple mantle lined with white satin, an ermine stole and crimson sash, doublet and hose. In his hand he carried a riding crop. Two paces to the rear was his wife. Or, I should say, his current wife. Number five: the vivacious and charming Katheryn Howard, still dewy with the false promise of youth. Behind the Queen came an assortment of retainers, courtiers, hangers-on, sycophants, favor seekers and various court functionaries. It was all quite colorful and exotic.

“Well, Master McIntyre,” the King addressed me, “have you seen to everything needs seeing to?”

“Everything, Sire.”

I opened the door to the helicopter. I still found it jarring, this juxtaposition of twenty-first century technology and sixteenth century quaintness. I could not reconcile the one with the other, could not resolve in my own mind how I had come to be there and why I was not dead.

I had been flying reconnaissance in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, in the dead of winter, hellish conditions by any measure, when the chopper got sucked into a downdraft. We went plunging towards the mountains, towards certain death, caught in a swirling vortex of snow that reduced visibility to near zero. I remember the thrum of the motor rising in pitch, desperately striving to regain stability. I remember the cries of my mates. Then there was a wall of vertical blackness dead in front of us and a thin sliver of light that offered our only hope of salvation. I made for the light.

Only I came out the other side, along with the helicopter. The others might have landed anywhere for all I knew. They might not have made it at all. I ended up in sixteenth century England.

Henry had some difficulty scrambling aboard the chopper. He was a heavyset man and not the most agile. I debated whether I should help him and decided against it. It was a delicate matter—you did not touch the person of the King without good reason. I still had not sorted out the nuances of when it was permissible to do so and when it was not. So I did nothing, always the safest course.

I climbed aboard. A courtier stepped forward, raised a trumpet to his lips and blew a rousing blast that echoed off across the greensward and down the distant valley. The pack of hounds was released, surging forward and baying madly. The hunt was on.

Henry gave me the thumbs up. I had demonstrated the signal for him on our first flight together a week ago. I reciprocated now, smiling, took the chopper up to around two hundred feet and headed south. The best hunting grounds lay in that direction. I watched warily as Henry hefted himself out of his seat, made his way round to the back. He bellied up to the machine gun mounted by the bay door, grabbed hold of it. I had shown the King how to operate the gun on our maiden flight. He had taken to the weapon at once. It was like watching a kid with a new toy. Old Blood and Thunder Hal.

The problem was he started opening up on anything that moved down below. He didn’t seem to realize the destructive power the gun packed. We went over this one village, a drab collection of thatch-roofed peasant huts, and Henry let them have it good. Just poured it down on them. I don’t want to come off sounding like a liberal or anything but I was pretty disgusted. I mean, they’re his peasants and he can do whatever he wants to them. But, wholesale slaughter? That was going too far. I finally got him to quit when I explained that I had limited quantities of ammunition. But, I still got nervous whenever he got near the gun.

I kept the chopper down low, a hundred feet or thereabouts. I could do that back here in the sixteenth century. There were no powerlines or anything like that to worry about. The English countryside was beautiful: lush, green, unspoiled. I watched it slip by below us. We’d covered about thirty miles when Henry opened up with a short burst, laying waste to a cow grazing in the meadow below. It was a sign that he was growing impatient.

I shifted in my seat. I was never entirely comfortable when in the King’s presence. Although I admired him as a leader I confess that his penchant for having people executed, the cold-blooded ferocity with which he could turn on a man and destroy him, chilled me. I was in his favour only because I had brought him the helicopter. It was an amusement, something novel. But I knew that, like past favorites, it could all change in a heartbeat. Henry used a man, manipulated him, and, when his utility was at an end, discarded him. My utility was about at an end.

The chopper needed to be serviced. It needed fuel and ammunition. I wasn’t likely to find either in sixteenth century England. I couldn’t count on another flight after this. When the chopper was grounded it would likely mean I would lose the King’s favour.

So, I was face to face with the problem I’d been grappling with ever since I’d landed back here in the past. How could I best preserve the integrity of this timeframe and yet still avoid conflict. Henry was a keg of dynamite, wanting only a stray spark to set him off. He was also a major historical figure. If he were to be injured, or killed, might it not perhaps alter the course of history? But then, hadn’t I already done that by showing up in the past in a helicopter? It was the old time travel paradox: cause and effect became so intertwined, so inextricably mixed one with the other, that it was impossible to distinguish which was which any longer. It was like a serpent swallowing its own tail. One could never find a beginning or an end or any point to logically fasten on.

Something caught my eye down below: an immense, dark shape. I banked the helicopter around for a second look. Sheltered beneath the canopy of the trees something was moving slowly. Traces of thick, grey hide were visible within the shadows.

“Yon great beast,” the King called out. I nodded, gooseflesh forming along my spine. I would have to flush the creature out into the open. I brought the helicopter in low, skimming the tops of the trees. The noise shattered the woodland quiet, startled the beast. It broke into a clumsy, lumbering run. The hunt was on.

Henry pounded his thighs, enjoying the moment immensely. “Run, thou spawn of Hell. We deem it just and proper tribute that all within our realm submit before our will, man and beast alike.” The King could be endearing in moments like these. As long as his attention and, more particularly, his wrath were focused elsewhere and not upon oneself, his presence was a spectacle well worth beholding.

“Great sulphurous beast,” the King lashed out against his quarry, “of hellfire and brimstone art thou made. And to Hell thou shall return.”

I was grinning as I flew the helicopter, my own excitement at fever pitch. Flashes of horn and huge bony mantle were visible at intervals beneath the leaves. When at last the beast broke from the trees and into the open the King and I both exclaimed aloud in admiration and in awe: triceratops, last of the dinosaurs.

The immense grey form turned as we passed overhead. I stared down at the vicious twin horns that were thrust into the air. The incredible power of the beast was evident in its every line, its every movement. The creature had been designed for battle, for survival in a harsh and predatory environment. I let the helicopter hover above the meadow, unable to take my eyes off the sight.

Dinosaurs, of course, were no more native to sixteenth century England than were helicopters. I had been caught in a temporal anomaly and shuttled back in time. I assumed that the same was true of the triceratops, only it had vaulted forward. This particular timeframe seemed subject to quirks of this sort, rents in the space-time continuum. It went beyond what we call your basic inconvenience.

The King began gesturing at me to set the helicopter down. I frowned and, after seeking out a spot sufficiently distant from the dinosaur, complied. I knew what Henry was up to and didn’t like it. The King’s actions could be attributed to the insane English predilection for fair play. Any contest of might or valour or gaming had to offer one’s opponent, in this case a dinosaur, a sporting chance. We could have taken the beast cleanly and without risk from the air. And for that very reason, of course, we didn’t do it. Instead we were sitting in the meadow, the engine shut down, waiting for this great lumbering hulk of bone and sinew and mindless fury to descend upon us: fair play. The bloody English and their chivalry.

Henry began yelling taunts across the meadow at the beast, goading it. This seemed unnecessary to me. The triceratops was already coming in our direction. It approached with cold-blooded assurance, certain of its prey. A startled pheasant, darting out from under the beast’s feet, failed to distract it. The triceratops malevolent, unwavering stare remained fixed on the helicopter.

“Swine. Churl,” the King reviled it. “Foul, pestilent scourge.”

I cleared my throat. “Sire, the beast is well within range. You can drop it from here if you like.”

Henry shot me a disdainful glance. “Master McIntyre, it were not well spoken for a Scot. What were the purpose if t’were so easy as that.” I held my peace then, ready to prove myself as brave a cavalier as the King, if not so foolish.

“Spawn of Hell,” Henry yelled at the triceratops. “Why do you yet tarry? Art meet to contest the field or not? Poltroon.”

I think it was the ‘poltroon’ that must have done it. The triceratops gave a deep thundering cry and charged. The earth shook. Great tufts of dirt kicked out behind the beast. Its grey bulk bore down on us like fury incarnate. Henry clutched the gun, refusing to fire until the last instant. It occurred to me that we were both about to die. I could see the pitted texture of the beast’s skin, feel the wrath radiating from its eyes.

That was when the gun opened up, a tremendous, continual clattering noise. The bullets sprayed into the dinosaur’s face. There was a blur of motion, dust-shrouded chaos. Bullets ricocheted off the bony mantle, whined overhead. The triceratops was going down under the terrible firepower but its momentum carried it forward into the helicopter. The creature hit with stunning force. I saw a horn shear through the metal side, barely missing the King. The whole body of the helicopter lurched backwards, tipped on its side. The frame collapsed.

I lay there without moving. Waiting. After several minutes I crawled out from under the wreckage. I found Henry standing upon his slain quarry’s upturned belly. There was a bloody gash down one of the King’s cheeks but other than that he looked fit and whole.

“Well, Master McIntyre,” he hailed me, “it were fine sport this. Truly, a sport to test the mettle of Kings.”

I nodded wearily. I looked at the triceratops. The beast was history. It must have taken fifty or sixty rounds full in the face. What was left of it was not pretty to look at. The King would not be mounting this particular specimen over his fireplace. I did not even have to look at the helicopter. It too, I knew, was history.

“I’m afraid we have a bit of a walk in front of us, Sire,” I commented.

“No matter, Master McIntyre. Horses will suffice where nothing better offers.” Henry looked quite pleased. He was basking in his prowess with the machine gun, I think, delighting in the way it extended his reach and magnified his power. He loomed a larger figure than ever, having tasted the heady draught of twenty-first century technology.

Henry glanced at the helicopter. There was a speculative gleam in his eye, a gleam that I recognized only too well. He was assessing the situation, or reassessing it, measuring my current worth in a way that did not auger well for the future.

So, what does an ex-helicopter pilot do in a sixteenth century court? The choices, I discovered, were rather limited. I did however, by dint of my knowledge of flying, land the post as the King’s falconer, tending to his hawks and to the hunt. It is a congenial duty. I harbour only one fear: some day, one fine Spring morning in May perhaps, a black shadow will appear out of the eastern skies beating immense wings in the direction of the King’s court. The King will demand of his falconer that he tame this bird of royal bulk, this bird that will one day, in a future I have ceased to long for and ceased to regret, be known as pterodactyl.

# # #

Riding to Hounds by Thomas Canfield
originally published August 2, 2010