The hall was grander than any other in the kingdom, hung with skins of wolves, bears, lynx; trophies from hunting expeditions, and tribute to the king to show his might to his lords. Freyne himself reclined on his gilded throne, the arm rests shaped like dragon heads and the seat upholstered with the scales of dragons slain at his leisure. He was bored. Listening to petitioners made his legs ache with sitting still, and for what? Tedious disputes over meagre spits of land? Sometimes he heeded them, if their gifts satisfied, and they called him wise king, noble king. But more often they left no better off than when they had come.



Aislinn sat beside her husband on a smaller seat, there only because of protocol, and wishing dearly she was somewhere else. She was pregnant, and very nearly due; she tried to ignore the twinging pains caused by the unborn baby moving inside her. The actions of her husband weighed heavily on her, and the dragonskin she sat on made her uncomfortable. If only she was with her own people!



The current petitioner was a peasant thinned by winter hardship. His rough tunic hung loosely about his shoulders, and hollows shadowed his cheeks.



'Sire,' he whimpered, prostrate before Freyne's dais, 'Sire there is a pestilence upon my village, a great demon that comes from above.'



'Get to the point,' Freyne said tiredly.



'A dragon, sire!' the peasant cried dramatically. 'Swooping over the herds of my village! Sire, I bring you the humble offering of or best milk-cow for you to kill this beast that plagues us.'



Already Aislinn was sceptical. She whispered in the king's ear.



She was a useful asset in his court, although Freyne did not like to admit it; a good judge of character, and wise in council, when he deigned to listen.



'How many of your cows has this dragon taken?' Freyne asked, repeating the words of his queen.



'Five of my best milk cows and two strapping yearlings, Sire.' Aislinn highly doubted that. Not even a mountain goat could escape a healthy dragon's claws.



'And what is it you would wish of your king? They snows are still deep, and as yet the beast seems not to be troubling the kingdom,' Freyne said lazily. Aislinn disliked her husband calling dragons 'beasts', dragons who were far more intelligent and wiser than humans could ever hope to be.



'But Sire, my cows –'



'are I am sure under no more threat from a dragon than other hunters, yeoman,' the king cut him off.



The peasant seemed desperate. He glanced at the guards standing either side of Freyne's throne, and at the other petitioners as he spluttered on the floor.



Freyne motioned to his guards to remove the peasant from his sight, looking royally bored. The stick-thin man couldn't put up much of a fight against well-fed palace attendants, but he did manage to cry out something about the dragon being a servant of the poor who wished to revolt against their king. This made both the monarch and his cohort sit with straighter backs. Freyne because he always feared rebellion, Aislinn because she knew what would happen to the copper and her mate if the king believed this true.



Freyne made a decision.



'There will be no more petitions today,' a chamberlain cried as guards herded the commoners out of the throne room. The courtiers left as well, shepherded out with mutinous grumblings they were careful to keep below everyone's hearing but their own.



Aislinn made to leave with them, thinking the king wished his own counsel, but he commanded her to stay.



'My lord?' she asked in confusion.



'Your people, backward as they are, know more about dragons than most,' he explained, pacing his hall. 'I wish for your opinion before I proceed with any action.'



Aislinn wasn't that surprised. He was many things, bloodthirsty and power hungry, but not stupid.



'My lord, everything that peasant said was false to some degree. They will not steal livestock unless starving – it was probably a wolf or a bear that took those animals, and I am not sure they were as healthy as he suggested.'



'My thoughts also,' Freyne replied. Bt what of this tale of an alliance?'



'Dragons stay away from the affairs of men,' she replied simply.



'Very well, you may go.'



Aislinn walked briskly away from the hall, her thoughts whirling. Freyne had been pacified for now; he wouldn't waste energy pursuing something that could so easily outdistance or outfight him. But the villagers she wasn't so sure about. Once the peasants got something into their heads, it was difficult to dislodge it. If they thought a dragon was killing their animals or causing disease (impossible), they would not stop until its head was on a spike outside their gates.



And the yeoman had said dragon. Not dragons. There should be two. What had happened to the other, or was it simply that the man hadn't been able to tell the difference between the two? The thought prodded at her, and allowed her no rest, so early next morning she ordered her horse to be prepared.



'Where are you off to, my dear?' Freyne asked silkily as her mare was led to the mounting block.



'Just for a walk in the fresh air, my lord. I could not sleep last night.'



'Would it have anything to do with that dragon?' he asked nonchalantly, masking a dangerous threat. 'Or would you words about loyalty be a lie, and you conspire with these peasants and their dragon against me?'



'No my lord. Neither would I betray you, nor a dragon tangle himself up in the doings of humans. In fact, I was planning on going to see my father. My time is near, and tradition dictates that I bear my first child at least, among my own people.' Aislinn had made that up, but it couldn't hurt.



'You were going to ride alone through the woods at this time of year? Nonsense,' the king cried. 'You shall have the carriage, and I shall come with you. If this is what you require, well then. . .' He pressed a hand gently to her swollen belly with a smile that made her shiver. She could never love him, and he did not love her, only needed her for the unborn babe growing in the warmth.





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It was settled and they set out that very morning, making the Celtic encampment by dusk. Aislinn breathed a quiet sigh of relief to be back home, but all Freyne could think of was was the primitiveness of the dwellings, the vulgarity of half-naked warriors painted blue, and the prettiness of the women he longed to seduce. They all turned their faces away in dislike.



The carriage halted outside the largest and grandest of the buildings, the wood carved with a multitude of symbols detestable to Freyne and his religion. A servant helped Aislinn to alight the step into the mud, and she tottered slightly as another twinge of pain twitched in her womb. A tall man, with greying beard and beads and feathers weaved into his long, sparse hair, came out to greet them, the arms of his pearly robe spread wide.



'Failte,' he said warmly, in his native tongue. 'What joy it is to see such friends as these. And my daughter, returned to me for a visit. It makes my old heart fill.' He exchanged a few words with Aislinn in their own language, and nodded knowingly. 'Yes, my eldest comes to rejoin us for the birth, as we all hoped she would. It has been many a generation since one of our blood was born outside our home. Come in, my son and daughter, come in, and we shall feast.' The old man ordered two servants to find any food they could and bring it to the chieftain's house.



Later, as Freyne and his guards enjoyed good food and wine, and laughed raucously at the entertainment, Aislinn explained all to her father in hushed tones. He listened with steady eyes and a knowing frown.



'I shall send somebody,' he said eventually, 'to assure us that the dragons are all right. It is true, we ourselves have only seen one, a silver, flying in his skies of late. Do not worry, though, daughter, it takes much to kill a dragon.'



The first spasm came early, well before any light could be seen on the horizon. Freyne called a servant to his bedchamber, where his wife was already sweat-laden and panting. Soon the entire household was awake, and the Saxon king and his father-in-law stood anxiously in the hall, watching maids rush about with bloodstained sheets and listening to the agonised cries from within.



Eventually the midwife approached the two chieftains.



'It is a boy,' she sighed, and walked off to clean her arms and clothes.





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The messenger was dispatched immediately. He rode for an entire day to the instructed place, a towering cliff set above the forest that caught the light of the morning sun and glimmered.



The drakka inside heard the pounding of the messenger horse's hooves before the man called out. She snarled, wrapping her tail closer about her precious eggs. Her eyes were fixed on the entrance, every muscle tense and ready to spurt fire at any intruder. Her mate woke, sensing her unease, and heard the young man calling out from below. He spoke in a tongue Hanorh little understood: Gaelic. He stalked out onto the precipice of the cliff and glanced down.



'Call your name and purpose!' he trumpeted down.



'My name is Conall, of the Celts, my lord,' the young man called. 'I bring news both good and ill.'



'What is it?'



'The lady Aislinn has had her child,' Conall shouted up. 'A boy of healthy size and complection.'



'Aislinn?' Aurha called weakly from the cave.



'Hush,' Hanorh replied lovingly, 'save your strength.' To Conall 'And what is the ill?'



'That folk in the valleys are complaining of livestock taken by dragon claw and fire. The lady Aislinn fears for you and your mate, if she still lives.' Conall's horse shifted nervously at the proximity of the male dragon perched above.



'She lives, and is well,' Hanorh called, after figuring out the phrasing. 'She – we have a clutch of our own, tell the lady Aislinn.'



'Yes, my lord, I will see her personally.



Hanorh returned to the cavern and lay down beside Aurha, who had listened carefully to their conversation.



'You speak their tongues better every day, my lord,' she told him fondly.



'Only because I had such a good teacher, and even then the sounds are stiff on my tongue.'



'You'll get used to it,' she replied, nuzzling into him. 'But this news of unrest worries me. Humans can be vengeful if they find something to blame for their woes – be it beast, king or dragon.' She glanced nervously at her eggs.



'What man would dare stand against you, Aurha Hlafrah? I certainly wouldn't.'



'You would stand with me, Hanorh Shasahghre, surely?'



'Of course, my love, always.' Aurha laughed that light and powerful laugh of hers and leaned comfortably against her mate. She had not left the cave since their eggs were laid.



In the Celt settlement, another female was looking affectionately at her offspring. But Aislinn also carried a niggling doubt in the back of her mind, for already Einon, her son, bore the look of Freyne, and maybe he had inherited the king's cruelty as well? She would take the child to the copper drakka when he was old enough to walk, and seek her counsel. At the moment the babe slept, so she put her cares away.



A servant, dressed in messenger garb, padded silently into the room, so as not to disturb the newborn or his mother.



'I bring news from the dragons,' he murmured in Gaelic, so as not to be overheard. 'They are both well, know now of the danger posed to them, and tell me the copper is expecting.' He grinned and sat down on the edge of the bed. 'Now how is my nephew?'