Prince of Dragons

By Brian Afton

  This book is about love, light, life, forbidden knowledge and everything churchianity and organized religion forgot about long ago.

  It is the story of Michael, the boy prince, who constantly snuck off into the woods or went fishing instead of going to church and showed little interest in either his religion or becoming king.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brian Afton
• Release date: Mar 1, 2018
• ISBN: 9780998569352

Book preview

Prologue Part 2: About the Queen and Hendaye.

The end of the 9th century was not a pleasant time to live in Hendaye, or any place in western Europe. This was a nasty, dirty, inconvenient epoch without toilets, bathrooms, running water, sinks, or stoves.  Even the people living in castles, who were regarded as being wealthy by the ordinary folk, did not have such a simple thing as a wood stove!  They had not been invented yet.  So, even the lords of the land had their meals cooked on the coals of open fires in fire-pits or crude fireplaces that provided wretchedly little heat during the winters and filled the rooms they occupied with smoke and fumes.

Also, the movies and great sagas notwithstanding, the Vikings were not particularly heroic, not in any meaningful sense, anyway.  They did have a reputation as fierce and savage fighters, however, their actions were not generally motivated by any higher principles. They were not, on the whole, nice people, and, they were a lot more likely to steal your livestock or your children than they were to fight dragons or to stand up in defense of any higher principles.

There is not a single vice that you could name including: killing, burning, looting, raping, pillaging, slave trading, drunkenness, poor hygiene and several others we need not name here, that were not exhibited by the Vikings.  And, unfortunately, their European contemporaries were only fractionally better.

Of course, even on the darkest night there is always a spark and glimmer of light someplace and even during the darkest of ages there are always a few people who are not like the others or who are awakening to a higher calling.

Catherine, for example, was the Queen of Hendaye, quite against her own choice and will. She had obtained the office, if it could be called that, through a complex series of events that was all too typical of the world she lived in.

The peculiar situation began during one of the numerous conflicts in that area between her father, King Henry, and Moorish forces from the south. Henry’s castle was located in the City of Irun which stood on the south side of the Bidasoa River only a few miles east of Hendaye and the Atlantic Ocean. 

During an ambush intended to kill Henry, one of his daughters, Catherine, was taken captive.  The attack failed in that it did not eliminate Henry but Catherine was taken as a slave back to Cordoba.  She might have been sent anywhere after that and never seen again; however, as it turned out she caught the eye of Prince Mohammad who took her for his own and renamed her Muzna: the one who shines.  The name was probably a tribute to the combination of her blonde hair and outgoing personality.

This situation persisted for some months but eventually, though a series of intrigues, Henry learned where his daughter had been taken and Catherine was rescued by a band of commandos and returned to Irun.  That should have set things straight. Unfortunately, Catherine was pregnant by then and, far more importantly, she had not wanted to be rescued.  She had to be returned by force.

Catherine was perfectly happy being the slave of Mohammad.  She had immediately fallen in love with the Moor who was an educated man with thoughts and aspirations she had never seen in any of the Vikings from her own land.  She knew that by Moorish law her child could not be a slave.  Moreover, she had found herself to be far freer, safer and happier as a slave in Cordoba than ever she had been as a Viking noblewoman in the wretched, dirty, uncultured city of Irun.  There was music, art, laughter and poetry in Cordoba but there was only war, death, dirt and unhappiness in the Viking fortress at Irun.

This put King Henry in an unexpected and prickly situation.  He had never dreamed that his daughter might not want to be saved from a fate worse than death among the Moors because Henry, being a second generation Viking invader, knew nothing about music, art, poetry or taking baths.  He did understand that she wanted to go back to her prince but he could not return her at that point.  If he did, it would not only mean death to his spies in Cordoba but giving up whatever information and advantage they might provide in the future.

Nevertheless, he had to do something with her and quickly, because of her condition.  Unfortunately, by then none of the Viking noblemen wanted anything to do with her, both because of her condition, and, because of her questionable loyalty.  Henry's solution to this was to give her to Vortigen, the middle aged king of Hendaye.

In return, Vortigen had to promise that he would help to repel any Moorish invasion that might come against Irun in the future, and he also got rather a lot of money and some supplies as well.

Vortigen and his kingdom were desperately poor and they needed Henry’s support.  Unfortunately for Vortigen there was no harbor on the Atlantic side of Hendaye and the tidal flats to his south at the Bidasoa River where it became the Bay of Chingoudy were unnavigable most of the time.  This meant that Hendaye was hardly an ideal location for commerce, although that did not prevent either the Moors or his fellow Vikings from attacking it, from time to time.

Vortigen had not really wanted to marry Henry’s daughter.  Catherine was a very beautiful woman many years his junior but the truth was that Vortigen did not like her and never had.  He was also sensible enough to realize this was likely to cause him endless problems.  Nevertheless, because of his financial needs, exacerbated by constant Moorish, Basque and Viking attacks, and despite her compromised condition, Vortigen readily accepted Henry’s offer.  He had hoped that he could turn Catherine to his will and capture her affection.  However, he quickly learned otherwise.

Despite all the depreciating remarks the other Viking nobles made concerning her lack of loyalty, this turned out to be the one thing about her that was proven to be completely unflagging.  Unfortunately, her unflagging loyalty happened to be to Mohammad, the warrior poet prince who, it turned out, had never raped her at all.

Despite the fact that he had taken the tarnished Catherine as his bride, none of this sat well with Vortigen who having finally realized the truth, could not send her back.  A few months later Catherine gave birth to the child Vortigen named Rupert.

Catherine would have made her escape at the first opportunity even if she had to swim a half-mile across the Bay of Chingoudy to do it.  Unfortunately, her pregnancy complicated this.  After Rupert's birth when her strength returned and her health stabilized Catherine did make three separate attempts to slip away from Hendaye by boat, twice across the Bay of Chingoudy to Hondarribia and once across the Bay of Biscay on the Atlantic side to San Sebastian.  There were also a couple of attempts by horseback directly across the tidal flats separating Hendaye and Hondarribia.

Any of these attempts would probably have succeeded if Catherine had not been encumbered by her child.  Realizing this, and understanding that her escapes had only been thwarted by the infant Rupert, Vortigen decided that the only practical solution was: more children.  Therefore, he did what the Moorish warrior poet would never have done and in the third year of her captivity Catherine gave birth to her second child, Margret.

After that, Catherine ceased to attempt any more escapes because she was uncertain how her Moorish prince and his family would view or treat the second child, since it belonged to Vortigen.  The Prince had already told her that Rupert, by Moorish law, could never be a slave because the child of a slave cannot be a slave.  However, Catherine, being no expert on Islamic law, was uncertain if this principle would really also apply to Margret.  She was certain that, slave or not, Margret could be used as a weapon against Vortigen; especially if Catherine's Moorish prince should happen to die.

Catherine still longed to return to Mohammad, but her situation was now far too complicated and she dared not risk the consequences to Margret.

And so things stayed for a number of years after Rupert was born.  Vortigen was well over sixty years old by then and, by law, the illegitimate Rupert was heir to his throne.  It did not matter that everyone knew his real father to be the Moorish prince.  The fact was that the child was born while Catherine was married to Vortigen and that he had accepted her as his queen.  Therefore, in the eyes of the law, such as that was in those days, this meant that Rupert was his son which did not set very well with Vortigen.

Under other circumstances, this would not have been much of a problem.  The sexual indiscretions of the nobility disappeared very frequently in those days, in one way or another, but this was an exception. King Henry, Catherine's father though of Viking descent was, nevertheless, a Christian and a religious man who would not tolerate the elimination of his grandson.  Vortigen was also secretly afraid that there might be some repercussions from Rupert’s real father if the Moorish prince ever found out about it, too.

Vortigen had hoped for a son of his own and he was highly displeased that Margret had turned out to be a girl.  Under those circumstances even if he had killed Rupert, he would still have been left without an heir because females were only very rarely allowed to rule in Viking societies.

So, Vortigen hated the Moorish poet warrior prince; he hated his wife who he knew loved the Moor and not him, and he hated her son, Rupert, who was extremely intelligent; had a way of always being right about how events would unfold, and, he kept noticing things no one else wanted to hear about.

One might have supposed that a king would be pleased to have a child that could predict how events would unfold.  Unfortunately, if you lived in the world of Hendaye, this meant one attack, plague or disaster after another.  Hence, to Vortigen, Rupert’s very presence became synonymous with the voice of doom.  So, far from seeing it as an advantage, this particular capacity only added to the King’s original prejudice against the boy.

Consequently, he began arranging accidents for Rupert as soon as it became clear that he was not going to succumb to any of the usual childhood diseases.  He might not have dared to kill him openly, but Vortigen did not hesitate to place the boy in harm’s way if the opportunity presented itself.

This lead to a peculiar situation.  Ordinarily, a male child of noble birth would have automatically entered training to become a knight at a relatively young age.  However, Catherine realized that in this instance her son would certainly be killed during the process, and Rupert realized it too.

He could have gotten the training at King Henry’s, but the truth was that that Rupert was not remotely interested in it.  His temperament was far better suited for a life among the poets and scholars at the court in Cordoba.  So, Rupert skirted the training in every way possible.  He sneaked out of the castle at every opportunity and spent a lot of his childhood talking with forest mystics and traveling Moorish scholars.  As early as the age of seven or eight, he stayed away from the castle as much as possible, returning only to see his mother, from time to time.

As it happened, the forest was populated by some pretty rough characters.  In fact, this was so much of a problem that Vortigen made only token attempts to prevent Rupert from going there.  He assumed that sooner or later the boy would meet the wrong person and, his problems would be solved.

As it turned out, on his very first escape into the outer world Rupert met the Moorish scholar and physician, Abd al-Zahir at a fishing hole only a mile up the road.  Later, the two of them journeyed to the scholar’s camp which was really a combination school and hospital.  It was located on the south side of the Bidosoa River behind the city of Hondarribia.  And it was there, deep within Moorish territory, that Rupert received the kind of training he really wanted.

Unlike most Vikings, Rupert wasn’t interested in killing people, but he was very interested in healing them.  He also learned about mathematics, language, science, astrology and many other things.  Except for his mother, he would never have returned to Hendaye at all.

Rupert did not fit in.  He was a bastard and the worst kind of a bastard at that.  Had he been the King’s bastard he would have fared much better, but he was the Queen's bastard by an enemy prince.  He also thought and studied too much in a world that would not suffer it.

In the end, there was really no one Rupert could talk to about much of anything, let alone the details of his parentage.  Of course, Rupert was not blind or deaf to castle gossip nor was he immune to the cold treatment everyone there gave him. None of the men and woman at the Castle or the surrounding city would extend anything to young Rupert but the merest tolerance.  He had no friends because he was a dangerous friend to have.  Everyone knew the king had it in for him and none of them wanted to be included in his misfortune.

Rupert considered going to Cordoba and confronting this Moorish prince about his birthright, but he ultimately found himself unable to face such an undertaking.  It would be a very long and dangerous journey for a boy of his age, and he also found himself wondering why the Moor hadn’t come after him and his mother.  He feared that it was because the Prince did not care about them.

Consequently, Rupert did not go to Cordoba, but still being unwelcome at court in Hendaye, he also stayed away from the castle and Vortigen as much as possible.  However, in the year 896 when he was just twelve years old, Rupert discovered that he had to return.

One of the things Rupert had studied was astrology, and he had learned that his mother was going to have another child in the year 899, three years in the future.  He had gone over this many times with his teacher Abd.  Everything indicated that it was to be an extraordinary child and that his own chart was intimately related to this new soul who they had determined was going to be the son that Vortigen had always wanted.

In fact, it was his intention to reveal this information only to his mother.  Unfortunately, word of it somehow leaked out and it practically cost Rupert his life.  Vortigen was convinced that the twelve year old Rupert was making sport of him and also suspected that he and his mother might have some plan to depose him.  He was keenly aware of the fact that his wife did not love him and very sensitive about having been unable to produce a male heir.

So, fearing for his life more than usual,  Rupert faded away from Hendaye and did not return there until the winter of 899, by which time his prophecy was clearly about to occur.

Chapter 1: The Birth.

The three of them, Vortigen the somewhat more than middle aged king, Margaret, his thirteen year old daughter, and Rupert, now fifteen, had stood outdoors on the battlements of the castle keep all night long waiting for the birth of the king’s child.  Dawn was close, but the night air still stung with the bite of a chilly sea breeze fanned over the cold Atlantic Ocean that was located half a mile to the west.

The Queen, Catherine, was inside the keep with her Moorish physician who had been summoned from far away beyond the southern mountains.  This, of course, had done nothing to quell the local gossip that this was really Mohammad the Moorish prince’s child or to soothe Vortigen’s already worn nerves.

Rupert, attempting to calm the situation, had insisted for the hundredth time that the child was the king’s and that would it be a son, but that did little to help the situation.  In truth, the Queen had a Moorish physician only because she wished to survive childbirth.  She knew all too well what kind of care she would get from the priests, nuns and so-called doctors of her husband’s realm, and she had unceremoniously thrown them all out and sent for what she called a real physician!

Rupert, Vortigen snarled, You said this child would be born last night!  It is almost morning!

Ah well, Rupert answered timidly, It is not quite morning and I did not say last night, anyway.  I said toward morning.  He shifted his position and tried to put Margaret between himself and the king, not for the first time.

Well, it IS toward morning!  Vortigen retorted.

Margret promptly stepped away from Rupert and left him to face the king again.  She did not have much use for him, either, and refused to be drawn into this argument.

Rupert, forced back into the mix, stammered an answer.  I cannot tell you exactly, not to the minute, Sire, but it will be soon, very soon.  The stars are falling into place.

It better be! You have kept me up all night!  And, if it isn’t a son this time, I believe that I shall have you boiled in oil! snarled the king.  And he tossed his tunic over his shoulder just to emphasize the point.

Of course, the king had been threatening to boil Rupert in oil since he was a small child, so Rupert didn’t take the threat too seriously, anymore.  Still, he did not like having the king’s ill humor directed at him because it was unpleasant, and there was always some measure of risk to it.  The king could lose his temper and regret it later, and that would do Rupert little good.  So he learned early on to stay out of reach.  Unfortunately, he had to be there now.

Rupert was not in an enviable position.  It had occurred to him some time ago that if the Queen died during the birth he would probably be killed whether the baby turned out to be a son or not.  In fact, especially if it was a son.  In fact, it could well turn out that way even if the queen survived, so he was taking special care not to antagonize Vortigen in any way.

Rupert surveyed the miserable timber fortress which most people thereabouts thought was positively magnificent and wished for the ten thousandth time that he had better company.  People who possessed some knowledge and expressed some measure of happiness.  He had no friends. The king hated him.  The queen and his grandfather kept him alive, but they could not ease the emptiness in his heart.  Margret, though she was his sister, had always been kept separated from him and had been told innumerable lies about him.  So, it was not surprising that she had kept her distance, too.

Margret, for her part, was not too pleased with the passage of the night and evening, either.  It was not that she had any place to go because she was not allowed to go anyplace or to see anyone, especially men.  Normally, she would have traveled with her mother, the queen, but with the queen indisposed, she had hardly been out of the castle for almost six months.

Castles were not nice places to be in during the best of times.  During the winter, even near the end of winter as it was then, they were even more wretched: cold, damp, and nasty than usual and most of the people in them were cold, damp and nasty, too.  It’s hard to be anything else when you are sick, freezing and waiting for more bad news, whether that news be of the next court intrigue, an impending battle, a plague, or just more bad weather.

Margret, for her part, could not be sure her mother hadn’t secretly met with the Moor, but if she had, Margret didn’t know about it.  She also did not know if the coming child was to be a boy or a girl, but she pitied it if it were to be a girl.  She would be the daughter of a vicious, heartless father who might do anything with her.

Margret herself was thirteen, intelligent, of marriageable age, and heaven only knew what her father was planning to do with her.  She knew he was probably planning to trade her to someone in return for some benefit or advantage just as her own mother had been traded to him so long ago by her grandfather.

Maybe Rupert knew what his plans were.  Everyone said he was a fool, but it seemed to Margret that he knew an awful lot for a fool.  No one else believed her mother would ever be pregnant again.  Heaven knows Margret hadn’t, but she really didn’t get much chance to talk to Rupert, and given his reputation had little desire to.  He was a dangerous friend to have.  People had been talking about his impending demise for as long as she could remember.

Perhaps he could read the stars, Margret mused.  Perhaps his sudden decisions to leave the castle and visit with the forest mystics or travel with passing Moorish scholars were motivated by more intelligence than people gave him credit for.  Perhaps the truth was that Rupert knew how not to be there when the dagger struck.  Perhaps the laughter and ridicule he attracted were really part of a very clever defense.

Perhaps Margret should be talking to him herself?  Maybe he could tell her how not to be there when a wedding she had no part in planning was finally scheduled and inflicted upon her.  She had dreaded it since she was a child.

As it was, she had no idea who the king was planning to give her to.  Of course, she could try to run away, but to where, and to do what?  The forests were full of outlaws and brigands of all kinds, and there was simply no other place to go.  It was dangerous enough in the castle, but at least that kept walls between you and the Viking ships that could sometimes be seen from where they stood now.

She was terrified of those ships.  She had seen the damage they could inflict.  Still, now and then, she wondered sometimes if a woman would really be any worse off being carried off by one of them than whomever her father might give her to…..when it came right down to it.

Life for a woman in this world offered little hope of happiness, and as if to punctuate Margret’s thoughts a scream echoed from within the keep.  The pains of labor had begun.

This changed everyone’s focus immediately, and they turned to face the noise and then looked at each other.  It was the first time either Margret or Rupert had ever seen Vortigen show any real interest in anything that was happening to the queen.  But there was no mistaking a peculiar expression spreading over his face now.

Heaven only knew how many people Vortigen had killed or savaged in one way or another.  Normally, he was unaffected by their trials.  So much so, that Vortigen himself was surprised by the feelings that had just come upon him.  Was it really happening?  Would it be a son?  He hadn’t even allowed himself to think about it.  If it was, it meant he had an heir.  It meant that he would no longer be a joke in his own kingdom.  Of course, he realized that it could be a girl and his heart hardened immediately at the thought of it.

Vortigen glared at Rupert, the hated Moor’s son.  He wanted to kill him, and the look was not wasted on Rupert, but their gazes were broken by the sound of more screams.

Then for some reason Rupert, who kept noticing and anticipating things other people did not, found that his attention was diverted upward, and the two others, seeing him look skyward did the same.  Their gaze was met by the appearance of a shooting star that shot in a fiery trail over their heads.  Together, they turned their heads in an arc and watched until it disappeared in the early morning sky over the top of a small mountain just to the north of Hendaye.

This would not have been especially unusual except that just as the meteor disappeared from the sky, there was great flash of light mixed with a shower of sparks, fire and smoke on the mountain in the very area of the ancient stone megalithic circle. 

Moreover, at the exact moment they saw the light flash coming through the forest that obscured the actual Megalithic site from their vision, the air around them was pierced by the cry of a newborn infant coming from within the keep.  A moment later, the explosive sound of whatever had happened in the megalithic circle echoed from mountaintop as if to punctuate the event.

Margret looked at Rupert, stupefied.  She had no training in the mystic arts Rupert had studied, but it was immediately clear to her that something very peculiar had just happened.  Of course, she did not know if it was good or bad, but it was obviously special and It had been so beautiful!  She had never seen anything like the shooting star before, to say nothing of whatever had just occurred up on the mountain.  She wanted to go there immediately.

Perhaps something had fallen from heaven.  Things from heaven were pure.  That was what they had been taught by the churchmen.  It would be a wonderful thing to see if that was what had happened.  But then, she realized, that if it had fallen to earth, perhaps it might not be pure now.

In either case, Margret knew she could not leave the castle to find out, and she also knew that she should not even be thinking about wanting to leave at the very moment when her mother had just delivered another child.  Instinctively, however, she wanted to go to the mountain and look into the circle.  She felt guilty about it, but that was still the way she felt.  Children were born every day.  Perhaps no one alive had ever seen such a thing as this!  It could be terribly important.

Rupert just looked in the direction of the ancient stone circle up on the mountain without saying anything and without knowing what to say.  The king, for his part, turned on his heels, shouldered them both out of the way, pushed open the door to the keep and disappeared inside.

Margret started to follow him despite her curiosity about the meteor.  She thought hurriedly she would find out more about that later.  Meanwhile, she also wanted to see the child and end the question about whether it was a boy or a girl once and for all.  Nevertheless, in spite of herself, she stopped for a moment to find out what Rupert had to say about the strange thing they had all just seen.

He did not wait for her question.  My God, Margret, said Rupert, That shooting star appeared at the exact instant the child was born!

Yes, it did! answered Margret.

And then something happened in the ancient stone circle on the top of Mystic Mountain, said Rupert.

I know, returned Margret. But what does it mean?

I suppose it depends on what happened up there, he answered. This may change everything, I knew it would be a boy, and I knew about when he would be born, and I knew that he would be special, but I never envisioned anything like this!

It’s a boy! shouted Vortigen. It’s a boy!

Margret turned and entered the keep to see the child, but Rupert remained riveted to the same spot, staring at the mountaintop.  However, he was not left alone for long.  Vortigen emerged from the keep and thrust the child in Rupert’s face.

It’s a boy, Rupert! he shouted again.

I know, Rupert replied, thinking that all babies look alike and that this one looked very much like every other baby he had ever seen.  He was also thinking to himself that everyone had momentarily forgotten that it was he who told them all about that long ago.  Rupert was not likely to forget about it, however, because he had endured their taunts and sly insults since the very day he told them the queen was going to have another child. 

Of course, he could not help wondering if the king’s remark was not some secret threat, coming as it did then.  It was hard to follow Vortigen’s line of thought sometimes and Rupert could not read minds.  He could only surmise things.  Maybe the remark was a nasty way of pointing out that Vortigen felt he was free to kill Rupert now that the queen had another son.  Maybe he was just taking the opportunity to grind his nose in that.  Rupert starred at the king’s face and he was not sure.  It bore an expression he had never seen there before.

Well, aren’t you going to say anything Rupert? demanded the king.  Go ahead, tell me you knew all about all of this from the beginning.  Go ahead, you were right!  Everyone will say you were right!

But Rupert hadn’t known about this at all.  He did not know about the shooting star or what had happened in the stone circle.  What he had originally done was to chart his mother’s horoscope.  At a certain point it indicated a child would be conceived, in spite of her age.

From there Rupert estimated the birth time and began working on the horoscope for the unborn child.  It was an odd placement and indicated a rather special person.  But, he said nothing about this for a very long time, and he never announced his study to the king.  He had, however, told the queen and consulted with some Moorish scholars and astrologers, and somehow, the word of it reached back to the king’s chamber.

Subsequently, Vortigen had confronted him on the matter.  Vortigen never missed an opportunity to confront Rupert, and he did not take that news kindly.  The king suspected everyone’s motives, and he thought that, at best, Rupert’s prophecy was one more attempt to undermine his authority and revel in the fact that he didn’t have any sons.  Not for one instant did Vortigen ever believe or hope that the Queen Catherine would have his child or that it would be his if she did.  It was no secret to him that she loved the Moor, not him.

But, in actual fact, nothing Rupert feared was going on in Vortigen’s mind.  For once in his life, Vortigen felt a glimmer of something like regret and a faint notion of having, perhaps, misjudged the boy and having, treated him badly.  At least as much as a man like Vortigen could.  He felt himself vindicated by the presence of the newborn and, somehow or other, it seemed as if Rupert had been part of it.

Chapter 2: The Other Birth.

Rupert did not waste any time vacating the castle and heading toward the mountain and the megalithic stone circle.  This was certainly the location of the strange lights and subsequent explosion that had followed just after the shooting star had disappeared.  It was almost daylight by then, but the sun had not risen yet.  The castle gate opening into the walled bailey village outside remained securely closed and guarded.  This did not hold up Rupert for long.  He knew another way out of the castle.  There was a secret tunnel that took him to an unremarkable shed next to a stable in the village that was also protected by heavy timber walls and a deep moat.  Fortunately, that gate was open because the tradesmen got up earlier than the people in the castle did.

Assuring himself that nobody was around, he quickly saddled a horse and bolted down the road at a full gallop.  Ordinarily he would have acted with less haste and more discretion, but the import of whatever had happened in the megalithic circle, its entanglement with the shooting star and the newborn prince’s horoscope was just too compelling.  He had to see what was there, and just this one time he threw caution to the wind, hoping that the early hour would cover his exit.

As it happened, this was not as successful as he had hoped.  High above him in the castle keep, Margret, who was supposed to be helping the other women attend to her mother, spied him out a window heading down the north road.  She knew it was him because he was still wearing the red cloak their mother had given him not two days ago, and it stood out clearly even at that distance. 

Margret had excellent eyesight and it left no doubt in her mind, even at this distance.  The man proceeding down the North Road was Rupert, beyond doubt, and she knew exactly where he was headed because she would have gone there herself if she could have.

But she did not expect him to go like this.  Her excellent eyesight also revealed the extraordinary sight of Rupert sitting astride of a great black horse known to have a particularly foul disposition to the point of being virtually unrideable.  Moreover, he and that foul nag were smoking down the road like a corsair.  She didn’t believe she had ever seen a horse and rider move like that before.

Was this the man who supposedly could barely sit on a horse without falling off?  Was this the same man whom their mother would not allow to be trained as a knight because she was certain he would get hurt?  The same person her father chided as being a weakling and bumbling oaf?

Obviously it was, but, of course, Margret realized that their mother had probably been correct about Rupert getting hurt because Rupert was only a child at the time, ill-equipped to defend himself, and because an accident would have solved a lot of problems for Vortigen who obviously hated the boy. 

Nevertheless, there he was now smoking down the North Road which first went to the beach and then hooked around the small mountain north towards Ciboure and Bayonne.  But she knew that Rupert wasn’t going to either of those places.  There was a trail leading up to the megalithic circle just around the first corner and that would be his path.

This was her brother doing this, Margret realized.  He was now a young man suddenly possessing abilities she had never suspected before.  First he knew about the stars and the birth of the baby, and then it turned out that he was a first-rate horseman who everyone else thought was a clumsy moron.

She had never been around Rupert much when she was younger.  He spent most of his time with mystics and traveling Moorish scholars when other boys in his position would have been assigned to some knight and learning to be a squire; suddenly Margret wondered what he had really studied when he was with those mystics and Moors.

In fact, she realized, she did not know this man at all!  Moreover, looking back into the room she found herself staring at her new baby brother and wondering, almost out loud, who on earth he was going to turn out to be, he the boy born under the sign of a shooting star.  Of course, she also noticed that no one else seemed to care about that little point.  Vortigen had not spoken of it.  Her mother had not been told, and it was probably just as well that the priest did not know about it, either, she concluded.

The priest didn’t like Rupert; he didn’t like astrology, he condemned the pagans, the Moors and the stone circle at every opportunity, and it probably wouldn’t be a good idea to allow him to connect any of those things with the new baby, especially the shooting star and the stone circle.  Oh, how she would have loved to have gone to the godless, pagan, stone circle to see what had happened there!

Rupert, on the other hand, being both a man and having no particular duties within the castle, was under no such constraints.  He could leave with complete freedom and abandon.  Moreover, since it was a small mountain, he was able to make the ascent In less than half an hour and quickly found himself cresting the final slope onto the open field that contained the circle.

This field could not be approached from the south directly opposite the castle because of the steep banks and bad terrain there.  You had to go to the beach first and traverse the western end of the peninsula.  About half way across it there was a trail off the road leading away from the ocean, toward the eastern end of the mountain.  It was heavily forested for some distance but eventually lead to an open area covered by a random mix of small rocks and sparse grass that was kept cropped down by the wild goats inhabiting that area. 

The stone circle sat in the middle of this field with steep impassable, banks covered in most places with a dense growth of heavy brush both to the north and south of it.  A hundred yards or so behind the standing megalithic stones, the ground sloped upwards again to the top of the mountain where there stood an old abandoned stone watchtower having another steep bank dropping off sharply to the east behind it.  It wasn’t that far from the castle, but he had to go a long way to get there.

Rupert slacked his pace and cast an uneasy glance toward the watchtower for any signs of life before entering the open field.  It paid to keep an eye on such places because there was no telling who was in them, though he detected no sign of life there this morning. 

He dismounted his horse, which was already exhibiting signs of nervousness, and after walking a dozen yards or so began to see why.  There was some kind of acrid smoke coming up from within the stone circle accompanied by an unfamiliar, worrisome, sound Rupert was not about to ignore.  Aside from a small dagger he used mostly for eating, he was unarmed, though it was not clear that a sword or ax would have served him any better if trouble of some kind awaited him ahead.

Whatever lay ahead might well be either supernatural or magic or maybe both, and he had no real defense against that.  Rupert was not a magician.  He had studied many things with the Moors, including a lot of stuff other people thought was magic but Rupert knew wasn’t.  Nevertheless, he had to know what was in the circle and concluded that stealth would be his only ally.

He doubted that the horse would go any farther without making a fuss, so he tied it to a small bush and proceeded slowly toward the circle on foot, moving as quietly as possible and trying somehow not to be noticed.  Actually, the Moors had taught him about that.  They were less clear, unfortunately, regarding what to do about the fear rising in his chest and his pounding heart.

Cautiously, he approached the circle until at a distance of twenty-five yards he could finally see what he had come to find out.  The ground inside the circle was charred and still smoking.  At its center lay a single stone a couple of feet square and not quite so tall which was still red hot and fuming smoke so intense he could smell the heat in it.  For as long as he could remember, this stone had been called the Dragon Stone.  No one knew why anymore, but as he watched the reason started becoming abundantly clear to Rupert.  The stone, already red hot, was starting to bulge and change shape as if something were trying to push its way out of it.

With that realization, the lump of fear lodged in his throat crept that last couple of inches up his esophagus into his mouth in a sort of half vomit which he was barely able to contain.  Rupert had not realized how frightened he actually was until that very moment, yet he also had a sudden feeling of amazement that he had dared to come at all combined with a great sense of satisfaction that he was the only person who was seeing this.  However, that confidence was short-lived.  For, at that very moment the first edge of the rising sun crested the mountain and began to appear behind the ancient watchtower to the east, and its effect on the stone circle was astounding.

Something from the sky had landed in this circle, and now from beneath it earth energies began flowing upward and rapidly enveloped the Dragon Stone in an electric envelope of living fire.  It responded by growing rapidly and changing its shape suddenly.  The stones in the circle itself began to hum and whine with a terrifying sonic energy, and each of the megaliths began to pulse and radiate light like fiery knives onto the protruding stone lying at their center.

The stone continued to pulse and grow into a thing approximately three feet tall, a moving living entity of some kind, half material and half electrical fire.

Rupert, having now inched up to a distance of only twenty yards, could see a head and then wings and arms and legs forming on the body.  He could see flames like lightning coursing through the body and watched as it lifted completely out of the central stone and came to rest on top of it.

It was a dragon, blue and white, absolutely intense in its color with floating tendrils of energy like so many magical whiskers emanating from it.  He could see its reptilian head and eyes that glowed with red fire, its long metallic fangs and the long pointed ears which dragons sometimes had.

All of which would have been unsettling enough by itself, fiery and electric as it was, but then came the pronouncement, suddenly and unexpected: 

Welcome to the world, Dragon, came a voice out of midair.  It was unmistakably a voice, neither kind or unkind, but clear and plain and spoken in no language Rupert had ever heard; yet he understood it perfectly.

You are unlike any of the other creatures living here, Dragon, though others of your kind have gone here before you.  However, you will be embedded more deeply into this world than they were, and your task will prove to be different and more demanding.  Like your predecessors, you have been born into this world with the knowledge of the world you came from, and you already know many things about this world.  Yet, there are other things which may only be learned by living, therefore, I charge you to do the following:  you are to face life's challenge, to learn its secret which is the secret of this world, to grow wise, to be mighty, and to become a Prince of Dragons.

The fire and light then all faded away leaving only trails of smoke and a small winged dragon standing on its hind legs with its wings half extended looking very puzzled and far less colorful than he had been a moment before.  What had been energy and light was now becoming more and more physical moment by moment.  The colors that had been blue and white were steadily becoming green and yellow.

Most men would not have noticed him at all, but the newly metamorphosed dragon instantly saw Rupert and fixed his fiery eyes upon him.  The dragon, in the same moment, was also vaguely aware of the fact that this was a man, but found himself somewhat unconcerned about it.  He knew that men did not like dragons and considered them as enemies, but he also remembered hearing someplace that a single man was usually no threat, especially a man carrying no weapons. 

He looked away and saw the world around him for the first time.  He also remembered the dark matter-dark energy world in the dimension he had come from and the many lessons he had been given there in a place called Mershak by those of his kind.  This world was quite different, however, and it was going to take some getting used to.  It was hard to focus on it when he was changing, himself, moment by moment, and becoming more and more dense and physical. It was distracting, to say the least.

He was not sure at all what he would ultimately turn into so, at that exact moment, he had no clear idea of what the charge just laid upon him by the Father to become a Prince of Dragons would involve.  In the end, his head was still spinning too badly to come to any decision, so he made his mind up not to do anything rash until things stopped changing.  Then he turned his attention back to Rupert.

Rupert, still standing not twenty yards from the dragon and already quaking in his tracks, watched as it locked its eyes upon him again.  That fact left no doubt that the trick of not being noticed, which the Moors had taught him, wasn’t working.  It had worked for him many times before, but it wasn’t working now.

Fear did not adequately describe what Rupert felt.  If he had been afraid before, it was nothing compared to what he felt then.  Rupert was no warrior and he had no weapons with him, not that it would have mattered.  This was obviously not a creature to be trifled with, and so he took what seemed like the only sensible course open to him: he turned and fled.

The dragon watched Rupert’s retreat but made no effort to follow him.  He was vaguely aware of the fact that he could fly much faster than this person could run, but he was still exhausted from his metamorphosis and disinclined to do so.  Instead, he curled up on top of the central stone, which had always been called the Dragon Stone for reasons that were now obvious, and bathed in the first rays of the rising sun.  The dragon noted with satisfaction that the sun felt wonderful and that it was recharging the energy he had lost coming to this place.  Perhaps this would turn out to be a good place after all, he thought.

Rupert, on the other hand, did not feel anything like good.  He had left the circle; mounted his horse and took off down the mountain like a shot, slowing down only after a couple of hundred yards when it became clear that he was not being pursued.  Then he slacked his pace to save his horse, which he knew would run until it died.  Nevertheless, the lack of pursuit only marginally reduced his state of alarm.  In spite of the beast’s small size, he had seen it emerge from solid rock in a blaze of something that looked like a mix of fire and lightning, and he did not doubt that it could turn out to be quite formidable.  It might be magic, it might be anything.  He also could not imagine what connection their might be between the dragon and the boy.  Yet there had to be one.  They were born under the same star, at a very special time!  And, he had watched the thing rise up out of a stone and come to life with his own eyes!

He also realized, as his horse continued to lope back down the narrow trail, that this news was not going to be received well, and he could not immediately conceive of any very good way to bring it up because he knew he would be blamed for the problem.  That’s the way the king and his noblemen were:  they were going to blame him.

Unfortunately, there was no way he could say nothing.  He had heard many stories about dragons, and if any of them was even half true, they could all be in real trouble.  It was said that these creatures could fly and breathe fire, for one thing.  For another, they had the reputation of being extremely difficult, if not impossible to kill, and were said to live for centuries.

Of course, Rupert had not seen the beast do any of those things, but he had seen it literally born and rise from the flames in the stone circle.  In truth, he did not know what its true potential was.  Moreover, he realized, stopping the horse, that he did not have a clue what the connection between the dragon and the newborn boy prince was going to be.  He needed to talk to the old traveling Moorish Master.

Then, suddenly out of the blue, he realized that he didn’t even know what the infant’s name was yet. He hadn’t stayed there long enough to hear it!  Here he was doubtless one of many people already making plans for this child and he didn’t even know his name!

His horse, now sensing that it was fairly close to the stable, began walking in that direction again without any urging from Rupert and then quickly picked up his gait.  That was what horses often did when they thought they were headed back to the barn and expected that they would be fed when they got there.  And, immediately, Rupert realized that the events about to unfold before him could get out of hand in much the same way.  The instant he said anything, this would all fall completely from his control, and he quickly reined in the horse and began to ponder exactly how he was going to break this news.

Looking down the trail, the first thing he recognized was that he was already too close to the village, and he quickly reigned in the horse for the second time and dismounted.  He had left the castle in haste because the situation warranted it, but it would not do at all to let anyone see him coming back on this particular horse.  So, Rupert hooked the reins up on the saddle and gave it a pat on the back, sending it off down the trail at a gallop where it would find its way back to the stable and food all by itself.  The stable boy would put it away and never give it a second thought, since this particular horse often returned without its rider.

In all, this was a fact of human nature that worked very much to Rupert’s advantage in this case.  The more often he released the horse thus, the worse its reputation as a vicious unrideable animal would become, and hence the more likely it would be in the stable when he wanted to use it next time.

It was strange, Rupert thought to himself as he left the trail and moved into the woods, how men so readily seized upon the reputation of a man or animal they actually knew nothing about.  Despite their conclusions, that animal was not the worst horse in the kingdom at all.  In fact, it was the best horse in the entire kingdom.  The reason none of those people could ride him was very clear: They were all idiots!  The poor animal was not unrideable at all; if they had acted differently, the horse would have acted differently.  Unfortunately, that never occurred to any of them because they were idiots who never gave the slightest consideration to how anyone else felt, whatsoever.

Chapter 3: Back at the Castle.

Rupert made his way back to the castle keep and his room without incident.  It is not hard to move about unnoticed when no one wants to talk to you.  But for once, Rupert actually didn’t want to talk to anyone else.  He sought the seclusion of his small room and wished to avoid making explanations before he had sorted the recent events out in his mind.  He had to tell them there was a dragon on the mountain, but first he needed to know what to tell them.

It had not been a large thing.  It was perhaps three feet tall.  It stood on its hind legs, had wings on its back and articulated fingers with long claws on the two arms it held in front of itself.  The body was covered with scales that he suspected were hard as armor plate, green and blue green on his back and yellow on his chest and stomach.  Its lizard-like tail was as long as he was tall, also covered with scales, and tipped with a spear point that was doubtless sharp as a razor just like the five four-inch claws on each of its feet.

But it was the head that was the most compelling feature.  It was a reptilian head that looked like