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As the last week of winter approached, and the harshness of the coldest season prepared to give way to the rebirth of nature that occurred in spring, a sudden flurry of activity hit Camelot. The citadel was buzzing in anticipation for the festivities that would take place on the day of Ostara and its people, children and adults alike, looked forward to celebrate the Festival.
The main street was as crowded as any morning of market, traders and merchants calling from their stalls to encourage people to take a look at their wares, men and women of all kind hurrying to carry out their duties. From the sides of the road that ran through the town, barnyard animals carried on with their lives, unconcerned.
Joyful voices of children came from the narrow alleyways between the houses.
Another important festivity was coming. Not one that was celebrated by peasants with food and dances, while the royal household offered a great feast for the court and all the nobility. A celebration in name only, which children were getting excited about.
Gathered together here and there, under the supervision of elderly ladies, they were busy with straw, scraps of cloth, flowers, sticks, remnants of wood and all kind of materials discarded by families and shops or that had been previously collected with a short trip outside the citadel. Children wholeheartedly set to work, making up with enthusiasm for their clumsy skills and the humble materials used.
It was the deed that counted, for the ones who would receive the fruits of their labour.
*
Adults went on with their lives as the festivities approached, the children unable to engage their parents with their growing excitement for a celebration that was more than the act of giving and receiving small presents.
Fathers in the town, whether merchants or humble servants, looked forward with great anticipation for when, with the bless of their fair king and his generous pouch, they would be granted a day off from their jobs in honour of fatherhood, one day they would spend in the tavern or with their families.
Women, who still held hopes that the king would eventually set a holiday to celebrate motherhood as well, in addition to juggle work and family were saddled with the preparations for the Festival of Ostara that would take place in the streets, a feast for all the peasants where everyone would dance and have fun until night.
All, women and men alike, as absorbed with their many duties as they were, remained unaware of the danger that was looming over them all, a dangerous presence lurking in the shadows.
A deadly creature that moved in the darkest hours.
*
The five knights of the inner circle were assembled in the armoury, fiddling about instead of getting out of their fighting gear and retire for the night. Their boisterous laughters drowned the sounds of claws clicking on the stone floor. A creature scurried in the shadow, moving from a swords rack to a shield placed against the wall, vigilant for any sign that its presence had been discovered.
Unnoticed, it managed to lay its paws on a few broken scales fallen from the pelts that protected soldiers in battle.
One of the knights, the one with a penchant for apples, caught a flicker of movement from the corner of his eye but the mysterious creature was quicker than the human eye, and the man eventually thought he had imagined it all.
*
The rhythmic sound of metal hitting metal ceased. It was dark outside, the smithy lit only by torches and the glowing orange of hot coals.
The man with dark skin, the face beaded with sweat, wiped his forehead with the back of the hand.
He, knight of Camelot and proud member of the inner circle, the elite unit most close to the king, took a break. One of the few free days he was afforded in a year, he was spending it at the smithy once belonged to his deceased father.
A shadow brushed along the wall at the back of the knight, sneaking through a heap of iron wastes to hide from view. Claws emerged from the darkness, their sharpness a threat to human life. A pair of eyes glinted, reflecting the orange hues of the forge.
Few rocks of coal suddenly fell from the pile in a corner with a rumble. The knight immediately turned, his eyes checking the reason of the small slide that had just occurred, ready to use the hammer to defend himself. Nothing out of ordinary to his inspection, though, no other movement but from the rocks settling.
A mouse, it could be. The man, reassured that he was alone, returned to his work, unaware of the danger that had breathed down his neck.
*
The guards sitting at the table near the cave’s entrance left for their round. Since the place was no more inhabited by a magical beast, there was no need to guard it as strictly as before and soldiers were stationed at the feet of the curved stairway out of habit.
As soon as the thumping of their boots came like a distant echo, a creature as swift as a fish swimming away in the water, ran down the stairs, the flames of the torches projecting its shadow on the wall. The black shape was wide and terrifying, long claws that could slice a grown man open, and fangs strong enough to crush bones.
After lingering an instant near the table, standing on its hind legs, to ensure the path was clear, it headed forward in the corridor and vanished down the stairs, untroubled by the darkness, to the cave once prison to a dragon. Soon blinding light flashed from behind the corner, flooding the rough rock of the wall for long minutes.
People in the castle were sleeping, unaware of the nefarious activities taking place in the vast cave underneath their feet.
Whatever trouble the mysterious creature was brewing, they would soon discover.
*
The creature took a peek inside to make sure the rooms were empty before slipping through the door left ajar by their owners. It moved as if it knew the place, avoiding furniture and any obstacle on its path, headed to the adjacent space. The clicking of the claws on the floor was the only sound in the empty chambers.
The wide nest humans called ‘bed’ came into view. Unseen, the creature reached the nest of the king and then crawled under it. Scratching sounds followed, and then the clinking of metal.
Voices behind the door had the creature halt, silence falling in the rooms, its snout peeking out from under the bed to evaluate its chances, but it immediately returned to its task, resuming with more determination whatever it was doing. A deafening jingle followed, as if it was digging in a pile of metal. The shadow crawled further under the royal nest as the door of the chambers opened. The human with loud boots didn’t feel the unknown presence, nor his senses registered the danger close to him.
The creature, its eyes piercing the semi-darkness, stared as boots came to stand a few spans away from where it was crouched and then the mattress dipped under a weight. As silent as a skilled predator awaiting to ambush its prey, it waited, while the voice belonging to the human on the bed spoke of many things and another, coming from the room with the table, answered. Two people, coming and going, at the mercy of a dangerous presence that, hidden under the nest made of wood and fabric, awaited.
The two humans eventually moved back to the adjoining room to leave. Only when the door closed behind their backs, the wood muffling the voices and silence reigned once again in the chambers, the creature dared to peek out of its hiding spot.
The king and his consort had just headed away, unaware of the uninvited guest that had spied on them.
The mysterious creature left as unseen as it had entered, a precious possession between the fangs.
*
Two knights, the one with the blond curled hair and the one wearing no protection on his naked arms, noticed that something was missing in the armoury. They didn’t alert their brothers in arms, nor they conducted any investigation, given the little worth of the lost items, a few broken rings from a discarded chain mail that awaited to be fixed.
They could never imagine that an elusive shadow was infiltrating their domains to steal, nor that the creature was plotting something with the king of Camelot in mind.
*
For seven nights, the creature prowled in the castle, its presence unknown to guards and inhabitants alike. When people slept in their beds, sure in the safety of their chambers, it roamed in the darkness, avoiding the brighter corridors.
For seven nights, it reached the cave and, undisturbed, it worked. An obscure object took shape, metal imbued with magic, moulded by powers that only the legendary Emrys had ever witnessed.
In the dark of the night, the weapon to strike the king’s heart was forged.
*
The creature managed to not be discovered, as it sneaked through the castle, unseen. The day of its attack drew near, but it was patient, and it waited, careful to not make any misstep that could uncover its plan. Its presence was to be not detected until the time would come and, aided by the bustle of the festivities, it could strike at the heart of Camelot.
*
And the day finally came.
*
The nineteenth day of the third month, when nature was midway between two seasons, a popular celebration, one that from villages beyond the southern lands had been brought to the heart of the kingdom, took place.
The creature had planned its attack when the citadel was at its most vulnerable, the attention of people elsewhere drawn. The guards and castle inhabitants would be distracted, all joining their loved ones for the festivities.
*
It sprung into action in the coldest hours of the night, protected by the darkness. In the silence of the sleeping castle, it put the plan into motion.
Without encountering any obstacle on its path, it broke into the royal chambers and scurried on the floor with ease to reach the nest of the king.
The pale thread of a silver moonbeam filtering between the closed curtains was the only source of light, but the creature made sure to always stay in the dark, using the furniture as shields to hide itself.
Only when in front of the royal nest, so close to its target, the creature moved into the light. Its long, deadly claws, projected on the floor, looked much threatening.
A body shifted in sleep, followed by the rustle of blankets. The quiet breathing of two people was the only sound in the otherwise silent room. The two humans resting in their nest didn’t sense the impending danger.
The creature easily climbed the bed and, its paws not leaving any temporary dip in the mattress, reached where the face of the king laid. He was defenceless, deep in sleep, his traits relaxed. Behind him, on another pillow, a head full of black hair.
The creature was unconcerned by the second presence: its target was the king, not his mate.
The claws almost brushed the human skin as a weight was placed on the pillow, the king’s sleep yet undisturbed.
Satisfied, the creature crawled away in the shadows, to return to its own nest and rest.
The object forged with magic would soon strike at the king’s heart.
*
The sun rose on a day that would mark Camelot history and find a place in the kingdom’s annals.
In the early morning, as people of the citadel roused, the festivities began.
Children of all ages left with enthusiasm their beds, be them filled with luxurious feathers or pallets made of straw, at the first cockcrow. They all had worked hard in the previous weeks and they were eager to show their works and be thanked for the effort.
For this was the day in which children celebrated their fathers. The Father’s Day.
The king had yet to conceive an heir to inherit the throne, but a surprise was waiting for him nonetheless, the mysterious creature had made sure of it.
*
The castle was awake and buzzing with life, as all the people working in the giant creature of stone, like ants in their heap, were already swarming corridors, busy with their assignments. If servants, crossing the main square, had time to afford to raise their heads and gaze at the windows of the royal chambers, they would have seen that the curtains were still drawn close. Their majesties were still resting.
They, the people hurrying to carry out their duties, couldn’t know that someone – or, rather, something –, in the royal chambers, was awake. That a dangerous presence was laying in ambush, behind those curtains.
*
The deadly creature was excited, unable to rest as the plan it had carefully plotted was set into motion and about to succeed.
Made bold by impatience, it searched for a spot where it would be at the same time hidden from the royal husbands’ eyes and granted a clear view of the nest, so as to watch when the king finally awoke to find his surprise.
In the dim light of the rooms, it perched on the top of the wardrobe, still as a spider waiting for the fly to enter its web. Its blue eyes shined with glee.
*
The feeling that something was out of place irked the instincts of the warrior still living underneath the crown and the king woke with a sense of impending doom. He opened his eyes, blinking sleepily to a head of unruly black hair on the pillow next to his.
He stared at that nape, unable to focus, as mind and instinct clashed, sensation against observation.
The lack of light meant that the curtains were still drawn; it was still early, and laziness won. He rolled over, switching on the other side, hands attempting to pull up the blanket and delude himself he could resume his sleep again.
Yet, the impression that he was in danger didn’t allow him any rest. His skin crawled. He felt as if there was a presence in the chambers, and he was watched.
A frown deepening his forehead, his eyes fluttered open. At first all he saw was the white pillowcase. Then, as his sight focused, a dark spot took shape. He blinked once, twice, as he frowned in confusion, his head still in the lands of dreams.
A hand slipped out from under the pillow to grab the object, that was brought nearer so he could closely inspect it.
An imperfect circle of two thumbs and half of diameter, with rough edges and fitting in the palm of a grown man; the surface of the metal was dented and unrefined, the work of an inexperienced hand. In the centre, a curious shape made of gold. To his sleepy mind, it seemed like some kind of footprint, perhaps a mark.
It took him a long minute to properly assess the situation. His thumb absent-mindedly rubbed on the front of the medallion as his instincts tried to make themselves heard, to warn him.
There was a sharp intake of breath when he finally had the presence of mind to make sense of everything, to realize someone had penetrated the royal chambers undetected and had left a magical artefact of some kind on his pillow. Another time, he had been given a similar coin, and it proved to be an omen of death.
The object fell on the bed as if it burned, as the king sat up with a jerk, and suddenly he noticed that a creature dear to him wasn’t where it was meant to be. His eyes roamed over the bed but, when it was clear that it was missing, he panicked. The fear that an abduction had happened under his nose without him noticing had him even forget the threatening magical artefact. His voice roared in the silence of the chambers to call a name.
The bundle on the other side of the bed jolted awake, alarmed, eyes feverishly searching the semi-darkness to take stock of the situation. The king was shouting the name again when the consort, dishevelled, asked what had happened.
The crazed king immediately pointed at the mysterious medallion, explaining that someone had entered their chambers to leave it on his pillow, while the Little Thing was missing.
The creature, watching from its hiding spot, decided it had seen enough. Its fangs shined, as its mouth morphed into a chilling smile.
It spread its wings and crouched on its forelegs, wiggling its backside to get ready to pounce.
The king was at his most defenceless. It was time to attack.
It jumped, hind paws stretched forward, and the wings allowed for a silent glide. The king and his consort didn’t sense its presence until it was too late.
Its attack was flawless. It smashed into the face of the king who, caught off guard, didn’t have any chance to put up a fight and fell backwards, arms flailing helplessly in the air. No use, for it had won. The creature made a long roar of triumph, its body draped all over the face of the king. He tried to free himself, and fingers dug in its sides, but the creature clung with its claws to the tender human skin under its paws: the king of Camelot could plea as much as he wished to, it wouldn’t move nor release whom it had managed to capture. To subdue its struggling prey, it attacked with a growl, its sharp fangs ready for the killing bite.
Its attack had succeeded. It had won. It had struck down the mighty ruler of Camelot!
*
“... Aithusa...?”
The growling, partially muffled by the blond hair in which the snout was buried, halted and the creature left the kingly mane to tilt its head toward the source of the human voice, jaw snapping shut. The king’s consort was staring with bulging, feverish eyes, evidently stuck dumb with fear and unable to intervene to save the royal husband.
The temporary distraction of his assailant was exploited by the king, who managed to wrap his fingers around the body covered with scales. The creature tried to resist, but its reaction was late, and the king was successful in freeing his face. The deadly claws drew six bloody scratches before he was able to remove them from his skin.
He was a sight, hair sticking out in all directions, wild-eyed, red cheeks and laboured breath.
A high-pitched cry left the creature, its mighty paws clawing the air in an useless attempt to attack the evil hands. It was thrown on the bed and the instant it landed it was already on its feet, butt raised and fore legs bent, ready to strike again. It hadn’t finished, the ruler had yet to be deposed!
The king, panting, was staring its way.
“Aithusa!! What the bloody–!!”
*
After the head rush feeling of a body preparing for a fight, the king was suddenly overcome by fatigue, both physical and mental, and he fell backwards, exhausted as if he just returned from a long war campaign. A pillow over his head muffled a resigned growl.
Brows drawn together in a thoughtful frown, the consort tried to make sense to what had happened, eyes bouncing between the royal husband, who was attempting an imitation of a man mauled on the battle field, and the winged creature that had carried out such a sneak attack.
The dragon pounced. It landed on the vulnerable abdomen of the king, taking a proud stance, puffed chest and neck held high, as if it were standing on a heap made of its defeated foes.
It chirped and, in a simple phrasing in the language of its species that it still was unable to speak but conveyed through mood by mind, it made an official proclamation that had the consort blink for an instant, at first unable to believe what he had interpreted. Then he burst into laughter.
“She just said she’s successfully defeated the head of the nest.”
The king grumbled, his head hidden under the pillow, not the least amused like his husband was.
*
“Your daughter has something for you...”
“Besides the scare she already gave me?”
“Don’t act like a dragonling...”
Being told of sounding like a baby dragon didn’t help to improve the king’s mood.
*
When the king, coaxed with kindness by his consort – who stole the pillow when the third request to stop acting like a stubborn old man was met with a grunt –, blinked his eyes open in the dim light of the rooms, the dragon perched on his chest had the magical object in its maw.
The royal attention zeroed in on the medallion but, before he could say anything about the dangers of touching an artefact of obscure origins, most likely related to dark magic, the consort chuckled. Only after his husband glared at him, he made an effort to put on a sombre look.
“It is a magical object, yes, but it won’t threaten neither you nor Camelot. You can touch it.”
The dragon nodded with its snout to underline that it wished for the king to take what it was offering. The clawed hind paws captured a human finger and tugged, until it had an open palm where to place the coin.
The king, not without grumpily acknowledging the overbearing attitude of which he had been victim, surrendered to the insolence of the dragonling he called ‘Little Thing’ and examined the medallion, less hostile now that he had been reassured by the resident magic expert that it wasn’t a harmful object imbued with dark magic.
It didn’t take much to guess the winged beast had a hand – a paw – in the appearance of the medallion on their bed, but he was left with the mystery of what and, especially, why. Was the coin Aithusa’s handiwork? Or had the dragonling found it during her daily excursions in the castle?
Its meaning wasn’t revealed to him upon a second examination, though, and the excitement conveyed by the dragon didn’t help either.
The look on the consort’s face suggested he had a clue about the artefact origins but wasn’t in the least willing to share. The smirk that came to his lips dispelled any lingering doubt that he knew but wished for his husband to figure all out by himself.
The king had to fight the temptation to kick both dragon and dragonlord out of his bed in retaliation, but made his annoyance clear. The consort shrugged, and vanished, followed by the echo of his laughter, before the king could roar an order to spit it out.
*
A proper look at daylight solved the mystery, as the king finally noticed the suspicious similarity between the print filled with gold and the paw of the scaled beast that had made an attempt on his life.
The dragon assaulted him again, the moment he asked for confirmation, but this time to rub enthusiastically against his neck.
*
The king spent all his breakfast rolling the imperfect medallion on the table, deep in thought, unable to believe that the dragon had worked alone without receiving help from any member of their unique blended family. The consort swore that it was a surprise for him as well and the king believed him, his husband known for his inability to fake emotions.
Aithusa puffed the scaled chest when she was complimented for her skills, proud of the success of her plan.
There had been difficulties to conjure a fire powerful enough to melt the scraps of metals she had collected in her many raids, and the dragon had mostly warmed all the pieces enough to get a malleable iron that could be worked like mud or snow. On the rough surface of the medallion still warm from her breath she had imprinted her paw as a mark, that she had later filled with a half-melted piece of gold.
Both the king and the consort were impressed that she had managed to steal from the knights unseen, as they were amazed that she had been able to keep the secret, with not even them suspecting anything.
*
Why Aithusa had stolen metals – the gold turned out be a coin belonging to the hoard the dragon hid under the royal bed – to make an attempt at jewellery making, even the consort didn’t have a clue. It wasn’t in the nature of dragons to make gifts, especially if it meant taking from their hoard, but the sentiment behind the gesture was not lost.
The dragon patted the king’s arm and chirped happily, conveying her thoughts for the consort to translate.
“Oh!”
The king frowned, a mix of puzzlement and suspicion. The consort had lit like a torch and was wearing that look, the one of a lovestruck lady.
The impatient growl didn’t erase it. On the contrary, the astonishment grew into delight.
“She must have seen the children...”
All the more perplexed, the king had to wait for his consort to remind him that it was the day that Camelot celebrated fatherhood.
There was no need for the dragon, cheek against the king’s arm and blue eyes only for the royal head of the nest, to nod or confirm.
“Oh.”
*
The clashing of sword on sword halted as the knights belonging to the inner circle, who were more playing about than properly fighting, noticed their king coming; he wasn’t wearing his ever-present chain mail and there was no sword in his hand, which meant he wasn’t to join them for their regular training round.
The consort, his faithful shadow, was missing as well.
“Ah! We forgot about today! That’s why you won’t grace us with your armoured presence? To show us your contempt?”
The deadpan expression on the king’s face didn’t change at the antics of Sir Gwaine, who made a good impression of a contrite child about to burst into tears in front of a disappointed father. The other knights, their weapons of choice forgotten, followed suit and the king found himself swamped with a bizarre array of excuses for why they hadn’t prepared any presents for the father of the Pendragon brood.
Only Sir Lancelot, the voice of reason of the lot, didn’t play along, too serious to make a fool of himself like his brothers-in-arms, but he too had to comment about the festivity that was taking place all over the citadel.
“You must feel disappointed you are one of the few young men in Camelot to not get any gift, Sire.”
There finally was a reaction. A smirk slowly tilted the king’s lips, as if suddenly he had been reminded of a secret only he was privy of.
No explanation followed and he headed back to the castle with a raised hand. Five pair of eyes exchanged baffled looks at the mysterious behaviour in an otherwise predictable man.
*
The king vanished with no warning, neither the knights nor the manservant assigned to the royal couple aware of his whereabouts. He returned when the consort, panicked, was about to put the whole castle on high alert for their missing ruler.
He was suspiciously tight-lipped.
*
The next morning brought the Festival of Ostara. As both villagers of the town and servants at the castle made final preparations for the celebrations, looking forward to the dark hours of the evening when they would bid their farewell to winter and greet the season of regeneration, Their Royal Highnesses and the nobility rode out for the traditional hunt, a custom that the reluctant consort had failed to convince the king to abolish.
After a pleasant day full of game in the woods, when the sun set on the last day of winter, the court gathered in the banquet hall where a great feast was held. Of all the topics that would entertain lords and ladies in the evening, the festivities of the day before promised to dominate conversations the most.
The voices of the younger lords, the new generation that had supported the king in all the changes he had brought since peace had been achieved, men who had backed him with both their words in the council as new advisers and their swords on the field as knights, quickly filled the hall. Eager to talk about the gifts they had been given and to profess their pride to anyone willing to listen, they rounded up in small groups where they entertained each other with tales about their children. One after the other, the lords who had known in recent years the joys of fatherhood and had yet to grow used to the new facet of their married life, they described what they had received, mostly nothing worth of money but made with affection, each one firmly convinced theirs were the most skilled children of Camelot, with the more fiery-tempered, the ones quick to reach for the sword, ready to challenge whomever disagreed.
The topic was embarrassingly dropped when the king, accompanied by his consort and their white dragonling, came in the hall, nobody wishing to be the one clumsily reminding the royal husbands that the throne had yet to be secured and the crown still had no heir. To do so, the royal couple would be reminded that a female companion had to be selected to carry a royal heir, an awkward subject for a banquet meant to be joyful.
One of the older lords, one of late King Uther’s most trusted advisers still held in great esteem in the new king’s court for his open mind, his tongue loosened by the wine, didn’t show the same sensitivity.
“If you don’t give the kingdom an heir that isn’t covered in scales, you will be the only one to never be celebrated during the fatherhood festivity, Sire!”
As the bold words resounded in the vast hall, an uncomfortable silence fell over the court gathered, lords and ladies unwilling to search their majesties for their reactions, in case their eyes met.
Aithusa, from her perched spot on the royal shoulder, showed the tiny fangs, displeased. The head of the nest, that the humans persisted in calling with the honorific ‘king’, was a father, of course he would get a gift! She was a good daughter! How dared they say otherwise!
“Who said I didn’t?” the king, collected and not in the least embarrassed, broke the unnatural stillness in the room with a measured question that didn’t need any answer, a brow arched.
Before anyone could have the chance to wonder further, his hands went to the deep neck of his velvet jacket and pulled it apart to reveal his pale neckline. Placed against the naked skin, mounted in a simple pendant bezel and supported by a leather cord, a medallion bearing the imprinted shape of a paw.
A stunned sense of befuddlement descended on the hall, the consort the most shocked of the nobles present, for the king his husband had the imperfect medallion mounted by the Royal Goldsmith so to wear it, and he hadn’t known.
Aithusa, equally astonished, broke the silence with an excited chirp, proud and enthusiastic beyond belief upon seeing the product of her labour worn and displayed with pride by her beloved Dragon Father.
*
That year Father’s Day passed into the annals of Albion’s history as the first time a king received a hand-made gift from his dragon daughter.
*
The legend of the Medallion of Fatherhood, the powerful magical artefact said to be worn by a sleeping High King Arthur Pendragon during his last journey to the mythical Avalon, grew strong in the centuries after the mysterious disappearance of Camelot, its existence becoming as legendary as the man who had raised the White Matriarch with his husband, the Prince Consort Merlin the Great.
