In the village of Crescent, the good townspeople were milling about, chattering excitedly. News traveled quickly in such small proximities and goings-on such as this was big news indeed. The foul smell that burned along the heaths and withered the grass in its growing seemed not to bother the Crescentfolk as they gathered in the town square. Their murmuring drove the guards mad as they shoved the persistent people back into their cottage doorways. Angry shouts could be heard rising above the crowd and the overpowering smell now and then, blotting out the whining children and swirling the dust.

Someone had defied King Wenceslas.

The rumors were to remain spineless until the rebel himself showed his face in amongst the Crescentfolk, but by word of mouth the folk found out that it might be the young outcast Skerry, who had revolted privately against the king years back and thus lived alone with his sister in a tree by the side of the highway. The young man, surely no older than eighteen, and his sister were allowed and sometimes even welcome within Crescent and the neighboring kingdom of Warwick, yet always there was a kind of tension between the two outcasts and the people, who could never fully understand nor accept why the king’s ways were wrong in Skerry’s eyes. Perhaps the boy knew something about Wenceslas that they did not. Either way, the Crescentfolk could care less. All they thought of early that eventful morning was how strange to hear of a rebel being brought to justice…of his own free will.

“I hear the boy turned himself in,” said one grisly farmer. “Right stupid of him, I would say. Eh, woman?” he turned to his wife and said. “What think you of all these odd affairs?” His wife, a short portly lady with a thick yellow bun of hair, bit her lip in apathy. “I do hope they will not execute him,” she said with a worried wringing of her hands, “we have not had a hanging in a dozen years and I do not aim to encourage another.” Her tall burly husband grunted. “I suppose that is up to the jury and the King to decide, and then we will be given the outcast to flog him out of town or hang him, or whatever else the decision tells us to do to him.” His wife shuddered and leaned against his corded arm as the dust flew thick about the tromping feet of their fellow Crescentfolk. They, too, were anxious about what was to come. Always those who dared to defy King Wenceslas hid in the forest or made a living in the harsh highlands; some stories had been told of rebels finding refuge among the Fairies in the Riverlands. A few old biddies thought the girl Rhody might have had a Fairy mother, who wished her baby to grow up within a civil community. This tale, however, was discouraged because the Fairies had long since made it clear that they believed their life in the Riverland to be the more distinguished. Some tales held by the opinion that Rhody had been born to the Fairies and then spirited away by an enemy or a jealous lover along with her little brother, who at that time must have been only a toddling child. The Crescentfolk still remembered seeing a baby being laboriously carried into their small kingdom by a little boy, one who would grow up and defy Wenceslas. Such a sweet charming little thing he had been, too! He had lived with various townspeople and even taken to court to be christened Johnathon at the age of five, but he scorned the common name and stubbornly called himself Skerry. “My name be Skerry,” he would declare. “And this be my sister, my little sister Rhody.” H was so insistent that the given names were forgotten and the siblings became Rhody and Skerry, of no land. Being so young, neither could remember from whence they had come or if they were meant to be going somewhere. They lived their lives freely and happily, playing with the Crescentfolk’s children like any other happy kingdom child, and helping out in the fields to gather food for the winter. Rhody learned how to sew and bake, clean and sketch lovely pictures with charcoal on a smooth piece of wood and Skerry learned how to fell a tree, hunt in the thick forests and raise sheep. Yet the siblings maintained a vague kind of wistfulness, as if they had forgotten something vital to their full joyfulness. They could not altogether by happy with the kingdom dwellers, and the Crescentfolk could not deign somehow to learn the art of herbaltry Rhody offered to teach them, nor the art of beautiful storytelling Skerry was gladly willing to give to them.

Then the fatal day came. No one really knew what happened in the rain and miserable winds that autumn morning, they only heard the Skerry had fallen from the King’s favor and Rhody had scorned a soldier who had been making wild advances towards her. The two siblings agreed that the only wise thing to do was to make themselves outcasts. They left Crescent in the driving rain, carrying with them only a few belongings, for the hollow tree on the main highway. Wenceslas had been furious; he hastily ordered that Skerry and Rhody had been turned out because of their unmoral defiance to him and thus, the King kept his role and title clear in the eyes of his people. They suspected nothing and assumed Skerry and Rhody had committed an offense against their king, and deserved to be thrown out. It was made official that, though the siblings were not banished from Crescent and Warwick, they were not to be fraternized with. This decree broke Rhody’s heart, and nearly severed it in two when a terrible plague struck Wenceslas’s people. She could do little but administer herbs to them, when deep down her healing powers stirred restlessly. She had been forbidden to totally cure any of the sick Crescentfolk, and even thought it was a stupid and unfair law, she had to abide by it. She would not cause her brother nor their reputation as vague helpers any more division. At least she was able to aid them, if only distantly.

Yet if the Crescentfolk felt any qualms about condemning one of their most valuable resources, if die he must for whatever offense he committed, they did not show it. Instead there was a restless excitement. Something was about to happen! Finally, after months of snow and sleet and biting wind, after months of watching Skerry and his sister try to make peace with them, this must be some sort of climax. Their shadowy king would assuredly reveal something about his character. As the Crescentfolk began gathering in the town square for an explanation, they thought over the years in which Wenceslas had reigned. Thinking himself to be look upon as too young to rule, the King had become elusive, hardly showing anything about his morals, his character, his honest ranking. He issued out orders that were to be obeyed at all costs, the most forced being never, EVER to defy him or question his authority. Any cross word was punishable by means of slow death or permanent exile. Needless to say, the Crescentfolk did not need two warnings about this. They lapsed into a ignorant complacency and cared not whether the King was a truly good man. This was dangerous for them, but so far there had been nothing to give them much cause to worry.

All this was about to change.

Rhody ran her long brown hand along the blood-colored fabric. Late into the night, she had sat awake sewing a cloak. Why she was sewing so furiously, fast enough to prick her fingers, she had no idea. It was like a wild kind of energy she needed to release from her troubled spirit. She and Skerry had talked long and hard into the night and finally came to a decision. It was a painful one, perhaps the most painful thing they had ever decided to attempt. A rash act, it would be called later, done by rash people. Yet in Rhody’s thinking, rash was better than silent in a world of loud voices proclaiming falsities. Nothing was truth. Truth had seemingly vanished from the face of King Wenceslas’s lands, there was nothing that could be legally fought for or against. It was all smothered. The Crescentfolk, look through rosied eyes though they foolishly may be doing, were being drawn into a shadow of fear, of doubt, of Evil. Evil was lurking in the hot suffocating heathlands, in the wild western winds, in the snow brought by icy invaders of old who were threatening to come back and haunt the kingdom’s towns and villages once more. Wenceslas promised protection from any harm as long as his people remained true to him. It was wrong. It was wrong and it was maddening, but the foolish people were becoming slow to think about their well-being and lazy to make a difference in their slowly-disappearing morality. For indeed, their very cores, the depths of their souls, were being craftily taken out from under them.

All this Rhody and Skerry knew to be true. Convincing their old people otherwise was a greater task. That was why, despite his sister’s tears and pleadings and threats, Skerry was admitting to his disobedience of Wenceslas’s new ruling and turning himself to the authorities. They could do with him as they wished, but at least the Crescentfolk might have an idea as to what other alternative morality was offered to them by the hidden goodness of mankind. Rhody was to remain in the tree on the highway, to guard it and keep soldiers away and also to heal any who might be in need of her unusual medicinal knowledge.

Rhody shuddered as the firelight played over the soft cloak, taking the warm fabric and turning the rich blood red into an evil bloodthirsty pallor. The tall dark girl nearly threw the cloak into the fire for the memories it summoned up in her mind, but her brother needed that cloak to stay warm and it was her duty to allow him to take it and own it. “It is beautiful,” he had said. “If I go to my death in Crescent, I will die wearing this red cloak you have sewn for me.” A single glittering tear coursed down Rhody’s strong coffee-colored cheek; she realized it and wiped it vehemently away. Skerry himself came in, carrying a large pheasant. Rhody dropped the bloody red cloak to the earthen floor and threw herself into his warm strong embrace. The siblings held on to each other, rocking slowly back and forth, wondering whether this would be the last night they would have to look into each other’s eyes.

“She may have been warned never to listen to strange men,” said the officer. He fondled King Wenceslas’s emblem on his chest and grinned cat-like to himself. “Well, that will soon change. Soon after that strange brother of hers leaves, you will advance to her home and keep working on her womanly soul until she relents to our power.” The officer heard a small gasp from the young soldier he was barking orders at and hastily corrected himself. “Uh, erm…W-w-Wenceslas’s powers, I meant. Yes, our good King Wenceslas the Second has powers that work through us and around us, dwell inside of us and shape the very way be think about ourselves and our fellow man.” Without knowing it, the commanding officer was quoting a book written by the King’s ageless advisor, Melchior. The book had been published and spread abroad, and virtually everyone had read it…or should have.

The officer whirled around to face the soldier he was speaking to. He had to tilt his head back slightly in order to look directly into the expressionless gray eyes. Lorn was a tall young man, a newer soldier who still had much to learn. But surely this task was not beyond his reckoning.

“Do you understand, soldier?” asked the officer sharply, emphasizing the word soldier.

Lorn squared his jaw, determined to set a good example for the little drummer boys and younger soldiers. “I do, sir. I understand perfectly.”