“Tell us again about the exiled duke!” shouted the children with a rambunctious clamor, their faces flushed from dancing and the firelight. Skerry laughed and bounced a little girl on his knee.

“Not that one AGAIN!” he moaned, trying to look fierce and failing. The children only laughed at his disgusted face and yelled louder for the popular tale. No matter how many times Skerry twisted the story around and retold it with grand flourishes, the Crescent children never tired of it. They all boasted to their parents that Skerry was a fine storyteller, although Rhody told the more graceful ones about fairies and golden moonbeams. “As long as that outcast boy does not stray into the realm of blatant monster stories, I am content,” one woman once said to her husband. The children quickly assured her that Skerry’s tales were full of magic and bravery, honest warriors and pure maidens. There was a certain goodness about them that made the children’s heart leapt. But on a night like this one, when the very heaths trembled against the snow-hooded winds, the Crescent youth were thankful for a scary yarn.

“Very well, I shall tell you the story,” Skerry finally gave in, “but you must promise not to beg for more when it is over. No one knows what happened to Northumbrio in the end!” The children promised, giggling, and nestled up to each other as Skerry, his black hair like a curled shadow in the firelight behind him and his green eyes cat-like, began his story.

“When your village of Crescent was but a young one, and Wenceslas had just been crowned king by his father, there came riding from the shadows of the northlands a tall dark stranger. He claimed to be a minstrel and piped haunting songs on a reed instrument. The Crescentfolk were enchanted by him, and allowed him to stay in their village amongst them. The man called himself Northumbrio and made free with the villagers, piping jigs and death marches on the same day.”

“What does a death march sound like, Skerry?” asked a boy. Skerry paused and rubbed his chin. Taking out his drum, he beat several muted, sad beats and hummed in a low tone.

“Oh, stop!” cried one little girl, hiding her face in her pink little hands. Skerry soberly put away his drum and resumed the tale.

“Wenceslas did not trust the minstrel. He thought that Northumbrio would stir up strife in Crescent and cause a revolt.”

“Why would he think that?” asked a thin pale girl. “Had the Crescentfolk been restless?”

“That was quick of you, Berrie. Yes, the people had been worried over Wenceslas’s coronation simply because he was so young. They felt such an inexperienced lad could not govern them the way a good king should. Northumbrio, on another matter, was tall, broad and well mannered. He knew how to charm the ladies and impress the men, and the children loved his jests. He gave every sign of having the right kind of leadership the Crescentfolk were seeking. But, children, he was an evil man.”

The children, even after hearing the tale over and over, gasped and their eyes grew round. “What did he do?” they yelped. Skerry sighed and leaned back against the warm hearth. “I really do not feel as if I can tell you any more, I am weary…” the children broke into protesting cries and pulled at Skerry’s hands, shaking his shoulders. “We must hear the rest, we simply must!” Skerry cracked one eye open and grinned.

“Do you not have pity for a poor slip of a lad who has beat his drum all evening?” he implored with a shaking chin. One girl burst into laughter and shouted “No! Now on with it or you shall have no cake!”

Skerry sat up straight. “Well, we mustn’t deprive ourselves, now must we?” he demanded and the children settled back down with big grins.

“For several years, the turmoil increased until Wenceslas decided it was time to get rid of the minstrel. He had seen the hidden look in his darting eyes, the shifty plans forming in his mind. Yet Wenceslas, even being a king, could not merely banish one of his subjects without cause, for that would hardly be fair. Instead he waited, amid much pacing and wringing his hands, for Northumbrio to make a false move. But you see, the minstrel had traveled far and wide and had grown wise in the ways of the world and her kings. He abided just inside of the law and never committed anything that could be debated by a jury. He was even made duke of Crescent by her people!”

“The rat,” muttered Berrie the girl. Skerry glanced sideways at her. “Yes, he was crafty as a rat. Northumbrio was scheming something and the poor gullible Crescentfolk could not see behind his painted smile.”

“I would have,” declared one boy, puffing out his chest until a button popped. His older sister chuckled and began sewing it back it.

“I have no doubt you would have been more than able to look right through his dark face and see the treachery he was stewing!” Skerry commended. H enjoyed dragging out this certain story far as it would go, to keep his young audience in suspense. His eyes began to droop and so he hastened to the thrilling part.

“Finally one day, a horrible black cloud passed over the surface of the big white moon. It clouded out the silver moonfairies and drove the cats to their cottages. A hot steam arose from the heathlands, a terrible smell with it. Northumbrio blew war lays on his long reed pipe and the Crescentfolk began to mistrust the minstrel. For reasons only known to him and his black mind, Northumbrio needed to get inside the castle. So he strode up to the moat and introduced himself as a court musician. Wenceslas was at once suspicious, but he allowed Northumbrio to enter anyway.”

“What?” cried a small boy with a bruise on his knee. “I would not have been so foolish!” Three friends of his quickly sat on his head for talking so about the king. Skerry was silent until they were done scuffling; he did not agree with the king either and secretly admired the child for having such courage. To speak against the king these days was a serious offense. He breathed deeply and looked over at his sister Rhody. She lay asleep in the window seat, the fire light flickering over her tanned face and playing in her rich thick hair. He softly smiled at her and turned a t last once more to the story.

“Some time passed while Northumbrio tried to wriggle his way in to the castle. One morning the cook awoke to find a guard slaughtered, stabbed to the heart.” A young girl with dark brown hair groaned.

“‘Finally’, thought Wenceslas. ‘I can exile that minstrel from my kingdom!’ Northumbrio was charged with the murder, found guilty during a fair trial by the Crescent jury and court, and was banished from the king’s lands forever. Once, years later, he tried to return. Think on it, children, Northumbrio came back for a short while! No one knew at first, but when their cows stopped giving milk and the heaths grew searing hot, they remembered the minstrel who had so enchanted them and they flushed him out from a nearby hillock and drove him from the town, promising his death if he ever returned.” Skerry snuggled up against the warm hearth stones once more and looked around at the Crescent children. They stared at him. “Some say the exiled duke built for himself a great manor on the snowy peak of a mountain surrounding our heaths. They say Northumbrio looks down on us this very moment, his eyes smoldering and his breath rasping, waiting for innocent travelers to come up his mountain seeking shelter from the Greenleaftime cold and then capturing them for his rebel army. One day, it is rumored, he might return and kill Wenceslas. Any Crescentfolk who might oppose him will be slain.”

“I would be loyal to the king,” said one young woman. The other children nodded, all save the little boy with the bruised knee who had spoken against the king earlier. “What of you, Skerry?” asked a child. “Who would you pledge your loyalty to?”

Skerry was saved an answer by Rhody, tall and dark and beautiful, suddenly appearing by his side. “It is you bedtime,” she said to the indignant children. “Skerry and I must travel home now.”

One the misty road away from Crescent, Skerry draped an arm about his sister, who stopped every now and again to pluck a herb or a strand of marsh grass. The night was cold as they walked farther and father away from the lilting songs in the courtroom and the warm red light.

“What will become of us when Northumbrio does return?” Skerry spoke softly but in the still night his voice sounded obscenely loud. “I cannot bring myself under Wenceslas’s ruling. I simply cannot. And I know you would be just as unable to. His motives are wrong, sister. They are very wrong. I cannot possibly tell the children this, but Wenceslas is-”

“I know well what he is, brother,” Rhody hushed him. “Dwell not upon that tonight. It was a good night. My peppermint worked well.”

Brother and sister walked on in silence for a short while. The Skerry spoke and said, “You heard that little boy, the one who defied the king.” I was not a question.

“Yes. I heard him. He was the little boy I treated with my peppermint.”

“I like him. Who is he?”

“I know not who he may be, but I like him as well. Perhaps he is one of the orphans?”

“Would that be grand!” Skerry enthused. “We could take him in and raise him as our own if we wished!” His eyes sparkled, mirroring the stars. “I have always wished for a little brother.” Rhody slipped an arm around Skerry’s waist. “You will have one someday, if it be the way of things.”

Skerry was thoughtful as he said, “Sister? Do you suppose we will ever be ransomed from our life here?”

“I can only hope so, brother. I can only hope and pray to whoever is listening.”

The Fairy was tall and slender. Her long yellow hair sparkled like dewdrops and her eyes were deep brown, like the dark earth her bare feet trod upon. The dress she wore was spun of a special material called Virthum and shimmered about her graceful figure like rain on a rounded stone. The trees whispered over her shining yellow head and a few branches leaned down to stroke the Virthum dress. The Fairy laughed and held out her long brown finger to a small sparrow who was fluttering excitedly on a nearby branch.

“Greetings, little sister,” the Fairy said. Her breath smelled like ice. “What a lovely sun shines in the blue heavens!” The bird chirped and alighted on her hand. The Fairy walked on through the sun-dappled woods. How pleasant it was in the Riverlands! Nothing but sun and shade, peace and mystery. No one had ever threatened the Fairies’ power after the Great Wars had been fought and won. The Fairies had indeed been bestowed with respect and honor.

Far away, a waterfall gurgled in the twinkling light. At first the immigrant Fairies, driven roughly from their homelands in the Borders, had thought it odd that night never fell in the Riverlands but after a short while, they grew to cherish the omnipresent light. It somehow fed them, nourished them.

The moss under the Fairy girl’s feet felt soft and bouncy, and the hidden marble pillars carved amongst the mighty oaks were fraught with twisting vines that sprouted delicate white buds. Here is was always springtime; here the Fairies were safe.

The Fairy girl retreated into her home cut into the side of a gently-sloping cliff right before a roiling black cloud covered the Riverland sun.