Sadie Madison and the Boy in the Crimson Scarf

Michael Madison's "The Princess In The Threadbare Gown"

Almost a hundred years ago, Toseland and Alice met on a busy flagstone courtyard in the underground city of Los Kralice during the Evenlight Festival. The star-crossed lovers stood staring at one another as music and dancers skipped about them. But, instead of this being a wondrous love story, it signalled the origin of something that should never have been.

Alice was the daughter of Edvard Mistery, a wealthy doktor who had preordained her entire future: a first-rate education, an apprenticeship in the Healing Halls at San Cristophe, a position at his Practice in Los Kralice, marriage to a man of position and power, and a litter of intelligent, obedient children.

Toseland, however, worked as a hawkshaw: a lowly detective, a spy. Not the sort of man Doktor Edvard Mistery had destined for his daughter.

They met every day in secret, behind the bandstand in the park. They talked in romantic whispers, their fingers intertwined, eating hard candies and fudge. But one day their happiness was extinguished as Doktor Mistery descended upon them. Toseland confessed his undying love for Alice, pleading with the doktor for her hand in marriage. But Doktor Mistery laughed bitterly in his face.

"You? A detective, a spy. Never, sir. You shall never marry my daughter—my Princess. I promise you, no man nor beast, ill-wind nor treacherous sea, will stand between me and the death of this love."

To Toseland's surprise, the doktor went limp, crashing to the floor.

Alice Mistery stood over her father, a bloodied rock in her quivering hand.

Toseland and Alice left Los Kralice immediately, travelling for days until they came to a village on the far side of a vast river. In the village, a farmer offered them food and shelter in exchange for a day's work. They agreed and began herding cattle, weighing corn, and ploughing fields. Alice and Toseland collapsed into bed that night and every night for the following six months.

Alice Mistery married Toseland Jeremiah AppleGarth on Christmas Day in the village square beneath the moon and the stars and the gently falling snow. Together they built a small home. By day they worked the farm. By night they sat in the warmth and security of their home, hand in hand, arm in arm.

And, with each passing sunrise and sunset, thoughts of Doktor Edvard Mistery's dark promise to destroy their love, drifted further and further away.

A year to the day since Toseland and Alice wed, a distressed cry tore through the streets. Villagers had awoken to discover half a dozen men showing signs of infection: an abominable skin disease of fetid, infectious pustules bubbling with puss and corruption.

The disease rapidly spread through the village, targeting only then men.

Every woman sat and watched as her husband, or father, or brother, or son, came down with the ghastly affliction. With horror in their eyes and desperation in their hearts, they pooled their money and sent word to Los Kralice for help.

Now, Alice worried this decision might bring her father directly to her door. But, looking into Toseland's yellowing eyes, the virus swarming through his veins, this was a risk they must take.

Two days later, as most of the women had taken to the fields, three doktors appeared on horseback. They were dressed from head to toe in black robes: heavy waxed overcoats, masks with circular glass eyelets, and a nose shaped like a raven's beak to hold incense and spices.

They harnessed their horses, slung rifles over their shoulders and took a small boat across the water. They whisked through the dwellings, checking every man, father, brother, and son. "There is little hope," the doktors announced to the handful of women remaining in the village. "These men are victims of a vicious plague sweeping the Shadow Valley."