Wood Nymph and the Cranky Saint- Wizard of Yurt - 2 (23 page)

“You probably don’t want to know what that young wizard’s Deen doing.”

“Probably not,” ne agreed. “His soul wil be the responsibility of the ducness’ chaplain.”

‘ It would be best, I think, if you stay here in the valey,” I went on, “and continue folowing your original plan, to determine what should happen to the saints relics. Meanwhile—” I stopped abruptly. Faint sounds of shouting and barking, then the nigh winding of a horn, drifted down the valey.

I gulped the last of my tea and scrambled out of the hut. The sounds were clearer, and now I could tel that they were coming from above the rim of the valey. Up on top of the plateau, someone—or something—was being hotly pursued.

I ran out from the trees a short distance toward the head of the valey, to a position from which I hoped to see. At the top of the cliff, near the entrepreneurs’ booth, was a brightly colored and highly noisy confusion of what I took to be hounds and men on horseback. A dark shape broke away and began rapidly descending the cliff face.

I could hear the priests’ voices a short distance away, saying their morning prayers loudly, either not hearing the noise or not concerned. But Joachim’s voice was quiet at my shoulder. “Is it the monster?” My heart was pounding so hard it took me nearly a minute to put the far-seeing spel together. But then I could see that the figure coming quickly and smoothly down the cliff was blond and wore a dark green cloak. My attention was jerked back up to the top of the cliff where, to my enormous relief, I saw Dominic very much alive and, from his gestures, furious. The duchess, just as furious, was beside him.

“It’s not the monster,” I said in bewilderment. “It’s Nimrod.”

We hurried up the valey to be there when he reached the bottom. Although the people at the top of the cliff were quickly cut off from view, from the sounds of shouting and barking I guessed that they were riding around by the road and, indeed, in a moment I saw them as they started down the steep incline. Dominic was in the lead, riding at a pace I was certain was not safe, and the duchess not far behind.

Joachim and I met Nimrod at the base of the cliff. But he rushed past without speaking or giving us a chance to speak and headed straight for the Holy Grove. He was breathing hard; his hands and his boots were heavily scratched as though, even before reaching the cliff, he had had to force his way through thorn bushes or fight off a pack of dogs.

The three priests emerged from the trees, down toward the apprentices’ huts, and started sedately up the road. Evrard suddenly emerged from the grove and came over to join us. The young wizard looked more tousled than ever. His chin was covered in reddish fuzz; his beard had finaly started to grow in.

The first of the riders reached the bottom of the steep road into the valey and galoped toward us. The priests, forgetting their dignity, dove for the edge of the road just in time.

Dominic was riding not his stalion but a long-boned gelding, the second biggest horse in the castle stables. It was heavily latherea and its eyes roled wide and white. Neither rider nor mount looked as though they had enjoyed the last few days together.

The regent puled up the horse, with a hard jerk on the reins that lifted its front feet from the ground, and leaped off. “Where is he?” he roared. He pounded up the track by the waterfal, slipped in the mud, landed on his face, and jumped up again without even seeming to notice. “Where is that coward hiding?” I stepped back nimbly or the regent might have run me over.

Nimrod stood just inside the grove, waiting impassively,

even though his shoulders rose and fel rapidly from heavy breathing. He had his bow and quiver in his hands.

“You’re trapped now!” Dominic cried. The mud on his face and al down his front made him an inhuman monster himself. He wrenched his sword from its sheath as he advanced.

Nimrod spoke then for the first time. “Sanctuary!” he shouted, his voice ringing through the head of the valey. His face was set in grim lines. “I demand the right of sanctuary!” He threw his bow and arrows to the ground and stepped back under the trees.

Dominic stopped abruptly. “Coward!” he shouted. “You’re nothing but a coward! You know I won’t kil you if you’re unarmed. Don’t hide behind a saint’s skirts! Come out and get what you deserve!” I had not always taken Dominic seriously which, I now realized, was a mistake. Nimrod did not reply. He watched the regent from a few yards back in the grove.

Dominic unbuckled a long knife from his belt and threw it, scabbard and al, toward Nimrod. It clattered on the ground nearly at his feet, but he made no motion to pick it up. “What’s the matter?” Dominic sneered. “My knife isn’t good enough for you? Do you want a shield, too? Shalyou wait while I go get you one?”

“I’ve thrown down my weapons,” said Nimrod evenly, “not because I’m afraid of you, but because I have respect for Saint Eusebius. I do not wish to bring instruments of violence into his grove. I have asked for sanctuary, Prince!”

Dominic hesitated for a long minute, during which the rest of us barely breathedT Then, with a massive snort, he advanced toward the huntsman. light glinted on the sword he held before him. But the old hermit emerged suddenly from the grove and stepped directly into the regent’s path.

“You cannot bring a naked sword into the Holy

Grove,” said the hermit with a gentle smile. “It is a place sanctified to God and His saints.”

“But that man ... he’s a despoiler, a poluter, a piece of low-born scum! He bribed the retired Royal Wizard of Yurt into making a monster and attacking me with it!” I was riveted at this, but Dominic gave me no chance to consider the implications. “He’s ... he’s a sinner!” His voice rose triumphantly, as though he had found the answer. “You can t give sanctuary to a sinner!” The duchess’ horse had not been able to keep up with Dominic’s. She and a group of the royal knights of Yurt now rode up with a great clattering of hooves, the dogs swirling around them in a fit of frenzied barking. Diana was off her mount, up the track, and tugging at Dominic’s sword arm almost before the horse had stopped.

“You can’t ... this is my duchy ... don’t you dare touch him!” she panted. Her hair had come unpinned and she was nearly as red as the regent.

The knights from Yurt did not immediately rush after her, but most of them were shouting. The peace-fulness of the steep-waled valey was shattered!

“Put your sword down, my son,” said the hermit gently, and do not fight, my daughter.” The duchess was not, at any rate, having much luck against Dominic. “Sinners most especialy have the right to seek sanctuary, where they may repent and seek God’s forgiveness.”

Dominic shook the duchess off his arm but then

hesitated. Nimrod stil stood silently among the trees.

Diana stopped kicking the regent, looked at the

knife and the dow lying on the ground, and turned to

Nimrod in angry surprise. “You ve sought sanctuary?”

“It was long ago adjudicated that this valey is under

royal control, not ducal authority,” Dominic said to

her, but almost conversationaly, no longer in a below.

The deep red of his face lightened a little toward its

ordinary nue.

r

Joachim stepped up beside Dominic and began talking quietly in his ear. He was as tal as the regent, even if only about half his mass. In a moment, Dominic turned grudgingly toward the track by the fals.

The chaplain then put a hand on the duchess’ shoulder and said a few calming words to her as wel.

I shook off my amazement and hurried after Dominic. This was definitely not the best time for rational conversation with him, but I had no choice.

He swung around sharply when I touched him on the elbow. Now that the red of fury had faded from his face, he seemed oddly pale. “So you cal yourself Royal Wizard, when—” I interrupted without giving him a chance to make an accusation with which, in fact, I agreed. “I need your help. I’m sure you realize that Nimrod didn’t commission any monster. But if there’s a horrible creature loose in Yurt, I need to know what it is and what it’s doing. Tel me everything that happened at the old wizara s cottage.” Dominic hesitated, anger and his normal sulky nature fighting with what looked like extreme exhaustion. He didn t even bother to scow! at me. “I decided I had to look at what that young wizard of the duchess’ had tried to suggest was only an ilusion. We got an even better ‘look than I expected.”

“Yes?” I said impatiently when he paused. It would be entirely appropriate for him to decide, as regent, to fire me for gross neglect of wizardly duties.

“When I knocked at the old wizard’s door,” he continued slowly, “I saw him for just a second, then he stepped aside and this—this thing rushed out at us. It’s almost human, but it didn’t move like a human.

And it has no face, only eyes.”

Just two years ago, my predecessor had faithfuly served the royal family of Yurt. The strange twist I had felt in his mind—or his soul—had gone even deeper than I thought. It didn’t sound as though his monster had broken loose. It sounded as though he had set it on Dominic deliberately.

The regent gave me a long look. “I honestly don’t know why anyone would want to study and train to deal with magical creatures. We got away, though it crippled one horse so badly we had to put it down.

We ve spent the last three days chasing it or else running from it. None of us have gotten much sleep. We must have lost it half a dozen times but, until now, it’s always reappeared. We haven’t seen it since yesterday afternoon.

He glared toward Nimrod. “Are you sure that huntsman didn’t ask your predecessor for a monster? He was camping out unafraid, yet it showed no signs of attacking him.”

“Quite sure,” I said.

The three priests from the church of Saint Eusebius had begun an anxious conference while al this was happening. I glanced toward the hermit, who stood before his grove as though his thin body and smile of benediction could protect it from al physical violence. In a minute, I thought, the priests would announce loudly that a grove with such activities in it was no place for a saint’s relics, snatch the golden reliquary and bolt for their horses

I excused myself from Dominic, who now looked only weary, and hurried toward the shrine on a colision course with the priests. The presence of a wizard might slow them down, I hoped, even if they seemed to have little respect for hermits.

Nimrod calmly watched the priests’ approach, then flicked his eyes toward me. “I hope you don’t think me a coward, Wizard,” he said in a voice designed to carry. “But if I hadn’t fled from Prince Dominic, I would have had to kil him, and I do not want to kil the royal regent of Yurt.” He stepped out from the shelter of the trees to meet the priests and the sun shone with golden light on his hair.

Dominic turned around with a scowl. The duchess,

who had started down the track by the fals, froze for a second, then kept on walking. But Nimrod’s words and appearance had their greatest impact on the three priests. They shook their heads and stared at him as though not believing what they saw.

“When we saw you last night, I didn’t think it could be true,” said the round priest, then paused as though feeling his words were inadequate.

“The Lord moves in mysterious ways,” supplied the thin priest.

“Do you know Nimrod?” asked Joachim politely.

“Nimrod?” demanded the round priest. “Is that what he cals himself? We certainly do know this ‘mighty hunter.’”

we had thought him an obedient son of the Church, but his appearance here, an accused sinner under a false name, shows him to have been but a whited sepulcher,” said the thin priest.

“Then who is he?” asked Joachim, when Nimrod said nothing.

“He is—or was—” said the thin priest witheringly, “the prince of our city.”

Somehow, Joachim managed to get rid of the priests. They retreated a little way down the valey highly indignant, but stil unwiling to say anything openly against the chaplain and stil not in possession of the Holy Toe. The shouting and barking had died down and it again seemed possible that, at some point, the valey’s dreamy quiet might be restored.

Dominic, with the knights and the stil excited dogs, settled down near the base of the waterfal, built a fire, and started making a late breakfast. Diana sat twenty yards away, combing her hair and pinning it up again, her back turned carefuly to them.

This must be, I thought, very difficult for her. Nim-rod, the man she might have loved in her own way, now appeared a coward and she had been thoroughly and publicly shamed before the knights of Yurt.

Even for the duchess, this had gone beyond outrageous.

Joachim, Evrard, and I went into the grove with Nimrod. The old hermit had retreated to his hermitage. I should be, right now, trying to find the old wizard’s monster. But even with my best magic, I feared I would not be able to track it unless I had the tal huntsman with me—I hadn’t even been able to find Evrard’s stick-man when I saw its footprint—and, for the moment, he couldn’t leave the grove s sanctuary.

In the meantime, magical or not, I had a problem here that would thoroughly disrupt the kingdom if something wasn’t done, and soon.

“So are you indeed a prince?” I asked Nimrod.

“It won’t be much of a surprise to hear that I am,” he said with a slow smile. “My true name is Ascelin. I know you realized al along that I was not simply a huntsman.”

“And the duchess knew who you were?”

“Of course she did,” he said, seeming much more amused than anyone should be when his life was in peril. “I won’t try to pretend that part of my reason for coming into Yurt wasn’t to see her again.” He glanced in her direction. Al that was visible was her nair and firmly set shoulders. “Although I’m afraid that’s turned out very badly.” His next words showed how very precarious was his apparent calm. “Would she rather have me kil the regent and half the knights of Yurt than to run?” he demanded. It was quite clear he was not addressing any of us. “I could certainly outwrestle Dominic and I’ve got stag-arrows in my quiver. I could have picked off al of them one by one. Would her honor have been satisfied then?”