C. Dale Brittain_Wizard of Yurt 02

by The Wood Nymph;the Cranky Saint

  But I still didn't know what any of this had to do with lowering pilgrims in a basket to see the Holy Toe, and I recalled I had already worked out that the horned rabbits had appeared too late to be behind the priests' vision, even if they had brought about Nimrod's. I wondered briefly if the "pilgrims" I had seen before had been the real priests of the church of Saint Eusebius, and if these three were some other people in disguise.

  I dismissed this thought as too elaborate. Besides, I doubted false priests could fool Joachim. But Evrard's horned rabbits—and the inhuman stick-man with which he had next tried to impress Diana—had also led to the monster. And I didn't have the slightest idea how I was going to catch it.

  Too many other people, from the duchess to the hermit to the priests to Dominic to Evrard, had had too many conflicting plans. And now everyone must be formulating new plans, to get Prince Ascelin out of the grove. For all I knew, I might even be caught myself in some complicated scheme put together by the Cranky Saint. If I wanted to leave this perfectly charming valley within my lifetime, it was time to stop being a playing-piece in other people's games and to have a plan of my own.

  And the first priority was to end this deadly standoff, before either Dominic and Nimrod killed each other, so that I could marshal my forces to go after the old wizard's creature. "Evrard," I said, rising resolutely to my feet, "we're going to find the monster as soon as I settle this impasse. I want you to start working on spells with which to bind it."

  To my surprise, his face went white, making his freckles stand out sharply. "It's all my fault," he said as though he had just made a desperate decision.

  "What do you mean?" I demanded.

  "I made the stick-creature at the heart of the monster!"

  I shook my head. "Whatever creature you made is long gone. It's all the old wizard's now. You're not a competent enough wizard to create a monster like that single-handed."

  His face went, if possible, even whiter. "The duchess doesn't think I'm competent?" He turned desperately from me to Nimrod. "She doesn't think I'll make a good wizard?"

  "I'm afraid she hasn't been very impressed so far," said Nimrod reluctantly.

  "Then I'll have to catch the monster," said Evrard in tragic tones, "or die in the attempt."

  "I think," I said witheringly, "the duchess has other things to worry about now than whether her ducal wizard meets her expectations." And I certainly did myself. "Joachim," I continued, "I'll leave the Cranky Saint to you with pleasure, but first I need you to back me up."

  "Of course," he said. The chaplain clearly trusted me to know what I was doing. I wondered if I actually did.

  "We've got to make it safe for you to leave the sanctuary of the grove," I said to Nimrod. "I'll need your help to catch the monster. Joachim, come with me."

  We walked to the top of the waterfall. The track had become churned and muddy from the many feet that had hurried up and down, but the water still gurgled icy and clear.

  There was a spell I had learned in school, to make one's voice carry. After a moment's concentration, I thought I remembered it. "Listen to me," I said loudly, too worried to be as pleased as I normally would have been that the spell had indeed worked. "The royal chaplain and I speak to you as King Haimeric's representatives."

  I certainly had everyone's attention. Even the duchess turned around. The dogs sat up expectantly, their tongues lolling.

  Dominic heaved himself to his feet. The mud on his face and tunic had dried, and he had made some ineffectual attempts to scrape it off, but the effect was still quite horrifying. "You can't act as the king's representative, Wizard," he said, frowning and crossing his massive arms. "I am the regent."

  "But the king said he wanted us to help you while he was gone. And since this is a case that involves you personally, you cannot possibly act as judge.

  "It is clear to everyone here," I continued, turning from Dominic to the knights and priests, "that a serious quarrel has taken place, disturbing the king's peace, a quarrel that requires a judicial decision." If I was not a particularly competent substitute for a king, I would be an even less competent justice-giver, but I had no choice. "In the name of King Haimeric of Yurt, I declare this court in session!"

  Joachim looked at me sideways and lifted his eyebrows fractionally. I hoped that meant he approved.

  My audience stirred and whispered, and the priests moved closer. Behind me, I almost thought I heard a soft laugh that could have come from the wood nymph. But no one else was laughing.

  Under a sun far higher in the sky than I had hoped it would be by the time I finally got out of the valley, the knights of Yurt rose to their feet. They arranged themselves almost automatically into the relaxed but watchful stance they took when the king was dispensing justice. The regent gave me a black scowl but said nothing.

  "Prince Dominic," I said formally, "step forward and state your case as complaintant."

  II

  To my relief, the regent seemed willing to accept my highly irregular calling of a royal judicial court. This might even work. Dominic climbed up to stand before Joachim and me, then turned around to speak. Without a magic spell, his voice did not carry as well as mine, but no one had any trouble hearing him.

  "I accuse Prince Ascelin, the man who has gone by the false name of Nimrod, of gross insult to the royal court of Yurt. He came to the court under false pretenses, disguised as a huntsman but secretly intending to woo my lady the duchess. For an aristocrat to hide his real identity, to take advantage of a court's hospitality while lying at every turn, is to show himself no worthy prince!

  "Then, even though I had asked the Duchess Diana to be my wife, and he knew that she would most likely agree, he lured her out of the castle. Here his behavior proved to be all that his earlier duplicity suggested, for last night he passed the entire night with her, in defiance of all laws of decency."

  Diana became bright red, but I credited it more to fury than to maidenly modesty.

  "When confronted with his shameful deeds, he fled to this grove like a coward. I demand that this court sentence him to death!"

  "You can't 'demand' any particular sentence from a court," put in Joachim quietly. "You know that. And we have not yet heard evidence of any capital offense that would require the death penalty."

  This stopped Dominic for a few seconds, and in the pause the duchess marched determinedly up to stand beside him. She was still bright red.

  But her voice was firm. "May I address the court?"

  "Please do."

  "Prince Dominic has made some accusations against me which I must deny at once," she said clearly. Those watching were completely silent, listening. "Prince Ascelin and I did indeed pass last night in the same tent together."

  At this there was a faint murmur from the knights, which she ignored. "But our conduct was completely chaste! I am a duchess and the queen's own cousin, and my standards of conduct are exactly the same whether camped rough during a hunt or entertaining elegantly in my own castle. For Prince Dominic to accuse me of acting in another way, in any way that would impugn my honor, is for me the grossest insult. Let me reassure him, and all the court, that if he had spent the night lying between us our relationship could not have been any purer."

  Dominic winced at this. "He still came into Yurt in disguise," he said to her, "hoping to overcome your virtue, even if he hasn't yet succeeded."

  Diana's eyes were almost wild, in spite of the formality of her denial. It must be difficult being caught between fury toward Dominic and fury toward Nimrod. But her forthright nature did not fail her. "Concealing his true identity may have been a slight prevarication, but he did not come under completely false pretenses. I always knew perfectly well who he was."

  This caused a sudden stir, silenced at once when she continued. "He came as a hunter because he wanted to help me as a hunter. If he'd come as himself, he would have had to come as a recognized suitor for my hand."

  This certainly got everyone's attention.

/>   "And what's wrong with that?" cried Dominic. "Do you discredit the possibility that anyone honorable could ask for your hand?"

  "Not at all!" she replied haughtily. "But it was not a role he could play well. After all, I had rejected him five years ago."

  This actually silenced Dominic. It took me a few seconds to recover my own voice. "I would like summon the accused to testify for himself," I then said.

  Nimrod had been following my improvised legal hearings from just inside the Holy Grove. He looked toward Dominic, then back at me, but he made no move to emerge.

  "Come, Prince Ascelin," I said, still in my magically amplified voice. "The royal court is its own sanctuary." I tried to remember the exact words I had once heard the king use. "I guarantee your safe-conduct. The knights of Yurt are under orders to kill on the spot anyone who tries to harm you while under the court's summons."

  The knights all slapped their sword hilts ritually. Dominic had about five seconds in which to overrule my offer of safe-conduct. The knights would never have killed him, but once he let my statement stand, he would be bound by it.

  He let the five seconds stand, and the following thirty. Nimrod came out of the grove.

  He walked forward slowly, as though consciously controlling his strength, his head held high. "Let me confirm," he said when standing before Joachim and me, "the purity of my relations with my lady the duchess."

  I was delighted to see with how much dignity the contestants stated their cases. Dominic, the duchess, and Prince Ascelin were all well used to court hearings. If I had had a group before me like the villagers King Haimeric had heard before his trip, there was no way I could have persuaded them that this muddy patch of ground under a sunny sky was a place for formality.

  "I came to Yurt to try to catch the horned rabbits," Nimrod continued. "I did indeed come under a false name, but only because I did not want to put the Duchess Diana under any sense of obligation to me." He paused as though bracing himself, but when he went on his voice was still clear. "She had, as she has already told this court, rejected my proposals when I met her and spent a season courting her in the great City. It was an unexpected advantage of hunting the horned rabbits that I was able to renew our acquaintance on a friendly basis." He shot her a quick glance as he finished speaking, but she was studiously not looking at him.

  "But she'll never have you now!" cried Dominic triumphantly. "She won't love a coward!"

  "You call me a coward for choosing not to kill you?"

  "When the duchess's honor was in question, your only interest was your own skin!"

  Nimrod tossed back his hair. The change in him was quite startling. He was furious now himself, and his strength no longer seemed controlled. "No one impugns a prince's courage like that and lives!"

  "I don't give much credit to your courage. You slipped out of the royal castle and carried out your attacks on my lady's virtue where you thought I wouldn't see you!"

  "And I don't give much credit to anything said by someone as hopelessly jealous as you are!"

  "Come on!" the regent bellowed. "Come on, you overgrown sprat! Do you want to try your luck with your bare hands?" Nimrod dropped into a defensive pose as Dominic, his fists ready, began to advance.

  Good. This was what I had been waiting for: a formal statement before everyone of what they were fighting over, followed by a new outbreak of unrestrained conflict. I hoped that the duchess would start beating Dominic again—or even Nimrod—but she stood to one side, frowning.

  I didn't have time to wait for her. "Stop!" I shouted in a bellow of my own. It echoed up and down the valley, until a series of louder and fainter voices all seemed to be crying Stop. "Stop your fighting, before I must ask the knights to restore the order of this court!"

  They both stopped and looked at me.

  "This quarrel is now almost inextricably confused," I said with the best wizardly glare I could manage without shaggy eyebrows. "This quarrel has become an excuse for verbal abuse and for physical violence, which you know the king—and we as the king's representatives—consider intolerable. If either one of you hoped that by utter confusion you would avoid a ruling against you, you are mistaken!"

  I paused to give emphasis. "All of you are in the wrong. And that includes you, my lady. This case cannot be settled by a simple determination of right. I have only one option left to me. I am going to swear you to peace!"

  For one second I caught Joachim's eye. He was smiling.

  "You will have to work out for yourselves," I went on, "who has been accepted as a suitor and who rejected, who has impugned whose honor and who is a coward, but you will have to do it without violence!"

  For almost a minute I didn't think it would work. The valley itself seemed to be watching and waiting for their response. But both Dominic and Nimrod had dropped their fists, and at last Dominic said, "So what do you want us to do?"

  I sent Joachim to get his Bible from his saddlebag, so that they could swear on it. The hermitage was closer, but I had no intention of bringing out the relic of the Holy Toe. Even a saint who was not normally cranky might well be irritated by today's proceedings.

  The three priests of the church of Saint Eusebius had started to confer together again, and Dominic went to join them. I wondered uneasily what the regent might have to say to them. For a brief moment, I wondered if it might also be possible to swear the hermit, the priests, the entrepreneurs, and even the saint to peace, but bringing in the supernatural was, I knew, beyond me.

  Evrard came up beside me. "You continue to surprise me, Daimbert," he said, which I supposed was a compliment.

  Joachim returned with his Bible, and I had the unlikely triangle of Dominic, Nimrod, and Diana all swear to observe peace toward each other. They even managed to give each other the kiss of peace. I had rather hoped that Nimrod and the duchess might find this a way to break through the new coldness between them, but if so it was not evident.

  "Now that this case has been concluded," I said, "we as the king's representatives will end this—"

  Dominic interrupted me. "Wait. I'm still regent. There is another urgent case that needs royal judgment."

  Joachim and I looked at each other. Whatever Dominic wanted to do, I certainly hoped it did not involve me. "And so it shall be," I said formally to the regent. "We surrender the jurisdiction of this court to you. And now, if you'll excuse me—"

  "I need the royal wizard while I'm giving judgment," said Dominic shortly. From the intimidating glare he gave me, I knew that I had no choice but to stay.

  I had manipulated him into letting Nimrod leave the sanctuary of the Holy Grove, and the regent was (rather generously, I thought) giving me one more chance to work with him. If I didn't take that chance, we would spend the rest of our lives living in the same castle but not speaking to each other. Of course, if the monster showed up and I couldn't find a way to control it, neither of our lives might last beyond today.

  Once the knights realized Dominic meant to continue with more legal proceedings, they snapped back into their positions.

  "Although my quarrel with Prince Ascelin has been so wisely concluded," the regent began, in a tone which left me wondering if he meant it as sarcastically as it sounded, "one issue remains. The honor and purity of the duchess, the leading woman of the kingdom in the queen's absence, has been cast into doubt. And we who are charged with protecting the kingdom of Yurt must sometimes make personal sacrifices to preserve the welfare and good name of the kingdom."

  The three priests followed Dominic's words with serious and approving expressions. They had put him up to it, I thought. Diana, on the other hand, looked shocked beyond ready response.

  "With doubts about the duchess go doubts about the entire kingdom of Yurt. Purity and morality must always come from the top." I wasn't sure if the silence of Dominic's audience was agreement, surprise at his sententiousness, or just attentiveness. "There is only one way to restore the honor and good name of the duchess and, with her, all our peop
le. She must marry as soon as possible!"

  Dominic, I thought, was desperate. Either he really did want to marry Diana herself, in spite of what she seemed to think, or he saw no way to take back his offer. But he also had to try to restore dignity to a proposal she had treated with public ridicule.

  Diana began to laugh. For a second I feared it was hysteria, which would certainly have been my own reaction, but it appeared entirely genuine amusement. "Is this the court's ruling, then, sire?" she asked when she had recovered her breath.

  "It is the court's ruling and will."

  "Then I have a request to make," she said. Her head was held at an angle which, for reasons I could not have explained, appeared mischievous.

  "Certainly, if it is consistent with the rulings of this court."

  She smiled widely. "Then let me invite everyone here to my castle! It is not far away, and we can all be more comfortable there than trying to camp here in the valley—especially since camping has taken on such a distinctly immoral tone here in Yurt."

  Dominic frowned, as though trying to read some secret meaning into her words.

  "Once there, I shall, of course, comply with the wishes of this court. I will be married by my own chaplain, and we can all then proceed with the nuptial feast!"

  Everything was happening so fast that the knights had trouble following it all, but they understood about the feast and raised a hurrah.

  In my gratitude that the regent's "urgent case" had taken so little time, I was unable to concentrate on the amazing fact that the duchess seemed willing to accept Dominic. It would certainly be best for Nimrod not to be there for the wedding, and, besides, I needed him. When everyone got underway, I would separate him from the rest.

  III

  Joachim said that he and the priests would stay at the Holy Grove for now, but everyone else began preparing for departure. This left only one more extraneous matter. I managed to draw Dominic aside.