Joachim told him briefly what had happened, Evrard tidily winding the thread back up while we walked. I tried addressing him sternly, mind to mind, but he now had his thoughts well shielded. I shrugged and gave it up. We knew at any rate that the monster was still deep within the cave.
Back in the valley, the three priests were grumpily packing, preparing to go. There was no sign of the hermit or his apprentices.
"I think we'd better go too," I said. "I need to get back to the royal castle, to bury my predecessor as quickly as possible."
"It's already late," said Joachim. "We can't possibly make it there tonight."
"I am leaving this valley," I said as distinctly as I could. "I can use the magic light to show our way after dark."
The chaplain looked at me in assessment and shook his head. "You're already exhausted, in body and in spirit. And even your magic staff won't cast enough light for the horses. Let's go to the duchess's castle tonight, and on to the royal castle tomorrow."
As we all rode down the valley, the wizard's coffin strapped to the priests' pack horse, I wondered uneasily if my desire to be free at last of the valley had distorted my judgment. I had stayed in the valley even when I knew my duty as a wizard was to go in search of the monster. Now I had a duty both to bury my predecessor at home and to catch the monster here, and my strongest drive was to get out the valley, not necessarily because it was the best choice, but because I had been unable to do so before.
I told myself that a saint who could summon lightning from a clear sky would not let a creature of magic and bone hurt those who served his shrine, that the monster might now wander aimlessly in the cave for weeks. But I also told myself that barring miracles, and miracles by their very nature could not be counted on, religion was primarily useful for dealing with the supernatural and the hereafter. The priests might try to explain to wizards the deep metaphysical significance of the forces of the material universe, but they always seemed to leave us with the full responsibility for dealing with those forces.
Evrard and I rode in front, and as we started up the steep road a tree branch before us suddenly dipped. For a second we saw the wood nymph, who smiled and gave us a cheerful wave before disappearing again among the leaves.
She had called the saint's name as the wind had whirled around the shrine, and although I refused to speculate about whether that might mean she had a soul after all, I guessed that her old friend Eusebius had spoken to her at last.
At the top of the cliff, the wreckage of the booth and the windlass still sent thin plumes of smoke into the late afternoon air. As we approached, I was surprised to see the young man in the feathered cap. He and three others, whom I recognized as the men I had thought were pilgrims, were poking through the ashes. So far they had found half a dozen unbroken ceramic figurines.
The "pilgrims" stepped back rather self-consciously, but the young man looked up and gave his customary smile, in spite of the ruins of his plans—and, for that matter, of Dominic's. "Greetings, Wizard," he said to Evrard, ignoring the rest of us. "I know I told you I'd get back to you about your offer to come help us with your magic, but I'm afraid we won't be able to start until later this summer, and maybe not this year at all."
"Oh?" asked Evrard impassively.
"As you can see, we had a little accident. And the people who were sponsoring us seem to have pulled out. We aren't going to be able to make our ‘overhead’ costs, much less any profit at this rate. We haven't even quite made up our minds yet whether we should continue to try to set up here." None of us were fooled by this comment. "But if we need a wizard for another project, we'll be sure to keep you in mind!"
"Thank you," said Evrard gravely. "Just remember my fee scale." It was not until we were another quarter mile down the road that he began to laugh.
Shadows were long when we reached the duchess's castle. So far, it appeared, no one there had married anyone, but both Dominic and Nimrod were still at the castle, neither apparently speaking to the other. Joachim hurried up to the pigeon loft to send the bishop his message, but the rest of sat down in the great hall in something of an exhausted daze.
Diana was mellower toward her wizard than I had expected. After she had set her constable to finding accommodations for all of us, she sat down to listen to his account of what had happened in the valley in the two days since she had left. Evrard told her most of the story, even though he had missed the Cranky Saint's miraculous demonstration of his intention to stay at the grove and had gotten the details from Joachim and me. As for any information about the death of the old wizard, other than the bald fact that the monster had killed him, I had not told anyone and did not intend to.
I hardly heard their conversation, giving all my attention instead to hot soup and new bread and butter. But I did rouse myself at the end of the meal to address the duchess.
"My lady, do you think it would be possible for you to send some food on a regular basis to the hermit and his apprentices?"
Diana actually looked embarrassed. "Of course. I should have thought of that myself. The valley is surrounded by my duchy," with a sharp look toward Dominic. "I'll arrange for them to get fresh bread from my kitchens every week, starting tomorrow."
When Evrard and I went up to the freshly repainted wizard's room at the top of the duchess's castle, I fell at once into exhausted sleep. But some time after midnight I awoke with a gasp, drenched with sweat and feeling my heart pounding with nightmare terror.
Listening to Evrard's peaceful breathing, I tried to persuade myself that it was indeed only a nightmare, that Saint Eusebius, after all that had happened, was unlikely now to send me a true vision.
Slowing my heart with long, deep breaths, I settled back down, but as soon as I closed my eyes against the room's darkness I could see it again: the monster roaring, wide-mouthed, as it had when it had killed the old wizard, but this time, standing helpless before it, were all the people I loved in Yurt.
II
We buried the old wizard at the royal graveyard of Yurt late in the afternoon of the following day. Joachim read the service while the rest of us stood silently, including the priests of Saint Eusebius, who now threatened to become as cranky as their saint, and the duchess, with Dominic and Nimrod on either side of her.
They offered me the shovel to toss the first load of dirt onto the coffin. I was still young enough that even though I might fear violent death, I had no idea how I would react to the prospect of slowly growing old and weak. I couldn't be sure what I might think in another two hundred years, but I hoped fervently I wouldn't be tempted to try what my predecessor had.
The royal constable, who had nearly despaired of seeing any of us again after the knights of Yurt had come home with wild stories of the monster and of the duchess's two suitors, had been overjoyed when we rode up to the castle. He promised to have the old wizard's books and effects brought up to the castle in the next few days and to find a home for the calico cat.
Dominic fell into step beside me as we started back up the hill from the cemetery. I glanced at him in trepidation, wondering if I was going to be fired even before I had a chance to pursue the monster.
But the regent only seemed thoughtful. "Wizard, have you ever suddenly wished you could go somewhere and start over, leave all your problems and responsibilities behind, but discover you've said and done things which commit you far too deeply even to try?"
I felt a sudden and completely unprecedented burst of affection for the royal nephew. "I'm glad you understand," I said, patting him on the shoulder. "That's exactly how I feel."
The three priests refused the regent's offer of hospitality for the night, expressing the intention of putting ten more miles behind them before nightfall and of being in the episcopal city the next day. Joachim saw them off with mutual blessings and expressions of spiritual good fellowship, that sounded sincere if not enthusiastic.
He urged them to give his personal greetings to the bishop. Since the bishop would already have re
ceived the chaplain's message, via carrier pigeon, that the relics of Saint Eusebius would stay in Yurt after all and that the wood nymph posed no problems for the sanctity of the grove, it was too late for the priests to tell him a different story.
Evrard and I also had somewhere to go. I was trying to decide if we should start back for the valley at once, or if it would be too irresponsible to sleep in a real bed one more night before beginning our search for the monster, when Dominic, fully back on his royal dignity, decided for me.
"You and the chaplain started this," he said, "when you claimed to be competent judges between Prince Ascelin and me." In fact, I thought, he and the duchess had started it much earlier, by both deciding they needed their own real households. "You may have forgotten about the integrity and purity of the kingdom, but I have not. Tomorrow, the duchess must be married."
"Fine," said Diana, who was standing nearby. "It's even more dignified to be married in the royal chapel than in my own castle chapel. It's a good thing I thought to bring along my best dress."
After dinner Joachim asked me up to his room. He lit the candles, then sat down on one of his hard chairs. "Would you like to tell me," he said, giving me a long look, "what really happened in the cave?"
Even though I had earlier decided not to tell anyone, it was a relief to do so, a much bigger relief than I had expected. The act of telling alone moved the events into the external world, made it all less of a continuing nightmare that affected only me. But unfortunately I knew that the monster was also part of the real world.
Joachim said very little while I told it. "Maybe I should never have become Royal Wizard," I finished. "All I've done is make other wizards act foolishly in trying to show off to me how well they can do magic. The old wizard, once he was retired, may have started making a monster in part to impress me. And you saw Evrard in the cave yesterday. He's going to get himself into trouble by trying to convince me he can have good ideas of his own."
"If it hadn't been you, it would have been another wizard."
"For the two years I've been Royal Wizard, I've always had in the back of my mind the thought that if I ran into a problem too difficult for my own abilities, there was another wizard to call on. Even though it didn't worked out like that, the thought was reassuring. And now there is no one to call on in the kingdom but me."
The chaplain shook his head. "I've already told you: each person must answer for his or her own soul before God. We have to do our best not to lead others astray, but ultimately we must allow them to sin or do good on their own."
Although I hadn't been talking about leading anyone into sin, Joachim's words were oddly comforting. But then I thought of something. "Wait a minute. Back when I first came to Yurt, you said that you'd had to take responsibility for my soul with the bishop."
Joachim looked at me as though I was speaking nonsense. "But that's different. I'm a priest."
There was one more thing that bothered me, that I had not before dared bring up. "It doesn't seem fair, Joachim," I said at last.
He lifted his eyebrows without speaking.
I took a deep breath. "If Saint Eusebius was willing to save my life, why didn't he save the old wizard?"
"There are several reasons I could tell you," said Joachim slowly, "and other reasons that lie beyond the understanding of mortals. The easiest answer would be that you had prayed to the saint with a contrite heart, and the old wizard had not, but that would wrongly suggest that relations between living men and the saints were simply mechanical." His deep-set eyes met mine for a second, then he looked away. "I was praying for both of you."
He felt silent. I did not answer, waiting to see if he would go on.
"When we live and when we die," he continued after a minute, "is not ultimately due to the specific prayers we do or do not say, though the Bible tells us to pray without ceasing. Our destiny rather lies in the hands of God. You can't speak of what is ‘fair.’ All of us, ever since Adam, are sinners, and deserve death and damnation. That God, from His mercy, allows us to live and even be happy at all should fill us with profound gratitude."
"I still don't think it's fair," I said. "If I were in charge of things, I would make them much less arbitrary."
"You sound like Job," the chaplain commented. He moved slightly, and his eyes came out of the shadows. "‘My righteousness is more than God's.’" I had no idea what he was talking about. "But God answered Job out of the whirlwind, ‘Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? Or who laid the corner stone thereof, when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?’"
"Well," I said grumpily, "I should have known better than to try to discuss theology with you."
Joachim did not answer, but the corners of his eyes crinkled with amusement.
I thought it ironic that he, who rarely smiled, should do so when I felt I might never smile again. "What's so funny?"
"You are. That sounds like what I'm supposed to say to you."
In the morning, wearing my best blue velvet suit and feeling almost human again, I stood with the chaplain beside the royal throne of Yurt in the castle's great hall.
It had been an enormous comfort to be able to take a bath in my own bathtub and to fall asleep in my own bed. Even the illusory frog which Evrard had put on my pillow did not keep me awake for long.
Dominic now sat on the throne, glowering, waiting for the duchess to appear. His ruby ring in its snake setting glistened on his finger. In the distance I could hear a great deal of urgent shouting from the kitchen; the cook and Gwen were madly preparing for a wedding feast they had only learned about last night.
The duchess appeared at last, dressed in a wide-skirted dress of white lace that she must have had along in her baggage the whole time. The old-fashioned high neckline and the slightly yellow tinge suggested she was wearing her own mother's wedding dress. The delicacy of the lace contrasted sharply with the hammered gold of her wide bracelets.
Dominic too was dressed in finery, in his case black velvet trimmed with the blue and white of the royal coat of arms, and he wore a heavy gold chain around his neck. But Nimrod, who had come to Yurt as a huntsman and was much too tall to wear anyone else's clothes, was still dressed in rough green. But with a newly-trimmed beard and a sober face, he still managed to look more dignified than most of the court.
Several of the knights of Yurt seemed to have decided that they too might have a chance with Diana, for they had put on their best and were laughing and teasing each other. But Dominic was absolutely serious, and a deep frown quickly silenced the knights. He seemed, I thought, much sulkier than anyone should who would be getting married in half an hour. He beckoned to the duchess with a massive hand, and she came quietly to stand before him.
"The purity of the kingdom depends on the purity of its women," he announced in a deep voice.
Joachim startled me by saying, "And the same is true of its men."
"A kingdom is not merely a piece of land," the regent continued, "or a political unit, but a group of people, who are both guarded and guided by their aristocracy."
Diana's cheeks reddened slightly as she listened. Those who had stayed behind at the castle had received, I was sure, a highly speculative but nonetheless detailed version of what had actually happened that night on the plateau.
I tried to contemplate, difficult as it was, Dominic and Diana actually married to each other. The regent had maneuvered her into this position, of having to marry to preserve her honor, but she had been willing to be maneuvered. I still didn't know what her intentions had originally been toward Prince Ascelin, but now that she had—quite wrongly, I thought—decided he was a coward, she would certainly not marry him. But she would now have the household she had decided she wanted when she hired Evrard, and she and Dominic could live in her castle on her rents.
"Therefore," Dominic continued, "any suggestion, any rumor, of impurity by one of its leading women mus
t be rectified at once." He paused briefly, as though overcome at the last moment with reluctance. But he thrust out his chin and continued. "My lady, you have already agreed that certain of your activities have become sources of scandal, and that only marriage, immediate marriage, will wipe this scandal away. Do you still agree?"
The chaplain spoke before she could answer. "Think carefully before you give your response. Marriage is created by God, for the welfare of men and women. It is only valid if consent is freely given, and it cannot be entered into by intimidation or force."
Dominic frowned again, but Diana shot Joachim a quick smile. "I have indeed thought carefully. You may be assured I have never yet been forced into anything."
She turned to face the rest of the court. The faint blush was gone from her cheeks, and she appeared to be enjoying herself highly. "As all of you know, I have stayed single all my life, because I never yet found a man who pleased me. But now, by the pleasantest coincidence, at exactly the same time when certain events might recommend a speedy wedding, I have decided that a suitor whom I earlier refused to consider is indeed the man for me."
Both Dominic and Nimrod stirred uneasily. Nimrod watched Diana intently, not daring to hope.
"Four days ago," Diana continued, "two men threatened to kill each other over me, and then both tried to protect me when a monster unexpectedly appeared and attempted to carry me off. I, naturally, would have rescued myself, except that the monster had paralyzed me." I never had told her the source of that paralysis spell and never would now. "One of these men is the one who has won my heart."
She stretched it out for ten seconds more, looking back and forth between Dominic and Nimrod as though still trying to make up her mind. Both of them looked back at her white-faced.
Then suddenly she had pity on them. She turned to Nimrod with the assurance of doing exactly what she had always intended to do. "Prince Ascelin," she said formally, holding out both her hands, "would you consent to be my husband?"
C. Dale Brittain_Wizard of Yurt 02 Page 26