The Wood Nymph & the Cranky Saint

by C. Dale Brittain

  Struggling against the cords was a real rabbit.

  Nimrod laughed and freed it carefully. But as it flashed away, the duchess turned to Evrard with a look of irritation. “So your magic couldn’t tell you the difference between a magical creature and an ordinary one? I’ll tell you what. We’re in a hurry, so why don’t you try a wizardly calling spell to bring the great horned rabbit into our nets?”

  Evrard flushed deeply but started at once on a spell. It wasn’t one I recognized; I wondered if it might be something else he had learned in Elerius’s course.

  The chirping of birds, which had been a constant background sound, was suddenly intensified. A flock of sparrows congregated from all over the valley and settled, with madly flapping wings and incessant chirps, on Evrard’s head and arms. “Been taking some tips from the wood nymph?” I said sarcastically. Even I had never attracted sparrows by mistake. Evrard disappeared under a wave of brown feathers.

  Laughing over the birds’ voices, he said the words to end his spell. No longer drawn by magic, the sparrows hesitated, then shot off. Evrard reemerged into view and tried to brush off his sleeves. “But it should have worked—” he began, then stopped short.

  Something was thrashing in the nets a little further down, something highly charged with magic, yet not alive.

  A cry came, a cry that could have been an owl and could have been a soul in torment. It was no less bone-chilling because I knew what it was. My normally calm mare reared, setting all the bridle bells ringing, and even Diana was for a moment hard-pressed to stay on her gelding. I kicked my feet out of the stirrups, dropped the reins, and flew forward.

  Nimrod was there before me. The netted creature’s tiny red eyes stared from beneath its sharp horns in what looked like living hate, and long fangs snapped at him. I dropped to the ground and threw a binding spell onto the horned rabbit. I scarcely dared hope it would work, but the creature fell heavily to its side.

  Nimrod leaped onto the still form at once, adding a cord to the binding properties of my spell. “Good work, Wizard,” he said over his shoulder. “We’ve got it now.”

  But even as he spoke it began to disintegrate. The eyes went lifeless, and first one and then the second horn dropped from its head. The spell that had given the rabbit the appearance of life was breaking up. My binding spell was too much for something that was only held together precariously in the first place. In a moment there was nothing but horns and skin and the smell of decay.

  Diana came up, leading my mare. “So you caught the last great horned rabbit?” she said to Nimrod. “Pretty good work, Hunter!” She seemed assiduously to be ignoring Evrard.

  Nimrod smiled at her mischievously. “If you do decide to marry Dominic, the two of you will have a household even the royal court will envy. Not only will you have your own castle and your own wizard, but you’ll have your own giant huntsman, something even the king doesn’t have!”

  II

  Nimrod and Diana started winding up their nets. There were many more of them than I had at first realized, all carefully knotted from thin cords, almost invisible once in place although the spaces between the cords were so small that only a very powerful creature would have been able to escape. They were certainly much better constructed than my own attempt.

  Nimrod moved off, getting the nets he had laid down further away. Evrard went with him, carefully not looking at the duchess. They were soon well out of earshot.

  The day had become hot, and the sun made me squint. I eased nets free of shrubs and twigs, leaving the winding and packing to Diana and watching her out of the corner of my eye as we worked.

  “My lady,” I said suddenly, and she gave a start as though her thoughts had been far away, “I know something you don’t realize I know. The great horned rabbits were made by your ducal wizard, at your request.”

  “He told you?” she said, stopping and putting her fists on her hips. I didn’t know if her steely glare was for me or Evrard.

  “I’d worked it out for myself. But he doesn’t know why you’d wanted them. Nimrod clearly thinks he knows. You heard him just now. He’s treating the rabbits as a test—a test which he’s now passed—with you as the prize at the end.”

  Diana had given up any pretense of winding the nets.

  “And you don’t know this either, but Evrard’s horned rabbits—and something else he tried to make—were what decided the old wizard to shake off his lethargy and create a man-like creature. You’ve got to tell me: why did you want horned rabbits? I would even have thought you had known Nimrod before, and were going to use the rabbits as an excuse to call on him for help, except that you were so surprised when he first appeared.”

  Her fury dissolved in one breath. Hands still on her hips, she slowly began to smile. “You know, Wizard, you’re smarter than you like to appear.”

  I would try to appreciate later what was probably a compliment. I kept staring at her, trying to look severe and compelling.

  She still did not answer my question, but began again winding up the net she had dropped a minute before.

  I tried another approach. “How about the old count? He was terrified by your horned rabbits.”

  “We stopped by his castle yesterday,” she said with an amused look. She could be as stubborn as I. “We’d already caught the second rabbit and told him we’d soon have the third. He seemed relieved.”

  We were interrupted at this point as Evrard and Nimrod came back with the rest of the nets. The huntsman moved easily through the brush, like a giant cat.

  I made a sudden decision. I had no more time to waste on the duchess and her games. “Evrard, you and I have to get back to the royal castle at once, to see what’s Dominic been doing and find a way to make the old wizard dismantle his creature. Nimrod, I’d like you to come with us. If by any chance it gets loose, I’ll need your help in tracking it.”

  “Of course,” he said, with a smile for the duchess. “My lady enjoys watching me track things. But I should tell you, Wizard, that if the creature gets away from your predecessor, it may head this way. When I tracked those soldiers of hair and bone I told you about, up in the eastern mountains, we caught many of them on a peak that was locally reputed to be magical.”

  He paused, and when he spoke again there was a hint of tension in what seemed an offhand request. “But before we go, as long as we’re here, I’d like to see the Holy Grove.”

  “The Grove?” I wanted to act now, not be a tour guide.

  He gestured up the valley. “The ducal wizard was telling me about it while we rolled up the nets. I gather there’s a hermitage, and a wood nymph, and a river that shoots directly out of the hillside.”

  I sensed something behind Nimrod’s casual words—or thought I did. I wished I knew him better. His words did not at any rate seem to have any hidden meaning to the duchess. She smiled. “It’s certainly worth seeing, and we won’t be closer anytime soon. Just wait until I get this last net wound up.”

  “I must get back to the royal castle,” I said.

  “We’ll have to go within a quarter mile of the Holy Grove anyway to get out of the valley,” said the duchess. “I at any rate have no intention of scrambling up these valley walls! It shouldn’t take long to show the grove to Nimrod. He is my huntsman, Wizard. If you want his services, you’ll have to wait until I’m done with him.”

  We rode back up toward the head of the valley, Nimrod striding at the duchess’s stirrup. The sun had by now moved past noon, and we seemed to be progressing very slowly. When we reached the open area below the waterfall, Diana pointed out the toeholds carved in the cliff face.

  “It wouldn’t be as dangerous as it looks,” said Nimrod, looking upward with an interested frown. “The cliff is not perfectly vertical but angled, and the toeholds are well placed.”

  “As I know well,” said the duchess. “When I was about fifteen, I climbed down here myself, just to see if I could do it. Be flattered,” she said to all of us. “I’ve never told anyone
about it before.”

  “You told me,” said Nimrod with a smile. “That’s part of the reason I’d been eager to see the valley.”

  “I told you?” Diana turned toward him with clear surprise. “But—” She recollected herself and laughed. “Of course I did. I’d just forgotten. All right, then, you already know that the young heiress to the duchy wanted to see the valley, but not to see it the way any ordinary girl would!”

  Evrard appeared to have thought of a new way to impress his employer. “Wait until you meet the wood nymph!” he said to the duchess and Nimrod.

  “I’ve only seen her once before,” said the duchess. “That is, I’ve always hoped it was the wood nymph, although I could never be certain. It was the time I just mentioned, when I climbed down. There was a girl in the grove, who seemed both to be my age and to be a thou sand years old. She had remarkable violet eyes. She looked at me a moment without speaking, then disappeared.”

  “You have to be a wizard to be able to call a nymph,” said Evrard confidently, “—or,” he added after a second, “be someone to whom the nymph wants to talk anyway.”

  We left our horses and walked up to the pool and the shrine of the Holy Toe. Diana and Nimrod went first, she swinging her riding crop and whistling, and he walking with very stiff shoulders and silent footfalls. Much as I wanted to be on our way, his behavior intrigued me. I glanced toward Evrard as we came along behind, but he did not seem interested in the pair before us. The hermit came out and blessed them, as Evrard and I waited a few yards away. Nimrod’s face was very still, and I could read no expression in it.

  “You know,” said Evrard, low enough I hoped that the hermit would not overhear, “I’m not very impressed with this Cranky Saint. Wouldn’t a really powerful saint make it clear to everybody exactly what he wanted, and then blast those entrepreneurs with lightning?”

  This seemed more like a question for Joachim than for me, but I was spared from having to answer by the hermit. “I trust your day is going well, my sons, with God’s help,” he called to us with a smile.

  In spite of the smile and friendly tone, I immediately felt guilty. I took his comment as a gentle reminder of the responsibilities with which he had earlier charged me. But at least he did not summon us to join Nimrod and Diana before the shrine.

  They still knelt at the hermit’s feet, his hands resting lightly on their hair. While the hermit looked toward me, I saw the duchess turn toward Nimrod. Their eyes met, and slowly he began to smile. In return she gave a sudden, secret grin.

  I would have liked to conclude she was only mocking the old hermit and his piety. It was better than the alternative, which came with immediate if irrational conviction: that she had decided to treat this blessing as some sort of renegade marriage ceremony.

  I shook my head. This was ridiculous. On top of everything else, I seemed to be losing my good sense. Diana and Nimrod thanked the hermit for his blessing, rose, and came to join us.

  At last, I thought, we could start for the castle. But now Nimrod appeared very interested in the spring, where the river shot out of the side of the cliff. He folded up his tall frame to crawl along the narrow, damp shelf at the edge of the river, back into the cliff. The rest of us watched and waited as his feet disappeared from view into the blackness.

  In a moment we heard his voice, echoing hollowly. “I think it opens up a little back here. It’s too dark to see well, but—” A splash cut off whatever else he might have intended to say. In a moment he reemerged, laughing and wet all along one side. “Whew, that water’s cold,” he said as he stood up and wrung out his hair. “You’d need a torch to explore the cave properly. Even in the dim light from the entrance, the first big room looked as though it was festooned with colored icicles.”

  “There can’t be anything in there very interesting, besides rocks,” said Evrard impatiently. “Come on, and you can meet the nymph.”

  Nimrod’s short visit to the Holy Grove seemed to be growing longer and longer, but I felt powerless to do anything about it. For two days the valley had beguiled me; now I only wanted to get out of it. I tried to persuade myself that Dominic had paid a short, friendly visit to the old wizard and was now safely back at the castle.

  Evrard led the way, along the little pebble-marked paths through the grove, to the tree that I thought was the nymph’s tree. But here he hesitated. “I don’t see my footprint.”

  “The ground’s damp anyway, and it’s rained recently,” I said. “A footprint won’t last long.”

  “Or maybe it’s the wrong tree.”

  Now he had me confused. “You should know better than I,” I said pointedly. We moved back, looking at all the adjacent trees, then at other beeches further away. I caught the duchess giving Nimrod an amused smile.

  “No, I think it must have been the first tree after all,” said Evrard after ten minutes. But somehow none of the trees now seemed like the tree we had stood beneath only a short time before.

  “Try using the spell to call her,” I said in a low voice. The duchess would not find this amusing much longer.

  Evrard frowned, bit his lip, frowned again, and started on the spell. He finished with a flourish and looked up expectantly. There was a long silence, broken only by the soft murmur of the leaves and the rushing of the river.

  “I thought you were going to introduce us to the wood nymph, Wizard,” said Diana testily.

  “Maybe she doesn’t want to talk to so many people at the same time,” I said, then realized that by speaking for Evrard I was giving the impression that he needed my protection.

  “Daimbert,” said Evrard, who seemed to realize this too, “how about if you and Nimrod go back to the horses, and I’ll see if the nymph will come out for the duchess and me alone.” He moved to another tree and, with a good show of confidence, started on the spell again as Nimrod and I left the grove.

  “The horned rabbits must have been frustrating prey,” I commented as we scrambled down the path beside the waterfall, “since they disintegrate as soon as you catch them.” I was no longer interested in the horned rabbits, but if he talked I hoped to be able to see more of the edge of tension I thought I could feel running under the huntsman’s apparent good humor.

  He smiled unexpectedly. “For me, they’ve provided highly satisfactory hunting,” he said. “But I must say, it’s been more comfortable since I worked out they were neither monsters from the land of dragons, nor creatures made with black magic, but only something my lady the duchess requested from her ducal wizard.”

  I turned to stare at him. “Did she tell you that?”

  “No, but I’m good at guessing,” he answered easily.

  We sat down on the grass near our horses. I glanced toward the grove, wondering if Evrard had had any luck. It was rapidly growing late, yet I hated to call him away from an opportunity to show off his magical abilities to his employer.

  I turned back toward Nimrod’s well-chiseled profile. He seemed deep in thought. “You still haven’t told me why you came to Yurt,” I said.

  He took a sudden, sharp breath, and then his eyes twinkled at me as his shoulders relaxed again. “Maybe I have private reasons for being interested. And, as I told you before, hunters keep track of what needs hunting.”

  “But you seemed to know about the great horned rabbits almost before we did.”

  He only smiled and shook his head.

  If he wanted to be mysterious, I could do some guessing of my own. If he had known the duchess before, perhaps some years earlier when she had spent several seasons in the City, he might have wanted to enter the kingdom to reestablish their acquaintance, and have preferred for reasons of his own to come incognito. The appearance of the great horned rabbits would have provided a useful excuse for an excellent hunter. But I was still not sure what, if any, connection there might be between Nimrod, the Cranky Saint, and the money-making enterprise at the top of the cliff.

  “Had you learned about Saint Eusebius of Yurt before you came her
e?” I asked cautiously.

  “The duchess told me a little about him,” he replied, equally cautiously. “Why?”

  His answer seemed deliberately to leave in doubt whether he knew anything beyond what she had said. Before I could formulate a response, I was distracted by movement on the road down into the valley.

  My first wild thought, in spite of all my attempts at calm rationality, was that it was the old wizard’s monster, but then I saw it was instead a group of horsemen. Nimrod had seen them too and stood up. With the aid of a far-seeing spell I could tell that there were four mounted men, all dressed as priests and followed by a pack horse. The man riding at the head was Joachim.

  III

  I jumped at once to my feet, vastly relieved. With Joachim here, I could turn over the hermit, the Holy Toe, and the entrepreneurs to him. I realized that, somewhere in the back of my mind, I also hoped he would be able to help deal with the old wizard’s monster, even though, as I had often told him myself, magic was much more efficient than religion if one had to face magical creatures. I only restrained myself from flying to meet him by the recollection that the priests from the church that wanted the Cranky Saint’s relics might not look kindly on magic being practiced only a short distance from the Holy Grove.

  “Who’s coming?” asked the duchess behind me. I had not heard her approach.

  “It’s the royal chaplain and the priests he was expecting.” I turned to see Evrard flash me a grin of triumph.

  None of the others seemed interested in the arrival of some priests in the valley. Diana started telling Nimrod about the nymph, who had apparently spoken briefly with them. Leaving them behind, I started down the road to meet the riders.

  I prepared myself for a formal, even distant greeting. Joachim might not want to advertise his friendship with a wizard.

  But then he lifted his head, gave a highly unexpected but quite genuine smile, and swung down off his horse. “I’m delighted to see you, Daimbert,” he said, wringing my hand. “I’d assumed you were off chasing horned rabbits across the fields of Yurt. I didn’t dare hope you might be here.”