The Wood Nymph & the Cranky Saint

by C. Dale Brittain

  He turned to introduce me to the other priests who, as I expected, had come from the distant church where Saint Eusebius had originally made his vocation. I looked quickly at their faces, wondering if they might be the purported pilgrims who had climbed down the cliff to the grove. But they were completely unfamiliar. They did, however, all give me highly suspicious looks.

  Joachim looped his horse’s reins over his arms and walked beside me, while the priests, still mounted, rode behind. He appeared much more at peace than when I had last seen him.

  “I decided two mornings ago to meet these priests at the cathedral city,” he said, “in order to have a chance to talk to the bishop. I’m afraid I slipped away very early and rather secretly. I wanted a fast horse, to be sure of reaching the cathedral city before the priests left there for Yurt.”

  His black eyes flashed at me with what in someone else would have been mischievous enjoyment. “The fastest horse in the stables, of course, used to be the queen’s stallion, until she sold it when the little prince was born. So I took Prince Dominic’s new one. Naturally, I didn’t tell him what I was doing. The stable boy was still too sleepy to give me an argument. When we all got back to the castle late last night, Dominic wasn’t there.”

  This made it complete. The regent would now be furious with all of us. There were few horses in the royal stables that could carry him easily, now that he had gotten so heavy, and he had been inordinately proud of the enormous but light-footed chestnut he had bought that spring. And for the chaplain, of all people, to take it!

  But this thought was driven out by another. Why had Dominic not been back at the castle? It was only a short distance down to the old wizard’s cottage in the woods. But if the royal regent and Yurt’s best knights had come hammering on the green door, anything might have happened.

  But I didn’t dare say anything to the chaplain about this with the priests so close behind. “That’s not Dominic’s stallion,” I said instead, looking back at the mount Joachim was leading.

  “Of course not. His is a wonderful stallion, very fast and nearly tireless, but it deserved a rest once the need for speed was over.” He smiled again. At this rate he would soon break his previous record for most smiles in an hour. “It was good to see the bishop. I should have gone there before, rather than relying on messages.”

  By now we had reached the others. Joachim performed the introductions quickly. Nimrod appeared highly startled to see the priests. He stepped quickly back into the shadow of the trees, turning his face away, while they too stared at him in surprise.

  “And I have a message you’ll all be interested in,” Joachim said. “Since almost everyone else in the castle was gone, the constable had me come to the telephone when the king and queen called last night. The baby prince has taken his first steps.”

  Evrard smiled politely, and Diana said, “How sweet.” I alone was as delighted to hear this news as Joachim. I was also intensely relieved the royal family was not here in Yurt but rather some where safe, where a baby’s first steps could be the most exciting event.

  The priests of Saint Eusebius left us and headed toward the shrine. The duchess glanced upward. The sun had long since passed from the narrow valley, and the afternoon sky far above was a pale blue. “It’s late,” she said. “We’d better get started if we’re heading back to the royal castle. We won’t get there tonight, but I’ve got a tent big enough for at least four.”

  Before I could answer, Evrard said, “I don’t know about Daimbert, but I’m staying here. Just leave me a little more to eat, my lady—the wood nymph’s berries aren’t very filling!”

  I imagined five or six things that Diana might say in the short pause before she answered, but then she only said, very quietly, “I’d somehow imagined that my ducal wizard would be able to help me with magical problems and magical creatures.”

  Evrard refused to take the hint. “I thought I’d already helped you with magical creatures,” he said with a wink.

  Diana took a short breath through her nose, not quite a snort.

  “I myself—” I started.

  But Joachim didn’t give me a chance to finish. “Will you stay with us this evening, Daimbert?” he asked, turning his enormous dark eyes on me. “The priests and I will pass the night near the hermitage, and I’d very much like your counsel.”

  This was becoming like a frustrating dream, in which one runs and runs but never reaches the goal. I had been trying to leave the valley since early this morning, but now I was trapped back here for another night. Joachim had never before, that I could recall, asked specifically for my counsel.

  “Of course,” I said. There was nothing else I could have said.

  In a few minutes, Evrard had disappeared back toward the nymph’s end of the grove, carrying bread and cheese from the duchess’s supplies; she and Nimrod had started along the road that would lead them back out of the valley; and Joachim and I went up to the shrine of the Holy Toe.

  The priests were kneeling at the altar and showed no immediate sign of seizing the golden reliquary of the toe and making a dash for it. Two of them were middle-aged, and the third, who kept giving the others nervous glances, was younger, probably about the same age as Joachim and I. Once they and the old hermit had finished exchanging blessings, we all started back down the valley.

  “We knew, of course,” said one of the older priests, “that Saint Eusebius had retreated to a grove far from the bustle of the city when he decided to become a hermit.” The priest was as round as an apple, and he breathed hard after the scramble down the track by the falls, but his eyes did not have any of the good humor I had always associated with apples. “But somehow I had not expected that now, a full fifteen hundred years later, the site of his hermitage would still be located in such a God-forsaken wilderness.”

  “God never forsakes any land of His creation,” said the other older priest, who was as thin as the other was round. He spoke intensely, and his eyes seemed to gleam.

  “We’ll have to sleep rough tonight,” continued the round priest, paying no attention to this comment. Then he held up a hand, as though to forestall a remark no one in fact had made. “But we must not grumble. God demands far harder of those dedicated to His service.”

  “And we must follow to the death,” agreed the thin priest. He whirled on their younger colleague. “I hope you understand fully!”

  “Fully!” the young priest cried in panic.

  I didn’t dare meet Joachim’s eye. But he seemed calm and peaceful. I was quite sure I would not have been as calm after more than two days in these priests’ company. I reflected how fortunate I was to have come to a royal court where Joachim was the chaplain, rather than someone like either of the older priests. Whatever he wanted of me, I fervently hoped we could finish our discussion tonight.

  “Tomorrow,” said the thin priest, “we shall pray that the saint make his will unequivocally clear to us—that is, his will that we take his relics back with us.”

  “I have no doubt Eusebius will be clear at the last,” said Joachim. “This is, after all, the saint who responded, when a man importuned him incessantly to straighten his crooked arm, by resetting the bone so violently that bone fragments flew out through the skin.”

  All three priests stared at him, and so did I, but none of them answered.

  “I saw some stone huts further down the valley,” said the round priest instead. “I’m sure they are provided for the crude comfort of pilgrims to the shrine.”

  “In fact,” I put in, “they’re the huts of the old hermit’s apprentices.” All three priests turned to look at me as though surprised I would dare address them, and the thin priest started to speak, but I went on determinedly. “The apprentices like to practice hospitality. They may be willing to let us have one of their huts for tonight.”

  “Ordained priests of the Church have precedence over mere apprentice hermits,” said the round priest. “We shall take those huts that seem most appropriate for our
use.”

  “I’ll ask the apprentices,” said Joachim. Although he spoke quietly, the others turned toward him sharply. “Come with me, Daimbert,” he added, and we walked together down the valley, leaving the other priests looking thoughtfully after us.

  I wondered hopefully if they were planning to report Joachim to the bishop as someone who had become dangerously friendly with a wizard, in which case I need not worry about him being asked to go join the cathedral chapter. I had several things I would have liked to ask, but the only one I ventured was, “What did the bishop say when you talked to him?”

  “He reminded me that God does not give us responsibilities too heavy for us to bear, and that He is always there if we will only turn to Him.”

  This was almost exactly what the old hermit had said to me, although I found that it had eased my worries much less than it seemed to have eased Joachim’s.

  “All priests are called Father,” he continued, “because we act as mediators between humanity and the One Father. But the bishop really is the father of all the Christian souls in two kingdoms. Even with his manifold duties and responsibilities, he still took time for a fatherly discussion with me.”

  “What did he suggest you do about the Cranky— about Saint Eusebius’s relics?”

  It was growing dim under the trees, but Joachim’s eyes were even darker. “He told me that I had his full authority to act, that he was sure the saint would reveal his true purpose to me.”

  “And he told you this while these priests were there?”

  “Of course,” said Joachim in surprise.

  This explained then the three priests’ deference to the Royal Chaplain. It also still sounded as though the bishop was testing him, to discover his true abilities before taking him away from Yurt.

  The apprentices apparently expected us. All five stood together at the edge of the road, jostling and whispering as we approached. And all five dropped to their knees before Joachim. He blessed them calmly, resting his hand in turn on each of their shaved heads.

  “Father, have they, have those priests, have they come to take away the hermit this time?” the apprentices’ leader asked in a strained voice. My attempts to reassure them, two nights ago, had apparently not helped.

  “They’ve not come for your master,” said Joachim. “They’ve come for the relics of Saint Eusebius. I know,” he continued, when all the apprentices gasped in dismay, “that he and you are dedicated to the saint’s service. But it is not yet clear whether they will ultimately take the saint’s relics away with them or leave those relics here. And, even if they do take them, you can follow the relics and the saint to their new home.”

  I tried, unsuccessfully, to imagine the old hermit and his ragged apprentices living in the comfortable urban environment from which I was sure the three priests had come. “For now,” I put in, “we would very much appreciate it if you could let us have one of your huts for the night. I hate to keep turning you out. Don’t you have an extra one you use for storage or something? One hut will do for all of us.”

  But as it turned out, we ended up turning two of the apprentices out of their huts. They did not sit with us around the fire but rather pressed bread, lettuce, and a jug of goat’s milk into our hands and fled. After a supper made up both of the apprentices’ food and some the priests had brought with them—Joachim drank the goat’s milk but the others wouldn’t—the priests of Saint Eusebius went off to the hut they were sharing, reminding each other that one must not grumble about the experiences God sends.

  Joachim and I sat on our horse blankets, spread on the hut’s dirt floor before the fire. I felt that sleeping in a bed and sitting on furniture were a dim memory, something I might once have done in my youth.

  IV

  It was going to be a dark night; there was no moon, and clouds hid the stars. Yet, almost ashamedly, I felt safer, less as though trapped in a nightmare, with the chaplain there, even though I knew that the Church’s normal reaction to magical problems was to leave them to the wizardry they claimed not even to respect.

  Joachim sat staring silently at our small fire. The air from the open doorway made the flames flicker and cast tall, oddly twisted shadows on the wall behind us.

  I was suddenly convinced that he was going to ask me if he should accept the bishop’s invitation to leave Yurt and join the cathedral chapter. Because I didn’t want to have to answer that question, I tried to forestall him with a completely different comment.

  “Here’s something you’ll be interested in. I know you and the bishop were worried that it might not be suitable to have a wood nymph in a Holy Grove. It turns out that she was a good friend of Saint Eusebius, all those years ago, and that the saint converted her to Christianity.”

  Joachim gave me a long look as I pushed on. “It’s actually rather poignant. She’s worried that she may not have a soul. She seems to want to become human, with an immortal soul, even though being human means having to die. I’m afraid she really may not have a soul, because she says her friend the saint has never appeared to her since his death.”

  “You know,” said Joachim, “after two years of knowing you, I still don’t understand your sense of humor.”

  At this I laughed. It was refreshing to be able to laugh. “Of course you don’t understand why I would make a joke about something like this. It’s because I’m not joking!”

  Joachim lifted one eyebrow at my new-found seriousness.

  “Even though she will not grow old or die as long as the world remains,” I continued, “she seems to find something curiously appealing about breaking out of the earth’s endless cycle through death.”

  “Of course,” said Joachim, who did not find this attitude curious at all. He seemed suddenly absorbed by the issue of the wood nymph, although I was sure that was not what was really on his mind. “The world is God’s creation, and has enormous good and potential for good within it, but it is still a fallen world. All of us must find it wearying in the end and long for release into the realm of spirit.”

  I decided it was safest not to comment on this. I was very far from longing for release, and wizards have a much longer life span than ordinary people—even though, from the wood nymph’s point of view, there probably wasn’t a lot of difference between any of us.

  “At any rate,” I said, “if the saint’s relics stay in Yurt, I’m sure the bishop will understand why it won’t be necessary to make her leave. But tell me. You said the saint would reveal his will clearly. Do you know what he really wants to do?”

  Joachim hesitated. “Maybe I made a mistake discussing this with a wizard in the first place.”

  “Too late now,” I said. “And you did say you wanted my counsel.”

  The firelight glinted in the chaplain’s eye, and he shifted his long frame in search of a more comfortable position. He was silent for a moment, looking at the fire rather than at me, and his face slowly went from almost smiling to completely sober.

  “The saint’s intention,” he said at last, “will, I am certain, eventually become clear, but it is not clear yet.” He paused for a moment. “He told me he wanted to leave Yurt, but he wouldn’t say why, or where he wanted to go. The priests of the church of Saint Eusebius led my bishop to believe that he had also appeared in a vision to them, asking for his relics to be transferred to their church.”

  “But when you questioned the priests closely,” I provided when Joachim again seemed to hesitate, “they admitted that the Cranky Saint had said he wanted to leave the grove, but hadn’t specifically said that he wanted to go with them.”

  “But if he didn’t want to go to their church, why should he have appeared to them?” demanded Joachim.

  I decided that the old hermit was right in one thing, that the royal chaplain did indeed seem to take his spiritual responsibilities much too seriously. “Because he was cranky,” I suggested. “Because he knew he’d get a response out of them. Because he was angry at the hermit for not having done something about the
entrepreneurs. That reminds me. I talked to the hermit this morning, and he seems convinced that Saint Eusebius would want to stay if the entrepreneurs were gone.”

  “I didn’t see anyone at the booth when we came by,” said Joachim. “Yet it looks as though they’re actually starting to build a windlass contraption to lower pilgrims down the cliff.”

  “Yesterday morning three men dressed as pilgrims—part of the entrepreneurial group in disguise—climbed down by way of the toeholds and came to visit the hermit.”

  “Maybe they’ve realized their error in trying to make money from the spiritual things of God,” suggested Joachim.

  I found this highly unlikely. “But are the priests planning to take the Holy Toe back with them now?”

  “That’s certainly how they’ve interpreted the will of the saint.”

  “By the way,” I said, “Nimrod seemed surprised to see the three priests. He still won’t say why he came to Yurt.”

  “I thought they were instead surprised to see him,” said Joachim. “The sight of a seven-foot-tall huntsman would startle anyone.”

  “I’m fairly certain now that Nimrod and Diana had known each other previously. Otherwise I don’t think that even she would have left with him when Dominic had just proposed.”

  Outside the hut, the night made low rustling sounds that I told myself would not have sounded nearly as ominous by daylight. We had abruptly reached the topic of the old wizard.

  “Joachim, I’m worried about the regent. He took a group of knights down to the old wizard’s house two days ago, and he certainly should have been back to the castle by last night. Yet you say he wasn’t.”

  “What do you think has happened to him?”

  “Maybe the old wizard put a spell on him. Or maybe the wizard’s monster escaped, and Dominic set off after it and hasn’t been able to catch it.”

  “I told you I wanted your counsel,” said Joachim quietly. “I’ve been trying to find a tactful way to say this, because I don’t want to seem to accuse you of neglecting your responsibilities.” Maybe associating with the priests, who had even less tact than he did, was teaching him some at last. “But your predecessor’s creature has gotten loose.”