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 received 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, dif
ficult 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 must 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?”
The tall prince smiled at last, a smile that transformed his face. He lifted her up and swung her far off the ground, so that her dress billowed out and she laughed breathlessly. He said loudly enough for everyone to hear, “Diana, I love you and always will, but you are the world’s worst tease!”
I looked quickly at Dominic. He was caught between relief and wounded dignity, but relief appeared to be winning.
The constable pushed forward through the suddenly laughing and talking crowd to make himself heard. “If you would all like to proceed to the chapel for the wedding, I can promise you a fine feast afterwards!”
With good-natured jostling, everyone made their way up the narrow stairs to the castle chapel. The kitchen staff were still desperately cooking and preparing, but the rest of the servants joined the knights and ladies.
There was a brief hesitation over who should escort the bride to the altar. For a moment I was afraid the duchess would ask Dominic, but she seemed to decide that that would push her luck too far, for to my surprise she asked me.
“So how did you finally decide to accept Prince Ascelin?” I asked in a low voice as we stood at the door of the chapel, waiting for everyone to settle down and for the music to begin.
She squeezed my arm and smiled. “I’d always intended to marry him. I know you realized that all along.”
If she thought I had guessed far more than I in fact had, I was not going to disabuse her.
“That’s why I had my wizard make the great horned rabbits, of course, so I could have an excuse to invite him into the kingdom. After refusing him five years ago, I couldn’t very well send him a message by the pigeons that I had changed my mind! I had to have a chance to see him, to hunt with him, to make sure his own heart hadn’t changed.
“When we’d known each other in the City, all I saw was someone extremely handsome, an extremely good dancer, who seemed to have a much too priggish moral sense for any young member of the aristocracy. He’d told me he was a renowned hunter, but I’d never even seen him hunt. I had to turn him down. But in the years since then … Of course, his seeking sanctuary, when Dominic wanted to kill him, I at first thought was cowardice. But then I realized it was both courage and good moral sense, and maybe I need more of the latter myself.”
She laughed up at me, then turned it into a frown. “There is one thing I still don’t know. I’d had my wizard make the horned rabbits so Ascelin and I could hunt them together, but why did he appear in Yurt even before I’d had a chance to send him a message?”
I smiled. “Once you’re married, I’m sure he’ll tell you.”
It was almost like a fairy tale, in which the handsome peasant boy woos and wins the lovely princess, except that Prince Ascelin had never been a peasant, and Diana had never imagined that he was.
The chapel’s brass choir began then to play, and I tucked her hand firmly under my arm and walked with her down the aisle. Joachim, looking sober, and Nimrod, looking overwhelmingly glad, waited for us by the altar.
III
The service was short but dignified. The duchess glowed, and Nimrod’s rough clothes became trivial compared with his happiness. Dominic sat impassively throughout, but at the end he did step forward to be the first of the spectators to kiss the bride.
In the talking and laughing that followed, I heard him say to young Hugo, “You know, I may indeed take you up on your offer to go back to the City with you.”
I slipped away from the knot of people around the altar with no attention to spare for Dominic. I had an idea.
In the great hall the kitchen staff was still setting up the tables for the wedding feast. I went quickly by them with a nod for Gwen and into the room where we kept the magic glass telephone.
It took me several tries, including a call to the wizards’ school, before I was able to get the magic coordinates for the kingdom far up in the eastern mountains where Elerius was Royal Wizard. Then it took several minutes for him to come to the phone. I realized my heart was beginning to pound, as though I might have only a few moments before the monster was on us, and the time was almost gone.
At first Elerius didn’t remember me, although he tried politely to act as though he did. When he finally realized that, in spite of the white beard, I was the Daimbert, three classes behind him, who had always seemed so unpromising to the masters, he surprised me by congratulating me with apparently complete sincerity on the invention of the far-seeing telephone. But he then had trouble under standing what I wanted.
“It’s been made with the old magic,” I repeated, willing the tiny figure in the telephone base to know the solution. His black eyebrows made triangles over his eyes, which were a light brown, almost tawny yellow, and which I had always found disturbing in spite of their inevitably helpful expression. “Something similar to the spells you taught in that course at the school this spring.”
“And you’ve already tried shooting it and paralyzing it?”
“That’s what I said. And nothing works.”
Elerius thought this over, looking troubled. He had always been very kind to the younger wizardry students and indeed seemed anxious, unlike most older wizards, to be friendly with everyone. If we hadn’t always been so jealous of him, we probably would have liked him.
“There isn’t a single spell to give sticks and bones the semblance of life,” he said at last. “Your predecessor
’s magic certainly falls into a certain category of spells, the same category I learned from the old magician here, but at a certain point every renegade wizard who tries to create a living being must go about it differently.”
“And there isn’t a universal spell to dissolve such creatures?”
“I don’t think so, Daimbert, or if so I certainly don’t know it.”
“How about the teachers at the school?” I asked urgently. “I heard—” I considered trying to explain about Nimrod and gave it up. “I heard that, some years ago, a renegade wizard made a whole army of creatures out of hair and bone, and the school was able to catch them and destroy them.”
“I’m afraid,” said Elerius dryly, running a hand over his black beard, “that that was the old magician here in my kingdom. The masters of the school won’t know any spells against creatures more complex than what young Evrard made. The magician had been in hiding ever since, until I found him up in the mountains only a month before he died. He knew he didn’t have long, and he taught me the spells before he went.”
I closed and opened my eyes. “All right. Thank you. I’ll see what I can improvise. Just promise me one thing.”
“Certainly.”
“If I fail, I’ll telephone you again—or I’ll leave word to have someone else call if the monster kills me. Should that happen, swear to me you’ll get the best help possible, from the school or from any other wizards there may be who know the old magic. You’ve got to come to Yurt and stop this thing.”
He nodded slowly. “I promise to try. But I’m confident the creator of the far-seeing telephone will find a way himself.”
I leaned my forehead against the stone wall once he hung up, wishing I felt as confident. My predecessor was gone far beyond where I could ask his advice. If the best wizardry student the school had ever had, one invited back to teach a magic none of the older masters knew, didn’t know any spells more complicated than those to make great horned rabbits, I had no idea how I was going to stop the monster. But somehow I had to.
The Wood Nymph & the Cranky Saint Page 27