The Wood Nymph, the Cranky Saint

to make that creature after he’d found yours.”

“Come on, Daimbert, don’t start talking like a schoolteacher! I’m sure you wanted to impress your king two years ago, just as I’m trying to impress the duchess.”

He was right; I was starting to sound like a schoolteacher. I tried to make my next comment sound like one student giving a friendly warning to another. “Sorry about that. But I should tell you some thing. The duchess’s father, the old duke, once kept a wizard. Nearly every one, as far as I can tell, considered him fairly incompetent. Yet it was in this fairly incompetent wizard’s books that I first discovered the spell I think the old wizard is using.”

Evrard shrugged and smiled. “Well, I can use it too, even if I can’t make anything that impressive. I bet your predecessor’s never had problems like horns falling off!”

Not fifteen minutes ago he had been clinging to me in terror. I was irritated enough with his good humor that I let my mare fall behind, so conversation would be impossible. Wizardry students always played tricks on each other, and wizards outside the school normally did not get along at all, but I had been hoping for better relations with the duchess’s wizard.

As we came out of the woods half an hour later and started up the hill toward the castle, I glanced surreptitiously over the wall into the little cemetery where kings of Yurt and servants-and chaplains and wizards-of Yurt had been buried for generations. But I saw no sign that anyone had been digging there among the quiet graves.

IV

We had left the castle early, and it was not yet noon. The old wizard and his creature would need to be watched, but they were not the only strange events going on in Yurt these days. If I could first determine what the duchess was doing, I told myself, and why her tall huntsman had appeared now, then I’d be able to focus on my predecessor. Left alone for a few days, he might even become less furious with me … At lunch, I made a point of talking to Nimrod.

Sitting next to him was not the difficulty I had thought it might be, for as we all assembled in the great hall Dominic announced that he had decided that our places ought to be moved around, and he seated himself next to the duchess.

Nimrod hesitated, then came over when I motioned to him. He walked very gracefully in spite of his height, as if he were holding great strength in check. Sitting down, he no longer towered above me. His long hair was neatly pulled back and tied with a leather thong, and he had excellent table manners for someone who had emerged from the woods looking like a wild man.

The clattering of dishes and spoons made a good screen for private conversation. But Nimrod spoke before I could. “I’m glad I’m having a chance to talk to you properly at last, Wizard. What are those horned rabbits, anyway? I know every natural thing of woods and field, and there are none like these.”

He spoke in a low voice. I glanced around the table and decided no one was listening to us. Dominic attentively served the duchess before himself and said something which, from his rather forced smile, was probably meant to be a joke. Knowing Dominic, I doubted it was very funny, but Diana laughed appreciatively.

“They were made by wizardry, but not mine,” I said. I looked at Nimrod from under my eyebrows, wishing again they were shaggy. “You seemed to know about their existence already when you first appeared in Yurt, and I’d like to hear how you knew.”

Nimrod gave me a sharp look, and then unexpectedly he grinned. The suntanned skin made little wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. “Did you suspect me of commissioning a wizard to create magic rabbits, just so I’d have an excuse to come into the kingdom?”

“No,” I said, although in fact at one point I had. I considered giving him an even sterner look and smiled back instead. “You still haven’t said how you first heard about them.”

He hesitated, then said at last, “News of strange creatures travels fast among huntsmen, and I like to go where there’s a challenge.”

This rather cryptic statement raised more questions than it answered. I was about to ask him more, when Dominic’s voice, louder than normal, caught both our attentions.

“Perhaps we should have a ball in your honor, gracious lady,” he was saying to the duchess. “I’m sure the king and queen would have wanted to take advantage of your extended stay in the royal castle to show you some sort of distinction.”

For a second I thought this was meant to be a hint, rather subtle for Dominic, that she had already outstayed her welcome, but when he smiled again and rested his hand on hers it occurred to me that the royal nephew, in his own way, was trying to flirt with Diana.

I glanced quickly at Nimrod to see how he was taking it. He too was looking at the duchess and seemed thoroughly amused.

For a brief moment, Diana stiffened, but she did not pull her hand away. “That would be delightful,” she said with what looked like a genuine smile, and warmly enough to make up for her hesitation.

“You know,” said Dominic, leaning back as though comfortably relaxed, “I feel as though I’ve been blind all these years, not to realize before how lovely you are.”

All other conversation at both tables had stopped. In both the chambers of knights and ladies and in the kitchens, I knew, there would later be extended speculation and discussion of what Dominic could be doing. But now everyone was too interested to see what he might say next-and how she would respond.

She gave a quick glance down the table, though I could not tell if she were looking toward Nimrod or me. “That’s very dear of you to say, Dominic,” she said, “but at our age we scarcely need detain ourselves with these adolescent cooings, do we?”

Dominic took his hand back and frowned. The duchess, her head cocked, smiled sweetly at him. I knew she was teasing him, as apparently did Nimrod, but Dominic was still working it out. Given a choice between interpreting her words as a rejection or as a suggestion that he should speed up his courtship of her-which was indeed proceeding much too slowly for a couple past their first youth-he fell into silence. His silence became embarrassing when no one else at the table spoke either.

“Did Daimbert tell you we visited the old wizard of Yurt today?” asked Evrard abruptly.

He was too far down the table for me to kick. I tried speaking to him directly, mind to mind, but he had his thoughts well shielded.

It took the rest of the table a second to remember that I was named Daimbert, but then several seized on the conversational topic, because, fascinating as the interchange between Dominic and Diana had been, it had also become very awkward.

“We haven’t seen the old wizard since Christmas, I think,” said one of the knights. “Is he still well?” The servant’s table had given up any pretense of not listening to the head table.

I tried glaring at Evrard, but he was not looking in my direction. Turning him into a frog would certainly divert the conversation, but that seemed a little too drastic.

I did not, I told Evrard’s unresponsive mind, want the royal court to hear how the old wizard was losing control at least of his house keeping, probably of his magic, and perhaps of his mind. I certainly did not want to cast them into panic at the thought of an undead creature stalking the night. I’d calmed down enough to decide I should be able to handle the thing if by chance it did get loose, but a terrorized population could be very hard to deal with.

But Evrard, who perhaps could hear my silent shouts after all, initially fixed on a different aspect of our visit. “He’s got some spectacular magic effects,” he said. “Did you know that he has the most beautiful lady in the world sitting by the bridge into his valley?”

Most of the court had seen the illusory lady and her unicorn at some point. “Better than what they have at your school, Wizard?” the same knight asked.

“A lot better,” said Evrard. Zahlfast would not have been pleased to hear a recent graduate running down the school so casually. “And he’s working on something new, too.” No, stop, you idiot! “He wouldn’t let us have a real look at it, because he’s still hammering out the details, but this one’s as frightening as his Lady is beautiful.”