The Wood Nymph, the Cranky Saint

“And it might even be safer,” said Evrard, looking dubiously at the scaffolding.

“Are you another wizard?” the young man cried in delight, noticing the moons and stars embroidered on the jacket slung over Evrard’s saddlebag. “I knew it! The Royal Wizard has brought you here, hasn’t he, to join in our enterprise. It’s a wonderful opportunity, I assure you! Once the hordes of tourists and pilgrims start to arrive, the silver pennies will just pour in.”

I had dismounted for a closer look at the figurines, but I froze when Evrard did not answer. I swiveled around toward him. Could he possibly be taking such a proposal seriously?

Still mounted, he turned his blue eyes ingenuously toward the young man. “I’ll have to take it under advisement,” he said gravely. “You realize, of course, that unless you were able to pay me at least five hundred silver pennies a week, it wouldn’t be worth my while. That’s what the duchess is paying me. And of course I’d need a month’s advance before I could even consider beginning.”

I turned my back to hide a sudden grin and picked up a figurine of a toe.

The young man gasped behind me. “But five hundred silver pennies-” He paused briefly. “Well,” he continued then in a calculating tone, “if we charged them twenty-five pennies each for a magic ride, and were able to get at least twenty pilgrims a week, we would gross that much. And although we’d been thinking of twenty-five pennies for the round trip, we might be able to charge them fifteen pennies to descend and twenty more for the ascent. But by the time we divided it …”

“How many ways were you planning to divide the money made by my magic?” asked Evrard.

I held my breath, listening.

“Well, five, counting you, although we need half the receipts for ‘overhead,’ and we’d also promised …” There was a long pause. “And we’ll have to negotiate on the month’s advance. Look, why don’t you give me a chance to talk to the others, and we’ll be in touch. You say you’re working with the duchess now?”

“Who are the others?” I demanded, turning sharply around. Joachim had said three priests were coming, and I suddenly wondered if they might be this young man’s still unseen associates.

His answer did nothing to dissuade me on this point. “Just some friends of mine,” he said vaguely. “Keep in touch, Wizards!”

He stepped back under the shade of the big tree across from his booth, without even trying to persuade me to buy the ugly figurine of the Holy Toe I was still holding. I put it back down next to a rather misshapen dragon and remounted.

When we had ridden a hundred yards from the booth I turned to Evrard and said, “Try telling the duchess she’s paying you five hundred silver pennies a week. You may be surprised at her answer.”

The walls of the narrow valley stretched their shadows over us as we followed the river upstream toward the holy grove. The cooler air and the murmur of the flowing water took away the incipient headache which had been growing during our dusty ride, but I also realized how late in the day it had become.

“First we should set traps for the horned rabbits in case there are still any in the valley,” I said. “How did you catch them before?”

“The first time,” said Evrard with a frown, “I used a calling spell, flew up to them once they came near, and grabbed them. I had to get them by the rear end, or they’d bite-and even so they kicked. I didn’t try a trap for fear they would disintegrate. But these past few days, they were moving much faster and seemed much more cunning, so I’m not sure grabbing them will work anymore.”

The results of the old wizard’s improvements, I thought. “Well, let’s try a trap now,” I said. I found some string in my saddlebag from which I tried to weave a net.

“That doesn’t look very effective,” commented Evrard.

He was right; city boys never learn much about nets. But I wasn’t going to say so. “It will be fine,” I said loftily, “once I attach a paralysis spell.”

I had actually made myself fairly good at attaching spells to objects. In a few more minutes, I had my net arranged under a bush, where I hoped a rabbit might hop. Anything that entered the net should immediately become paralyzed. I doubted the spell would last more than a short time, so any other creature that blundered in would soon be able to escape again, but with any luck the spell would cause a horned rabbit to disintegrate. “We can check later,” I said, “and see how many we’ve caught.”

Evrard gathered what he told me were especially tempting herbs for rabbits and dropped them into the net, from a height of several feet so as not to imprison his own hand.

“But since they’re not alive, they don’t eat,” I objected.

“I think they still have the habit of eating,” he said gravely, “laid down in the bones. I saw them nibbling on plants like this before.”

As we started up the path toward the waterfall and the grove, I said, “Remember what I warned you. Even if we don’t actually see the hermit, we shouldn’t make any remark about the Holy Toe that he might overhear-we don’t want to insult him.” To sound less like a schoolteacher, I added, “It may be hard. It is awfully silly.”

“From what you say,” said Evrard, much more seriously than I expected, “the saint, the wood nymph, and a succession of hermits have all been living here together for generations. The hermits-and for that matter the saint himself-must have gotten used to the nymph. She can’t always have made respectfully pious remarks, yet by now they must be able to get along.”

I glanced back toward the rough stone huts among the trees. Today I saw no sign of the hermit’s apprentices. “But maybe some of her remarks have helped keep the saint cranky. And that still doesn’t mean they are used to the comments of young wizards.”

I paused, struck by a new idea. “But maybe it does! After all, both my predecessor and the old ducal wizard seem to have known the wood nymph quite well, a long time ago. If the hermits, the saint, and the nymph have made a threesome for generations, then maybe the wizards of Yurt have been a consistent fourth.”

“Well, who else would keep a nymph entertained?” asked Evrard with a mischievous sideways glance from his wide blue eyes. “A hermit’s not going to provide her with much action-and even less so a disembodied saint, when all that’s left of him is his toe!”

But when we reached the grove, he seemed suitably respectful. “So-there it is,” he said in a colorless voice, looking at the shrine of Saint Eusebius. If the detailing on the golden reliquary matched the saint’s toe accurately, he had had an ingrown toenail. Perhaps that was one of the reasons he was cranky. “I don’t see the hermit. Should we call him?”

“He’s probably praying,” I said. “We shouldn’t disturb him. Last time I saw the nymph beyond those trees. Let’s start over there.”

We picked our way across the damp ground, following the faintly marked trails between the little springs. There was nothing in or behind the first dozen trees we looked at. In a short distance the thick foliage and the smooth, silent trunks had managed to confuse me, so that I was no longer sure where I had come when I was here before. I was however fairly sure the nymph was teasing us deliberately. Several times we nearly lost our footing in the mud.

I had almost decided we should start for the duchess’s castle before it became any later when I heard Evrard catch his breath. I turned my head very slowly.

She leaned against the pale trunk of a beech, as I had seen her before, her enormous violet eyes fixed on us but no expression on her face.

“Good day,” said Evrard tentatively, which drew no response.

But I began at once with the words of the Hidden Language. When I finished the spell I paused, watching her. Her expression altered like ice breaking up in the spring. She began to smile, a smile both delighted and delightful.

“The spell worked!” I thought and just managed not to say out loud.

“Greetings, Wizards!” she said. “It’s been a long time since a wizard has been here, much less two!” Her eyes twinkled. “If I’m not mistaken, one of you is the new Royal Wizard of Yurt, and the other the new Ducal Wizard.”

“Greetings, Lady,” said Evrard, apparently perfectly at ease. “Daimbert has been Royal Wizard for two years, but he hasn’t had a chance to meet you before. I’m Evrard, the duchess’s wizard. I’ve just recently arrived in the