conversation with him, but I had no choice.
He swung around sharply when I touched him on the elbow. Now that the red of fury had faded from his face, he seemed oddly pale. “So you call yourself Royal Wizard, when-”
I interrupted without giving him a chance to make an accusation with which, in fact, I agreed. “I need your help. I’m sure you realize that Nimrod didn’t commission any monster. But if there’s a horrible creature loose in Yurt I need to know what it is and what it’s doing. Tell me everything that happened at the old wizard’s cottage.”
Dominic hesitated, anger and his normal sulky nature fighting with what looked like extreme exhaustion. He didn’t even bother to scowl at me. “I decided I had to look at what that young wizard of the duchess’s had tried to suggest was only an illusion. We got an even better ‘look’ than I expected.”
“Yes?” I said impatiently when he paused. It would be entirely appropriate for him to decide, as regent, to fire me for gross neglect of wizardly duties.
“When I knocked at the old wizard’s door,” he continued slowly, “I saw him for just a second, then he stepped aside and this-this thing rushed out at us. It’s almost human, but it didn’t move like a human. And it has no face, only eyes.”
Just two years ago, my predecessor had faithfully served the royal family of Yurt. The strange twist I had felt in his mind-or his soul-had gone even deeper than I thought. It didn’t sound as though his monster had broken loose. It sounded as though he had set it on Dominic deliberately.
The regent gave me a long look. “I honestly don’t know why anyone would want to study and train to deal with magical creatures. We got away, though it crippled one horse so badly we had to put it down. We’ve spent the last three days chasing it or else running from it. None of us have gotten much sleep. We must have lost it half a dozen times, but until now it’s always reappeared. We haven’t seen it since yesterday afternoon.”
He glared toward Nimrod. “Are you sure that huntsman didn’t ask your predecessor for a monster? He was camping out unafraid, yet it showed no signs of attacking
“Quite sure,” I said.
The three priests from the church of Saint Eusebius had begun an anxious conference while all this was happening. I glanced toward the hermit, who stood before his grove as though his thin body and smile of benediction could protect it from all physical violence. In a minute, I thought, the priests would announce loudly that a grove with such activities in it was no place for a saint’s relics, snatch the golden reliquary, and bolt for their horses
I excused myself from Dominic, who now looked only weary, and hurried toward the shrine on a collision course with the priests. The presence of a wizard might slow them down, I hoped, even if they seemed to have little respect for hermits.
Nimrod calmly watched the priests’ approach, then flicked his eyes toward me. “I hope you don’t think me a coward, Wizard,” he said in a voice designed to carry. “But if I hadn’t fled from Prince Dominic I would have had to kill him, and I do not want to kill the royal regent of Yurt.” He stepped out from the shelter of the trees to meet the priests, and the sun shone with golden light on his hair.
Dominic turned around with a scowl. The duchess, who had started down the track by the falls, froze for a second, then kept on walking. But Nimrod’s words and appearance had their greatest impact on the three priests. They shook their heads and stared at him as though not believing what they saw.
“When we saw you last night, I didn’t think it could be true,” said the round priest, then paused as though feeling his words were inadequate.
“The Lord moves in mysterious ways,” supplied the thin priest.
“Do you know Nimrod?” asked Joachim politely.
“Nimrod?” demanded the round priest. “Is that what he calls himself? We certainly do know this ‘mighty hunter.’”
“We had thought him an obedient son of the Church, but his appearance here, an accused sinner under a false name, shows him to have been but a whited sepulcher,” said the thin priest.
“Then who is he?” asked Joachim, when Nimrod said nothing.
“He is-or was-” said the thin priest witheringly, “the prince of our city.”
PART SIX — PRINCE ASCELIN
I
Somehow, Joachim managed to get rid of the priests. They retreated a little way down the valley, highly indignant but still unwilling to say anything openly against the chaplain, and still not in possession of the Holy Toe. The shouting and barking had died down, and it again seemed possible that, at some point, the valley’s dreamy quiet might be restored.
Dominic, with the knights and the still excited dogs, settled down near the base of the waterfall, built a fire, and started making a late breakfast. Diana sat twenty yards away, combing her hair and pinning it up again, her back turned carefully to them.
This must be, I thought, very difficult for her. Nimrod, the man she might have loved in her own way, now appeared a coward, and she had been thoroughly and publicly shamed before the knights of Yurt. Even for the duchess, this had gone beyond outrageous.
Joachim, Evrard, and I went into the grove with Nimrod. The old hermit had retreated to his hermitage. I should be, right now, trying to find the old wizard’s monster. But even with my best magic I feared I would not be able to track it unless I had the tall huntsman with me-I hadn’t even been able to find Evrard’s stick-man when I saw its footprint-and for the moment he couldn’t leave the grove’s sanctuary.
In the meantime, magical or not, I had a problem here that would thoroughly disrupt the kingdom if something wasn’t done, and soon.
“So are you indeed a prince?” I asked Nimrod.
“It won’t be much of a surprise to hear that I am,” he said with a slow smile. “My true name is Ascelin. I know you realized all along that I was not simply a huntsman.”
“And the duchess knew who you were?”
“Of course she did,” he said, seeming much more amused than anyone should be when his life was in peril. “I won’t try to pretend that part of my reason for coming into Yurt wasn’t to see her again.” He glanced in her direction. All that was visible was her hair and firmly set shoulders. “Although I’m afraid
His next words showed how very precarious was his apparent calm. “Would she rather have me kill the regent and half the knights of Yurt than to run?” he demanded. It was quite clear he was not addressing any of us. “I could certainly outwrestle Dominic, and I’ve got stag-arrows in my quiver. I could have picked off all of them one by one. Would her honor have been satisfied then?”
“I don’t understand,” said Evrard abruptly into the ensuing silence. “Why does Dominic want to kill you?”
“I thought that was fairly clear,” said Nimrod-or rather Prince Ascelin. “We’d camped on the plateau last night, and were finishing breakfast outside our tent this morning, when Dominic and the knights came into view. Apparently the regent didn’t think my behavior toward my lady the Duchess Diana was the sort of behavior appropriate toward someone he’d planned to marry.” He smiled briefly and bitterly. “If I didn’t intend to kill a lot of men, running seemed my best option.”
I could see Joachim make a conscious decision not to lecture the prince on sin and virtue. “What do you know about Saint Eusebius?” he asked instead. “You said that seeing the duchess was only
At this question, Nimrod-as I couldn’t help but think of him-became oddly flustered. I couldn’t tell at first if it was just the abrupt change of subject, or if the mention of the saint was disturbing. He would not meet Joachim’s eyes but looked off instead toward the shrine and reliquary there. “The major church of my city is dedicated to Saint Eusebius,” he answered slowly after a minute. “I’ve been devoted to the saint since boyhood.”
Several things suddenly became clear to me. “Saint Eusebius appeared to you in a vision,” I said. Joachim
