Wood Nymph and the Cranky Saint- Wizard of Yurt - 2 (32 page)

This, then, explained the strange sense I had had that someone else had directed my path the last few hours in the cave. Someone else indeed had. But being unaccustomed to listening to saints, I had only turned to his guidance when faced with a clear choice between different tunnels. Voices could have spoken for some time in my mind without making me look up to see the crack that led to freedom. That had needed the voice of the wood nymph.

“I see,” I said, which sounded highly inadequate.

But then I had another thought that made me as irritated with the saint as I had oeen overwhelmingly grateful a moment before. If Eusebius could save me from wandering to my death in the cave, why had he done nothing to save the old wizard? I leaned against Evrard, frustrated enough with al priests and saints that any wizard, even a marginaly competent one, was exactly who I wanted beside me.

“Then perhaps it is indeed best for you to be here, Wizard,” said the thin priest grudgingly. “After al, as Holy Scripture tels us, a little child shal lead them.” I had no attention to spare him or to feel insulted. I didn’t know what the saint’s plan might be, in which I appeared to feature prominently, but I felt a deep and unshakeable determination not to become a pawn in someone else’s program. I would not be turned by gratitude into anyone else’s creature, not even a saint’s. I had more than motive force; I had a mind and a soul, and they were stil my own.

Evrard interrupted my thoughts. “Are you al right?” he asked in a low voice, his blue eyes worried. Can I get you some water or something?”

‘Yes, that would be good.” I sat down with my back against a tree, drank the cup he brought me and closed my eyes. I sent up a brief prayer, so that Saint Eusebius would know I realy was properly grateful. The wizard had said at the end that he was glad I had never become obsequious. Wel, I hoped that whatever characteristics had endeared me to a cranky old wizard had also endeared me to a cranky saint, because I had no intention of becoming obsequious to someone who let a monster roam his valey, kiling respectable wizards.

I opened my eyes to see al the priests and apprentices clustered around. “Listen,” I said. Something had just become obvious to me.

They turned toward me with surprising respect. I stood up on legs that trembled for a moment, then found enough strength to step forward. “This whole problem started when the entrepreneurs first put a booth on top of the cliff, inviting people to see the Holy Toe for a fee. I know why they’re there.” And I did know. It had come to me not in voices, not through revelation, but through my own reasoning powers. The saint, I thought, had been confident that I would find this answer and indeed hoped, in addition, that I would pass judgment, make the final decision of right and wrong. I had no intention of doing the latter. If I was barely competent as a wizard, a regent and a judge, I was even less qualified to be a religious arbiter.

But the first was important. “This may pain you,” I said to the old hermit, “but they meant it for the best. Come here,” to the leader of the apprentices.

He came toward me slowly, but not reluctantly, as though he had been expecting this and was determined to go through with it bravely. He even managed a certain dignity in spite of his rags and badly shaved head.

The round priest started to speak but I turned my back on him, addressing myself only to the young hermit.

“The first time the chaplain and I came here,” I said gently, “you apprentices asked us if we had been sent by the bishop to take your master away—because of the entrepreneurs on top of the cliff. As I should have realized at the time, it was very odd that you might think that the bishop would hold an old hermit responsible for some disreputable entrepreneurs.

‘ And then the ducal wizard and I came to this valey to see the wood nymph, and he and I asked you more about them. Al you would say then was that you weren’t sure if your master, the hermit, had discussed their enterprise with the saint. Your unwilingness to talk about them contrasted strangely, I should have realized, with your master’s quite open conversation when he and I spoke two days later.

“So far, you’ve kept it from him and I’m sure you felt you had very good reasons. Now I’m not going to accuse you or sit in judgment on you. But you do need to tel us al. Why did you apprentices invite those people to come make money off the Holy Toe?”

VI

In the ensuing confusion, I went back to sit under the tree again, to make it clear I was not passing judgment. The story came out somewhat incoherently, with the other apprentices hurrying to confess that they too were at fault, to say that it was their love and concern for the hermit that had led them into error and, at last, to fal prone before him and beg his forgiveness in voices racked by sobs.

The saint, I thought, could not have revealed this to the hermit, because the hermit might have refused to speak out against his apprentices. I presumed it was a compliment to my reasoning abilities that Eusebius had not felt it necessary to tel anyone else about this in a vision.

The story was fairly simple when the apprentices had finaly told it al. They were worried about their master, who always gave them his last crusts even when he did not have enough himself. They were worried about the rather erratic appearance of pilgrims with offerings of food or coins and distressed because their own agricultural abilities had not progressed much further than goats and lettuce, although this spring they had planted a lentil crop for which they stil had high hopes. When, earlier in the spring, a merchant traveler had detoured by the valey and asked for hospitality for the night, they had been more than wiling to listen to his proposals.

The thought of obtaining a smal but steady cut of the entrepreneurs’ profits, of perhaps seeing more pilgrims once their shrine’s fame began to spread, had been enormously appealing. It was only later, when they found that they were afraid to admit to the hermit what they had done, that they had realized they were trying to make money off the holy things of God.

But by this time, their merchant contact had

recruited Prince Dominic as a backer and the apprentice hermits had felt unable to back out. This was why the saint, after fifteen centuries, had begun to think of leaving the valey. Knowing that one of the apprentices would probably replace the old hermit at the Holy Shrine within a few years would have made even a less cranky saint irritated.

The apprentices had apparently made their peace with the hermit. Their leader rose, his face tear-streaked. “I’l go tel them now,” he said. Refusing the priests’ offer of a horse, he walked quickly toward the cliff and began to climb.

Al of us fel silent, watching him. Although the trees of the grove hid much of his ascent, his smal figure kept emerging into sight, climbing steadily up the white cliff face. I had a sudden fear of the monster bursting out of the cave and folowing him, but nothing of the sort happened.

The apprentice reached the top and disappeared. We waited for another ten minutes, then he put his head over the edge and waved, which could have meant anything, and started down again.

This was al Dominic’s fault, I thought, though I wasn’t going to say so. If he hadn’t been wiling to accept a cut of the profits, he would have turned these entrepreneurs out of the kingdom long before the saint decided he had to leave.

Twice while we waited, the thin priest said, “Wel, since that mystery is solved—” but the hermit always silenced him with a smile.

The apprentice was back at last, tired and sober. “No one was there,” he said. “But I wrote a message on a piece of paper I ripped out of the back of a booklet on the life of Saint Eusebius.” I myself would have wondered if it was sacrilegious to do so; that the apprentice had not hesitated told me more than anything he had already said of his real attitude toward the entrepreneurs.

“I left it at the booth,” he went on, “weighted down

with a figurine of a dragon. They must be nearby, though they didn’t answer when I caled.”

“And what did you say in your message?” asked the round priest.

“I told them that we had al sinned against God and that this enterprise must be ended at once.”

“Come here, my son,” said the hermit. “You have indeed sinned, but God wil wipe away the tears of the truly repentent.” He blessed him and gave al his apprentices the kiss of peace, while the priests from the city fidgeted.

“I think now,” the hermit said, stil smiling, “there can be no question of removing Saint Eusebius from the grove where he himself served God and where hermits have served that same Lord ever since.”

“We shal see,” said the round priest in notes of self-importance.

The three priests from the City, accompanied by Joachim, brought out candles and a censer and began arranging them around the shrine. They lit the candles, and the youngest priest began to swing the censer. The pungent smel of incense drifted through the grove.

The thin priest went down on his knees before the golden reliquary of the Holy Toe. “Oh, blessed Eusebius!” he caled as loudly as though the saint were in the top of a tree with the wood nymph. “Listen to our prayers, we beseech thee! We seek to do thy wil, in Christ’s name, but thy wil has not yet been fuly revealed to us. Show us a sign! Show us thy intention! Show us—” A sharp crack rent the air, stopping the priest in mid-speech. I leaped up, convinced that the sound had been made by the monster, coming with its new mouth to eat us al.

But it was instead the sign the priest had asked for. A second later, thunder roled across the cloudless sky and we looked up to see smoke beginning to rise from the edge of the cliff. Lightning from heaven had set fire to the entrepreneurs windlass.

The thin priest, stil on his knees, stared dumbfounded, as I’m sure I did as wel. The Cranky Saint was beginning to be a little too active for my taste.

“I do hope those poor misguided souls had not invested too much in their figurines,” said the old hermit mildly.

Joachim appeared to be almost transfigured by the sight and it took a minute for the three priests to recover their equilibrium. They did not seem to have expected anything this dramatic.

‘This means—’ blurted out the youngest priest.

But the thin priest silenced him at once. ‘ It means the saint has listened to our poor prayers,” he said. “This has become a valey of sinful activities, of those who have perverted Christ’s pure purpose,” which seemed a little harsh on the apprentices, considering that the hermit had just forgiven them and promised them God’s forgiveness.

“Now that the sin has been rebuked,” added the round priest, “there can be no doubt that the saint wil wisn to leave for a more virtuous site.” For a moment the old hermit looked stunned. “But the saint’s sign—” he began, almost patheticaly.

“Wait,” I said suddenly. I had just thought of something. “You priests and hermits don’t want to start squabbling in front of a wizard about interpreting a saint’s intention.” I hoped the Cranky Saint would go along with this. “Once before, fifteen hundred years ago, priests from your city came to take the rehc of the Holy Toe and the saint revealed unambiguously his desire to remain. Test him again the same way!” I stepped back, watching ana waiting while they talked it over. The old hermit turned his smile ful on me. The three priests brought out and lit more candles, then knelt in silent prayer for a moment. They then stepped up to the altar and al put their hands on the reliquary.

“Saint Eusebius, we wish to take thy holy relics with us, to honor them and serve thee devotedly,” said the thin priest. “Therefore, we beg you to make your wil explicit to us, your humble servants. We shal now most reverently lift your reliquary and ask that you express your desire to accompany us by making the Golden Toe as light as a feather in our hands. In the name of the Father and of—” As the thin priest spoke, al three began to lift, but his voice faded as nothing happened. The reliquary remained as stil as though nailed to the altar. It didn t look as though today’s priests were having any better luck than their predecessors fifteen centuries earlier. The thin priest bent down and looked at the base, as though suspecting a trick. “What’s with this? Let’s try it again,” ne said in an undertone, not sounding pious at al.

“—and of the Son—” They gave another, more violent heave. The reliquary did not budge.

The old hermit stepped up beside them. “Let me see,” he said. He slipped one hand beneath the Golden Toe and lifted. It came up as light as a feather in his hand.

He set it back on the altar and turned to the priests. “Do you have your answer, my brothers?” he asked in genuine sweetness.

The round priest could not resist a last tug, mumbling “—and of the Holy Spirit!” but it was as ineffective as the first two.

Joachim cleared his throat. “The test has been clearly rendered,” he said. “The saint’s purpose may have been ambiguous before, but there can be no ambiguity now. Indeed—” He stopped speaking and looked up. The sky above us darkened and a swirling wind suddenly surrounded

‘“‘ tlv in spite of

the grove. The air touched us ve o a force strong enough, I felt, to have lifted us from the ground. I would have expected the wind to smel of the trees and river, or even of the priests’ incense.

But it smeled of neither, being instead of an almost overpowering sweetness, even sweeter than the king’s best roses.

I stared although I could see nothing beyond the valey itself, gripped by emotion that combined great fear with great joy. Just for a second, although I could never reconstruct the explanation afterwards, I knew I did not need to question what the saint had or had not done, and felt overcome with awe and humility.

In the middle of the wind, I heard a voice, a woman’s voice, high in the trees above us, and realized that it was the wood nymph. She caled, “Eusebius!” The echo of her voice murmured up and down the valey, and then the wind was gone as suddenly as it had come up. I felt a bump, mental rather than physical, as I fel back to myself out of the swirling air.

Joachim passed a hand over his brow. I knew how he felt. But the chaplain spoke calmly. “Indeed,” he said, continuing where he had left off, “we can no longer doubt the wil of the saint. He wishes his relics to remain in this valey, where they have been since the day of his martyrdom. I am sorry you had such a long and difficult trip, my brothers.’