The Warlock's Companion (6 page)

"But thou wast devalued, thou wast debased!"

"There is some degree of accuracy in that statement," Fess admitted. "Still, looking back on the incident from five hundred years' perspective, I cannot help but feel that gaining my freedom from Reggie was cheap at the price."

Magnus was being noble; he wasn't even asking. But Gwen could see the pinched look about his face, and took pity on him.

Geoffrey, however, was not yet old enough to be self-denying. "Mama, I'm hungry!"

"I am sure that thou art," Gwen said grimly; the effect of the boy's impatience was not improved by comparison with Magnus's self-control. "But peace, my lad—there's an inn not far from here."

And so there was—just around a bend in the road. It was a pleasant-enough-looking place, a big two-story frame structure with mullioned windows and a thatched roof. From a flagpole over the door hung a hank of greenery, bobbing in the breeze.

"The bush is green," Gwen noted.

"New ale." Rod smiled. "This may be a better lunch than I thought."

But Cordelia was staring at the animal tethered in front of the door. "Oh! The poor lamb!"

"Hast no eyes, sister?" Geoffrey scoffed. " 'Tis not a lamb, but an ass!"

"No more than thou art," Cordelia retorted. "Yet 'tis a very lamb of a donkey! Doth not thy heart go out to him?"

"Thou hast no need to answer." Gwen caught Geoffrey with his mouth open. He closed it and glowered up at her.

"Thou hast it aright, my lass," Gwen said. "The beast is woefully treated."

And indeed it was—its coat was rough and dull, with patches of mange here and there, and its ribs showed through its hide. It stretched its neck to crop what little grass grew within reach of its hitching post.

"How vile must his master be," Magnus said indignantly,

"to take his ease in the cool of an inn, and leave his beast not so much as a mound of hay!"

"He is also badly overworked," Fess noted.

The comment was an understatement—the poor little donkey was hitched to a cart dangerously overloaded with barrels of various sizes.

"Such conduct towards a poor draft animal is inexcusable!" Fess stated.

Gregory looked up at him in surprise. " 'Tis not like thee, Fess, to so judge a human."

"He's sensitive on the subject of beasts of burden, son," Rod explained.

"What kind of man could be so calloused as to mistreat his donkey thus?" Gwen wondered.

"Assuredly," said Geoffrey, "a proper villain—a fat, lazy, slovenly boor, a very brute!"

But the man who came out of the inn was neither fat nor slovenly. He was of middle height, and only a little on the plump side. He wore clean hose and jerkin, and carried his cap in his hand till he was outside the inn, chatting with the landlord, a pleasant smile on his face.

"Why, he doth seem almost kind!" Cordelia said, shocked.

But the appearance of kindness disappeared the moment the man came to the hitching post. He untied the tether and yanked the beast's head up away from the poor strands of dry grass with a curse, then climbed into the cart and unlimbered a long, cruel whip as he yanked the donkey's head around.

"He must not!" Cordelia protested, but the driver was already plying the lash—and not just cracking it over the donkey's back, but cutting the poor beast's flanks.

"Why, the villain!" Cordelia cried, and her broomstick leaped from her hand to shoot off toward the cart.

But Rod had noticed something she hadn't seen, and clapped a hand on her shoulder. "Pull that broomstick back, daughter, or you may interfere with the course of justice."

"That cannot be so," Cordelia objected, but the broomstick slowed to a hover.

"Yes, it can. Look over there, at the edge of the meadow!"

Cordelia looked, and gasped.

"Rod," Fess said, "surely that is the same… beeeasstt…" He began to tremble.

"Hold yourself together, Rust Inhibitor—no need to have a seizure over it. I'm sure there's a perfectly unreasonable explanation. But yes, that donkey underneath the trees
does
look exactly like our friend between the traces, there."

"He hath gained, at least, a deserved reward," Gregory said, "for he doth crop rich, sweet grass with relish."

Magnus frowned. "Yet how can the two be so exactly the same? Hath someone crafted a new beast of witch moss?"

"And wherefore?" Geoffrey demanded.

"I don't think it's witch moss," Rod said slowly. "In fact, I'm rather curious. Doesn't something about that duplicate donkey strike you as a little—odd?"

"Now that you mention it," Fess mused, "the donkey's behavior is a bit
too
abject."

"That's what I thought." Rod nodded. "He's overacting."

"Who, Papa?"

"Wait and see." Gwen said it softly, but her smile threatened to break into a grin.

The donkey heaved against the traces, managed to get the huge cart lumbering into motion, hauled it out of the inn yard and onto the road—and calmly proceeded to trudge off the track. The driver cursed at it and gave the reins a savage tug, but the donkey didn't even seem to notice. The man cracked the whip so deeply into its flank that the gouge filled with crimson—but the donkey only trotted the faster, out into the middle of a field. The driver went frantic. He flayed the poor beast with the whiplash, cursing like a fiend, and hauled on the reins so hard that one broke.

"What manner of donkey is that?" Geoffrey stared. "Never could a poor breast so withstand the pull of the bit!"

"Mayhap he hath it in his teeth," Magnus suggested.

"Or maybe he made his mouth as hard as rock." Rod couldn't help grinning.

The donkey bent its course away from the broken rein, trudging around in a circle. The driver howled in rage, beating and beating with the whip, but the donkey only went faster, around and around, until the driver began to feel the pull of centripetal force and felt the first stab of fear. He dropped the whip and turned to leap off the cart—and jolted back into his seat.

"He is stuck to the bench!" Geoffrey howled.

"Husband," said Gwen, "there is more to this than shape-shifting."

"Oh, I agree—and I think we both know what it is."

The whip sprang out of the grass with a snap, turned, and cracked its lash over the driver's head. He looked up in horror and let out a low moan. The lash swept back, cracked, and struck like a snake, tearing the man's shirt and welting his back.

Rod turned to Cordelia with a frown. "I told you to wait!"

"But I did, Papa! That was not my doing!"

Rod stared at her.

Then he whirled back to catch the next act.

The donkey was galloping now, far faster than any Rod had ever seen—and the cart was skidding, the inner wheel lifting off the ground, then rocking back, then lifting again. The driver held on for dear life, howling with fright as the whip cracked over his head and the cart rocked under his feet.

"It's going," Rod said. "It's…"

With a crash and a rumble, the cart went over on its side, and the barrels went tumbling. The largest two split open, and red wine drenched the meadow. The driver landed ten yards away, flat on his back. A small barrel slammed into his belly.

"Oh, the poor man!" Cordelia cried. "Papa, ought we not aid him?"

"Wherefore, sister?" Magnus asked. "Hath he more pain than he gave his donkey?"

"Thou didst but now call him 'villain,' " Geoffrey reminded.

"That was when
he
had no need—and now he doth! Oh!"

"Peace, my daughter." Gwen laid a hand on her shoulder. "Let it work. I misdoubt me an he'll mistreat another beast whiles he doth live."

"Yet will he?"

"He will certainly live," Fess assured her, craning his neck to watch. "I can magnify visual images, Cordelia, and I am replaying the tumble in slow motion. So far as I can see, there is little probability of any serious damage to the man."

"Praise Heaven for that!"

"I don't think Heaven had anything to do with this little farce," Rod said slowly.

Sure enough, the driver had already managed to roll over, and was scrambling to get his feet under him—but the donkey squared off, turning tail, lined up its rear hooves, and caught him just as he managed to get his bottom off the ground. The driver went sprawling again, face in the dirt.

"Oh, well aimed!" Geoffrey tried to hide a smile. "Is't wrong to laugh at his discomfiture, Papa?"

"I don't really think so," Rod said slowly, "considering that he's only getting a taste of what he gave his donkey. And, of course, I have reason to suspect he's not going to sustain any real injury—no more than a bruise or two."

"How canst thou be certain?" Cordelia demanded.

But the driver had managed to clamber back up now, somehow without the donkey giving him the benefit of hindsight again, and was running back to the inn in a panic, crying,, "Witchcraft! Foul sorcery! Some witch hath enchanted my donkey!"

"Mama," Cordelia said, " 'tis not good for us that he should so defame witchfolk!"

"Be not troubled, my daughter. I am sure that any who hear this tale will know quite well 'twas not the work of a witch."

Cordelia frowned. "But how… ?"

The donkey gave its erstwhile master a snort of contempt, broke the shafts with two more well-placed kicks, and trotted off toward the woods.

"Papa, stop him!" Cordelia cried. "I must know who hath wrought this deed, or I'll die of curiosity!"

"I don't doubt it," Rod said, grinning, "and I must admit that I'd like to have my own suspicions confirmed." He gave a low, warbling whistle that slid through three keys.

The donkey's head snapped up, pivoting around toward Rod. The warlock smiled and stepped out into plain sight, and the donkey changed its course, trotting back toward them.

"I think we'd better step off the road," Rod explained. "The folk in the inn are apt to be coming out for a look any minute now."

"Indeed," Gwen agreed, and led the way into a small grove just off the meadow.

The donkey followed, and came trotting up in front of them. It stomped to a halt with a haughty toss of its head.

"All right, so you're noble." Rod smiled. "But tell me, do you really think that driver deserved that?"

"All that, and more," the donkey brayed.

The children's jaws dropped, and Fess started to tremble.

"Easy, Logic Looper." Rod rested his hand on the reset switch. "You knew this donkey wasn't all it appeared to be."

"I… shall accustom myself to the notion," Fess answered.

Gwen wasn't having much luck hiding her smile. "Dost thou bethink thyself so good a fellow, then?"

"Certes, I do." The donkey actually grinned'—and everything around the grin seemed to blur and fade into an amorphous mass—then it reformed, and Puck stood there before them. "In truth, I do think I am a Robin Goodfellow."

The three younger children nearly fainted from sheer surprise, and even Magnus had eyes like coins. But Rod and Gwen only smiled, nodding, amused. "Was this just a spur-of-the-moment thing?" Rod asked. "Or did you actually think it through before you did it, for once?"

" 'For once,' forsooth!" the elf cried. "I'll have thee know I have watched this villain these seven months, and if e'er a man deserved to suffer for his deeds, 'twas he! 'Tis a bully entire, though too much a coward to attempt the beating of a mortal man! E'en a horse he would beware, and fear to strike! Therefore doth he bespeak you as pleasant as a dove, the whiles in his heart he doth wish to rend thee limb from limb. Nay, at last I did weary of his maltreatment of his poor beast, and bethought me to give him a draft of his own potion!"

" 'Tis not like thee, Puck, to be so cruel," Cordelia protested.

The elf grinned with a carnivore's smile. "Though knowest only one face of me, child, an thou canst speak so. Yet there was no true cruelty in this, for I did but make the man appear a fool, and that not even before his fellows. If he is wise, and doth profit where he can, he will not henceforth be so certain as to whom he can, or cannot, smite with impunity."

Cordelia appeared to be somewhat reassured, though not greatly. "Yet he was mightily affrighted, and sore hurt…"

"Had he worse than he hath given his beast?"

"Well… nay…"

"I cannot say thou hast done ill in
this
case, Robin," Gwen said, still smiling.

"
This
case, pooh! I am a man of many mischiefs, yet rarely of true hurt!"

Rod noted the 'rarely,' and decided it was time to change the subject.

Apparently, so did Puck. "Yet enough of this villain—he's not worth more words! How dost thou came to be nearby, to witness his coming to justice?"

"We," Rod said grandly, "are going on vacation."

"Oh, aye, and the sky is beneath our feet while the earth's overhead! Naetheless, 'tis a worthy goal. Whither wander you?"

"To our new castle, Puck," Cordelia said, eyes shining again. "Oh! Will it not be grand?"

"Why, I cannot tell," the elf answered, "unless thou dost tell me what castle it is."

"It's called Castle Foxcourt," Rod said.

Puck stared.

"I take it you know something about the place," Rod said slowly.

"I do not
know
," the elf hedged, "for I've only heard tell of it."

"But what you've heard, isn't good?"

"That might be a way to speak of it," Puck agreed.

"Nay, tell us," Gwen said, frowning.

Puck sighed. "I know little, mistress, and guess less—but from what I have heard of it, this Castle Foxcourt is of ill repute."

"Dost say 'tis haunted?" Geoffrey asked, his eyes kindling.

"Not unless I'm asked—yet since I am, I must own 'tis that which I've heard of it. Yet there are ghosts, and ghosts. I would not fear to have thee near the shade of a man who was good in his lifetime."