"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."
Magnus frowned, cocking his head to one side. "From that, I take it the ghost who doth haunt this castle was not of the good sort, the whiles he did live."
"Not from what I hear," the elf said, his face grim. "Yet as I say, I do not truly know—even whiles the man endured, I had no business in his realm, and never chanced to meet him. Yet he bore his title with ill fame."
"Thou didst hear of him whiles he still did live?" Magnus frowned. "He hath not been so long a ghost, then."
"Nay, only a couple of hundreds of years."
"Thou didst know a man who…" Gregory's voice petered out as his eyes lost focus. "Nay, thou art spoken of as the oldest of all Old Things, art thou not?" But he looked a little dizzied by the implications.
Puck tactfully ignored the reference to his age. "I shall travel with thee, good folk."
"We might ever take pleasure in thy company, Puck." Gwen said, dimpling. "Yet if 'tis for cause that thou dost fear for us, I thank thee, but bid thee stay. No mere spirit can long discomfort this family, no matter how evil it was when alive."
"Be not so certain," Puck said, still looking uncomfortable. "Yet I'll own I've business of His Majesty's to attend." They all knew that the "Majesty" in question was not King Taun, but only Rod knew that the dwarf referred to the children's grandfather. "Yet an thou hast need of me, whistle, and I'll be by thee in an instant."
"Thanks," Rod said. "Hope we don't need to, though."
"Most dearly do I also! Yet an thou hast need of more knowledge than I do own, thou hast but to ask of the elves who dwell hard by the castle. They'll know the truth of its tale, I doubt not."
Rod nodded. "Thanks for the tip. That, we definitely will do."
"Nay, surely we must come to know our neighbors," Gwen agreed.
"There are few enough of those, I wot," Puck said with a grimace. "Rumor doth say that any who can, have fled its environs."
They had to wait for all the laughing and joking to die down in the inn, and for the limping driver to make his exit, red-faced, before they could order; but when the food came, it was good, and filling. With his stomach full, Rod declared that, since he was on vacation, he was going to honor it by attempting to nap, and any child who made enough noise to disturb him was likely to gain empirical evidence of the moon's composition.
It was a good excuse, at least, for going off under the shade of a tree fifty feet away, and lying down with his head in his wife's lap. From the constant murmur emanating from the two of them, the children doubted that their father was really sleeping or even trying to, but they bore it stoically.
"Is he not a bit aged to playing Corin to Mama's shepherdess?" Geoffrey grumbled.
"Oh, let them be," Cordelia said, with a sentimental smile. "Their love is our assurance, when all's said and done. Bide, whiles they make it the stronger."
"Cordelia speaks wisely," Fess agreed. "They did not wed to speak of nothing but housekeeping and children, after all."
"There is, of course, no loftier topic," Geoffrey assured him.
Cordelia gave him her best glare. "Thou art unseemly, brother."
"Mayhap—yet I am, at least, only what I do seem."
"I wonder." Cordelia turned moody.
"You are still troubled by Puck's cruelty to the driver, are you not?" Fess said gently.
'Nay—I do not doubt the rightness of it, nor the man's well-being," Cordelia answered. " 'Tis the look of the man that doth bother me, Fess."
"Wherefore?" Geoffrey asked, amazed. "He was well favored, for all that I could see."
"Aye, only a man such as any thou mightest meet upon the road," Magnus agreed.
"But dost thou not see, 'tis therein lies my grievance!" Cordelia said. " 'Tis even as Geoffrey did say—he was not fat, nor slovenly, nor had he the look of a brute! Yet he was one, beneath his seemly guise!"
"Not all do wear their villainy openly, sister," Gregory reminded her.
"Oh, be still, nubbin! 'Tis even that which doth trouble me!"
"Ah," Fess said. "You have begun to fear that all people are truly only bullies at heart, have you not?"
Cordelia nodded, her eyes downcast.
"Take comfort," the robot advised her. "Though they may be beasts within, most people do learn how to control their baser instincts—or, at least, to channel them in ways that are not harmful to others."
"But are they the less vile therefore?" she burst out. "They are still brutes within!"
"There is good at your cores as well as evil," Fess assured her. "Indeed, many people have so strong an instinct for helping others that it quite overshadows their urge to browbeat those about them."
"How canst thou say so!" Geoffrey said indignantly, "when thy first experience of mankind was with so base a knave?"
"That is true," Fess agreed, "yet he was in contact with other human beings, and I had some indication of redemptive qualities in them."
Cordelia frowned up at him. "Did thy second owner confirm those hints of virtue?"
They heard a sixty-cycle buzz, Fess's equivalent of a contemptuous snort. "He confirmed the opinion I had gained from Reggie, children, and demonstrated nadirs in human nature I had not thought possible, the worst of which was treachery. Reggie, at least, was not treacherous, and had some slight interest in others. My second owner, though, was of a mean and grasping nature, which is, I suppose, only natural."
Geoffrey frowned up. "How is that?"
"Why, anyone who would purchase a defective component simply to gain a bargain price, must necessarily be miserly—and he bought me to be the guidance computer for his burro-boat."
Geoffrey frowned. "What is a burro-boat?"
" 'Was,' Geoffrey, for they are no longer manufactured, which is something of a blessing. They were small, heavily shielded craft designed for excavating and hauling, but certainly not for beauty."
Magnus smiled, amused. "Yet thy second owner cared little for grace, and greatly for gain?"
"He did, though I suppose the attitude came naturally to one of his occupation. He was a miner in Sol's asteroid belt, and lived constantly with danger, but with little else; only a solitary individual would choose such a life, and might well become bitter accordingly. He was interested only in his own self-aggrandizement—or his attempts at such; he never succeeded notably."
"Was he poor, then?"
"He subsisted," Fess answered. "By towing metal-rich asteroids into Ceres station, he gained enough to buy the necessities, which are notably expensive at so remote a location from the planet where your species evolved. He was interested in other human beings only as sources of his own gratification—and if they did not contribute to that gratification, he preferred to reject them completely."
"Thou dost not mean he hated good folk!"
"That is perhaps an overstatement," Fess said, "yet not quite so far off the mark as it might be."
"But folk cannot live without other folk!"
"On the contrary, they can. They will be emotionally starved, of course—but such people frequently are emotionally crippled to begin with."
Cordelia shuddered. "How couldst thou think any good of mortal folk with such as that to form thine opinion?"
"Because I was constantly exposed to good people, Cordelia—or to news of them, at least."
Magnus frowned. "How couldst thou be?"
"Because most of the Belt folk were lonely, and wished company. They sought it the only way they could—by radio and video communication with others. I, of course, had to be ever vigilant, listening to the constant stream of chatter, in case some event should occur that would affect my owner—and as a result, I came to learn of all manner of people—some bad, some good, some quite evil, some very good. I learned of events, both important and insignificant. I think I remember best the time when an asteroid's dome failed—a force field that enclosed the atmosphere the people breathed."
Cordelia stared, shocked. "How could they have lived?"
"They did not—they died, with the exception of a technician and a tourist, both of whom happened to be in space suits at the time, and a little girl, who survived under rather unique circumstances."
"Oh, that must hav
e wrung the heart of thee!"
"I have no 'heart,' as you call it, Cordelia—but I did learn a great deal about the abilities of people to sacrifice for one another, as I tracked her through the remainder of her childhood."
"Tell us of her then!" Gregory cried.
"Oh, 'tis all weepy lass's stuff!" Geoffrey objected.
"Not entirely, Geoffrey, for there was a villain involved, and a bit of fighting."
The boy's eyes glittered. "Tell!"
"Willingly, for it is part of your heritage. The hero of the tale is a quite unlikely specimen, for he was a reformed criminal."
"Indeed! Who was he?"
"He came to be called 'Whitey the Wino' after he reformed, and he earned his living by making up songs and singing them in taverns…"
Whitey struck a last chord from his keyboard and lifted his hands high, grinning at the burst of applause from the customers. "Thank you, thank you." His amplified voice boomed out through the cabaret—at least, they called it that. "Glad you liked it." Yeah, and the shape you're in, you'd like anything right now. But you don't get cheers by insulting your audience, nor return engagements either, so he kept the smile on and waited till the applause slackened, then said, "I'm going to take a little rest now, but I'll be back real soon. You take one too, okay?" Then he waved and turned away, with cheers and laughter behind him. Yeah, take one—or two, or three. Then you'll think whatever I do is great.
He shouldn't be so bitter, of course—they were paying his livelihood. But fifty-three, and he was still singing in glorified taverns on backwater moons!
Patience, he told himself. After all, there had been that record producer on vacation, who'd heard him and signed him before he sobered up. But he'd come back the next day with a studio booked, and Whitey had cut the wafer, and it had sold—with a low rating, yes, but a low rating of a hundred billion people on fifty-some odd planets is still twenty million, and Whitey got six per cent. It kept him alive, even under a dome on an asteroid or a lifeless moon, and paid his passage to the next planet. He never had trouble finding a cabaret who was willing to pay him now, so its patrons could hear him chant his songs. Then that critic had gone into rhapsodies about his verses being poems from the folk tradition, and a professor or two had agreed with him (anything for another article in print, Whitey supposed) and there had been another burst of sales, so here he was back in the Solar System, even if it was only on Triton, to cut another wafer. He hoped the professor wouldn't be too disappointed when he found out Whitey had a college degree.
The Warlock's Companion wisoh-9 Page 5
