"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.