The Warlock Heretical

Chapter Thirteen

"Dinner? Indoors? How novel!"

"Be not so silly, Papa." Cordelia yanked on his arm. "Thou hast been on the road but one night."

"One night with you. Your brother kept me out for two nights before that!"

"As he did tell it, 'twas not he that kept thee," Cordelia retorted. "Come, Papa. Dost thou not wish to dine with me?"

"Oh, yes! Especially when I don't have to catch the main course first!" Rod stepped aside at the doorway and bowed his daughter into the inn. "After you, mademoiselle."

"I thank you, sir," she answered, tilting her chin up as she stepped past him.

They stepped into the usual hubbub of a small town's posting-inn, which meant that most of the customers were hard-working peasants spending a cheerful hour away from their wives. It also meant they weren't much for eating at the moment. Rod took a table against the wall and not too far from the door, holding the chair for Cordelia and bowing again as she sat, giving her the full gallant treatment. His reward was a radiant smile as he moved around the table and sat across from her. He glanced up to make sure he could see both the door and the kitchen behind her, out of habit—and noticed a peasant in keeper's green come in and sit down with a small group at a table. Nice to be where everybody knew everybody else— provided they didn't mind strangers. He also saw the landlord bustling up to them with a smile. Rod reflected that the man would have been kicking them out, not smiling, if they hadn't changed their clothes, washed, and cached their load of pots. But since they looked moderately prosperous, he rubbed his hands and beamed. "How may I serve thee, good folk?"

"Soup?" Rod looked up at Cordelia. She nodded and smiled. He asked the landlord, "What is it tonight?"

"Pease porridge, goodman."

"Hot?"

"Surely." The innkeeper frowned. "Wherefore would it not be?"

"Well, some like it cold. With bread, of course—and do you have meat?"

"Only a hen, goodman, who is past her laying days."

"A bowl of stew, then, and two bowls of pease porridge, hot. And a flagon of ale." Rod noticed the keeper rising and moving to another table, where he sat and chatted again.

"Ale for the child, also?"

"Mm? Oh, not just yet."

The landlord smiled, bobbed his head, and bustled off toward the kitchen. Cordelia looked daggers at her father.

"Not till you're twenty." Rod leveled a finger at her. "I don't care what you think other girls your age drink."

"Even babes do swill ale, Papa!"

"Yeah, and some of them are alcoholics before they're fifteen. No, dear, nutritional value isn't the only factor."

"Thou and Mama! Thou dost conspire against us!"

"No, we just discuss the issues ahead of time." Rod watched the keeper rise and move to a third table. Popular man. "Good, here's dinner."

The landlord set a bowl of soup in front of each of them and another bowl in the middle. Rod noticed dumplings, and smiled as a mug thumped down in front of him. "Thank you, mine host." He laid a silver penny on the table. The host picked it up, raising his eyebrows, nipped it with his eyeteeth, and smiled. "Thank'ee, goodman."

"My pleasure," Rod said around his first mouthful of stew. "My compliments to whoever revived this old biddy so well."

"My wife?" The landlord frowned a moment; then his face cleared. "Ah! Thou didst speak of the hen. Well, I'll tell the other of thy thanks. Good appetite to 'ee!" He moved away again.

Rod watched the keeper move to a fourth table.

Cordelia inhaled steam and smiled happily, then reached for a piece of bread. She smeared butter on it, then looked up at her father with a happy smile that turned to a look of surprise. "What dost thou see, Papa?"

"A keeper," Rod said, his voice low. "You know, a forest warden who keeps an eye out for poachers. He's chatted with people at four different tables in the last few minutes, but not enough for a real conversation with anyone. Whups! There go the first set of people he sat with, out the door, and the second set look as though they're trying to finish their meal fast."

"He doth spread word," she said, eyes wide.

Rod nodded. "Word about going someplace. I think maybe we'll tail along."

"Oh, goody!" Cordelia squealed, then scrunched her head down between her shoulders, glancing to either side. "An adventure!" she said more softly.

A relatively safe one, though. Rod hoped she wouldn't mind.

Twenty minutes later they were strolling into the forest along a deer trail with newly flattened brush to cither side of it. There was no one visible in front of them and no one behind them, but Cordelia was staring off into the dimness of the leaves as though she weren't quite seeing it. "I hear curious thoughts before us, Papa."

" 'Curious' meaning 'odd', or meaning that the peasants aren't sure what's going on?"

"The last, Papa. Yet there is apprehension in it… Oh, Papa! 'Tis perfectly safe!"

"Maybe, but there's no sense taking chances." Rod picked up a dead branch, lashed some grass to it, and handed it to Cordelia. "Go aloft, would you, 'Delia? You'll see more that way."

The view from the Archbishop's study was delightful—a dozen troops of knights, each with a half-dozen men-at-arms, practicing passages of arms in the meadow beyond the monastery wall under the noonday sun.

"Doth it not delight thine heart, my lord?" Brother Alfonso asked.

"In truth, it doth." The Archbishop beamed at the proud sight of the Duke di Medici in full plate armor, charging across a field with blunted lance lowered as one of his knights rode against him.

"They will not be content with tilting forever," Brother Alfonso reminded. "They must needs ride, my lord—against the King, or away to their estates."

But the Archbishop wasn"t about to let his secretary's pessimism darken his day. "Peace, peace, good Brother Alfonso. If they gain their desire without bloodshed, the more pleased will they be."

The dark look on Brother Alfonso's face plainly denied the claim, but before he could say so, the Archbishop gave a glad cry, pointing. "See! Another train doth come!" Then he frowned and peered at it. "Yet 'tis odd. I see no proud flags, no glisten of mail…"

Brother Alfonso looked, too. "Those be mules, my lord, not chargers—save for the first, which is a palfrey." His eyes widened. " 'Tis a woman!"

"The Lady Mayrose!" The Archbishop exclaimed, his whole face lighting in a smile. His eye lingered fondly on her form for a few minutes before he turned away toward his study door. "Ho, chamberlain! Brother Anho!"

The monk stepped in, bowing. "Aye. my lord?"

"The Lady Mayrose doth approach the gate with her train! Bring them in, bring them in, and conduct her to this room!"

Brother Anho stared, shocked. "My lord! A woman, within—"

"Do as thou art bid, man!" the Archbishop stormed in sudden rage. "Must I invoke thy vow of obedience? Bring her in, and conduct her here!"

Brother Anho swallowed, paling, then backed away, bowing, and turned.

Brother Alfonso watched, with a slight smile.

"Ah, 'tis good of her to come!" the Archbishop said, rubbing his hands. "Yet what can have occasioned this visit?"

"What indeed?" Brother Alfonso murmured. "And what could she have brought?"

They found out a few minutes later, as Brother Anho appeared at the study door, pale and tight-lipped. "My lord the

Archbishop, the Lady May rose." And he stepped aside as the lady entered.

"Lady Mayrose, how good of thee to come!" the Archbishop seized the hand she preferred and swept it to his lips for a kiss. "To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?"

"Why, to the troops who gather in thy meadow. Thy Grace," she answered, dimpling. "We had thought they must be provisioned, my grandmother and I, and therefore hath she sent me to conduct hither such poor provisions as we can offer."

If Brother Alfonso had his own suspicions as to who had persuaded whom, he kept them to himself. He only smiled broadly as the Archbishop turned to him with an expansive sweep of the arm, saying, "My secretary, Brother Alfonso."

"Honored, milady." Brother Alfonso bowed. "I have heard so much about thee from milord the Archbishop."

"And I of thee, good Brother! I had oft wondered what pillar of strength could support the world weight which lies upon His Lordship's shoulders!"

"Ay, thy tongue is gilded," Brother Alfonso said, with a true smile. "Yet I doubt not thou, too, hast given encouragement to this our good lord."

"What little I may, I give gladly," she answered. "In truth, "the holiness of this house doth excite me, to know that herein, men may be stirred to deeds of righteousness!"

"May we always be so," Brother Alfonso said piously. "Yet now, I fear, I must be stirred to the work of the countinghouse, without which no enterprise can succeed in this sordid world, no matter how holy its purpose."

"Well said, Brother," the Lady said, amused. "I trust I shall have further converse with thee?"

"I trust thou shalt." Brother Alfonso had moved to the door; he turned back with a bow. "By your leave, my lord?"

"Why… that is to say, I…" The Archbishop swallowed heavily, daunted by the prospect of being left alone with the beautiful young lady. But she smiled at him roguishly with a challenge in her eye, and he felt a surge of indignation. "Nay, assuredly thou must be about the tasks to which I have set thee!" But his heart sank as he watched Brother Alfonso bow himself out of sight.

"La, my lord," the Lady Mayrose laughed. "Wouldst thou have me think an Archbishop afeard of a maid?"

The Archbishop laughed with her, but anger spurted within him at the challenge. He took her hand, conducting her to the window and chatting a mile a minute, to gaze out at the gathering of troops.

In the antechamber, Brother Anho looked up from his breviary, saw the Archbishop at the window with the lady for all the world to see, and felt his blood run cold.

It was a contest on two levels, spoken and silent. Catharine and Tuan heard only a debate about the Church, but Brom O'Berin, listening to the tug of thoughts beneath the words, felt a battle for information.

"Thou wilt not deny thou art a priest?" Her mind was wide open and alert for any associations that the term might raise.

"Wherefore? 'Tis my pride." The friar smiled.

There had been nothing—not only the humdrum, daily images that filled a human mind, but nothing. A void, a vacuum. Gwen frowned and tried again. "I am Gwendylon, Lady Gallowglass. Whom do I address?"

"I am Father Peron, my child."

So he was going to give her the pastor's patronization, eh? Well, Gwen knew how to ignore it. "I confess to puzzlement, Father," she repeated. "How canst thou term Their Majesties 'heretics,' when they but hold to the beliefs they have held all their lives?"

"There is flow and change in all things, child—and as conditions in the world change, so must the Church. This is why Christ gave to Peter the power to bind or loose in Heaven what he bound or loosed on earth—so that the Church could change as it needed."

His eyes seemed to burn into hers, and a massive surge of fervor hit her. Gwen almost gasped at the strength and suddenness of the wave. She rallied and countered. "Yet it is the heir of Peter from whom thou hast separated."

The priest reddened, and anger flowed with his zeal. "The Pope cannot know how matters stand on Gramarye. The changes he doth declare for other worlds must not be binding here."

His anger was daunting, making Gwen feel indeed like a child in front of a stem teacher. Inwardly she quailed, but refused to let it show, and narrowed the focus of her mind on only one area of his—fear of the Afterlife. "How dost thou know the Pope to be wrong, Father?"

"Why, for that milord the Archbishop hath said so." If he had any reservations or any anxieties, there was no inkling of them; where thoughts should be, there was nothing.

Gwen frowned; certainly his fervor could not completely counter all his upbringing and his fearful religiosity. "Canst thou not judge such a matter for thyself?"

"I am sworn to obey my lord the Archbishop. His wisdom in these matters must needs be greater than mine."

"Nay, thou wert sworn to obey the Abbot, not the Archbishop."

A touch of exasperation showed in the man's face, but not in his mind. "Though he be Archbishop, he is Abbot still, and what he doth pronounce right for Gramarye must needs be right indeed."

"Even if he doth oppose himself to the Pope?"

"Even so."

"Then is it not he who is an heretic?"

Father Peron flushed, and his anger hit like a padded sledgehammer. "Nay, 'tis the King who is an heretic, if he doth not adhere to the one true Church."

Deadlock. Gwen paused and changed the subject. "The Queen doth rule as surely as the King. Wherefore dost thou speak only of His Majesty?"

"God is our Father, child, and doth rule all. Rulers therefore must be male. A woman's rule is abomination."

Catharine half rose, turning crimson and emitting very strange gargling noise; but Tuan's hand tightened on hers, and she had promised Gwen to hold her tongue, so she did. But Father Peron permitted himself a small smile.

Gwen bit down on her own anger and managed to keep her puzzled frown. "Dost not revere sainted Mary, mother of our Lord?"

"Aye, as the Ruler's mother—and I eagerly await the reign of Alain."

Tuan was reddening now, too, but he held his peace. He could tell when someone was trying to get to him.

"Yet by thy lights," Gwen pointed out, "Alain will be also an heretic."

"I trust God shall send him wisdom, when he doth come of age," Father Peron said piously. "If he doth not, he shall find himself opposed to all his barons—nay, to all his people."

"Thou art confident of the future," Gwen murmured.

"Victory is the Lord's, child—victory is ever the Lord's." Father Peron's gaze seemed to pierce through to her soul, and the flames of his fervor seemed to burn all about her mind. "Right will triumph—and the Church of Gramarye is right."

"There was no more that I could gain from him," Gwen said, when Father Peron had followed his jailers to a cell that probably reminded him of home. "He hath the most excellent shield that ever I have known—save in my husband, when he doth wish it." She shuddered at the thought, and changed the subject. "Yet he is most truly a priest."

"A warlock in a monk's robe?" Tuan shook his head, pacing. "Is this not blasphemy?"

"Aye, for the clergy have ever inveighed 'gainst the witches," Catharine agreed.

" 'Tis only the parish priests who have spoken thus," Brom reminded her. "What the monks say amongst themselves within the cloister, we have no knowledge."

"Why should there not be one among them who hath our powers?" Gwen said with a shrug. "We have found witchfolk in every county and every class; wherefor ought there not be one within the monastery?"

"A point," Tuan admitted, "yet still an odd one. Is he, mayhap, the one who hath called up other witches to side with the Archbishop?"

Gwen shook her head. "I cannot tell; I could read nothing of his thoughts—yet his feelings did reach out toward me." She frowned. "In truth, so strongly did his zeal press all about me, that I found myself beginning some feeling of the rightness of his cause."

Tuan nodded. "Such a feeling enwrapped me in the town, when I did hearken to his speech."

"Nay!" Catharine cried. "Assuredly, Lady Gallowglass, thou dost not believe—"

"Nay, I do not. Yet this is his power—the ability to put his feeling of rightness or wrongness within another's mind."

"Mayhap every good orator hath some touch of that talent," Tuan suggested. "Assuredly 'twas not his words alone did touch me."

"Nay, 'twas not. It was the power of his mind that worked upon thee."

"And his words, then, served no purpose but to hold the folk about him, the whiles he worked his spell?" Tuan said. "Well, that I can credit."

"Is not this the power that the rebel sorcerer Alfar did have?" Catharine demanded.

"Aye, Majesty, yet 'tis not nearly so strong in Father Peron. The sorcerer could so enfold another's mind that he lulled his victim into a waking sleep, then could thrust within not only his feelings, yet also his thoughts. Thus could he compel anyone to do as he wished. 'Tis a state mine husband doth term hypnosis."

"And thine husband hath a word for this priest's power, I doubt not."

Gwen nodded. "He doth term the priest a projective."

"Projective! Hypnosis!" Catharine threw up her hands. "A deal of nonsense! What need for names?"

"They aid in thinking, Majesty," Gwen explained. "When thou dost see how two words resemble one another, thou canst see what may cause the things they stand for. In this instance, seest thou, the preacher is a 'projective empath,' whereas…" Her voice trailed off, and her eyes lit. > Catharine noticed, and asked, "What ails thee?"

" 'Tis even as I've told thee—the use of the words!" Gwen clapped her hands. "The preacher is projective, yet mine husband doth also use the term to signify a witch who doth craft things of witch moss!" She referred to a substance found only on Gramarye, a telepathically-sensitive fungus that assumed the shape of whatever a nearby projective telepath was thinking of. Gwen spun to Brom O'Berin. "Lord Privy Councilor! Can thy spies seek out the trail of this two-headed dog that did afright the peasant Piers?"

Brom frowned. "Assuredly, they can. Yet wherefore…" Then he followed her train of reasoning, and began to smile. "Be sure, I've spies who can ferret out its lair."

"They must need be valiant men, who would seek to trail so fell a spirit," Catharine said, doubt plain in her voice.

"Valiant they are," Brom said grimly, "or will be."

Hoban leaned back to stretch the ache out of his spine, and mopped his brow, glancing up at the sun. The work was familiar—he had been hoeing most of his life—but he had never before done it in a long saffron robe, nor thought about it as an aid to prayer. Still, there were worse things, and both Father Rigori and Anho had warned him the life would be hard. He bent over again, and chopped at a weed; he had never thought of this dull, repetitive work as a discipline to school the body, freeing the mind for prayer and contemplation. Always before, he had let his mind roam over the pleasures that awaited him at the end of the day—food, and talk with friends, and sleep, and on the sabbath, dalliance with wenches.

He pushed that thought away; monks didn't think about girls, and he was determined to be a monk. He tried to steer his thoughts back to God and godliness, but was only able to appreciate the neatness of the beds of cabbages, and the precise border of old horsehoes set upright side by side, which closed the end of the field. As he reached them he shook his head, marveling at the labor it must have taken to so fence all the monastery's fields, not to mention gathering all those worn shoes. How like the monks not to count the labor, because their minds were on the other world! He sighed and lifted his hoe again.

"Hist! Farmer Hoban!"

Hoban looked up, startled, coming out of his reverie. Who had called? Brother Hasty, who watched over the monks in the field? But no, he was a hundred feet away, with a wary eye on two novices who had paused for a rest and a chat. And there was no other monk near him. Then who… ?

"Here, foolish one! In the patch of cowslips to thy left!"

Hoban started to look, then remembered that whichever way Brother Hasty was looking now, he was quite likely to be looking Hoban's way next, so he bent back to his hoeing, glancing at the cowslips out of the corner of his eye.

And To and behold, there he was, he really was, one of the Little People! Larger than he'd heard they went—he was a foot-and-a-half high, scowling up at Hoban, arms akimbo. "Aye, thou dost see me now. Be sure thou dost give no sign. 'Tis long I've waited for thee to come to the edge of the field, for I could not go in to thee, not past that barrier of Cold Iron."

Of course, Hoban realized with a shock, that pretty little fence would keep elves out too! And, of a sudden, all thoughts of the holy life were swept aside as he remembered what he had promised the Lord Warlock.

"Try not to think of it, if thou canst," the elf advised, "for there are many minds here to hear thy thoughts. I" truth, they do not like my kind, and I cannot help but wonder why. Tis not the sort of thing the Archbishop would have thought of by himself."

"I think thou hast the right of it," Hoban breathed. "I have not seen a mean spirit in him."

"Yet there is such a spirit in this monastery, or I mistake it quite." The elf cocked his head to one side. "Who is it, then?"

"Brother Alfonso, or I mistake," Hoban muttered. "He is the Archbishop's secretary, and is ever with him so long as he is within these walls. The other monks give him more respect than they ought, for one who is but a servant—and one who is so newly come."

"Newly come?" the elf frowned. "How newly, then?"

"But three years ago, saith Rumor. At the first he was ever willing to labor at whatever task he could, and worked long and well—so all came to know his name. Yet he could write and cipher, so the Archbishop—the Abbot then—set him to the accounts. He proved adept at them, and was therefore more and more in milord's company."

"As he became more and more set on separating from Rome, belike." The elf nodded, with a wry grimace. "How can he be countered?"

"He cannot, now! Those who would not submit to him, fled to Runnymede. All who remain here, live in fear of the fellow."

"Odd, for a man of God," the elf said. "Then we must deal with him. When doth he come outdoors?"

"In the evenings, to walk in the Archbishop's garden with His Lordship."

"Which is hung about with so much Cold Iron, I would think it a smithy." The elf's face hardened. "Well, we shall find a… whup!"

He disappeared into the cowslips as a shadow fell across the earth in front of Hoban. He looked up into the stern visage of Brother Hasty.

"Hoban," said the severe supervisor, "wherefore hast thou hoed at that same patch of earth for this last quarter hour?" * * *

"Surely the beast has no need for the second!" Kelly McGoldbagel stared at the huge paw print in the patch of moonlight. "I've never seen a dog who used the head he had!"

"Oh, be still!" Puck groaned. " Tis not the beast who hath need of two heads, but the one who made him."

"But why?"

"To fright poor peasants, thou lob!" Puck snapped. "Now be still, and follow his trail!"

Kelly grumbled and followed Puck down the trail between the huge old forest trees. Why Brom O'Berin had insisted he bring the Englishman along, Kelly couldn't understand— surely one leprecohen would be enough to track any monster! "Sure an ye don't think the Elfin King fears for the safety of one of his elves, do ye?"

" 'Tis not what I think, but what he doth! Wilt thou not be still and track?"

Kelly sighed and followed, frowning at the trail. The beast's paws must have been half the size of Kelly himself, to leave such traces. "At the least, the beast cannot have been one of yer pranks, if it left tracks."

"I shall leave tracks on thy backside!" Puck jerked to a halt, frowning at a fork in the road. "Here are but fallen leaves; I see no more prints. Whence came the beast?"

"Why, yonder!" Kelly exclaimed, pointing to the right. "See ye not the twigs it broke from the trees as it passed?"

Puck stared. Then he said, "Well done, great scout! Thou mayest take the lead now."

Kelly looked up at him, startled. Puck grinned. Kelly shivered and turned away, grumbling. "I'd sooner have a two-headed dog at my back than an Englishman!"

"Thou mayest have thy wish," Puck reminded. "We track the beast's trail in reverse, to discover whence he came; none say he hath returned. In truth, we may feel his breath hot on our necks as he doth come home."

For some reason, Kelly went a bit faster.

The path widened suddenly, and they found themselves in a small clearing, wide enough for some moonlight to strike through the forest crown, showing them a wattle hut with a thatched roof. The door was made of stout planks, though, and the single window was shuttered.

Kelly stopped. "I never knew a forest spirit that sought a roof over its head."

"Aye, nor that latched the door and barred the shutters when it was away from home." Puck frowned, stepping out into the clearing. "Yet it may be that 'tis within, and therefore hath made fast its portal."

"Then the more fool ye are, to be courtin' its wrath! What, would ye bring disaster upon us?"

Puck tossed his head impatiently. "The spirit's not made that can harm the Puck."

"Savin' his Elfin Majesty, o' course," Kelly grumbled.

"I misdoubt me an he bides within yon hut. Come, wilt thou not play hearth ghost and find a chink through which to enter?"

"What's to find? 'Tis more holes than walls, with wattle!" Kelly protested. "Whoever bides there does not mean to winter within it, does he?"

"Nay, or he would have daubed it without." Puck glanced about him and dashed up to the wall. Kelly stared, appalled, then cursed and sprinted after him.

Puck was fingering the wattle. " 'Tis yet green. This hovel's newly built, sprite."

"Aye, 'tis that." Kelly looked down. "Yet there's already a footpath trod from the doorway—and I see no prints of the hound!"

Puck glanced about, also, nodding. "And since the leaves have been cleared away to bare the earth, we should surely have seen such. What could this cotter have sought beneath compost? Yet the dog's prints end at the verge, as though it had been conjured forth at the spot."

Kelly shivered. "Why, then, we've fulfilled our commission! Let us… hist!"

Puck looked up, startled, then heard the sound Kelly was pointing after—the tread of human feet through forest mulch.

A few minutes later a pot-bellied peasant stepped into the moonlight, leaning against the load of a heavy basket. He stumped to the door, set down his burden, and sighed, rubbing his bald spot—a perfect circle, in the midst of what would otherwise have been an excellent head of hair. He wore an ordinary smock and leggings, and was in middle age. He glanced about and sighed. "Ah, the loneliness is hard to bear!" Then he shrugged, lifting the latch and pushing the door open. He frowned as he stepped in, muttering, "Be still, my heart! 'Tis for God, the Church, and the Order!" He sighed as he hoisted his basket and went into the hut. A minute later a lamp flame glowed inside, and the door swung shut. Two seconds later Puck and Kelly were back at the wall, peering through chinks in the wattle.

The peasant muttered to himself as he stirred the coals on the hearth, laid on kindling, and blew it into flame, then set on some sticks. Behind him the stuff in his basket began to quiver, then to churn about. He turned back to it, frowning, then nodded his head, apparently satisfied with its motion. He dumped it out before the hearth and sat down on a three-legged stool, staring at it. The stuff was gray and formless, with a faint sheen, like puffball toadstools that couldn't keep their shape. As the elves watched, wide-eyed, the mass began to spread, then to stretch upward. Gradually it grew into the form of a sapling, its color darkening to brown, pieces of it stabbing outward into four branches. Each branch tip blossomed into stiffened twigs. The peasant nodded, satisfied, and held up a hand. Slowly the sapling bent one of its branches down, wrapped a set of twigs about his wrist. The peasant smiled, and the sapling let go of his hand, straightening. The man murmured, "To the door, now." The sapling began to quiver; then one root humped up, pushed forward, and flattened again. Another root took a step, then the third, then the first again, and slowly the sapling moved toward the door. The peasant nodded, scowling, and muttered, "Find a peasant, clutch at him, then chase him—but do not catch him."

The sapling's branches shook as though it, too, were nodding; then it bent to go through the doorway, and shuffled off across the clearing and into the wood.

Kelly and Puck watched it go, eyes wide.

Inside the hut the peasant sighed and sat back wearily.