Jackaroo

by Cynthia Voigt

  Blithe sat hunched on a stool beside the fire. If there was anybody else in the room, Gwyn did not see them.

  Blithe turned to see who had thrown the door open. Gwyn strode to the table and lay the baby down upon it. Her voice still thick with anger and weeping, she spoke to her sister. “Woman, you will raise this child.”

  Blithe stood up to back away. She shook her head. She put her hands behind her back in refusal.

  “No,” Blithe said stubbornly. “I will have none but my own son.”

  “You will take this child and he will be your son.”

  Blithe shook her head.

  “He has need of you, woman,” Gwyn said. She moved away from the table. The baby opened his mouth to wail, now a weak and helpless sound. Before she could help herself, Blithe had moved to touch him and then pick him up.

  Gywn left the room as abruptly as she had entered it. There would be no question now. Blithe’s stubbornness would see to that. She put a foot into the stirrup and hauled herself back on the horse.

  The horse’s head hung with fatigue by the time she got back to Old Megg’s, and Gwyn herself felt exhausted. But she changed back into her skirt and shirt and felt shoes, then walked the three horses back to the Inn yard. The sun hung low in the sky as she stabled the animals, and Burl looked questioningly at her, but she did not care to make any excuses.

  Da required an answer, however, so she told him that one animal had gotten away and she had spent the afternoon chasing it. He knew what would happen if they lost an animal in their care, so he didn’t scold her. “Your mother wanted your help,” he said.

  Gwyn shrugged. There was nothing she could do about that now. There was nothing she cared to do about it either. Let her mother have her bad temper. They had lived so long with good luck at the Inn that they had grown soft. They had forgotten how hard the world really was, just as the Lords had forgotten.

  A terrible thought came to her as she stood nodding her head at her father: She had forgotten to remove the saddle. She left her father and rushed into the yard.

  Burl was walking the horse, whose head hung low and tired. “It ran away,” Gwyn repeated her lie.

  “There’s a saddle needs cleaning,” Burl answered. She knew then that he didn’t believe her, but she didn’t care about that either.

  The memory of that burned hut and those two burned bodies rose before her eyes, and she thought she would weep again, and she thought the smell of it was in her clothing.

  “Gwyn?” Burl asked her, quietly.

  She answered him, letting anger speak, not sorrow. “There is no reason for good luck or ill luck. There is no deserving.”

  “No,” he agreed.

  “But people—they act so—as if—”

  “Aye,” he said, letting the horse stand while he spoke with her. “When my parents had the fever, and my brother and sisters, nobody would come to our house. Not even to bring us water and leave it outside. They thought it might be the plague. I would have liked a bucket of water left at the door.”

  He did not sound angry. But how could he know that and not be angry? Gwyn turned from him to clean the saddle she had used and hide it away among the others. She wiped the leather dry, then rubbed it with oil, turning it over to clean the underside as well. At the inside of the flap of leather that hung down beside the stirrups she saw, burned into the leather, the shape of a bird. Bending to look closely at it, she recognized the falcon.

  Chapter 20

  HE RIDES: THE WORD SPREAD like flames through a dry field. Rumor moved through groups of men hunched over mugs of ale in the crowded barroom. Gwyn watched the secret faces, and the way conversation changed when soldiers joined a party of men. The soldiers came to drink among them now, as spies. Even Cam came back to drink at the Inn. “Now that the Innkeeper knows that his daughters are safe from me.”

  Little was said more than those two words, he rides, but there was wariness on all faces. It was not safe to speak too freely, just as it was not safe to go about alone. In spring, it was the city that felt the bite of hunger sharpest. Men and women traveled to market days in packs, their numbers protecting them from the thieves they might meet as they brought their wares in or took their coins home. In the streets of the cities, rumor said, each new day discovered new dead. The Lords kept themselves safe behind thick walls with their servants and soldiers to guard them, but there was no one to protect the people. Bands of soldiers fled from the south, rumor said, lived in dark city corners, roamed the countryside. Rumor said that the Lords of the south had defeated the King and were even now marching on the High City. The Messengers, with a double guard, rode back and forth on the King’s Way. Troops of soldiers marched eastward. The air was filled with the sound of horses’ hooves and marching feet.

  But the Inn was quiet enough, with its troop of soldiers camped nearby, and many of the villages, too, were protected. The men in isolated holdings sent their families to relatives in the villages if they could, so rumor said.

  Gwyn listened and watched and did her chores. Da believed little of what he heard. “Rumors exaggerate,” he said. “Aye, wife, and do you know one house in the village that has extra folk in it? Have you heard any man you can believe say he’s seen this Jackaroo?” He reassured them all: “If they halt the journeying of this highwayman, then I’ll be worried. Until that happens, we can sleep sound. Although, I’m not happy to hang my hopes on the back of a man walking to his death.”

  Gwyn listened but said nothing. Often, in those days, she felt like an actor masquerading as the Innkeeper’s daughter. Gwyn felt as if she were two people. The outside one, the Innkeeper’s daughter, curried the horses in the stable and gave them exercise; she served the trays of ale; she snapped back quick responses to Cam’s teasing. He never let up teasing her now, never let her pass without a mocking remark. Perhaps that was because he sat among the soldiers. “It was fear of me that kept her from marrying,” he said. The soldiers urged him on.

  “Fear of you?” Gwyn answered. “Aye, as I fear a kitten.”

  The soldiers laughed.

  Cam didn’t like being laughed at. “Maybe there’s more to me than you see,” he told her. “Maybe if you knew all there is to know, you’d know—more.”

  “And what might that be, Weaver’s son?” a soldier asked, his voice thick with drink but his eyes alert.

  “And would I tell anything to the Lords’ men?” Cam mocked.

  “Would he have anything to tell,” another soldier said. “He’s naught but wind.”

  Cam answered that only with a secret smile. Gwyn wondered at his foolishness, but moved away without comment. “Innkeeper’s daughter,” a voice called across the room, and a hand held up an empty mug upside down. She answered the call.

  But inside she burned with anger. Inside, it was Jackaroo paced up and down, making his plans. The rumors and the hopes for a good crop this year did not move him. He was not deterred from his business. Inside of her head, Gwyn saw constantly the smoking ruins of the hut, and those three men fleeing into the woods. Nothing mattered except delivering justice upon those three.

  There was no law for the people, only the Lord’s law over them. If she knew where to find Gaderian and could even then find a way to speak to him, then . . . but even then, what could a Lordling do? The Lords only concerned themselves with taxes and troops. If she even knew who Gaderian was, she might risk a letter, somehow. But the High City was two days’ hard ride away, and no doubt crowded with Lordlings.

  If she were a man she might find the three out and hang them herself. But she could not fight them herself, not with the surety of winning.

  At last, the only possible plan came to her. It had no certainty, and it might easily result in Jackaroo’s capture, but she did not care about any of that. She cared only for the terrible deed that had been done upon that helpless couple, and taking their vengeance.

  At the next Doling day, Gwyn rose from her bed in the deep of night. She dressed and put her knife
at the waist of her skirt, but wore no shoes. She crept down to the kitchen and took Da’s long cape from its peg by the door. Her bare feet made no sound as she crept into the tackroom to take a bridle and Gaderian’s saddle. Burl would not wake: He was exhausted by the work of the Inn. They all went exhausted to bed these days, Gwyn like everyone else. But she was not tired that night—anger gave her energy and made her restless.

  Gwyn tied rags around the four hooves of the horse in the stall farthest from the Inn. This was the only time when she might be stopped, she thought. She opened the gate between stall and Inn yard and led the horse out. Its muffled footsteps sounded loud in her ears.

  She walked close to the horse’s head, holding its reins. Once beyond the Inn, she removed the cloths and saddled it as best she could in the starry light. Then she walked it northward, circling the village widely, moving slowly through the dark massed shapes of woods and bushes, the broad, flat darkness of fields. She skirted the edge of the vineyard and tied the horse to the fence of Old Megg’s goat pen. She changed her clothes and then settled down to wait for first light. She had needed the darkness and the hour to make good her escape. Now she needed light to make her journey.

  GWYN TIED THE HORSE AMONG the woods that grew up close to the walls of Earl Northgate’s City. The plume of her hat made it impossible to pull the hood of Da’s cloak down over her masked face, so she pulled the feather out of the band and dropped it on the ground. Da’s cloak dragged around her boots. The hood fell down over her face. Her knife she had stuck into the cord holding the trousers up—if she should fail, then she would use it on herself and leave the Lords with a mystery. Should she fail, she thought the mystery would turn into rumors, the rumors into stories, and Jackaroo would not die. Only the Innkeeper’s daughter would die, with no explanation made. Jackaroo would be safe.

  Gwyn joined the city women in the Doling Room. They were gaunt with hunger, and each kept herself away from her neighbors. Fear and hunger isolated them. As Gwyn had thought, the Steward kept them waiting.

  When the room was as full as she thought it would get, Gwyn pushed her way to the front of the twenty-odd women. They watched her listlessly, until she threw back the hood of her cloak. Then they huddled together like cows under a storm, not even daring to whisper to one another, their eyes fixed on her masked face.

  Gwyn took out of her purse the silver coins she had exchanged at the Inn. She had enough, and more than enough. In a rough voice, she told the women what she wanted. “You know me,” she said. “I have two silver coins for each of you, to do as I ask.”

  They listened with full attention.

  “I would have you take the coins and go back to your houses. I would have you say nothing until the day is over.”

  Still they stood silent. A few tongues licked nervously over their lips. Their greedy eyes calculated what two silver coins might buy. They would do it, Gwyn saw. She caught a sidling glimpse from a pair of ferrety eyes. “You will know which of you are not to be trusted.”

  Heads nodded. They were like cattle, Gwyn thought. Not one of them dared to ask her any question.

  “Those women I ask you to keep beside you. I will trust you. And I will tell you a story, which is true.

  “Between this Doling Day and the last, three men crept out from their hovel beneath the mountains. They slipped through the woods like wolves until they came to a lonely holding. In that holding lived a man and his wife and their one child, a baby not yet crawling. The man had two goats. The three from beneath the mountains wanted those goats. They came out of the dark woods with knives. They killed the man. While he tried to fight them, his wife took the baby and hid it in the woods. The three came after her and caught her and killed her. They burned the house, leaving the bodies inside, and slipped back into the dark trees, taking the goats. The baby was left in the woods.”

  A sound, half growl and half moan, ran through the herd of women.

  “I have come for the men who did this,” Gwyn said, her rough voice low in the listening silence of the room. “Go away home now.”

  The women melted away through the door, some holding firm the arms of others, each with two coins in her hand. She thought that the two coins and the tale would keep Jackaroo safe from any reward the Lords had offered.

  Gwyn wrapped Da’s cloak around herself again and stood waiting in a far corner of the long room. She stared at the empty table. When the Steward entered, through the door at the front, he didn’t see her at first. He stood at the table with two soldiers behind him. Gwyn moved forward a little, to catch his eye.

  Just a little light came into the room. The Steward, having seen that someone was there, sat down without looking at her. He opened his long book and turned the pages. The soldiers, their short cloaks loose around their shoulders, lounged at the far side of the fireplace, talking quietly. The Steward raised an impatient face. “Then come up, woman.”

  Gwyn hunched her shoulders and shuffled the length of the room to stand before him. The table gleamed between them. He had his head bent over the book, his pen poised to write her takings. His scalp showed pink beneath his blond hair, and the gold signet ring shone on his finger.

  In one smooth gesture, Gwyn threw back her cloak and unsheathed the sword. Before the soldiers had understood what the sounds meant, she had the sword’s point at the Steward’s throat.

  She held in her imagination the way the Lord had looked when he had threatened her in the same fashion. She wondered if she herself had looked as frightened as this Steward did.

  “You won’t get away with it,” he warned her.

  “Tell your soldiers to disarm themselves.”

  He did as she asked. She moved slightly, to watch the short swords fall to the ground. “And now yourself.”

  The Steward moved carefully to take the dagger from his belt and drop it onto the dirt floor.

  “Send one of your men to order the servants back to the castle with the food. Should he try to get help, nothing will save your life. I care not for my own,” she told him.

  She had in her voice the ice she had heard in the Lord’s voice, and the Steward believed her. He gave the order.

  While they waited for the soldier to return, Gwyn spoke not a word. The Steward’s pale face stared up at her, sweat breaking out on his forehead. He moistened his lips. He swallowed. Gwyn felt the movement of his throat run along the steel and into her hand. He could try to disarm her, but any movement she made, however involuntary, would drive the steel into his throat.

  She meant what she had said: She did not, at that moment, care for her own life. She didn’t even feel any fear. She was entirely Jackaroo. The mask hanging down over her face concealed the face of Jackaroo.

  When the soldier returned and went to join his fellow at the opposite corner of the room, Gwyn gave her the next order. “Disrobe.”

  The Steward’s eyes quickly met hers.

  “Not you, them.”

  The soldiers obeyed. One naked man carried the pile of all their clothes over to lay them on the table. Gwyn did not look at him, or away from him, any more than Jackaroo would have.

  When the Steward had gathered up the armful of clothing, she told the soldiers to stay where they were and wait for the Steward’s return.

  “Do as he says,” the Steward echoed her.

  Gwyn held the sword unsheathed but concealed under the folds of Da’s cloak. With her free hand, she pulled the hood up over her hat, to conceal her masked face. “Bring the long book,” she told the Steward.

  He obeyed her without any question, even though his burden was awkward.

  “We’ll go out through the other door,” she told him. “Move along now. Don’t try any tricks.”

  The Steward’s blond head nodded.

  Gwyn could have laughed at the sight of the richly clothed man she followed. She walked a pace behind, as would any cloaked woman. He held his armload awkwardly and carried the long book jammed in under one of his laden arms. He looked like a
man setting out to the washing tubs.

  Speaking softly from behind him, she directed him away from the city walls and down into the woods, where the thick trunks and shade would conceal them. Her horse was tied a short distance from the clearing where she allowed the Steward to drop his burdens. She could hear the jingle of the reins as the animal bent his head to graze.

  They were alone in the woods, the two of them. No human voice spoke. The Steward watched her, the heap of clothes at his feet. Fear made him plead. “I’m an honest man. I’ve never cheated the people. I’ve never cheated the Earl. You have the wrong man if—”

  “Quiet,” Gwyn silenced him. “Sit down.” He sank to the ground as if his legs had collapsed. She threw back the cloak again and held the sword out between them.

  “I have no wish to harm you,” she said. Relief washed over his face, and a little rush of air came squeaking out of his mouth. She let him enjoy that feeling briefly, then added, “I would not hesitate to do so.”

  He nodded, not so worried now. “What is it you want of me?”

  Distant birds sang to one another and her horse moved quietly. “I want you to bring three men to justice. I know that they are thieves and murderers, and they may be much else besides.”

  “Are they soldiers?”

  “Three of the people.”

  “But I can’t do that. The law doesn’t—unless—did they attack a Messenger?”

  “No, they attacked a holding.”

  “But you know as well as I do that—”

  “You will have these men taken, and you will hang them for their crimes.”

  “I can’t. I really can’t. You have to see that. There is no law for that.”

  Gwyn’s temper rose. “Steward, you will do this.”