Jackaroo

by Cynthia Voigt

  They had broken his spirit, Gwyn thought. First she had to get him away, then she would deal with this new problem. “Talk can come later,” she said.

  “No and it can’t. I’ve learned at least that much hard wisdom. I didn’t have any wisdom about me when I put on your mask.”

  “You put on my mask?” Gwyn had forgotten that she wore one, so closely did it fit her now.

  “Maybe not that very same one. As you know.”

  But Gwyn knew nothing.

  “I put it on for a game—there was no need, and I rode out the once, all for the pride of it, for the joke . . . and came so close to getting caught it was years before I slept a night through.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  He grinned up at her. “No, my friend, you don’t. You know no more than I did. And I’d not be you, not for the world. I say that, and today I saw that the girl I should have stayed home to marry has married my brother, and the children I should have had were his, and the Inn that was mine had prospered under his hand. All because I put on that mask. Did you know what it meant when you put on the mask?”

  Gwyn shook her head, no.

  “Aye, you’ll find it out. Maybe, if we knew, we’d never dare to put it on, and maybe that’s why nobody tells that hard truth. Think you?” He looked up at her, curious.

  Gwyn had nothing to say.

  “Except there is need now. That much, at least, is in your favor. You ride in need. It’ll make no difference in the end. Things will turn out the same.”

  “Tell me,” Gwyn asked.

  “Tell you? And take away the joke? I’d not do that. What kind of thanks would have I given you then? For you’ve sent me smiling to the gallows and I would thank you.”

  Gwyn felt a fool, and she felt angry, and she felt entirely confused. The highwayman lay back on the bed, his arms folded behind his head, his face happy.

  “I will give you one piece of advice, though; if you live. If you want to live. If, if—what’s the use of ifs. I’ll give you advice, because you’ve given me laughter when I’d given it up. You should leave the Kingdom if you’ve a chance. That’s the only way. What will happen then, I don’t know. I didn’t have the wits, or the courage, to take my chance when I could have. I wanted to stay in my own land. And by the time I knew how I must stay, the only way I could stay—it was too late.”

  “Too late?” she was standing there stupidly repeating his words.

  “Aye, because what changes putting on the mask had begun, I had myself finished. So farewell to you, Jackaroo. I pity you, with all that’s left of my heart—but that’s not much.”

  “You’ll not come away? I’ve a horse—”

  “Will you understand? I wouldn’t escape if the King himself came to lead me out. If—well, he’s settled the southern Lords now, he might have nothing better to do. That’s a picture anyway, isn’t it? King and highwayman together. No, you can escape, tonight, if you will. But come and see me hanged. I’d like to think you were there and watching. You’ll see that I’m smiling, and you can know that I’m grateful. I’m out of the trap that held me, and it’s that same trap you’re snared in, Jackaroo,” he said, and chuckled. He closed his eyes.

  Gwyn left the hut, barring the door behind her. She felt as if someone had hit her over the head with a heavy staff, and although she walked out steadily, she felt as if she were reeling from the blow. She had not even called him by name, she realized, untying the horse. She hesitated in the dark air, wondering if that would bring him out. But she couldn’t call him by name because that would give her identity away. She didn’t know if she could trust him to keep her secret. So she had no chance to claim her Uncle Win.

  Gwyn pulled herself up onto the horse, but she didn’t go back to Old Megg’s. The night air was cool and the sword rode heavy on her leg. She had no desire to sleep.

  He had been telling the truth, she understood that, turning the horse to the north. Sorrow sat next to her heart, wrapping her heart around with its cold arms, and she knew Win had spoken the truth. By all the proud and painful deeds she had done, she had lost the Inn.

  Knowing herself, she knew she could not go to Old Megg’s and hide the masquerade away forever. She would ride as she was riding now, without any joy, to Am’s. She would ride as she was riding now, in darkness, because she was an outlaw. Jackaroo rode outside of the law, and that was why the Lords wanted to take him. The law couldn’t hold Jackaroo. He would do what he wanted and that made him an outlaw. Gwyn would never have chosen to be an outlaw. She hadn’t chosen that, she had only chosen to do what good she could, for the people. It was just as Mother said, she had too much imagination, too soft a heart. She had not known what she was choosing. But even if she had known, Gwyn knew that she would have chosen the same. This knowledge was not sweet, not joyful.

  She rode through the dark night, never any faster than a trot. She didn’t want the horse to stumble or injure itself. She didn’t want to fall off. At Am’s house, she slid down and stormed through the door. She said never a word, because she had only angry words to utter. It was almost, she thought, climbing back onto the horse and turning it toward home, as if the very heat of her anger had filled that little room and kept silent the four figures who sat up terrified in their beds as she strode in, threw the coins onto the table, and strode out. Well, maybe that would make Am cautious. Maybe fear of Jackaroo would force him to discretion, and the coins would then not be wasted.

  Before the first dawn showed at the rim of the sky, Gwyn was back in her own room with nobody—except her—the wiser.

  Chapter 23

  ON HANGING DAY THE SKY overhead was a cloudless blue that went on forever. The air was as motionless as the stones of Earl Northgate’s walls. The group from the Inn arrived early. They walked the long Way through cool morning air, to be sure to stand at the front of the crowd, where they might be seen. A tall wooden gallows stood between the gatehouse and the Doling Room, empty, waiting for midday. Da and Mother, Gwyn, Tad, and Burl had come together to the hanging.

  Tad, Gwyn thought, was finding that it was not always a pleasure to get what he wanted. He had insisted that he wanted to see the hanging, but now he was here, and waiting, he seemed restless and uneasy. He wandered off whenever Mother’s eye was not on him. He walked around the Doling Room, he walked around other groups of people as they drifted in; but he did not walk around the gallows as the other little boys did.

  Mother scolded him half-heartedly when he came back, but as soon as her eye was off him he disappeared again. Finally Gwyn protested. “Leave him be,” she asked her mother, because her father was saying nothing, just standing with his eyes fixed on the long-legged gallows with its steep stairway up.

  “We should not have let him come,” Mother said, turning the force of her anger on Gwyn.

  Gwyn could match that force with her own, and overmatch it. “It’s time he faced up to things,” she said. She didn’t think Tad knew who the highwayman was; she suspected that her mother didn’t know that Gwyn knew. “It’s not good for you to baby him so,” she told her mother.

  “Aye, and what do you know?”

  Gwyn couldn’t answer that. She knew more than was good for her. She knew nothing.

  “You’d feel differently if you had children of your own,” her mother said to her.

  “No,” Gwyn answered, “I wouldn’t. And if I did, I’d be wrong. And if I did, I hope I’d remember that I’m wrong.”

  “Hush now, daughter,” Da said, not turning his head. Gwyn obeyed him. Besides, she had remembered to feel pity for her mother. If she had understood him correctly, Win had planned to marry Mother, so that Mother must have said yes to him. But she had married his brother instead, when Win was lost to her. Da, too, she pitied, because this must have been what he meant by second best. Second best to his wife, and second best to his father, who had named his oldest son heir, before Da.

  “I’ll find Tad,” she said to her parents, by way of apology.

>   A large crowd had gathered. People approached from the city gates and from the King’s Way. Everybody wore fair clothing and bright ribbons were tied around the women’s necks. The hanging was scheduled for midday, to give all, even those from distant holdings, time to get there. The people waited patiently, talking among themselves. As Gwyn made her way through and among them, she overheard scraps of conversation. There were rumors from the south, of peace, of burned fields, of soldiers who hid in the thick forest to sweep out and attack enemy camps when they were least expected. The King had fallen in battle, she heard. The King had named a new Earl for the south, one of his own sons, she heard. The King had abandoned the southern lands to their own misery and retreated into the High City. The crops in the north, men said, were growing well, tall shoots coming up to promise a rich harvest. The goats and sheep, cows and pigs gave birth in record numbers. They had hope for a good year.

  Gwyn made her way among the people, staring around her, at bent bodies and straight bodies, at familiar faces and strange faces, at the marks of long hunger now fading under the land’s summer bounty, at eyes that were bitter or eager, curious or thoughtful. For all the differences between them, they were the same: the men bearded and the women with their long braids coiled over their ears, their interest only in the rumors and the crops. They had come to visit, to gossip, to holiday; that a man would die meant little to them.

  She found Tad hidden at the back of the crowd, leaning against the closed door of the Doling Room. His felt shoes scuffed at the dirt. His hair shone like little flames, and his mouth drooped. “It’s time,” she told him. “Mother wants you.”

  He shook his head.

  “Aye, Tad,” she said. “I’d rather be home myself. But if you were to be hanged so, would you want to be alone?”

  “It’s nothing to me,” Tad argued.

  “No, but it is something to this man. Think you?” He had to agree. “So you must take your courage in both your hands and stand to watch.”

  He shook his head.

  “No, you know better.” Gwyn waited in front of him, watching his face.

  “I can’t,” he whispered, at last.

  “Aye, and you can, and you will.”

  His eyes at last met hers. “I wish you’d get married and leave me alone. Mother says it’s because you want the Inn.”

  He was trying to make her angry, so that she would walk away and leave him. Instead, she answered him honestly: “I want the Inn, yes, but I won’t have it. You’ll have it. Now, come do what you must.”

  She turned away then, knowing he would follow.

  A dozen soldiers escorted the highwayman out from the city. They formed a line with their backs to the people. The highwayman waited in front of them, facing the crowd. The people fell silent.

  A line of Lords and Ladies came to stand then at the high tops of the walls, their hair shining in sunlight, their clothing bright with many colors.

  The highwayman’s eyes scanned the crowd, never resting, not even when they saw Mother and Da. Win would keep his secrets, Gwyn thought. Behind him, wooden steps led to a high wooden platform. The tall gallows had been built at the center of the platform, and the rope hung down from that. The highwayman had his back to it, and his head held high.

  Everybody waited. The line of soldiers stood with their feet slightly apart, not speaking, watching the highwayman. Their blue capes hung over their backs, their hands rested on the hilts of short swords, ready.

  “Do they fear a rescue?” someone whispered behind Gwyn.

  “Or do they fear Jackaroo?” someone muttered.

  “Aye, they always have,” was the low answer.

  Jackaroo had tried his rescue, Gwyn thought, and the man himself had refused it, if they only knew. The man himself had ridden out as Jackaroo, if they only knew, and had lost his whole life for it.

  She made her eyes stay on the thin, straight figure, on the expressionless face. She did not move her hand, as she wanted to, to protect the purse hung concealed inside her skirt. There would be thieves in this crowd, probably worse men than the man to be hung. Her protection from them was her ordinariness. The Steward’s ring hung heavy at the bottom of the purse, because she had forgotten it was there when she took up her three remaining gold pieces. After a hanging, the Steward would offer the body of the man for sale. If his family dared to claim him, they could have him for a gold piece. If nobody took him for his own burning, he would hang upon the gallows until the birds had picked him clean—as a warning to all who would harm the Lords.

  Gwyn thought that she would step up to claim the body. Certainly, she had no reputation left to lose. She was the Innkeeper’s unmarried daughter, willful and difficult. Da could not claim his brother because then questions would be asked and rumors would start. But if the Innkeeper’s unmarried daughter claimed the body of a highwayman, the rumors begun would be so far from the truth that nobody would stand in any danger.

  When the Steward emerged from the gatehouse, the black-hooded executioner at his side, the crowd stirred. From that moment, things moved quickly. There was no naming of the man’s crimes: The people could think what they would, as long as they knew the surety of the Lord’s punishment. The highwayman was given no chance to speak.

  His hands bound behind him, the highwayman walked without hesitation up the stairway. The executioner mounted behind him. When the highwayman stood beneath the circle of rope, facing out over the crowd, the executioner lowered the noose around his neck and pulled it tight with practiced hands.

  The people watched.

  Win’s eyes found out the little group from the Ram’s Head and stayed there for the endless time it took for his executioner to kneel down and find the catch that held the trapdoor closed. Then he looked over the heads of all, to the hills and mountains that rose beyond, closed his eyes, and thought his own private thoughts. These thoughts seemed to amuse him.

  The executioner slid the bolt open. The trapdoor fell away. The body plummeted down and hung. In the silence, the thunk of the weight of the body reaching the end of the rope seemed loud. The head lolled sideways, the feet kicked, and then the body rotated gently at the end of the rope.

  The crowd let out a long, sighing breath.

  This was a skillful executioner, whose knots would break a man’s neck rather than leaving him to choke for many long minutes. Gwyn looked away from the hanged man and noticed that Tad had fixed both of his hands into her arm with a grip so tight she would probably have bruises. But Tad did not turn his head away.

  They waited out the long minutes, while the Steward made sure that the man was dead. The highwayman hung now below the level of the platform, his feet only inches above the ground, down at the level of the people. The crowd murmured.

  At last, the Steward stepped forward. Gwyn reached inside her skirt to put her fingers into her purse. She looked over at her parents, who stood like stone people, with expressionless stone faces.

  “Who owns this man?” the Steward called out over the crowd.

  Unclaimed, the body would be hoisted up high again, until his head almost touched the pulley over which the thick hanging rope ran, so that all might see him.

  “Does any man claim the body?” the Steward called. Gwyn took a breath and clutched at a coin in her purse.

  “I will, if it pleases you,” Burl spoke, stepping forward from behind her. He moved calmly forward to stand before the Steward.

  The soldiers parted to let him through.

  “Have you the coin?” the Steward asked.

  Burl produced it, and the Steward held out a gloved hand to accept it. Gwyn was willing to wager that he slept with his gloves on, these days.

  “Who are you?” the Steward asked.

  “My name is Burl. I was born in Lord Hildebrand’s City.” Burl answered the question in his usual calm voice.

  “What is this man to you?” the Steward asked.

  “He is nothing to me,” Burl answered. “I have no family, parents,
brothers, sisters, wife, or child.”

  The Steward did not like this answer, but there was truth in Burl’s voice. Gwyn waited nervously to see if the Steward would now release the body to Burl. If he were to ask where Burl lived, or how he kept himself, or even where he had gotten the coin, he might come dangerously near to the truth.

  “Then why do you want him?” the Steward asked, suspicious.

  “He’s a man alone, as I am,” Burl said. “I claim him, as I hope someone will claim me when I die.”

  The Steward answered him quickly. “Will you, too, die at the end of a rope?”

  “Aye and I hope not,” Burl said, laughter in his voice. “I am an honest man, Steward.”

  “That he is.” A few voices spoke from the crowd. “We know him.” The Steward looked around to see who had spoken, but he could not catch them out. Reluctantly, he gave the signal for the body to be lowered. A man came forward with a wheelbarrow and helped Burl fold the body into it. Win’s arms and legs hung out. Burl took the handles of the wheelbarrow into his hands and rolled the burden away, through the crowd. Burl looked at no one as he passed through.

  “Come,” Da said. The crowd broke up into groups of people talking. The Weaver reached out a hand to catch Mother’s sleeve. “Did you know him then?” she hissed.

  Mother tried to shake off the hand, but she did not answer the question. Gwyn looked up to find Cam’s eyes on her, mocking. Did he know the truth? Probably many did know, or at least suspected. But the Lords did not, which would keep the Inn safe from their notice. Gwyn smiled boldly back at Cam, letting him think what he would.

  It was the gatehouse bell ringing that turned the crowd back and caused it to close in again. Gwyn found herself at the front of a crowd that kept pushing her forward, with Cam beside her and Tad holding on to her hand on the other side. “What is it, Gwyn?” he asked her. “I thought it was all over.”