Jackaroo

by Cynthia Voigt

  She emerged at the crest of the hill on her knees and looked down the long distance to the hut and shed. That steep distance, she rolled down, which seemed—curiously—to take no time at all. The first thing she did, when she came to stop against the goat pen and pulled herself up once again onto her knees, was vomit.

  Gwyn slid under the fence, pulling with her arms because her legs were of no use to her, and dragged her stubborn left leg behind her as she made her wormlike way across the pen to the open gate. What luck that the gate was open, she thought, crawling up to the house. The door to the house was open too, and she pulled her body inside.

  Gwyn took off the mask she wore. But why should she wear a mask? She proceeded with her three-limbed crawl across the dirt floor to the open cupboard. It took some time to remember how the clasps of her tunic worked, but she knew she was undressing as fast as she could. As fast as she could was too slow, and although she did not know why she should hurry, she knew that she must.

  The boots were hard to remove, especially the left boot with a gaping hole just below her knee. It was a pity that someone had slashed such fine leather, she thought, bending over to pull the boot down, wondering why it should be so painful to do that, as if her flesh too were slashed open. The boot was ruined, and that was a great waste.

  She had shoved all the clothes up into the cupboard, but with the nagging sensation that she had not done things right, when her strength gave out. Gwyn thought she would lie on the bed until she felt better, except that the bed was far away and a girl had left her skirt out on it. Gwyn hoped the girl wouldn’t be frightened to find her here, in her home. She hoped the girl would have something to drink too.

  Gwyn pulled herself up onto her one good leg, her hands on a wooden table, to see if the girl was on the bed. She tumbled forward onto her face. At least, the strange thought drifted across the cloudy blackness of her mind, Burl was safe. The black clouds closed in around her.

  Chapter 25

  GWYN SWAM THROUGH FIRE—SOMEONE, at the back of her mind, asked if this was burning and were the dead then not meat at all. She turned to ask someone how the news could be carried back to the living, but nobody stood there. The fire was water, and she let it drown her.

  Gwyn toiled along the mountain’s stony face. The stones burned underfoot and against her palms. They burned where they touched her leg. She had to find the eastern pass the Lord had spoken of, but she lacked a leg so her progress was slow. Sweat poured down over her naked body. She stood under the waterfall then and opened her mouth to take in the sweet cold water. When her foot slipped on the rock, she had no strength to grasp at the stones, so she let the waterfall carry her down, laughing aloud as she tumbled along the foam.

  Jackaroo rode by her, in the night. He reined in in front of her and took off his mask. He was Win, with his wolfish features and his sad laughter. He took off his mask. He was a girl, her hair the color of maple leaves in autumn, riding high and proud. He took off his mask. He was a Prince, just a boy. . . . No, a young man and angered, and the dark figure on the horse took off his mask. He was dead, long dead, his eyes blind sockets and his fleshless jaw hanging down. He rode his horse over her. The iron hooves pounded on her leg. Then Jackaroo’s bones crumbled and the heavy tunic fell down upon her. He wanted to smother her.

  Gwyn opened her eyes. Heavy bedclothes lay over her. It was a dream. She was alone. She slid into sleep.

  It was dark when she awoke again. A sound in the darkness had roused her. She could not turn her head. Light came—a candle. She remembered how to turn her head and saw a dark figure seated with its back to her, its head low so that all she could see was the dark shape of shoulders.

  This was Old Megg’s hut she lay in, but she was too tired by the effort of moving her head to be surprised. Hazily, she remembered Gaderian. He must build a fire, or they would freeze.

  The figure at the table turned around, but it was Burl. “I knew you were,” she said.

  “Are you awake then,” he asked her.

  Gwyn shut her eyes.

  She heard him bring a stool over, near to her head.

  “If you would eat,” he asked her.

  She opened her eyes. “I’m not hungry.”

  “Aye, Gwyn, and you are.” It was easier to agree than to argue. He had soft pieces of bread, which he soaked with wine before dropping them into her mouth. She swallowed as many as she could before raising her hand to push his hand away.

  In the candlelight his eyes were shadowed. She fell asleep.

  Light lay in the room when she awoke again. The window over the bed was open, as was the door. Burl was still there. There was pain in her left leg, which throbbed and burned. She pulled herself up in the bed, but had no strength. He fed her again, cold broth into which he dipped pieces of bread.

  “What happened?” she asked him.

  At that, he laughed aloud, putting the bowl back on the table and bringing a bucket of water to her bedside. “I must change the bandage on your leg.”

  “I remember that,” Gwyn said angrily, dismayed at how weak her anger sounded. “But what happened since then. That’s what I want to know.”

  He didn’t answer her, and she lacked the courage to look down at her leg. She felt him unwrapping, then the cool water, and then a dry, tight bandage. She should have had the courage to look, she thought.

  “In the cupboard, Burl,” she remembered.

  “No, I’ve buried them,” he soothed her. “You’ve had a fever—the wound inflamed. It’s been five days. The sword cut almost down to the bone, and then—it was filthy. I had salt for it. Aye, Gwyn, you didn’t like that. But it’s healing now.”

  “Next time I’ll look at it,” she promised. “But Burl—” She tried to sit up.

  “Nay, rest, I’ll tell you.” He sat down on the stool. She fixed her eyes on him and waited.

  “You look tired,” she finally broke his silence.

  “Aye and you look yourself like death. I made it safely back. I thought you would come later, but you didn’t. I didn’t know what to do and Tad—he thought you might come here. So we came here and found you.”

  “Thank you,” Gwyn said. “Tad?” she asked him.

  He shrugged.

  “How did you know?”

  “I watched where they held Win that night. I didn’t know what you were thinking of, why you had brought food and wine to the soldiers, what you might try. I saw you go into the prison house.”

  “But I was—”

  “Osh, and you think I don’t know how you walk? And didn’t you recognize me?”

  “But how did you?”

  “You’ve been in a fever these five days. I have come, when I could. Tad too, but they keep him close. They say,” and his eyes stayed quiet on her face, “that the Weaver’s son has gone to be a soldier.”

  Gwyn didn’t know why he told her that as if it mattered.

  “They say that the Innkeeper’s daughter ran off to be with him. It’s certain that she hasn’t been seen nor heard of since that day. She has taken her gold with her, they say.”

  Gwyn swallowed that information. Then she sputtered with weak laughter. “There’s not much gold left. Aye, Mother’ll not be pleased. Does Da—?”

  “They say it serves him right. They say it’s time he had some bad luck to bring him even with others, after he spoiled the girl so.”

  “He doesn’t know?”

  Burl shook his head. “If you had died,” he explained, “it would have made no difference. I don’t know now what you want him to know.”

  “I would not have him think I ran off with Cam.”

  “He’s sent for the men to pick the grapes,” Burl told her.

  “Then I have to get out of here.” Alarm gave her energy.

  “We have a day or two yet. You should sleep again now. I have to return before I’m missed.”

  She didn’t argue. Besides, she was exhausted, and sleep was welcome.

  Someone who was not Burl enter
ed the hut, waking her, late in the afternoon, stepping out of golden sunlight. Gwyn felt her helplessness sharply.

  “It’s only me,” Tad said. “How are you?” He too carried a bowl. He too pulled the stool over to her bedside, as if he were accustomed to do so.

  Surprise opened Gwyn’s mouth, and he put a piece of bread, soaked in lukewarm broth, into it. She chewed and swallowed impatiently. “I can feed myself,” she told him.

  Tad grinned at her. “Burl said you were much better. Aye, you frightened me, Gwyn. And why did you do that, anyway?” he asked, switching to anger.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” she mumbled.

  “I saw you throw that ring. I’m not as stupid as you think.”

  Gwyn ate with her fingers and considered her little brother. “I’ve never thought you stupid,” she told him at last. “It’s good to see you, Tad.”

  “And you, Gwyn. It’s good to see you. I thought—we were afraid—”

  “That I’d run off with Cam? Well, I can understand why you would,” she finished his sentence for him.

  “No, I knew you wouldn’t do that. Da only thinks so because Mother wants him to.”

  “She dotes on you.”

  “Aye, she does. Well, that needn’t ruin my life, think you?”

  “No.”

  “What we thought was that you’d die.”

  “Without you, I might have, as I understand it. But I didn’t, did I? What I’ll do now, since I haven’t died, I don’t know—except I think I need to go to the privy.”

  “Oh good,” Tad said, then he blushed red. “No, I mean, you’ve been so sick, and we couldn’t stay with you. They’d know, if I left the Inn at night. Burl’s making you a crutch to walk with; he’ll bring it here tonight. Use my shoulder,” he offered.

  They hobbled together down to the privy, and then back again. Gwyn’s forehead was cold with sweat when she finally lay back down on the bed. “Are you all right?” Tad asked.

  “Weak. I didn’t know I’d be so weak. Tad—” Her hands flew to her ears and then to the rest of her head, where there were no braids. “Where’s my hair?”

  “We had to cut it off. You were twisting and it was hot, you said.”

  Gwyn’s fingers found where her hair stopped, just below her ears.

  “I’m sorry, Gwyn. We had to.”

  “That’s all right. It just felt so strange for a minute. How do I look?”

  “Pretty terrible,” Tad told her. “Burl will think of something,” he promised her.

  Gwyn was asleep again before she could answer that.

  Gwyn’s strength came back rapidly, with food. Burl brought her an awkward crutch. They talked about what she might do, where she might go, as she made slow progress around the little room, her skirt clumsy around her leg. “Don’t tire yourself,” he warned her.

  “There’ll be an empty holding I know of, north of Hildebrand’s City, but the house is burned,” Gwyn said. “Or that one we went to in the winter, where the three men—”

  “Aye, Gwyn, you cannot stay nearby.”

  “But that’s not near, and I don’t ever need to . . .” she started to argue. But he was right. It was only what Win had told her. “Then I’ll go to the mountains,” she said. She would live high in the mountains, in a cave the first winter, but she should be able to build some kind of shelter, later. She would live high and solitary in the mountains. The idea pleased her.

  “That’s foolishness,” Burl told her. “How could you live there?”

  “There will be a way.”

  Burl shook his head. “No, you can’t do that.”

  A house of stone, a little house, and when the aspens shivered gold in the fall she would stand among them. She didn’t bother to answer Burl.

  “You will not do that,” he told her.

  Who was he to tell her what to do? As if she were his servant.

  “You’re not a foolish girl, Gwyn; you’ve got a good head, better than most. Use it.”

  She wouldn’t answer him, when he spoke to her so.

  “If you go to the mountains you’ll only die. What would you eat? Where would you shelter? You know nothing of how to trap animals, if there are any about. You know nothing of how to protect yourself there, or how to build a house.”

  Just because he was right didn’t mean she wouldn’t do as she wished.

  “We’ll have to think of something else, Innkeeper’s daughter.”

  “Do you think I haven’t tried?” she demanded.

  “Aye, that’s just what I do think,” he told her calmly.

  Well, he was right. But she would have liked to live among the mountains. It would have suited her.

  “South, then—and—I know the work of an inn, there’ll be inns to the south. Or if I could find entertainers from the fair? Do you think they would ever take someone in to work for them?” Her shoulders sagged, and the rough crutch, which forced her to bend over painfully, bit into her armpit. But it was no good regretting. “Or the Lords, our Lords from the winter, I could find them out to go into service.” That would at least keep her fed. She was not sure, otherwise, how she might keep herself fed. She had never understood before how much it was to be sure of your roof or your dinner.

  “They came from the south,” Burl said thoughtfully. “There was the falcon on their saddles,” he explained.

  “I saw it.”

  “We don’t know how they will have fared during the war.”

  Gwyn had never thought about that. She hoped that both of them had come through it alive. “He was with the King,” she said. That at least was hopeful.

  “Aye, he was the King’s man, first.”

  Gwyn sat on the bed, the strain of moving having used up her strength. “I couldn’t travel far, as I am.”

  “No, you’ll come with me tomorrow,” Burl told her. “I will tell them I bought you from the priests in Hildebrand’s City. Until you’re strong again,” he said to her astounded expression. “Aye, Gwyn, we have no choice,” he apologized, as weak tears slid down her cheeks. “The pickers will arrive, and you can’t be seen. I can think of no other way.”

  He didn’t know at all why she was weeping, and neither did she, really, except at the wonder of having such a friend.

  “It won’t be long, I promise you,” he comforted her.

  THEY WERE MAKING THEIR SLOW way down to the Inn, avoiding all the hills they could, Gwyn bent over the crutch, hidden beneath Burl’s long winter cloak, when they heard the bell summon the people to the village. The notes of the bell rang out, calling them where they stood, just within the woods that separated the village from the Inn.

  Gwyn felt the same alarm she saw on Burl’s face. “You go ahead, I’ll catch up.”

  “No, we must be seen together.” She had learned better than to question him. They retraced their path until they stood at the edge of the village, next to the house where Win had been held.

  It was Jackaroo who rang the bell, standing tall in his stirrups to pull on the rope. The villagers had gathered back near the Blacksmith’s house—Gwyn saw Rose where she stood within Wes’s arms. A few men hurried down from the fields. Still the tall figure on horseback, his face hidden by a red silk mask, his long boots folded down to his knees, rang the bell.

  It was not until Da and Mother, with Tad behind them, hurried down the path into the village that he ceased his clamorous call and sat easily back on the saddle, keeping the horse motionless with one gloved hand on the reins.

  Gwyn was transfixed at the sight of him. He sat the horse as if he had been born to it. He was a man of purpose and authority, with or without a mask. He was Jackaroo himself. His silence, waiting for the Innkeeper’s family to approach, had the patient certainty of mountains.

  Had she ever appeared so to those who saw her? She could not believe that was true, but she knew it was. Because that was true, it was all worth it, whatever else might happen in her life.

  “Innkeeper,” Jackaroo called Da forward. D
a stepped out alone. He looked worn, but not frightened, as he stood before the mounted man.

  “Innkeeper, would you be a Lord among the people?” Jackaroo asked, in a voice as cold and distant as the winds from the high mountains.

  Da stepped back, as if Jackaroo had struck him. Then he shook his head slowly, no. He did not seem surprised at the question, Gwyn thought, her hand clenched tightly around the crutch.

  “Then your holdings must go back to the men who first owned them. Will you do that, Innkeeper?”

  Gwyn knew that voice, knew its cold authority. It was Gaderian’s father.

  “Hush, lass,” Burl said softly.

  “You needn’t warn me,” she whispered back. But she had not thought that the Lords, too, would go outside their own laws to ride as Jackaroo.

  Da answered, “Aye, I will do that.” He spoke plain and clear, for all to hear.

  Jackaroo reached under his cape to draw out, not a knife as Gwyn had unreasonably feared, but a rolled sheet of paper, tied around with a red silk ribbon. His clear voice spoke so that all might hear. “In four days’ time, Earl Sutherland will ride from Northgate’s City on this way to the High City. You will give him this, Innkeeper, for me. It asks that each Lord—each of the six Lords, each of the two Earls—set a day in every season when he will hear from the people themselves. It suggests that one man of the people take before his Lord the needs and requests of the people and any of their quarrels that the Lord must settle. It asks that the Innkeeper from the Ram’s Head be the man for Hildebrand, and that all the men chosen be men of the Innkeeper’s fair measure and men of substance who will understand the Lord’s feeling for his land.”

  He reached down the paper to Da, whose hand rose to take it.

  “Will you deliver this to Earl Sutherland?”

  “Aye, I will,” Da promised.

  He had lost much and gained much, Gwyn thought. There was fair measure in that, too.

  But if Win was right, what had Gaderian’s father given up to ride as Jackaroo? Unless it was only the Lords who could ride outside of the law safely, and that was why any of the people who did must pay—for their high dreams, for taking a Lord’s high place.