Jackaroo

by Cynthia Voigt

  “Gwyn, look!” Tad pulled on her arm. They joined the circle of people around a juggler’s camp. Three men in red and green striped leggings were juggling red balls. Their hands flew as they kept three, four, and then five wooden balls circling in the air. At one end of the circle of watchers stood a few Lords and Ladies, who applauded with gloved hands as the jugglers gathered in the balls and took their bows. After the applause, one of the men stepped forward to announce that the next, and final, trick was one never before seen in the whole Kingdom. “If the Ladies,” he bowed toward the Lords, “are delicate, they might turn their backs. The dangers of the act may frighten them. They surely frighten me, and I should know.” He held up both of his hands, where three fingers were no longer than one knuckle. The crowd oohed sympathetically. Then he unfolded the fingers he had doubled down and the crowd laughed, applauded, called out to him. He bowed and took into his hands three knives. He held the knives up, that all might see.

  “You’re thinking now that these are dulled blades. I know your suspicious minds. But look you—” He held one knife up and approached a girl among the people. Gwyn knew her, it was Liss, from the farm northward. Her brothers were with her, and they stepped in around her as the juggler approached. “I ask only a lock of your lovely hair,” the juggler said to her. He was no longer young, his face brown and his smile easy. Liss laughed, covering her mouth with her hand, happy to be singled out for attention. The juggler reached out and took into his fingers one of the curls that had escaped the coiled braids. He held it straight out for a second and then, his hand swifter than a bird’s wing, he cut it.

  “Aaah,” the people sighed in satisfaction. The juggler held the dark curl high above his head in one hand, with the knife held high in the other, and paraded around the inside of the circle. Back at the center, he asked Liss, “Would your young man like to have this treasure?”

  “I have no young man,” Liss answered, while her brothers tried to shush her. Gwyn was smiling.

  “No young man?” The juggler seemed amazed. “What fools they are, then. Think you?” he asked the crowd.

  Everybody agreed noisily, and one or two voices offered to remedy that situation if Liss was willing. Her brothers looked sternly around to find out the speakers.

  The juggler stood at the center of the circle, before the fire, and held the three knives aloft, until he had everyone’s attention again.

  “He’ll never do that now, will he?” women asked.

  “He’d better, after all this fanfare,” men answered.

  So he did, sending the knives up into the air so that their metal blades caught at the sunlight. Slowly at first, then faster, the knives circled from his hands. The crowd watched, silently. He juggled the knives around his back, then under a raised leg, without any hesitation as the blades rose and fell, and his hands caught at them and held them briefly before sending them aloft again. When he gathered them together in one hand and took his bow, the crowd stamped and clapped. “If we have pleased you,” the juggler said, “as I seem to think we may have, do not hold back in showing your gratitude. If it’s a lean year for farmers, think of how hard it is for jugglers.”

  His two assistants passed among the crowd, carrying shallow baskets, going first to the Lords and Ladies. When the basket came to Gwyn, she saw two silver coins and four pennies. She caught the eye of the young man holding the basket. “What the Lords leave will barely keep a juggler from one fair to the next,” he told her.

  Tad put in two of the pennies Da had given him, when Gwyn promised to pay him back for one later, when her coins had been changed. Many people, she saw, had moved quickly away as the young man approached, their faces ashamed.

  “Osh aye,” the young man said, watching them melt away into the passersby. He spoke with the slow vowels of the southern kingdom. “I’d not begrudge them a free show.”

  “Aye,” Gwyn answered, “but they might have stayed to pay their thanks.”

  They moved on, she and Tad, stopping to greet Liss, whose excitement matched Tad’s, and then to watch a puppet show where a wooden knight fought a wooden giant to win a painted wooden princess. They passed the fortune-tellers, and a dancer who moved to the music of her own tambourine, lifting her bright skirts high while the audience, all men, hooted and cheered. Tad wanted to see the sword-swallower, whom he remembered from last fall.

  There, the crowd was large and impatient for the performer to begin. When he stepped out of the tent hung from a rope behind the campfire, there was a burst of eager clapping. He was a large man, the top of his head bald, his beard trimmed short. He wore black trousers and had no shirt on under his leather tunic. He paraded twice around the circle, bowing to the Lords and Ladies at the side before beginning.

  His performance was short, but the more dramatic for all that. Speaking never a word, he lifted the blades high over his head, arcing them to show that there was no trickery behind it. One after the other, he proved the blades, and then, his body drawn up tall, his head thrown back, his mouth opened wide, he started to swallow them. Gwyn watched, as breathless as she had been each time she had seen this man perform. His throat rose and fell, like a snake eating a mouse, as the blade went down it. Her own throat wanted to gag, watching this. The hand that held the blade above his open mouth lowered slowly, slowly, and then, with painful slowness, lifted.

  The blades grew longer, until it was a blade as long as Gwyn’s forearm he lifted out. The watchers whistled, stamped, clapped their hands. Tad turned to Gwyn. “He’s going to do it now, isn’t he?” Gwyn nodded. She had caught sight of a woman’s face peering out of the tent briefly and smiling at the sword-swallower. The smile revealed dark gaps where teeth were missing. The woman’s skin was pale, her cheeks hollow.

  The sword-swallower lit a torch. Its handle was wooden and the cloths that made up its head had been soaked in oil. It flared up with a muffled roar. He swept it around at the people circling close to him. They drew back before it. Then he opened his mouth and swallowed fire.

  Gwyn had seen this before but it still caught her. Like everyone else, she waited without breathing. He pulled the torch from his mouth and the torch was smoking.

  “Did you see that, did you see that?” Tad was jumping up and down and pulling on her arm. “Did you see?”

  “Aye, I saw.”

  The sword-swallower moved into the crowd. One of the Lords spoke to him, and he bowed his head slightly. He would be asked to the castle, where he could hope for good pay, Gwyn knew. But he didn’t say a word to the Lord or to anyone else as he moved among the crowd, his eyes proud. Tad put coins into the basket, but he moved behind Gwyn’s skirt when the man came near. Gwyn saw the sword-swallower’s eyes flick contemptuously over Tad.

  When they walked on, Gwyn started to lecture Tad. “You mustn’t do that, you’re too old to hide now.”

  He did not ask her what she meant. “That’s easy for you. You’re brave.”

  “Aye, tell yourself that,” Gwyn snapped back at him. “You might as well be wearing skirts.”

  “Who are you to talk? You act like a man anyway. Why do you think no one wants to wed you?”

  Gwyn’s temper flared to meet his. “What did you say?”

  He moved back, out of reach. “You’re not a proper girl at all. You might as well be wearing trousers and a beard.”

  “Get off, before I clout you all the way to tomorrow,” Gwyn told him. “Run back to Mother. You’ll be safe there,” she called after him.

  But his words had cut her like a knife. She knew it, and she felt how different she was from—everybody else. She didn’t fit into this world, and even at home, at the Inn, she didn’t fit in any longer the way she was supposed to. She no longer suited their lives, and it worried Mother and it worried Da, and it worried Gwyn and made her cross.

  She worked her way along the path that wound through the trees, not seeing anything. All the people around irritated her. She could feel their glances, as if they had actually touched
her, the way you might reach out a hand to touch something strange, or dangerous, that you had in a cage.

  It wasn’t as if she cared. It wasn’t as if, she thought bleakly, even if she cared she could do anything to change herself. That was a bitter thought. But it took Tad to tell her to her face. She might as well have a scar like the one she’d seen on that girl, since everybody saw it anyway. Whatever it was.

  Near the edge of the trees, under an oak that spread broad overhead, a man played a lute and a girl sang, and the crowd moved on unheeding. The girl’s face was as hollow with hunger as her body was swollen with child. The two played and sang listlessly, without hope. Gwyn stopped to stare at them. The girl’s thin voice recited the words to an old song and the lute stumbled behind her. The basket lay at her feet. The unheeding crowds, the despairing music, all seemed more than Gwyn could tolerate just then. She moved closer, on her tight shoes, just then noticing how much her feet hurt. Aye, that would pass, it always did, and she would bear it. Seeing Gwyn, the girl looked up and her smile became fawning, eager to please, like a whipped dog.

  It was terrible, Gwyn thought, as her throat closed against her rising heart. Terrible hope and terrible disappointment and the terrible promise of life growing in her belly. Gwyn fumbled at the purse at her waist and took out one of her coins. She stepped forward and dropped it into the basket, then turned quickly to leave them there. Terrible music too, she thought.

  She was stepping into the open field before her brain registered what she had seen lying at the bottom of the woven basket—a single gold coin.

  She knew who had passed that way before her. Burl. She knew those coins; she had ten left under her mattress. She smiled to herself at the picture of Burl, slipping the coin into their basket, and they would never suspect him of it. She thought she knew why he had done it—it would have been because of their music. And because of the world.

  Gwyn raised her head and looked over the field, where the stage waited for the play that would be the last event of the afternoon, before the Lords left and the dancing began. In front of her, groups of people milled about, the Lords and Ladies moving within some invisible shield, as the people drew back from them. The Lords and Ladies did not even look at the crowds around them. Their interest was on the amusements and the wares. The people might as well have been blades of grass.

  Overlooking the field, Gwyn realized that much as she might long to fit in, she was also glad she did not. Tad had said it to hurt her, but it was the truth just the same. Gwyn turned her head to look back into the trees, at the crowds flowing out, and then to the city walls. She fit into this world like the hanged man did, she thought. She could not see him from where she stood, but he dangled at the edge of the fair, and she did not forget that. Let others forget.

  Chapter 18

  GWYN STOOD BACK FROM THE booth while the Ladies considered the merchant’s goods. There were three Ladies. Their servants waited behind them while they held up the skeins of wool, talking of the colors in low voices. Jewels shone on their hands. Their gowns flowed down like water from bodice to hem, pale yellow, blue, and green, each with lace at the throat. The long hair flowed down over the colors of the dresses, dark brown, light brown, and gray. Each Lady had tied her hair back with a band that matched the color of her dress. They were a long time over the wool, and Gwyn waited impatiently. One had a useless nose, not much bigger than a button. Another was plump as a hen fat for the spit and strained the seams of her gown. The third talked constantly in a bitter voice about the quality of the merchant’s wares, how carelessly wares were made, now, that in the time of her youth had been patiently worked to perfection. Her long fingers picked at a knot in the wool.

  The merchant said nothing, just nodded and smiled, his hands clasped in front of him. The servants said nothing, but stood waiting with baskets on their arms. Meanwhile, the Ladies stood deciding, talking about who the color would suit or the stitches for embroidery, talking about the troubles in the south and how they affected the wares at the fair, talking of marriages in the making and the behavior of children. At last, the complaining Lady selected a small skein of red and motioned to the servant behind her. The servant made the purchase and put it into her basket.

  Gwyn could have laughed at the expression on the merchant’s face. But she didn’t. She moved up before the stall and looked over the skeins for the kind of wool she had seen last fall. When she saw it, she reached out to take it up in her fingers, but the merchant’s voice stopped her. “Get away, girl, you’re costing me custom. Move on—did you hear me?”

  Gwyn looked up to meet a pair of piggy eyes under heavy eyebrows. His gray beard was trimmed to a point. “But I—”

  “Was only looking,” he finished for her. “You can stop looking and move on. Or I’ll call a soldier to chase you away.”

  Balanced between anger and laughter, Gwyn made her eyes wide. “Yes, Wool Merchant,” she said, with exaggerated respect. If only he knew, she had a purse full of coins that were hers to spend. “You will excuse my impertinence.” He would be sorry, if he knew.

  She saw to it that he did know. She moved to the next booth but one, checking to be sure he watched as she looked over the wares on that wool merchant’s table. She made a great show of her selection, even though she knew as soon as she saw it that the skeins of white wool, white as snow—no, white and soft as clouds—were what she would buy. When she was certain the first merchant could see her, she took out her purse and let the money flow out into her hand. Then taking one coin, she turned it in her fingers before paying, with a smile back over her shoulder to the merchant who had refused her custom.

  Gwyn moved on by the booths and tables, her eyes studying the displays. There were soft leather gloves and broad leather belts, daggers with carved hilts, and long books, bound in leather, as well as smaller books enclosed by rough slabs of wood. A fletcher displayed arrows of different lengths to two young Lords. Bolts of cloth and piles of pewter bowls caught her eye. The sunlight sparkled on little glass bottles of perfumes, from the lands beyond the Kingdom. Voices swirled around Gwyn, people pushed at her, then apologized, laughing; and her feet hurt. When a hand held her arm, she turned quickly to shake it off.

  “Nay, Innkeeper’s daughter,” the young man said.

  It took Gwyn a minute to recognize Raff. “Good day to you,” she greeted him, sorry to see him if he was here—as her mother suggested he might be—to speak for her. Then she wondered if she should make some excuse for wandering about on her own.

  “You’ve been hard to find,” he said.

  “Yes, it’s time I returned,” she agreed.

  They stood together for an uncomfortable moment. Over the winter, Raff’s beard had changed from a boy’s to a man’s.

  “I would speak with you, Innkeeper’s daughter,” he said. “Your father said I should find you.” Then he apparently changed his mind about what he wanted to say. “That’s a pretty wool,” he said.

  “For Rose.”

  “Fine wool,” he said. He took a breath and looked at the ground at his feet. “It’s time I was wed, Innkeeper’s daughter.”

  Gwyn’s heart rose into her throat, then fell to her pinched feet. She liked Raff. He was a blunt, hardworking man, with a good holding to offer any girl. “Think you?” she asked him.

  “I think,” he said. He still did not meet her eyes.

  “Then,” Gwyn spoke hurriedly, “I’m glad you told me, because I have a bride for you.”

  At that his eyes did meet hers. “You’ve been in my mind this winter, Raff,” she teased him. “A man like you, with a good holding, needs a wife who can work hard.” She didn’t wait for him to agree with her. “I have a bride for you who will do that, and with a light spirit, and be pretty into the bargain. What do you say to that?”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “But Gwyn—”

  “Her name is Liss,” Gwyn cut him off. It shamed a man to be said no to, and she had no desire to shame Raff. �
�You’ll have to prove to her brothers that you’ll take good care of her.”

  “Liss is a child,” Raff said.

  “Think you? Then you’d better go seek her out, because it’s not a child I’ve seen today. And I’d better find Da.” She left Raff standing, in her haste to find her father. It was time the announcement was made. She did not know why he had delayed so long.

  Gwyn met her family at a table of ribbons. Wes was selecting a ribbon for Rose, to tie around her hair on this day and to pretty her neck on later occasions. Rose hung from Wes’s arm and their eyes were locked together as if there were nobody else in the world.

  At the sight of the two of them, so happy, a wave of sadness washed over Gwyn, and she tasted bitterness briefly in her mouth. Mother stood among women, with Tad at her skirts. Da was talking to a young man with a thick beard, whom Gwyn recognized as a cobbler from Lord Hildebrand’s city. By Da’s expression, she knew what they were speaking of and wished she could interrupt. The young man broke off the conversation and started to approach Gwyn. She interrupted Rose’s and Wes’s soft talk, to thrust the wool into Rose’s arms. “It’s a wedding gift,” she said.

  Rose held the wool in her fingers. “I’ve never seen anything so soft. Wes?”

  Wes held two ribbons in his hand and a penny lay on the table before him. “Very nice,” he said. He dropped the ribbons back onto the table and covered the penny with his broad hand. Gwyn could have bitten out her tongue. She had hurt him, by giving a gift worth more than what he could buy for Rose. She had given the wool at the wrong time, in the wrong way.