Jackaroo

by Cynthia Voigt

  “It’s not for Rose, though,” she said.

  “But I thought—” Rose protested.

  “It is for your first child,” Gwyn said, “and for all those that follow.”

  Wes’s mind took that information in slowly, and then a smile spread over his face and he reached out to touch the soft wool. “Is it now?” he asked.

  “Aye, as I’ve said.”

  “You’re in a mighty hurry for a baby, sister,” he said. Gwyn didn’t answer. “Did you get some of this fine wool for yourself as well?” he teased her.

  “No,” Gwyn said. “And what would I want with it?”

  For answer, he indicated Da, in conversation with a man Gwyn had never seen before. Gwyn sighed. Wes would not understand. Even Rose could not. Da and Mother, they did not. And Gwyn herself, she recognized, was not sure of her own thoughts.

  It would be good to have her marriage day in the fall, to let her hair loose down her back and stand as Rose was, with her arm held close under a man’s. She let her gaze rove over the people standing about and saw whose eyes lowered before her own. Then she saw the black figure above the battlements, twisting slowly, and the birds gathering around his head to take his eyes.

  This had been a living man, just last night. She wondered if he had left behind a widow and children, and how they would live. If a man was hanged for his quick temper—if that was to be the law now—there would be many of the people hanged along with him.

  Nobody else saw him, nobody else looked to him. Only Gwyn. And who would want such a girl for his wife, if he knew what she saw.

  If, Gwyn thought, there were one of these young men who also saw the hanged man, then that one she might take. But if they saw, they did not speak of it, as if by not speaking they could make it disappear; and such men Gwyn would not marry.

  She went to her father, pulling him away from the men around him. “Your mother is angry at you,” he said. “You left Tad.”

  “I’ll make peace with her,” Gwyn promised. “But you must make the announcement.”

  “Daughter,” he asked her, “how can you be so sure?”

  Gwyn made herself smile into his worried face. “Aye, I am, Father.”

  “Your mother says—”

  “You gave me your word. Would you have all these young men go unwed because your wife is unwilling to have an unmarried daughter?”

  “Your tongue is too sharp.”

  “And would you wish that on some poor youth?”

  He sighed. “As you will.”

  “Thank you, Da.”

  “I hope so,” he answered.

  IF YOU KNEW WHAT TO look for, you could see the whisper spreading through the people and the speculations among the women. The Lords and Ladies knew nothing of it, of course; they sailed through the crowd of people like clouds through the air. Relief at knowing the announcement was made lifted Gwyn’s spirits. She took Tad by the hand and dragged him off to buy him a fairing. “A ribbon for your wife?” she offered.

  “You’re teasing,” he protested.

  “It’s never too soon to begin saving up gifts, a fine lad like you and will be the Innkeeper’s heir. You’ll have your choice, and you’ll want a pretty to give her.”

  Tad’s face grew red with embarrassment. She pulled him toward a booth where ribbons were displayed. “Gwyn!”

  “Then perhaps a scarf, to tie around your neck when you go dancing and courting?” She pulled him in another direction.

  “A scarf? What would I do with a scarf? You’ve gone mad, Gwyn.”

  “You could cover your ugly face,” she teased, pulling at his hair.

  “Then you’ll be getting one for yourself, as well.”

  They laughed together and went to look at a booth where daggers lay out in rows, their wooden handles polished until they shone. “Gwyn,” Tad said as they looked them over, “I’m sorry. I am. I shouldn’t have said—”

  “Perhaps not,” Gwyn agreed. “But there’s truth in it, isn’t there?”

  “But it was unkind. And besides, I like you, the way you are,” he told her. “I do, you know.” He sounded surprised and that amused her.

  “And so do I. Now, make your choice before I fall asleep standing here waiting.”

  Tad stuck his new dagger into his belt. “You’ll have to take orders from me,” he warned her. “When . . . you know.”

  “Then they’d better be sensible orders,” Gwyn warned him.

  They spent the afternoon together, joining occasionally with other people. They sat with Liss and her brothers to watch the play performed. The people sat on a grassy hillside, behind the benches on which the Lords and Ladies sat. The play told the story of the farmer’s wife who scolded the devil and then chased him out of her kitchen with a rolling pin. The actors wore paint on their faces and shoes with built-up heels, so that they seemed not real. They spoke like the people, but they moved clumsily across the wooden stage and their words were often stupid. Gwyn did not enjoy the performance as much as she had in previous years, and despite her fine shoes she felt ill at ease. Liss chattered away, while her brothers made ominous remarks about anyone who might ask to dance with her. Gwyn answered Liss’s remarks with only half of her mind. They required no better attention. With the rest of her thoughts she considered Tad, and the man he might become, and she wondered if the players felt as safely hidden within their costumes as she had when she walked into the Fiddler’s house, and she wished Blithe had come to see Rose wed, giving up her stubborn grief; she decided she would get some sweets for herself and Tad, and she thought she might speak a word of comfort to Burl, on Rose’s wedding day.

  The play ended without her noticing it, and the actors bowed briefly, passing their baskets among the audience. They would be hurrying into the city for the night’s performance before the Lords. Gwyn wondered what play they would do there. Most likely something with princesses and dragons, like the tales Gaderian told.

  The people moved about the fairgrounds again, making their last purchases when prices could be bargained lowest. Gwyn sent Tad on ahead to find the sweet vendor, giving him four pennies to spend. She had seen a booth where the Steward had stood earlier and Bailiffs gathered. It was run by a wizened man with a withered arm. But when she went looking for the books spread out over the table, it was empty. The man stood alone.

  He was suspicious of Gwyn, at first, but she told him about how she liked to draw pictures. “If you take the charred wood from a fire—but you must wait until it has cooled down,” she added.

  An expression of disgust at her stupidity washed over his face.

  “It will make lines. But it’s only wood I have to draw on. And my Da gave me coins. He said I could have whatever I wanted with them. He said I was too old for such foolishness as drawing pictures, because I should be wed. But he said I could have what I wanted—” She looked as sad as she knew how. “But I don’t have very many coins, I don’t know—is a book, just a little book, so very dear?” She fumbled in her purse and drew out a piece of silver. He had been ignoring her until his eye was caught by the coin. “That’s all I have and I don’t think it’s very much. But have you anything? I don’t care how small it is. Have you anything this coin will buy?”

  His eyes shifted to the booths nearby, but nobody saw him.

  “Aye,” he said. He reached into a sack behind him and pulled out a small book, its leaves of paper held between two clumsy slabs of wood, which were joined by rough leather hinges. The thing was worth nothing near the value of the coin. Gwyn knew that.

  “Is this enough?” She pushed the silver coin across the table at him. “I’m sorry I don’t have any more, but—”

  “It’s not enough, but you’ve a pretty face,” he told her, taking the coin quickly.

  “Oh, sir,” Gwyn said, her voice like honey off a spoon. “Oh, sir.”

  She took up the book and hid it in the folds of her skirt until she could turn her back on the crowds and fit it inside of her shirt, where the wais
t of her skirt would hold it safe. The sharp corners of wood cut into her stomach, but that didn’t bother her. This, she thought to herself, was a present to herself. And was there any reason why she shouldn’t buy herself a present? A non-wedding present, that’s what it would be.

  In the late afternoon, the fiddlers gathered in the field, pitchers of ale on a low table behind them, tuning their strings into harmony. It was the young who would dance the sun down, while the rest watched and listened and remembered and talked. Gwyn wondered if she should stand out, but thought that this last time she would dance with the rest.

  She found a place beside Liss in the circle of girls. “Isn’t this fun?” Liss asked. “Isn’t it fun to be away from my brothers?”

  “They’re still watching you,” Gwyn warned her.

  “I know, but they can’t hear what I’m saying. I do love dancing, Gwyn, don’t you? I always feel so—pretty,” she said.

  “I feel as if my feet hurt.” Gwyn laughed.

  “Is that Raff talking with my brothers, think you?”

  Gwyn thought so.

  “He looks a man grown.”

  “Aye, and he is. Just as dull and serious as Da.”

  “He’s serious, but not dull,” Liss answered quickly. “I think it’s better if a man is serious, don’t you?”

  The music started so Gwyn didn’t have to answer. She had already heard what she was listening for.

  They danced the circle dance, a circle of girls inside a circle of men. Their feet moved lightly under the music. The two circles turned, one inside the other, and then stopped so that couples might dance a round. At the end of the round, each partner moved back to his original place. Gwyn danced one round with Cam, whose eyes mocked her. “Is it true, then, what I hear?”

  She could think of no response.

  “And what of my broken heart?” he asked, as they held hands to spin one another around. “You might have given me a chance.”

  “A chance to what?” Gwyn laughed. “Break my heart?”

  “You have no heart to break, Innkeeper’s daughter.” His face looked serious and his eyes held hers. “Or didn’t you know I was thinking to ask you?”

  Aye, he said that now, now when she must say no, Gwyn thought, because he was a false man. Their round ended, and she danced back to the circle of girls, smiling to Cam as she left him.

  When the face of the sun touched the horizon, Gwyn left the dancers and moved back to join the watchers. She had found little joy in the dance. She slipped her feet out of her shoes and felt the soft grass against her soles. When a short, round man with a wheaten beard that grew wild over his face stepped up to her, she almost put her feet back into the shoes, for decency’s sake. Then she decided not to: In this one thing, at least, she would entirely please herself.

  “It’s been a good fair,” the man said. His name was Am, and he had a holding to the north of Blithe’s home, north of Hildebrand’s City, where he kept pigs. He was a round man, with a round head, round eyes, and a round belly underneath his shirt. “Have you enjoyed the day, Innkeeper’s daughter?”

  “Aye, I have,” she answered him.

  “And have you heard the rumors?” He stood beside her and they both watched the dancers. He was a widower, she knew, with three young children in his house.

  “I hear nothing but rumors,” she answered cautiously.

  He continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “There’s not one of Earl Sutherland’s sons left alive. Of all the six, not one. These are dangerous times.”

  Gwyn nodded.

  “The King has taken an army into the south. Will the trouble spread north, think you?”

  “I hope not,” Gwyn said.

  “But it could,” he told her. “Even if we don’t have the battles, we’ll have the soldiers, and the thieves. I have a good number of pigs, even after the winter.”

  “Do you?”

  “Aye, and I’ll be taking my meat to the south to sell, if not this year the next. With the extra gold I’ll increase my herd.”

  The sky above Earl Northgate’s City flamed red as the sun sank. The walls were outlined in red; they stood like black mountains. The figure of the hanged man was not visible from the field where they danced.

  Am repeated, “Dangerous times. A woman needs a man’s protection.”

  Gwyn did not respond.

  Am’s round cheeks were pink and a little sweat beaded his round forehead. “As I hear, there will be no journeying after all, for the highwayman. Because the King cannot spare the soldiers. It would be better if they journeyed him—it’s fear of hanging keeps the people honest.”

  “Think you?” Gwyn wondered.

  “Aye, and in such times as these. I heard a rumor I was glad to hear.” His plump hands clutched one another. “They say you’re not to wed.”

  “Some rumors carry truth,” Gwyn said. She wished she could leave the conversation, but that would insult Am. She was afraid of what he wanted to say to her.

  “I have three children.”

  “You are fortunate.”

  “Osh aye, I am—they’re good children and two healthy. It’s much for a man to do his own work and a woman’s too. The pigs, and the taxes and the meals. They want a woman’s hand.”

  Gwyn couldn’t think of anything to say.

  “With the levies so high this year.”

  Gwyn nodded, although what the taxes had to do with a woman’s hand for children, she did not know. She felt sorry for him.

  “We’ve not much, but nobody’s gone hungry at my holding.”

  “That’s good luck.”

  “So—if you’d think to come to us—to me—”

  “But I cannot leave the Inn.” Gwyn made herself look at his face as the quick excuse tumbled out of her mouth. “Not in times like these.”

  “Aye—no—I thought not,” he mumbled.

  She saw then that his trousers were frayed and his shirt worn thin. He had come to her in need. It would give him no cheer to know that she pitied him.

  “Not such as I,” he said, moving backward. “But I just wanted to ask. To tell you. That if you ever—” He stumbled away from her.

  Gwyn rubbed her hands over her face, her fingers working at her eyes, because she could have wept for him. He had tried so hard to be dignified, so that he would not seem to be begging. He had bragged falsely of his means, but she could not blame him. She watched three children come to crowd around him and pull down on his round arms: The oldest was a girl, her yellow hair in clumsy braids and her skirt out at the hem. Two ragged little boys hung onto his legs, one thin and weak. Without looking back, the family left the field. They would have a long walk home, longest for the man who moved with bent shoulders, as if his burdens were too heavy for him to carry.

  Gwyn moved to the safety of her family, overhearing snips of conversation as she moved among the watchers. She had left her shoes behind, standing side by side in the grass like a girl and her bridegroom.

  “—even here then? It would be dangerous to him here,” a voice whispered near her. She could not tell if it was a man or a woman, the voice was so low.

  “Aye, as I hear, and left a gold coin with a poor singer. They never saw him.”

  “He’s not seen unless he wants to be,” the first voice answered.

  Mother would not speak with Gwyn, for anger. The anger would burn itself out, Gwyn thought, and she was feeling too strangely glad and bitter mixed together to try to jolly her mother. She picked out Rose among the dancers, moving lightly, her hair washed with the red of the setting sun, flowing like a branch of flowers, with a bright ribbon tied into it.

  “I would see you among the dancers, Innkeeper’s daughter.” Burl spoke beside her.

  His face was in shadows, so Gwyn didn’t know if he was asking her to dance with him.

  “It isn’t seemly,” she said.

  “No,” he agreed.

  He didn’t have to agree with her, Gwyn thought crossly. The music made her feet want t
o move. She felt the grass under her feet. “Besides, I don’t have any shoes on. Can you imagine what my mother would say.”

  He chuckled. “Aye, I can imagine. No, it would be most unseemly. Even so—”

  “I wondered if they might be here, the Lord and his son,” Gwyn asked.

  “So did I. But if the rumors are correct, every armed man has gone to the south. Even a mapmaker might be needed.”

  “Rumors are never correct. You know that as well as I do, Burl.”

  He neither agreed nor disagreed, and in the failing light she could not read his face.

  “You’d have made a good husband to Rose,” she said to him, giving him her sympathy.

  “Aye, I think so.” He looked toward the dancers. “But I wonder if Rose would have made a good wife to me. Think you?”

  “I never thought of that.” Odd, she thought, too, that she didn’t feel sorry for Burl and never had. He was a proud man, in his way. Aye, and he’d a right to be, she thought.

  Gwyn left the fair when her family did. The dancers would start home later, when stars had filled the sky.

  Chapter 19

  SHORTLY AFTER THE FAIR, AS the trees were coming into full leaf, soldiers came to the Inn, where they were quartered. The soldiers and their captain, a tall man with deep creases on his face, all wore the emblem of the bear, Earl Northgate’s sign. Their duty was to ride guard along the King’s Way between the Inn and Earl Northgate’s City. They were also to keep the district peaceful, because their presence would discourage thieves and other outlaws from preying on the people. They would eventually accompany the highwayman on the last part of his journey, which had even now begun in the south. All along the King’s Ways, in the north and the south, such troops of soldiers had been sent by the King’s orders. Every Inn, in the cities and the country, had such troops quartered upon it, as did many of the villages scattered across the countryside.