Jackaroo

by Cynthia Voigt

  There was nothing Da could do about it. The Captain was given room in the barn, and the cows put to pasture in the lower field. The soldiers set up tents under the trees near the King’s Way. Some of their horses were stabled at the Inn, some kept near to the camp. Those goats that had been living in the barn were given into the care of the farmer on one of Da’s holdings.

  The Inn was kept busy from early morning to late at night. The soldiers and their Captain must be fed, their horses cared for. In the evenings, the barroom filled early, as men—hopeful for the summer’s crops and the herds’ numbers; not mindful of high taxes in the fall—found the pennies for ale. In the evenings the barroom and courtyard were busy. Messengers came frequently and left rumors behind, rumors that spread like water into every corner of the Inn. There were battles in the south and the King’s forces were winning and the King’s forces were losing. One of Earl Sutherland’s sons had been sent out of the Kingdom in disgrace, years ago; he would return to claim the title. There was only a baby left out of the entire family and he hidden away somewhere, and nobody knew where; the King was seeking him, to give him the title. Only a daughter was left, and she of marriageable age; one of the southern Lords had taken her, had locked her away in a tower until she would marry his son. The armies stole from the people of the south, trampled the fields and vineyards, slaughtered the herds. The Ways across the southern Kingdom were so perilous that there had been no Spring Fair. More soldiers were needed. The flames of war were moving northward.

  At the end of the day, the Innkeeper’s family sat around the table and talked over the rumors. Da argued that they must be exaggerated. “The journeying is still going on. If the King didn’t hold rule in the south, the journeying would not go on.”

  “They say it won’t be long until the highwayman comes by here,” Tad said.

  “They say the man walks slowly,” Mother said, “as if he carried a great burden. I wonder what he did.”

  “He was a highwayman,” Tad told her. “I want to see him, when he comes here. I’ve never seen a highwayman.”

  “You’ll go to the village,” Mother said. “You’ll stay with Rose.”

  “Da?” Tad asked. “Do I have to?”

  Da studied his hands. “The boy will stay with us and see this man, wife.”

  “But, husband—”

  “And the hanging?” Tad pressed his advantage.

  “Not the hanging,” Mother declared. “You’ll stay home on that day. I’ve never seen a hanging and neither will you, as long as I live. I’ve no desire to watch a man die, as if it were a play upon a stage.”

  “But I can see him journey,” Tad said.

  “Your father has said so,” Mother answered bitterly.

  Gwyn watched this conversation with interest. With Rose gone, more work had fallen to Tad. Of necessity, Tad had served in the barroom and cared for the animals. He seemed to have taken over the kitchen garden as well, with Mother kept busy at the ovens and at the washing tubs. Tad made mistakes enough, but he was learning. It was that learning that emboldened him to cross Mother’s wishes about the highwayman.

  Gwyn had little time to herself those days. For a few minutes at the end of each day, alone now in the room she had shared for so many years with Rose, she wrote letters in the book she had bought at the fair. At first she could not remember words. But that soon came back to her as she scratched on paper with a bit of charcoal until her eyes were too tired to focus on the marks she made. She practiced the shapes of the letters, and some words too, just to see how they would look. DA and MOTHER, RAMS HED INN, and TAD. When she figured out how to write Tad’s name, she was so pleased she wanted to go into his room and show him, even though she knew she could not. JACKAROO she wrote, liking the look of that better than JACARU or JAKUREW. However tired she was, she always hid the book carefully at the back of her cupboard before going to sleep.

  It was many days after the fair before Gwyn got away to do what she had decided at the dancing that she would do. She watched for her chance. That chance came when a Messenger and his two guards arrived unexpectedly. Their horses had been ridden hard, all the way from High City. Gwyn said that she would take the job of walking the horses cool. It was almost midday by the time she led the three horses behind the village and then, climbing onto one and holding the reins of the other two in her hands, took them at a faster pace up to Old Megg’s. There, she shut them into the empty goat pen and changed quickly into boots, trousers, tunic, cloak, and mask. She did not want to risk wearing the hat on horseback, but she also dared not risk appearing without it. For the same reason, she belted the sword around her waist.

  She found the mare’s saddle where they had left it, up in the loft. She tossed it down to the floor. She had decided which horse was the quietest, and when she buckled the girth around its belly, she spoke cheerfully to it, so that it would get used to her voice. The horse seemed docile enough. Gwyn pictured in her memory the way the soldiers mounted, then put one foot into the stirrup and swung the other leg across the horse’s back. It was harder than she had thought it would be to mount that way. She turned the horse’s head to the east.

  Am’s holding lay, she knew, over toward Lord Hildebrand’s City, little more than an hour’s walk beyond Blithe and Guy. The house was, if Blithe spoke truly of it, little better than the pen where his pigs wintered. The holding, Gwyn remembered, lay upon a rocky hillside, up to the north from Blithe’s house. She would head for Guy’s holding, which she knew well enough. Then she would follow the little trail northward. A number of small holdings dotted those low hills, but she would trust to luck to find the right one.

  Riding along, with the horse at a trot and the leather creaking under her, Gwyn grinned to herself. If she couldn’t find it then she would stop for directions. It might be that luck would ride with her. If not, as Jackaroo she could ask a question and no one the wiser. But she could not lose too much time, she thought, urging the horse to a faster pace. The horse broke into a canter and for a minute Gwyn stiffened in alarm. But the motion merely rocked her. She thought she could stay on.

  The countryside flowed past her at an alarming rate. Spring rains had been gentle and the sunshine generous. Green shoots grew up in neat rows on the plowed fields. Flowering bushes looked like low fountains of color, white, yellow, and many shades of red. Newborn kids suckled at their mothers.

  Gwyn had never ridden on a saddle before, nor in trousers, and she found it comfortable, as comfortable and easy as the smooth gait. In a short time, she could look down over Guy’s holding, the low stone house where he and Blithe lived with his family, the farmyard and fields where men bent in labor. Gwyn turned the horse northward, following a narrow path toward the mountains, the lower slopes of which showed green.

  When there was cover, Gwyn kept within it. When she emerged from sparse trees into open land, where sheep grazed and distant houses nestled in folds of earth, she circled the dwellings closely enough so that she could see if it was squalid enough to match Blithe’s description. These dwellings were far from one another, and Gwyn followed the smoke from kitchen fires to find them. At the fourth holding, she reined in her horse and looked down. Sunlight poured over her shoulders, where the red cape hung. Gwyn shifted her seat and put a hand on the hilt, to keep the sword from striking the horse’s side.

  The house below was windowless. Its chimney leaned weakly against the wall, as if a strong wind would blow it over. Nothing moved, except for a child playing at the open door. Another child came out to join the first, a girl whose fair braids caught the sunlight and shone gold.

  Gwyn rode down the steep hillside, leaning backward while the horse picked its careful way. The two children watched her approach, backing toward the open door as she came close. Gwyn sat the horse with her shoulders squared and reined it to a halt directly in front of them. There were two little boys now, one hiding behind the skirts of his sister. Their round eyes stared up at Gwyn.

  “You are the children of
Am, the pigman?” Gwyn asked gruffly.

  They nodded.

  “Where is your father?”

  They said nothing, just stared up at her. Gwyn knew that she must frighten them, that the horse frightened them. She ought to dismount, she thought, but she knew that if she did she would have to mount again, and she could not do that as easily as the soldiers did. Even such children might notice her awkwardness and she could not risk that.

  “Where is your father?” she repeated sternly.

  The girl pointed with her finger off to the north. “Trading a shoat.” Her voice was small with fright.

  “When will he return?”

  “Suppertime.”

  “Are you in charge?”

  The girl nodded. Her eyes were fixed to the mask covering Gwyn’s face.

  Gwyn reached with one hand under her tunic and took out the bag. She leaned down to put the coins into the girl’s grubby hand. “Give those to your Da when he returns.”

  The girl nodded.

  “Do you know who I am?” Gwyn asked her.

  The girl nodded, her face solemn.

  “Who?” Gwyn asked.

  A smile broke over the child’s face, like the sun breaking through clouds. “Jackaroo,” she said.

  “That’s good,” Gwyn told her. “Good-bye. Don’t forget.”

  “I won’t forget,” the girl promised.

  Gwyn turned the horse around and rode away, up the stony hillside, at a walk. At the crest, she turned to look back. The three children still stood together in front of the house. Gwyn lifted her hat and waved it in the air. They waved back at her.

  Gwyn’s heart was light as she kicked the horse into a gentle canter. She could feel her body riding easily, and how strong her legs were to grip the horse’s sides. She could see the hills rising and falling before her. The two pieces of gold would solve so many of Am’s problems, and that made her glad. She was glad to have been the one to do that deed and especially glad that it was for her that the smile had come to that child’s face. It would be, she thought, remembering back to that midwinter day, like the granny’s memory of Jackaroo—the child would grow up to be a woman, and she would remember this golden morning as if it were a dream.

  Gwyn was, she realized, more at ease when she wandered about the countryside as Jackaroo than at any other time. It was odd that dressed up as Jackaroo she felt much more like herself. Odd, and pleasant. She liked herself. And in the disguise, she was free to do what she really wanted to do, much freer than was Gwyn, the Innkeeper’s daughter. She wondered if she would hear, someday, a rumor about Jackaroo and the pigman’s child. She thought about how the rumor would exaggerate, misrepresenting what had actually happened, just as the rumor of Jackaroo’s presence at the Spring Fair had spread falsehood.

  Gwyn had never been so pleased with her life. She guided the horse between the hillsides and savored her pleasure, as a hungry man savors a meal. It might even grow into a story, telling how Jackaroo had brought two gold coins to a widower, to feed his children.

  It was clouds of smoke that caught her eye, rising up over the crest of a hill. The smoke billowed upward, thick and round. A fire.

  Among these isolated holdings there would be no village bell to ring the alarm. Gwyn turned the horse to climb up the hill, staying in the open so that they could move more quickly.

  The smoke rose from trees in a hollow at the base of three hills. Gwyn thought she heard a cry, like a woman screaming, but the sound ceased. She urged the horse downhill, not bothering to keep to the shelter of the few trees, toward the smoke.

  A hut burned, and two figures dragged something toward the flames. Gwyn’s horse faltered at the sight and sound of flames, hesitated, then dug its four feet into the ground, refusing to go on.

  A third figure held ropes around the necks of two goats. The little animals bleated and tried to pull away from the clearing. Smoke billowed up.

  Gwyn never knew how she knew so immediately what she was seeing. But she knew surely that the three men had attacked the house. Her mind raced as fast as her heart while she sat for seconds that ran slow as hours, trying to think of what to do. She was alone and did not know how to use the only weapon she had to hand. She was a girl and there were three of them, three men.

  They had not seen her yet. Gwyn unsheathed the sword and opened her mouth to cry: “Stop.” But the sound that came out of her mouth was a wild cry, bearing no resemblance to any word.

  Three faces turned to her, hairy and amazed.

  Gwyn dug her heels into the horse’s side and urged the animal toward the clearing. She held her sword high against them.

  The two men dropped their burden at the door of the flaming hut. They ran. One of them moved with a queer dragging gait. The man holding the goats had disappeared into the trees without waiting. The other two disappeared after him, as fast as they could. Gwyn chased them to the edge of the clearing and then jumped down. She could hear them crashing through the trees. They wouldn’t return, she thought, looping the reins around a branch. She hurried back to the burning house. She knew she had seen those faces, and that crippled gait too.

  The heat of the fire burned out at her. She dropped the clumsy sword. Just beyond the door she stopped, feeling as if the skin of her hands was being singed. Heat pushed against the mask covering her face.

  What they had been dragging was the body of a woman, whose skirt lay over the lintel, her feet—in felt shoes with big holes in the soles—lay out from the fire, pointing in opposite directions. Her hair had already caught fire. Flames danced around her face and crawled along the floor to her bloodstained chest. Inside, the body of a man burned, as black as a log. One of the walls crashed in, obliterating the man.

  Gwyn stepped backward. There was a pain like a knife in her belly.

  The fire roared in front of her.

  Gwyn gulped for air, as if it were drink, but her lungs heaved it out before she could swallow it, and her shoulders were rising and falling. She needed to throw up.

  She turned to the trees and bent down, heaving until her stomach was empty. But her chest still heaved and the hand that held up the long mask was wet—with her own tears, because her face was as wet as if she had been standing in a thunderstorm. When she straightened up her legs shook.

  She wanted to ride away and never to have seen what she had seen.

  She wanted to ride those men down and put her sword through them. Or tie ropes around their necks and drag them to Hildebrand for hanging. Or burning, over a slow fire that gave little smoke so that it should be flames licking up over their legs that would kill them slowly, while they screamed.

  Bad enough that the Lords should treat the people as they did, but that the people should so—slaughter one another was—horrible. As if hunger and poverty were not enough as enemies, so the people turned upon one another.

  And here she had been, riding along as if it were a game or play, dispensing a gold coin here and there, careless as a Lord.

  Gwyn watched the fire, diminishing now. There was little to fuel it. It was like a funeral pyre, and she the only mourner. That was how it would be too, she knew. No one would know what had happened here today, not until the Bailiff came out for the fall taxes. He would be irritated at the loss of coins, no more. He would see charred ruins and be cross at having come so far for nothing. He would make a note that the holding could be sold now.

  At last, Gwyn bent to pick up her sword, replacing it in its sheath. There was an anger burning along her bones, licking now like the little flames from the ruined hut. It was anger at herself for being blind to so much: She knew as well as anyone that until the crops came in and the berries ripened on bushes and trees, hunger would rule. The air might be soft and gentle, but that was only spring, which dressed itself out in its pretties but brought nothing that people might eat. She was angry at the world in which such cruel death could come for a man and his wife. She was angry at the outlaws—

  But she knew them now, she ha
d recognized them. They were the three men from her winter journey, whom the Lord had sent to sleep with their goats.

  She would have those men. Somehow. She knew that limping gait, and she had seen the scarred face among the three that fled from Jackaroo riding down on them. They would pay. Somehow.

  Gwyn approached the horse, which waited uneasily, tied so close to the trees that it could barely move its head. “Osh aye, I’m sorry,” she spoke quietly to it. Her voice sounded thick to her ears, thick with tears and anger. She loosened the reins.

  Within the trees, she heard a wailing cry. A child, it sounded like a child, a child too young to speak any words.

  Gwyn left the reins and followed the sound to where a bundle of clothes lay hidden under a bush. The cloths moved.

  It was a baby, too young even to crawl. When she had uncovered it, its arms waved in the air and its voice wailed. Thin silky hair bushed out over its head, and its eyes were closed with its crying. There were no teeth in its gums. The cloths around it were wet.

  Gwyn changed the baby into dry cloths. It was a boy child. His mother must have run to hide him here, to save him. She must have been mad with fear not to know that this would only save him for a slower death. It was such a slim chance that Gwyn had been riding by, and had frightened off the men, and had heard the baby’s cries. It was no chance, and the woman must have known that. But she would have clutched at that slender golden thread of false hope.

  Gwyn knew what she would do. She wrapped the boy around with his knitted blanket and held him against her chest. He turned his face to her tunic, as if he would suckle, got one of the silver buckles into his eager mouth, then spat it out, crying furiously.

  Gwyn mounted even more clumsily than before, with one arm holding the baby. She rode the horse away from the clearing and back up the hillside she had descended. This much she could do, and she would do. For that poor woman, dead now. For this child, and whatever his hard life would bring to him. For the world, that it should not be entirely cruel.

  She took him to Guy’s holding, riding hard across the hills, not bothering to conceal herself. When she thought back to that ride, Gwyn could only count her luck that nobody had seen her, because she took no trouble to be secretive. When she dismounted before the door to the house, she was not Gwyn, the Innkeeper’s daughter. She was Jackaroo, riding the land.