Jackaroo

  “Nothing now, but he had two gold coins. He’d been boasting about what he’d do with them; he’d talked carelessly—he said Jackaroo—”

  “He always was a fool,” Mother snapped. She seemed to have regained her spirit, Gwyn noticed.

  “Still, it would be hard.” Da tried to make peace.

  “And what is that baby doing?” Mother demanded.

  Blithe unwrapped the blanket to display the sleeping child. “What do you think?” she asked. “Isn’t he handsome?”

  “He’s not yours,” Mother announced.

  “Aye, he is.”

  Mother snorted.

  “He was given to me to raise. His parents were killed.”

  “Who were his parents?”

  “That, I don’t know,” Blithe said. “I’ve named him Joss.”

  Mother stood up abruptly. “You’ve given him the name of your own son?”

  “Aye, he is my own son now, Mother,” Blithe said.

  “Is Guy letting you take in some—foundling—and who knows who his parents were?”

  “Aye, he is,” Blithe answered.

  “That somebody dropped into your cowshed at night, I don’t doubt,” Mother said.

  “No. He was brought to me and I will raise him. He’ll be your grandson, Mother,” Blithe insisted.

  Gwyn kept her face like a mask. She had thought Blithe would prove stubborn.

  Mother was doubtful. “Brought to you, and by who then?”

  “Jackaroo,” Blithe told her.

  There was a moment’s silence.

  “You know better than to believe those old tales,” Mother scolded, her voice scornful. “Or to expect me to believe them.” Then she burst into tears and fled from the room.

  Gwyn didn’t have to pretend surprise. They all listened to the sound of Mother running up the stairs.

  “You shouldn’t vex your mother,” Da told Blithe. “And I wouldn’t quarrel with her myself, daughter, but you look as you should, with the child in your arms, I’ll not deny it.”

  “It’s true, Da. It’s really true. Guy’s mother was there, she saw. He came into the house, just the way he does in the stories. Just the way we used to talk about it, Gwyn. He was there, suddenly in the room, and tall and—lordly. Da? He didn’t say anything, except about raising Joss, but I could see—he had high boots and silver buckles, and his voice rang out. I couldn’t say no, Da.”

  Lordly? Gwyn felt her cheeks burning. And tall? People saw what they wanted to see. She could keep herself from smiling but she knew her eyes were shining. Just like in the stories, Blithe said, and lordly.

  Da had eyes only for his eldest daughter. “Take the boy up to your mother, Blithe, and sit with her. She—remembers the past too clearly, sometimes, and she loved your Joss.”

  “So did I,” Blithe answered. “As I love my Joss here.”

  “She will too,” Da promised. “You know your mother.”

  It was Tad, Gwyn realized, reminded by Mother’s sudden tears, who was most like Mother. She hadn’t realized before how like the two were.

  She did realize, however, that something was troubling Da, who had sat down to his own thoughts before Blithe had even left the room. “Are you worried about Mother?”

  “A man can expect his fair measure of worry,” Da answered her, telling her nothing.

  “Da—he shouldn’t have asked you for a drink. Why did he ask you? Did you know him?”

  “Aye, I knew him once, long ago,” Da said. “I’ll hear no more questions, daughter. Have you nothing to do?”

  If Gwyn had stopped to think, she would not have said what she did. But she did not stop to think. “If I am to be your heir,” she said, “then I should have the truth of it.”

  Da looked tired, worn down, and sad. “Aye, perhaps. You might find the truth not welcome though. The truth is, that man is my brother.”

  “Your brother? I didn’t know you had a brother.”

  “Aye, you did know. It’s Win.”

  “But he’s dead.”

  “No, daughter. Not yet.”

  Gwyn thought. “And you refused him a drink.”

  “It isn’t permitted, you know that. As he knew, too.”

  “Oh, Da, I’m sorry,” Gwyn said, although precisely what for she could not have said. She sat down with her father. “He doesn’t look at all the way I imagined Uncle Win.”

  “And how would you look, do you think, after a winter in Sutherland’s cells and that long journey through every village for the people to stare at and the hangman’s noose all that awaited you at the end.”

  They heard the tolling of the bell from the village, calling people to hear the highwayman do what he must. Gwyn sat silent with her father, hearing not the sounds nearby—the voices from the barroom and the Inn yard—but what she could not hear: The worn voice of the highwayman, inviting all who stood gawping at him to come to his hanging, that they might see what waited for such men as he.

  After a while, she said, “They’ll hang him at Northgate’s City.”

  Da didn’t answer.

  “I wonder what turned him to it,” Gwyn said. And why, she asked herself angrily, had they all been told that he was dead.

  “He turned himself to it,” Da answered.

  “It’s not every man hanged who is guilty,” Gwyn answered.

  “They do not journey a man unless they know what he is,” Da reminded her. His voice was low and ashamed.

  “Do they hang women?” Gwyn wondered.

  “If it suits them, I think they must. We will all go to this hanging then, think you, daughter? I would not have him die alone.”

  “Aye, Da,” Gwyn agreed. But, she promised herself, he would not die at all if she could manage it. Highwayman or no, he was her father’s brother, and her own blood. Surely the long winter in Sutherland’s dungeons was punishment enough for whatever robbing he had done. “I’ll weed the garden, since Tad is busy,” she told her father. She wanted to pull up the little green weeds and to think. Because what did she mean making herself such promises? Who did she think she was?

  “See that all is well in the barroom first, if you will,” Da asked her. “I would—sit here awhile yet.”

  Only Tad served in the barroom, and the men were leaving to go back to their holdings and their work. They had a hanging holiday ahead, so they stepped lightly back to their labors. Tad stood by the door, to wish them a fair journey home, his eyes going often to the few remaining men, ready to answer their calls should they need more. Gwyn saw Am sitting alone near the empty fireplace, his round head held low, his face bruised, and his mouth split by a deep cut. He held one arm painfully still in his lap while the other curled around his mug of ale. She went to him.

  “I am sorry to hear of your trouble.”

  “Trouble,” he mumbled. “It’s not just a trouble, it’s my downfall. It was two gold pieces they took, and with the one I could have paid the next year’s taxes as well as this, and with the other I could have offered a woman a home and now—” His round eyes filled with tears as he looked up at her. “What will become of me now?”

  Gwyn had no pity for him. It was his own loose tongue that had done this to him, and he felt only pity for himself. The man was spineless. The two coins had been wasted on him.

  “Aye, well,” she murmured, turning away.

  His hands grabbed at her skirt. “Innkeeper’s daughter, could you not take my girl to work at the Inn here?”

  “She’s too young. Don’t you need her to take care of the boys? What are you thinking of?”

  “What is there for me to think of but trouble and more trouble. There were so many of them, seven of them and trained fighters; how could I fight them off? How can such a man as I am take care of his own? Aye, you have no idea.”

  Gwyn had an idea that there were no more seven thieves than there were no thieves. Am was telling the story his own way, to wallow in his own bad luck.

  “I’ll take the children to the Hiring Fair, th
en,” he said. “Though it’s hard. The priests will find places for them. The girl is pretty enough, she might be taken into a Lord’s service, think you?”

  “You should find a woman,” Gwyn told him, her voice cold.

  “You’re cruel, Innkeeper’s daughter.”

  Gwyn thought perhaps she was, but nonetheless she turned away from him. It was little use to give him gold. If she could find a fine, strong-tongued woman to drive him, that might be of use to him. She went back through the kitchen, where Da did not hear or see her, and out to the garden. There, she bent to the weeds.

  Her strong fingers worked in the soil, pulling up the little shoots, and the sun poured down over her back. Was she then to put into Am’s hands another pair of coins? All he would do would be to lose them, somehow. There were too many like Am among the people, too many who gave up the fight. But what could you expect, when all of life was so hard and hopeless? How could someone fight and know he never would win? And who was the enemy? Could a man fight off a long winter or a dry summer? No more than he could fight against the Lords. Aye, the people could not manage without the Lords, they were children unable to take care of themselves.

  Why should Jackaroo take such risks, for such people, Gwyn asked herself. But even as she asked she knew that she would try to give the coins back to Am. If it was right to do so once, then it was right to do so again. He might even have learned his lesson. He might even hold his tongue and guard his holding this time. Aye, she had no choice in the matter anymore.

  Having decided that, she crawled down the rows of young plants, pulling up weeds that would grow to choke them if left alone, and considered the problem of the highwayman, Uncle Win.

  Chapter 22

  THE LATE SUMMER SUNSET SHONE over the hills as Gwyn approached the village. Under one arm she carried a small cask of Da’s best wine. Over her shoulder she had slung a piece of salted pork. The salted meat would give them a good thirst and the wine would give them a good sleep.

  The four soldiers sat around a fire by the last small house. Its inhabitants must have been ordered to sleep elsewhere, Gwyn thought, approaching the seated men. The prisoner was, she knew, inside. Not because they wanted him to have the comfort of a roof and a bed, but because he could not then escape. The shutters on the house were latched, and the door was barred across with a thick piece of wood.

  She had no intention of trying to get inside the house. She walked up to the soldiers.

  “What’s this?” one asked her.

  The other houses were closed and silent. Buckets of water had been brought to the soldiers for drink and washing, but the villagers did not want to be near them.

  “My father, who keeps the Inn, thought you would want food and drink,” Gwyn said.

  They stood up and around her, to take the cask and meat from her. “Tell your father we are glad to have them,” the oldest said to her. He was a small man, with graying hair. The others were all young men. One of those, whose blue eyes were boldly studying her, asked if she would stay to sup with them. The rest laughed and nudged one another with their elbows at his daring.

  “Da said I was to come right back.” Gwyn made herself smile at them all, as if she would have stayed with them, given her own choice.

  “Does Da have spies around, that you cannot join us for a drink of wine?” the blue-eyed soldier asked.

  Gwyn pretended confusion.

  “A pretty girl always sweetens the wine,” he continued.

  “Oh,” Gwyn said. “Oh but . . .” She let her sentence dribble off.

  “Aye, Miss, and we could tell you some stories you’d not hear elsewhere.”

  “Oh,” she told them, wide-eyed. “I think you could. Why, I was thinking about just that, and even today you’ve come farther than I’ll ever go, in my whole life.”

  “This day? This duty is nothing. He’s not much of a man; there’s no fight in him. Now, when I was in the south, we had some trouble there. That was the kind of danger a man likes.”

  “Were you in the south?” Gwyn asked, awe in her voice. “Are you bored with this journeying?” She let questions tumble out. “I wouldn’t be. Have you been with him all the way, from the start? Don’t you feel sorry for him? I do. Will you give him some of this food?”

  They laughed. “Waste this good food on him? Why, he’ll barely live long enough to swallow it.”

  “Aye,” another joked, “but it might make the hanging easier, give him more weight to pull against the rope.”

  “Then that’s another reason not to feed him. It’s only two more days until he hangs, and he won’t complain if his hanging takes a little longer. I like this part of the world—the girls are awfully pretty, much prettier than in the south, think you? So we’ll get ourselves a little extra time here—”

  “And a little extra food for our bellies into the bargain—”

  “And we might even spend another night at the Inn, on our way back, into the bargain—”

  “To see the Innkeeper’s daughter again. Would she like that, think you?”

  “Oh,” Gwyn said again. “Oh.” Beneath her pretending, she wondered if there was any girl so foolish as to believe this kind of flattery.

  They crowded around her. “Stay for just one drink with us. Don’t despise the poor soldier, and he far from home,” they said.

  “Aye, Gwyn,” Burl spoke from behind her. “It’s time we returned,” he said, his voice as calm as always, but speaking as a servant to his mistress.

  The soldiers fell back, not unfriendly. Gwyn turned, relieved to see Burl, but trying not to show that.

  “I told you to wait,” she said haughtily. She didn’t know what he was doing there, and she was afraid he would make the soldiers suspicious.

  “The paths aren’t safe. Your father gave the order,” he said humbly.

  “Gwyn, isn’t it?” the black-eyed soldier asked. “Your name’s as pretty as you are. We’ll meet again, maybe? Keep her safe, lad,” he said to Burl.

  Burl bent his head humbly.

  “Or you’ll have me to answer to.” The soldier smiled at Gwyn.

  “Oh,” Gwyn said. Her heart was beating fast, but not from pleasure. She did not know what Burl was doing there, or how much he had overheard.

  As soon as they were out of earshot, she turned on him. “What are you doing following me about?”

  He answered her with a quiet question. “What are you doing creeping out with meat from the pantry and a cask of your father’s wine, Innkeeper’s daughter?”

  “I don’t have to answer that,” she told him.

  “Aye, no, you don’t,” he agreed.

  They walked through the leafy woods, its air dim in twilight. Burl carried a staff, and she wondered if he had expected trouble. She hoped he didn’t think that the soldiers could have given her any trouble, and she had opened her mouth to tell him just that, when he told her, “I came to see you safely home.”

  Immediately a new fear caught at her. “Did Da send you?”

  “No.” He sounded as if he were amused. What was there funny?

  “Mother?”

  “No. I came to see you safely home,” he repeated.

  Gwyn lay down on her bed, but she did not undress and she did not sleep. When night was heavy around her, and all the Inn slept, she once again took a horse from the stable. She took only the bridle from the hook by its stall this time. Win would have to ride bareback. She was sorry for Da, who would have to take the blame and make the loss good, but since it would be assumed that the highwayman had stolen the beast, that would be the worst of it on somebody else’s shoulders, not Da’s. Her purse, and her knife, were at her waist. The moon was on the wane so darkness cloaked her around.

  When she had changed and tied the horse to a low fruit tree set back from the village, she crept around the side of the highwayman’s prison. Dark as it was, she had little need of her mask. Probably she hadn’t even needed to ride as Jackaroo, but she had done so just in case the plan failed
in any way. She had brought no food for Win, but she planned to give him gold pieces, the three she had no need for. Gold and a horse should see him safely away.

  The soldiers lay sprawled around the fire, which was burning out. The ripe smell of wine lingered over them, and they snored heavily. Gwyn lifted the bar from the door and set it silently onto the ground. Quietly, she tried the hinges. They did not squeak as she stepped into the little room.

  A candle burned on the wooden table. The highwayman lay stretched out on the bed, his eyes open. In the flickering light, he looked weaker and more wolfish than in daylight. Gwyn eased the door closed behind her.

  For a minute he said nothing. His eyes stared out at her from his bony face. He didn’t even move a hand. She had about decided that he was so weak she would have to drag him outside to freedom, when he began to laugh.

  His laughter was quiet, but it rolled over his whole body and pulled him erect on the bed. He laughed into his hands, his shoulders shaking. When at last he lifted his face, she saw tears of laughter streaming down his cheeks and into the matted hair of his moustache.

  “Come,” she said in a horse whisper, as urgent as she could make it.

  He threw back his head and laughed.

  She moved to stand before him. “They’re asleep, drunk. Get up.”

  He shook his head: no.

  She pulled out her purse, to take out the coins so that he could know he had hope, but he finally spoke.

  “I thought I had laughed my last,” he said, his voice as soft as hers. “Oh, but life always holds one more joke. I thank you, whoever you are.”

  Gwyn fell still, puzzled. She did not understand.

  She reminded herself of her purpose here. “Don’t be a fool.”

  “Oh, no, my friend, it’s you the fool. Maybe you don’t know it yet,” and now he was entirely serious, all traces of laughter gone. “But if you don’t move out of here fast, your Jackaroo days will be even shorter than mine were.”

  “Highwayman, I would lengthen your days.”

  “Then you’d do me no favor, Jackaroo,” he answered. “Do you think I want to live any longer than I have to? No, I’m finished with it; it’s more than I’ve the strength for. I’ve spent years living like an animal—aye, and the Lords are just, I’ve cut throats for a piece of bread and not cared whose throat I cut so long as the bread went into my own mouth. I am done with myself.”