Tale of Gwyn Read Online Free Page B

which she blinked back. “I won’t try to keep this one long. You’ve a sharp eye as well as a good heart, Innkeeper’s daughter.”
    â€œTad, come along,” Gwyn said. They left abruptly, pulling the door sharply closed behind them. Gwyn shoved their basket into Tad’s hands again, with an expression so fierce he didn’t dare question. She picked up the dog’s hind legs and pulled it around the side of the hut, dragging it into the trees that crowded close to the little building. Only a patch of blood marked the snow where he had lain. This she kicked snow over, to conceal it, knowing that the wind—which had blown her hood back from her face—would finish the work.
    From inside the house they heard the old man’s rough voice rise up again. “But who could it have been to do such a thing to us?” His coughing drowned out whatever answer his wife gave.
    Gwyn took the basket from Tad and they hurried away along the path. She didn’t speak and neither did he. Their footsteps scrunched in the snow and the field flowed white up at them. They moved quickly, side by side. As they reached the Way, Gwyn realized that Tad was practically jumping beside her, and she shoved aside the heavy feeling that seemed to be pushing against her chest to look curiously at him.
    Words burst out of him: “I bet I know who did it. Gwyn, listen. Gwyn? He broke into wild laughter. “Jackaroo!” He doubled over, slapping at his knees. “It must have been Jackaroo!”
    Gwyn pushed him—hard, harder than necessary—to get him moving. Sometimes she hated him. It was such a cruel thought, that he would do such a thing to those the stories said he protected. “That’s not funny at all.”
    â€œOh, yes, it is,” he told her. Her hands were occupied with the heavy basket, and if she kicked at him she would likely slip and fall, even though kicking him would make her feel better. “It’s very funny,” he told her, unable to stop laughing.
    Then he burst into tears. “I’m going home,” his voice wailed over his shoulder as he ran off ahead, the hood dropping back from his head.
    Tad was managing not to carry the basket, Gwyn noticed, watching him run ahead. She hefted its weight and began to move along at a steady pace. The heaviness pushed out at her chest, and Tad’s reaction just made her feel more helpless. Tad had no sympathy for the troubles of others. Gwyn almost wished she had his cold heart, as she tried not to remember, trying to think ahead to the safety of home. But how could Tad have such a terrible thought and laugh? As if he would ever do something like that, even if he were real, Jackaroo.

Chapter 3
    J ACKAROO IT WAS WHO SLIT the bag of the greedy Bailiff, so that every coin the Bailiff put into it slipped out as he rode away, his leather bag bouncing on his saddle. That was an old story, from the times before the Earls swore fealty to the King, times when the people served only the Lord and the Lord served only himself. As the story told, there was a greedy Bailiff who put the coins for his Lord into one hand and the coins for himself into the other. Jackaroo emptied the Bailiff’s bag, returning to each man just that which he had unjustly paid, no more nor less. At the last, the Bailiff’s greed was his own undoing, for he put his hand into the Lord’s gold to make up for himself what he had lost. That was a hanging day where the sun shown bright, as the story told.
    Gwyn walked along, the snow crisp under her feet, a few flakes now blown down from the sky. She should, perhaps, hurry to catch Tad; anybody else would have, to ask what the matter was, to keep him safe in sight. But Tad was old enough to follow the roadway home, if he was too silly to know that two traveling together were safer than one traveling alone. And she already knew what the matter was: He had no stomach for poverty, he feared the