The main characters (I think) are the daughter of a wealthy innkeeper and the slave of the inn. They go off on an adventure where she is crippled. She comes home and hides in the barn (her parents think she ran away), the slave pretends he bought a crippled slave woman from the market for a wife (I remember that the innkeeper told him he shouldn’t have done that. That he would have been more than happy to find him a better wife than a cripple), he gains his freedom, they leave, marry, and live happily ever after. Some royal or noble may have set them up elsewhere with an inn of their own, but that might be from another story.
I’ve been looking for this book forever, but since all I can remember is the end and not the content of the book, I’ve been having a hard time finding it.
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What Is The Title Of This Fantasy Novel?
Posted on November 24, 2012.
Jackaroo by Cynthia Voight
“This novel [Jackaroo ] begins at a time when food is scarce and the forests are unsafe. Several sons vie for the title of the Earl of Sutherland, and his lords and their bailiffs have become unruly and greedy because of the confusion that surrounds their leader. Every fortnight the peasants wait like cattle in the Doling Room to receive a basket of food to keep them alive during the winter. Ashamed and angered by the cloak of fear in which the other women huddle, Gwyn, the Innkeeper’s daughter, tries to alleviate that fear by helping those less fortunate. “Evil would be done, that was the nature of the world; that was bearable if good could also be done.”3 Though her first efforts seem discouragingly ineffectual, fate soon gives her the means to practice a more dramatic heroism.
When she and Burl, her father’s servant, are asked to lead a lordly map-maker and his young son away from the village to survey the outlying lands, they are separated by a winter storm. Snowbound in a remote cottage, she cares for the young Lordling Gaderian, and he, bored into breaking the conventions that keep a lord from talking to his people except to announce and to order, reveals his identity: his father is Earl of Sutherland and he is heir to the title. Gaderian and Gwyn trade stories about their families and customs, teaching each other about the differences between the lords and the common people. He also teaches her to read and write, illicit skills for a commoner. While cleaning out a closet of the cottage, Gwyn finds the blue silk costume, the high leather boots, and the plumed hat and mask of the mythical Jackaroo, a secret she keeps to herself. This legendary outlaw, who like Robin Hood challenged the rich and the powerful and promoted the cause of the poor…
Attacked by soldiers waiting to capture the rebellious Jackaroo, her leg is badly slashed and she barely manages to crawl to a hiding place. Again Burl, whose gentle demeanor and lowly status have made him invisible to her, rescues her as in several previous incidents in the novel. By taking on the romantic and proud role of Jackaroo, Gwyn has lost the chance to inherit the Inn and even her privileged role as Innkeeper’s daughter.
Crippled by her injury and with no public identity nor viable social role, Gwyn tries to imagine ways to survive independently. Burl encourages her to use her mind…”http://www.encyclopedia.com/article-1G2-…http://books.google.com/books/about/Jack…