Alchemy and Meggy Swann

by Karen Cushman

  Apprentices pulled her about, urging her to buy this and try that. "Good mistress, follow me," said one young fellow, tugging at her. "My master's shop offers the finest cloth, the silkiest ribbons, the sharpest pins."

  "Want any ink? Do you want any ink?" asked another.

  "Have you any old boots to sell?" clamored a third.

  "What do ye lack? What do ye lack?" vendor after vendor called after her until her head was spinning. And when she did not stop, each added, as she always expected, "crookleg" or "monstrous child" or "ill-formed wench."

  "Come and buy," a ballad seller called, "a new ballad of Robin Hood." And the man began to sing: Others may tell you of bold Robin Hood, derry derry down, or else of the barons bold, but I will tell you how he served the bishop when he robbed him of his gold.

  Meggy joined in: Derry derry, hey! Derry derry down! for she knew the ballad well.

  The ballad seller winked at her as he walked on, singing: Derry derry derry derry down.

  Meggy walked on also, toward the cookshops on Thames Street, or was it St. Magnus Street, and did Roger not say something about Gracechurch? Meggy thought she had come a very great distance, stumbling now and again when her sack thumped against her knees or tangled with her walking sticks, but still she did not see the river ahead of her. Or behind her. So different was London from her village, where there was but one road in and one road out and no one lost his way.

  She turned down a street, narrower and darker, and wabbled past a crowd of children. "Behold Mistress Duck," one of them cried. "Waddle, waddle, Mistress Duck!" Mimicking Meggy's walk, they followed behind her.

  "By my faith, freaks!" someone called from a window. "From Bartlemas Fair belike. You there, crookleg. Know you the pig woman and the fish-scaled boy?"

  Turning to her followers, Meggy gave them the awful face that frightened children in her village, and cried, "Curses on you, curses!" She raised a stick to shake at them but slipped and nearly fell into the street. The children only laughed as they stumbled away, shaking their fists and shouting to each other, "Curses! Curses on you!"

  Meggy ducked into an alley that proved quieter and less crowded. She leaned against a building to rest her legs. The thought of facing more stares, frowns, and harsh words held her back. Should she return to the house at the Sign of the Sun unfed? Her empty belly rumbled, "No." She tried to recall what Roger had said about Thames Street and the river, but she was well and truly lost.

  The narrow passage she had entered was dark and slippery with slime. More gutter than street, it reeked of old fish and new dung. There must be another way. She was turning to go when a voice from a doorway called, "Here, girl, I have perch, or mayhap it is flounder. It be yours for a penny." A man in ragged jerkin and hose held out a fish, its eyes popping, its scales dull, its odor insufferable. "Here. 'Tis fresh."

  "Nay, 'tis not, but as far from fresh as I am far from home," Meggy said, "and I will not—"

  "Are you saying I lie, crooked legs?" he asked, stepping closer. Meggy backed away, up against a wall. "Give me a penny and take this fish."

  "Nay. Begone, you—"

  "Then I will take me this instead," he said, grabbing at her sack. "And these." Her walking sticks!

  "Vile thief! Beastly villain!" Meggy shouted. "Let loose my sticks!" But as she reached for them, she slipped and fell aspraddle on the street. Would she die in this dark, reeking alley, unable to get back to the house where Master Peevish did not want her anywise? Would this be her end, a helpless cripple huddled against a wall?

  Tears of anger and self-pity slithered down her cheeks. In her dreams she danced and ran, but only in her dreams. In this fetid alley she could not even fight back. It was Roger's fault for making her fetch her own food, she thought. Would he even think to look for her?

  A strange voice roared, "Begone, you carbuncled toad!" The newcomer grabbed Meggy's walking sticks from the thief and used one to club him on the head. "A pestilence take you, you rump-faced knave, out for thievery." The thief dropped Meggy's sack and skulked away.

  "You," the man said, helping Meggy to her feet, "are a piteous spectacle." He handed her the walking sticks. "Be you hurt?"

  "Aye, I be hurt indeed," she shouted, more angry than grateful. "I be crippled! Crooked! I could not defend me nor even walk away." She swung round to face her rescuer. He was dark, tall but bent, bony as a herring, with a scar on his face that puckered his cheek, squinting one eye and pulling his mouth into a lopsided sneer.

  Ye toads and vipers, Meggy thought, I am delivered from a thief by a monster! She backed away.

  The man frowned. "You should not be here," he said. "Mark me, you ask for trouble." He bent down and retrieved her sack. "Go home. Make haste," he said, handing it to her.

  Meggy wiped tears from her face. "In truth I would if I knew whither it was."

  "I am for Fish Street Hill. Might you find your way from there?"

  She nodded.

  "Then follow me." He strode off, and Meggy struggled to keep him in sight as she followed. Alleys became streets, and streets became wider and noisy with crowds: country folk in russet and broadcloth, sailors and soldiers in boothose and leather jerkins, young women with French hoods and feathered fans. Hawkers cried every sort of food: apples and pears, carrots and cowcumbers, fat salmon, pigs' trotters, chunks of cheese, and ginger cakes. A pig's head mounted on a stake, eyes bulging and mouth grinning, proclaimed a food stall, fragrant with spices, onions, and roasting meat. Ye toads and vipers! Here were the food vendors Roger had promised. But she feared to ask the ugly man to stop, so she limped on, anxious to be safe in Crooked Lane.

  At Fish Street Hill they parted, and Meggy began the climb up Crooked Lane. She was nearly home, dizzy with relief and hunger, and there was Old Cloaks again, closing up his shop. "A pox on you, moldwort," she shouted at the man afore he had a chance to curse or to spit, "and a plague, and an ague, and ... and ... and the pukes!" Her belly might still be empty, but the rest of her felt better for the shouting.

  Hearing laughter behind her, Meggy turned. She squinched her eyes and clenched her hands into fists. "Do you think to curse at me as well?" she asked of a yellow-haired man who stood at the door of the shop with the sign of the shoe.

  "Not at all, mistress. That was well said. The fellow can be moldwort indeed."

  The man was small and freckled, and his hair, Meggy saw, was not yellow but the red of a sunset roofed with a layer of sawdust. "Are you the cobbler?" she asked him.

  He shook his head, and sawdust flew about him like moths around a torchlight. "The cobbler has been gone since the time of King Richard," he said. "'Tis but his sign that remains. I be, at your service, a cooper. Want you a barrel or a cask, a hogshead, firkin, rundlet, or tun, a bucket or tub or butter churn, I be your man." He looked at Meggy's sticks but said naught. Neither did he spit. "But you are in need of a cobbler?"

  "Nay, Master Cooper," said Meggy. "I am neighborer, new come to lodge with the master there." She pointed to the house at the Sign of the Sun. "Margret Swann, if it please you." Then, surprising herself, she added, "Called Meggy, if you will."

  The cooper nodded. "Welcome to Crooked Lane, Meggy Swann. I have heard tales of wondrous doings within your house. The search for mysterious substances. Magic and marvels."

  "Truly? I have seen naught but darkness and dirt." She wished Master Peevish would indeed discover the elixir he sought. Mayhap he could use it on his own self and transform himself into a better father.

  The smell of spice cake baking wafted from inside the cooper's shop. Meggy took a deep sniff. "Do I keep you from your supper, sir?" she asked.

  "Nay, that is but the fine aroma of oak casks after firing. Since my good wife died, my son and I eat poorly. We will sup as usual on bread and cold roasted onions." The very words made Meggy's belly rumble. She thought to ask for a bit of bread, but she was no beggar—not for herself, although she did ask if Louise might feast on the greens in his yard. The cooper nodded again an
d went back inside his shop.

  Louise was sitting on the window ledge when Meggy entered, and the bird flapped her wings mightily to show her displeasure at being left behind. "Mark me well, Louise," Meggy said, "this is a horrid city. You are fortunate that you can dine in the yard and not have to search through dark and dangerous alleys for something to fill your belly." She took the goose outside. "Still, hungry as I am, I have no desire to dine on grass and grit."

  FIVE

  Meggy and Louise had not been back more than a minute when Master Ambrose stepped suddenly from the stairs into the room, holding a candle. His eyes shone in the light like ripe blackberries. "Where is Roger?" he asked.

  "He is not here, sir," Meggy said, "but has gone to the house of Master Grimm and ... someone."

  He waved his arm, and hot candle wax spattered Meggy's hand. "I gave him no leave to go."

  "Shall I—"

  "Fie upon him!" And the man turned and went back up the stairs, leaving Meggy alone in the dark.

  "But ... but ... but..." Meggy said. She sat down and examined the wax on her hand. It hurt, she thought, so I must be here, even if he does not see me.

  To quiet her hunger, she laid herself down on her pallet, although late-day light still peeked through the dirt on the windows. But her mistemper kept her from sleep. The man had sent for her and now ignored her. He was cold as a codfish, an unfeeling lout, a stale old mouse-nibbled piece of dried cheese. She had not expected much of this sudden father, but she had gotten even less. She would not stay with him. But where would she go? How could she survive? She had already made a bumble of her search for something to eat.

  Her legs tormented her, her scratches and scrapes stung, and her stomach rumbled like a cart. The house was full of strange noises—creaking of timbers and rattling of windows, footsteps thudding on the floorboards above, the whispers of men who came and went in the dark. What would befall her here? Hot tears began again. I weep so much of late, she thought, 'tis as if I carry an onion in my sleeve.

  At last she fell into a fretful sleep and dreamed of sausages that teased and tempted and then ran from her. Startled, Meggy woke to singing at the window, but it proved only the watchman on his rounds. "Twelve o'clock," he cried, "look well to your lock, your fire and your light, and so good night." She slept again, feeling not quite so alone. And thus ended Meggy's second day in the house at the Sign of the Sun.

  She woke to soft rain. She stretched, and her belly rumbled with hunger. She had seen London. She had seen beggars and sailors and women with skirts like great seagoing ships, hobbyhorse peddlers and ballad sellers and pigs' heads on sticks, but she had seen little she wanted and no place where she belonged. She berated God and Roger, fortune and her father, for leaving her helpless and unwanted in this place.

  When next she saw Master Peevish, she would address him. "Your pardon, sir, I have been awondering wherefore you sent for me" would be the most polite utterance, "I thought you wished me here, but you do not, and what am I to do now?" the most disappointed, and "Oh ye toads and vipers, you are as poor a parent as my mother. I wish my gran were alive" the most true.

  Louise hissed a hiss that meant she wished to visit the garden plot next door for her breakfast. "Pray remember to eat some grit for your gizzard," Meggy told her as they went out, "lest your belly ache."

  Louise honked in agreement.

  As they tarried in the garden, a small boy came out of the cooper's shop and called, "Be that your goose?"

  He was a stranger, but a very small stranger, with ears like a jug and the same red hair as the cooper. He did not seem to have a store of stones handy, nor was he poised to flee.

  Meggy nodded. "Aye. I call her Louise. And who might you be?"

  "I am Nicholas," he said. "I have no goose, but I do have me a horse. This is Charger." He presented a small horse carved of wood and gaily painted. "He is a mighty steed and runs fast as the wind."

  Meggy went closer. "'Pon my honor," she said, "he looks very swift indeed."

  The boy watched her walk up to him, stick, swing, drag. "Why do you walk with sticks?"

  He did not ask in a taunting manner but quite simply, and Meggy surprised herself by answering in the same way. "Their strength makes up for my weak legs."

  "Why does your goose ever have her wings spread out like that?"

  "Louise is as lame as I am. She cannot fold her wings against her," Meggy said, "and she cannot fly. We are condemned to walk this earth with the same waddling gait. Belike that is why we be such friends."

  "I would that I waddled also," said the boy, taking a few waddling steps.

  "Nay, do not say that. I know I would rather walk, and certes Louise would fly if she could."

  "Why?" Nicholas asked.

  "Why do you ask so many questions?" she asked him in return.

  "My father says I am curious as a jay," the boy said. And he smiled a gap-toothed, satisfied smile.

  Out of one eye Meggy saw Master Peevish leave the house and hurry up the lane. Whither did he go? she wondered. And how long might he be gone? Perhaps Meggy could discover what mysterious things happened in the upper rooms without encountering him. If she could climb the stairs. And perhaps she might find a crust of bread there. Or a dusty almond cake. Or a withered apple. Even such leavings were beginning to sound appealing. If she could climb the stairs.

  Meggy bade farewell to the cooper's boy and hurried Louise into the house. "Remain you here, Louise," she told the goose. "I will return anon."

  The girl lumbered slowly up each step, stopping to rest often. This will take a goodly long time, Meggy thought, so I pray his errand takes longer.

  The next floor, as she had assumed, was the man's chamber. Naught but a bed with threadbare coverings, a clothes press with a broken lid, and six more steps. At the top of those stairs was a door, which, when pushed, swung open with a sound like a sigh. The attic room was smoky from a low-banked fire burning in a small earthen furnace, and dark, despite the tall window, for the glass was besmirched with spider webs and encrusted with dirt. The air was thick with the odors of ancient dust and candle wax, spoiled eggs, and sharp-smelling things for which Meggy had no name.

  Leaning carefully on her sticks, Meggy moved into the room. Shelves were crammed to bursting with a hodgepodge that overflowed onto the floor: kettles and pitchers, stands and tongs, little jars full of queer-smelling things, and the skulls and bones of various small animals. There were clay bottles labeled in a language the girl could not read, although she had most of her letters; odd copper jugs with long spouts; and strange-looking vessels made of glass. Books, greasy with candle drippings, were piled on a rickety table and on the floor, higgledy-piggledy like the houses in Crooked Lane. For all she was small as a garden pea, Meggy feared she could not move without putting something in danger of ruination.

  Just what did the man here? What was mixed in those bowls and cooked in that furnace? She could see nothing perfect and certainly no gold. Meggy longed to curl up near the warmth of the furnace, but the smellsome air burned her nose.

  She found naught in the room to eat and so she turned to go, near colliding with a man looming in the doorway. "What do you in my laboratorium?" Master Ambrose asked in a voice that thundered in the small room. "I do not believe I gave you leave to enter, err, mistress."

  Startled, Meggy stumbled into a shelf of glass implements. Before she could steady it, a beaker tipped and fell toward the floor. The alchemist reached out one long arm and caught it. "Clumsy girl, this glass be fragile and most costly."

  Meggy's heart thumped. The man was so tall and his eyes so fierce that all sense left her. "I ... I ... I..." she stammered.

  He put the glass beaker back on the shelf. "God save me," he murmured, "she is crippled, clumsy, and mute."

  Meggy bristled. "Praying your pardon, sir," she said, "I am hardly mute. You but frighted me."

  The man leaned closer. "Do you meddle in my things?"

  She might have come uninvit
ed, but she did not meddle. "Nay, sir, I was but curious. Never have I known someone engaged in a Great Work."

  The man pulled at his earlobe, once, twice, three times, and then said, "So you be neither mute nor addlewitted. Mayhap I—"

  Just then, with a great squawk, Louise climbed the last of the stairs and burst into the room, not around but over the books and flasks and bottles on the floor. She stepped into a basket, which fastened itself to her foot, and flapped noisily about, the basket slapping against the floor with each step.

  "Louise!" Meggy called. "Come hither to me!" But the goose tripped and plunged her head into one of the precious glass vessels, and there was yet more flapping and flopping as Meggy frantically called, "Have done, Louise, have done! Put it down!"

  Louise could not put it down but, bemaddened by her head being stuck in the beaker, stumbled about the room, knocking into another stack of books, the chair, and assorted devices of strange design, Master Ambrose lumbering after her. He finally penned the goose into a corner but could not pull her head out of the beaker. Shouting "A pox on you, you beetle-brained fowl!" he grabbed one of Meggy's walking sticks and swung it sharply at the goose's head, breaking the beaker and freeing her. Shards of glass sprayed like drops of dew. Louise honked again and flapped her great wings mightily.

  "What creature is this?" Master Ambrose shouted. "What does it here?"

  "That be Louise," Meggy said. "She is not accustomed to being a house goose."

  Master Ambrose tore the cap from his head and threw it on the floor. "I wish not to see that bird," he shouted, "until it be roasted on a platter with onions and parsley!"

  "Nay, sir, nay." Meggy shook her head fiercely. "Louise be not supper. She is my—"

  "I care not. Hie it to a butcher," Master Ambrose said, "or I will dispatch it mine own self. Now leave my laboratorium."