Alchemy and Meggy Swann

by Karen Cushman

  Master Allyn took the money she brought him and counted out eight ha'pennies, which he gave back to Meggy for her very own.

  Fourpence! Enough for a chicken pie. And apples and a wedge of cheese. Or a fruit tart with cream. Heading home with visions of a table laden with food, she passed a glove maker's stall. Hungry as she was, her hands pained her worse than her belly. Fourpence would not buy fine leather gloves, but belike she could find a pair of thick woolen mittens to protect her hands.

  In a neighboring stall Meggy saw a small toy horse, carved of a fine dark wood with a tail of creamy wool. She left the gloves and the fruit tart and bought instead salve for her sore hands, half a loaf of fresh bread, and the horse.

  The sky was growing darker as she turned onto Crooked Lane. She entered the cooper's shop and greeted the cooper. "Might I have speech with Master Nicholas?" she asked.

  The boy came down from the room above. He smiled a watery smile when he saw Meggy and asked, "Have you come with another story for me?"

  "Nay, not today, but see who has climbed into my sack and now nickers furiously to escape," she said as she pulled out the horse.

  "Go to!" Nicholas said. "'Tis most fine. Be it yours?"

  "Nay," said Meggy, "'tis yours." She felt her gran smile on her and heard her say, You gladden me, wee Meggy, and make me proud. Meggy's heart warmed.

  She let herself into the house at the Sign of the Sun. Belike she should tell her father what she had done. No light showed from the laboratorium nor from his chamber. Had he not yet come home? Or was he already abed? Her travels of the day had left her weary and sore, so she lay down on her pallet, stomach full of bread and heart full of Nicholas's joy. And she had no dreams at all.

  SEVENTEEN

  The day brought rain. Meggy watched drops dance down the window. She had delayed having speech with her father but could delay no longer. With the remains of her half loaf tucked beneath her arm, she climbed to the laboratorium, uncertain whether he would welcome her or throw her down the stairs. She would tell him that she had not revealed his part in the plot, that his Great Work might proceed more slowly without the murderers' gold but it would proceed, and he would still have his head. And his immortal soul.

  The laboratorium was cold and silent. Her father was not there. Neither were his books. Nor the glass instruments he called the pelican and the alembic. The fire was out. And the two sovereigns in the copper pot were gone.

  Where was he? Had her plan failed? Had he been seized? Would she yet see his head on the bridge? Roger, she thought, that scurvy popinjay! This was all his fault. Had he helped her, they might have made a better plan.

  Roger was useless. Whatever had he ever done for her? He had fed her, she admitted that. And he answered her questions ... and admired her dark eyes ... and found the baron's house. She remembered Roger's grin, his hair flopping in his eyes, his hand stretched out to help her over a puddle.

  Ye toads and vipers, what had she done? This was not Roger's doing. He had ever been her friend, and she had been not generous, nor gentle, nor humble. She was filled with remorse.

  Meggy was alone. Her father was gone, and she had driven Roger off. Her gran was dead, and her cold-hearted mother far away. Even Louise was taken from her. She flung herself down on her pallet and cried. In sooth she sobbed and wailed and bawled. She blubbered and sniveled. Finally, damp and exhausted, she wiped her nose, tied her linen cap on tighter, and hurried from the house. There was one thing she could remedy.

  She pounded the bear's iron paw against the Grimms' front door, but no one answered. She asked at Ragwort's shop. The butcher shook his head in answer to her question and looked at her as if counting how many chops and ribs she might yield.

  Meggy hurried away, up Pudding Lane, over to Gracechurch Street, and into the courtyard of the Cross Keys Inn. The yard was crowded not with scaffold and playgoers but with coaches and carts. "I wish to see the players," she said to a man holding a horse.

  "There be no play today," said the man, and the horse neighed and nickered loudly. "Mayhap on the morrow, if they ain't been thrown into the Tower by then." He snickered, sounding much like his horse.

  "I come not to see the play but the players," she said. "Do you know where they be?"

  "Aye, I know," he said, then spat over his shoulder.

  "Where then? Where are they?"

  "They be ... not here." He grinned. "That's where they be, Mistress Crookleg, they be ... not here."

  "Beef-witted churl," Meggy muttered as she hastened on. Where was Roger?

  I know where he is, Meggy said to herself finally. 'Tis where I would go. And she hurried down to the river where they had eaten pigs' trotters and first talked of the baron. Certes he would be there, regretting their argument and ready to be friends again.

  He was not there. A bitter wind blew refuse from the street into the air, dirt and pebbles peppered her skirt, and a sheet of paper plastered itself against her face.

  It began to rain harder, and a sorrow-struck Meggy trudged slowly home. As she neared the house at the Sign of the Sun, she saw a man in a black gown enter. Her father safely come back! Relief flooded her, and she pushed open the door.

  But it was not her father. Rather the man was a stranger. He turned toward Meggy. "Who are you and what do you in my house?" he asked her.

  "What mean you, your house? This be the house of Master Ambrose, the alchemist, and I be his daught—"

  "Nay, mistress, nay. Ambrose did sell this house and its contents to me last even'. He is off to Prague, in Bohemia, invited to join others in a place called Gold Alley, where alchemists gather. Did he not tell you?"

  Meggy, speechless, shook her head.

  "Oh, lucky Ambrose. Imagine. To work aside von Rosenberg, Hajek, the Baron Rodovsky." Disappointment shadowed the man's face. "If only it were possible, I would join them, but I have wife and children. Fortunate Ambrose, to be free and unencumbered."

  Free? With a house and a daughter dwelling in it? He had left her without a farewell or a house or a father. Tears prickled at the back of Meggy's eyes, and her legs trembled.

  "Here, mistress," said the stranger, pushing the stool toward her. "Sit a moment before you go ... wherever you go. I must be about my business." He hummed tunelessly as he began measuring the walls and floors.

  Meggy collapsed onto the stool. She thought her father had come to accept and even rely upon her. Of late she had tried to erase what he was and imagine him someone different, but in sooth he was heedless, cold, and uncaring.

  You get no warmth from an empty fireplace, she thought, and she smiled to herself. She was becoming a philosopher. Empty fireplace indeed.

  "I must be off, mistress," the stranger said. "I will be back anon with my family and expect to find you gone." He touched his cap in parting and added, "God save you and keep you well."

  Once she was alone, Meggy, grief shot, put her head down on the table and wept again. She wept with despair and loneliness. She wept for what she almost had and had no longer, for what might have been. She was once again without a father. He had cared more for his alembic than his daughter, for he had taken that with him.

  She wiped her face on her kirtle and straightened her cap. What was she to do? Go back to the mother who had sent her away? Find a likely spot in some stinking alley and beg?

  Not I, said Meggy finally, banging a walking stick on the floor. I will tend to myself. She stood, pulled her cloak around her, and set off once more to see Master Allyn the printer.

  Master Allyn was inking the leather balls when Meggy arrived. "See a new ballad come forth?" he called without turning around as she entered. "One moment and I will—

  "Fie on it!" he shouted as the leather inking ball fell onto the dusty floor. He kicked the ball, and it flew to Meggy's feet.

  "Master Allyn," said Meggy as she bent over and picked up the inking ball, "it appears you require my assistance." She handed the ball to him and wiped her inky hands on her kirtle. "I can help wi
th Gilly and little Robert whilst Mistress Allyn tends the newest Allyn. I can ink the press, and you can teach me to pull letters for the composing stick. I can sell ballads throughout London, for my voice, though not sweet, is loud." Master Allyn started to interrupt her, but she silenced him with a wave. "I do not ask for wages. All I ask is a pallet by a fire and enough to eat, for I am ever cold and hungry." And lonely, she thought, although she did not say it.

  "Nay, Mistress Meggy," said the printer when she paused. "Certes your father would not let you go."

  "My father, such that he is, has abandoned me without a thought or a penny. I am free to go wherever..."

  Master Allyn interrupted, frowning. "We will soon have three babes to care for. I dare not take on another."

  "I do not require your care, Master Printer. I am offering my assistance in exchange for a pallet and supper."

  "Pay heed to the girl, John," said Mistress Allyn from where she was hanging pages to dry, "for this new babe is soon coming, and I will be little use to you." She put a hand to the small of her back and stretched.

  After a goodly silence, Master Allyn said to Meggy, "Be warned, I can be sharp and ill humored," but his eyes twinkled.

  "No more than I, in truth," Meggy responded. "My friend Roger said I am as friendly as a bag of weasels. Mistress Crosspatch, he called me." Her eyes filled with tears again, and she dashed them away, leaving inky streaks on her cheeks.

  "Then we are well matched," the printer said. "Welcome to the shop of John Allyn, Printer, off Paul's Chain, near Ludgate."

  Meggy nodded. "Or," the printer added with a wink, "shall I say, 'John Allyn and Apprentice'?"

  She nodded again as she wabbled to the shelves near the door, where she blew dust from a line of inking balls and straightened a stack of pages near to tumbling.

  "I would say, John," Mistress Allyn said as she watched the girl, "it shall not be long before 'tis 'Mistress Swann and Printer.'"

  Meggy smiled but she did not stop, for she had work to do.

  EIGHTEEN

  Meggy went one last time to the house at the Sign of the Sun to gather her things—comb, small knife for eating, clean smock, her scorched and tattered kirtle, a pair of stockings with the toes mended into a bunch, and a bottle of onion, fig, and Venice treacle tonic against plague, which mercifully she had not needed. She put them into her sack and took one last look around the cold, dark, empty room. How small it all was—small house, small room, small hopes, and even those had been disappointed. Farewell, Master Peevish, she thought, Sir Hardheart, Master Thoughtless. She wiped away fresh tears of loss and defeat as she walked once again to the printer's.

  Meggy arrived to see a distinguished-looking man in fine gray doublet and blue trunk hose sitting by the fire. She could hear Mistress Allyn trying to quiet the children in the back room and saw the alarm on the printer's face. Her heart thumped.

  "Here she is, the poet, as I told you," said Master Allyn to the gentleman.

  The man looked doubtful. "This little girl with crooked legs—she is the maker of the ballad?"

  Meggy's heart thumped again. It appeared her ballad was not the splendid idea she had thought it. "Aye, sir, I did write it," she said, almost in a whisper. "How came you here?"

  "Your name was not on the broadside, but the printer's was." He looked from Meggy to Master Allyn. "You both be in grave trouble, meddling in treason."

  Treason? Her heart pounded faster. "Nay, sir, I did but try to prevent treason. And Master Allyn had naught to do with it. 'Twas all my doing." Was she about to be taken to prison? To Newgate or the Clink? Or even the Tower? She lifted one hand to touch her hair, as if assuring herself that her head was still on her shoulders and not on a pole on London Bridge.

  "The queen takes threats to her nobles as threats to the Crown itself. Tell me," the gentleman said, narrowing his eyes, "what have you to do with this plot against the baron?"

  "Naught, sir, naught."

  "The truth!" the man shouted, pounding his hand on the arm of the chair. "Tell me the truth!"

  "Hold, good sir, hold!" Master Allyn said, coming to Meggy's side. "The girl—"

  "Be still!" the gentleman said. "Let her answer me."

  Meggy trembled, but her voice was strong. "I am telling the truth, sir. I had naught to do with the plot. I did but overhear the redheaded man and his gorbellied friend speak of their plans, and there was no other way to warn the baron. The gatekeeper would not let me pass, and I could not fly over the baron's walls and sing a song at his window." Meggy sighed, remembering Roger's foolery that had belike given her the idea for the ballad.

  "Know you the baron?"

  "Oh, no, sir. How could I know a baron?"

  "Why then were you part of this? Who put you up to it?" He stood and wagged his finger in Meggy's face. "Were you paid? By whom?"

  Meggy backed away. "Oh, no, sir. Naught and no one and ne'er!" she said, speaking as quickly as she could as if to forestall any more questions. "I but knew it was wrong, sir, to plot murder. And that I should stop it if I could. And the redheaded man was so ugly and venomous, with a foul reek like a toad in a dung pile, that I knew the matter must be most wicked indeed were he at the heart of it."

  The gentleman looked as though he would like to smile but had forgotten how. He sat back down and spoke more gently. "The threat to the baron was real," he said. "His food taster and your redheaded toad have been removed to the Tower, although certes there were other plotters." Meggy let out a breath she did not know she had been holding. Fortunate it was that her father had gone to Bohemia. He was safe. Gone, but safe.

  "What more do you know?" The gentleman had still more questions. "Have you heard aught else?"

  "Naught, sir. I swear. That is the whole and entire tale." She hoped God would forgive her lie, but she would not reveal her father's role. She would not.

  The man got to his feet. "In sooth, I do not find that you two were involved with the plot. Indeed, young bard, you may have saved the baron's life. Belike he will want to offer some small reward. What would you have from the baron in thanks?"

  A reward? Meggy's head spun as she tried to think. Gold? Fine clothes? A silver bracelet? Grass green shoes? In truth there was little she truly needed, she realized. She had a pallet by the fire and the promise of enough to eat. Her father was safely gone. She would like Roger back but did not think that was a matter for the baron. But there was something. She mourned the lost possibility of such fine shoes and explained her wish to the gentleman.

  "I can but ask," the gentleman said. And, with a bow, he left.

  For two wet and windy days, Meggy trudged from one end of London to another, singing ballads and hawking broadsides. Some folks were unkind to her, as ever, but others were friendly. Although her legs still ached, she was stronger and wearied less easily. But so much traveling left her hands blistered and raw. Mayhap, she thought, the cooper could smooth her sticks so they would not tear at her hands so. She once again made the walk to Crooked Lane.

  As she turned down the lane from Candlewick Street, she could smell the spice-cake smell that meant the cooper was firing oak casks. Her mouth watered at the aroma. As important as casks and barrels were, she could not help but wish it truly were spice cake he was baking.

  A wagon was drawn up in front of the house at the Sign of the Sun, and a carter was moving barrels and boxes in. Laughter streamed out the open door. Meggy thought of her own very different arrival some months ago. She stood staring at the house for a moment, remembering what was and imagining what might have been, and then she turned to the cooper's.

  The cooper's shop was free of charred wood and ashes although the beams and the walls were still blackened from the fire. In one corner the cooper was busily smoothing barrel staves, and Nicholas played with his horse in a mound of sawdust. Meggy explained to the cooper why she had come. "Ah, Mistress Meggy, I can do better than that," he said. From the back of his shop he brought out a pair of walking sticks, fine oak and pol
ished until they were like satin. The tops of the T shapes were padded with leather. "To thank you, mistress, for your kindness to my boy."

  Meggy grinned as she tried them out. With these fine new sticks, she was steadier and stood taller, and—wonder of wonders—her hands did not hurt.

  "How fares your beauteous goose?" Nicholas asked Meggy as she paced the length of the shop. "Where is she? Do you miss her? Shall she be coming back to Crooked Lane?"

  "Soft, Master Nicholas, soft. Louise does dwell now with someone else, and aye, I miss her and her squawks and her waddles."

  "I do wish I waddled like you and Louise," the boy said, watching Meggy. "It be most like dancing."

  Meggy was astounded at his words. She had ever thought her lameness ugly and her wabbles ungraceful, but her gait in truth was a bit of swaying and a bit of bobbling and joggling. In some measure like dancing indeed.

  "Someone came seeking you this very morning," Master Cooper said. Meggy's heart leapt. Roger! "A tall, scar-faced man." Not Roger. Master Merryman.

  Meggy thanked the cooper and headed for Pudding Lane to see what Master Merryman wanted of her. In truth she hoped to find Roger there. Roger. Her heart lurched back and forth between joy and dismay at the thought of seeing again that big nose and foolish grin.

  NINETEEN

  One of Master Grimm's apprentices opened the door. Inside was a crowd of people—apprentices, Master and Mistress Grimm, Master Merryman, all the Grimm children, Francis Shore the fencing master, and a number of men she remembered seeing in the play but had not yet met—laughing and talking.

  "Mistress Swann," Mistress Grimm, coming to Meggy's side, said over the bibble-babble. "Sweeting, we have been looking for you but no one knew where you had gone."

  "Wherefore this celebration?" Meggy asked her.

  Master Grimm's voice rang over the others. "I have no doubt it was my performance in Master Gamecock and the Death of the King that convinced the baron to give us this opportunity. In sooth, who could have watched my Master Gamecock and not been moved?"