Alchemy and Meggy Swann

by Karen Cushman

  Meggy's heart thumped. Was that gold she saw forming in the bottom of the crucible? Was it growing from base metal into gold? Had her father done it?

  "Sir," she began, but he hushed her with a wave.

  "No prattle," he said. She continued pumping in silence.

  Darkness fell, and still they labored in the hot, smoky laboratorium. Meggy did not heed the aching of her legs or the complaining of her belly as she worked.

  "Enough," Master Ambrose said at last. Meggy put down the bellows, picked up a candle, and peered into the crucible. What she saw near took her breath away. There in the bottom was a tiny coil of what even the wary Meggy might call gold.

  "Is it gold?" Meggy asked the alchemist in a whisper. "Truly gold?"

  He nodded.

  "Then you have done it! You have made gold." It was a tiny amount, to be sure, but he had transformed common metal into gold. There it was in the crucible. Now he could make all the gold he needed. He would no longer need to plot murder but could continue his Great Work until he succeeded in finding the elixir of life.

  Mayhap he would let her use it, just as she had imagined. She was overcome with wondering. Would he? Would it be powder, liquid, solid, vapor? Would it smell sweet or sting her nose as she breathed? How would it heal her legs? Would she rub it on? Drink it? Just touch it? Would it work instantly or take a few moments? Would there be a flash of lightning or puff of smoke?

  And then Crooked Meggy would walk and run and, aye, dance. She would be transformed into someone straight and strong. And her father would come to value her. For this, she decided, she would labor hard and uncomplaining at his side. And then someday Crooked Meggy would dance. She would have grass green shoes and she would dance. Hope crept into the house and settled in Meggy's heart.

  "Daughter," Master Ambrose said, interrupting her imaginings. "Daughter, pay heed. I am calling you. Hand to me that—"

  "But sir, are you not gobsmacked? You have made gold! Just as you said you would."

  The man slammed his hand down on the table so hard it trembled. "Foolish girl! As if the making of gold were that simple. A trick, that is all it is."

  A trick? Meggy found it hard to breathe.

  "A trick," he repeated, "separating flecks of gold from ore that contains both gold and silver. I can also rub a silver object with a gold-ash-soaked rag until it gleams gold. I can grind gold and lead to a fine powder and coat a copper object until it shines gold. Or melt copper and silver with gold to make a great amount of what appears to be gold. But I produce only imitations of gold, not true transformation. I do tricks to fool the gullible into believing and parting with large sums of money in hopes of receiving large amounts of gold." He sat down at the table and put his head in his hands. "In sooth I can no more make gold than your blasted goose can."

  As much as Meggy had not wanted to believe, she now did not want to doubt. "But you said you were so close," she began, "and I see gold..."

  The alchemist looked up. "It can be done, I am certain it can be done, but I need more equipment, more material, a larger laboratory, a proper assistant. And for that I need money. A great deal of money." He picked up the cooled coil of gold and rubbed it between his fingers. "This should convince the fools to invest in my work, but I shall need to separate more. Mistress ... err, fetch the—"

  But Meggy was on her way down the stairs, thumping hard on each step. The prating mountebank! He had gulled her into believing for a moment, but he was a fraud! Let him perform his tricks. Let him even do his murder. Let him be taken and his head be mounted on the bridge for all to see. She cared not.

  A proper assistant? And what of Mistress ... Err?

  Meggy dropped carelessly onto her pallet and wept. She was sorry she had seen the dancing house and the coil of gold, that she had allowed herself to hope her father's Great Work might mean her transformation. He was but a fraud and a murderer, and she would likely never dance in grass green shoes.

  She dreamed that night of the heads on London Bridge. One wore a crown. 'Twas the baron, she knew. His head was impaled on a stick. Her walking stick! She woke with a start and a cry. She knew full well what the dream was saying. If the baron died, it was her doing.

  If she had not heard the men in the laboratorium, she would know nothing of their plans. If she knew nothing, it would not be upon her to do anything. But she had heard, and it was now in her hands.

  Morning came at last. Yesterday's rain had blown away, and the day dawned warm, lit by an autumn sun that turned the mist to gold. There was true alchemy, Meggy thought as she headed for a cookshop on Thames Street. Not the tricks in her father's laboratorium.

  Her thoughts all betumbled, Meggy missed her turning and found herself at the river. The air rang with the cries of seagulls fighting over scraps and the calls of the peacocks in the gardens of the rich. The breeze blew her cloak about and ruffled the hair of the heads mounted on the bridge.

  She gazed up at them. What should she do? Should she trouble herself to stop the baron's murder? And save her father, fraud that he be?

  Who could offer counsel? Roger, she thought finally. I will have speech with Roger.

  FOURTEEN

  Meggy turned and walked once again up Fish Street Hill and over to Pudding Lane. Belike it was because she had no goose to battle, she thought, but the walk seemed right easy this time.

  "Good morrow, lass," said Mistress Grimm as she opened the door to the girl. "Come join us for a comfit and a bit of gossip." She led Meggy into the kitchen, handed her a sweet, and pulled another stool up to the table.

  Meggy looked about but did not see Louise. "How does my goose?"

  "She bit Master Grimm, she did," said Mistress Grimm, "which was much the worst thing she could do."

  "Worse than the time she chewed Master Merryman's new leather glove," said Ivory Silk. Or was it Silver Damask?

  "Worse than the time she left fresh droppings in Roger's shoe," said Silver Damask. Or was it Ivory Silk?

  "Even worse than the time she ate half a blackberry pie and puked it up again," said Violet Velvet.

  "So Louise has gone to live with my uncle Fletcher near Westminster," said Mistress Grimm.

  "He does not think to eat her?" Meggy asked.

  "Nay, sweeting, do not fret. He be grateful for her bad-tempered hissing and honking. Keeps the mice and rats away, he says. And she and his duck are become great friends."

  Meggy grieved for a moment. Louise had been her friend, for a long while her only friend. But certes, geese are not known for their loyalty.

  "We were talking of the queen," said Mistress Grimm as she picked up an apple to peel and slice. "Of her marriage to the Duke of Alençon."

  "Never will she marry him," said Violet Velvet, who, like the other girls, was sewing on some brightly colored stuff.

  "Because he is a Frenchman?" Meggy asked, for that was all she knew of him.

  Violet shook her head.

  "Because he is too young?" asked Ivory Silk. Or Silver Damask?

  "Nay," said Violet. "He is old enow."

  "Because he is a Catholic?" asked Silver Damask. Or Ivory Silk.

  "Nay again," said Violet. "The queen will never marry him because his nose be too big. And marked from the pox. I do not think the queen would like to look at his big, pockmarked nose every day."

  "Especially at breakfast," said one twin.

  "Especially if she were eating a sausage," said the other.

  Amid the laughter, the twins began to poke each other with their needles. "Cease your brabbling," Meggy said, "and I will show you something I learned of my granny." She took a long strip of apple peel from Mistress Grimm and gave it to Ivory Silk (or was it Silver Damask?). "Throw this peel over your right shoulder, and it will reveal the first letter of the name of your true love." The girl did. "Now," said Meggy, "what letter did it form?"

  The twins leapt from their chairs and knelt down, peering at the curled peel. "It is an S," said one twin.

 
"Nay, it be an F," said the other. "F for Francis! Francis Shore, the fencing master, is your true love!"

  "Ne'er! Fie upon him! You do it, Meggy," said the other twin. So Meggy threw a bit of peel over her shoulder.

  "O?" one girl asked, looking closely..

  "P?" asked the other.

  And then both together they shouted, "R! 'Tis an R, for Roger!"

  Meggy, blushing, said, "Nay, nay, the peel is but reminding me why I have come. Is Roger about? 'Tis most important that I speak with him."

  Mistress Grimm picked up another apple and began to pare it. "The gentlemen are performing this day at the Cross Keys Inn on Gracechurch Street. Know you the one, past the Church of St. Denis?"

  Meggy did not, but nodded, for she thought she could find it, and she did, beyond the church, as Mistress Grimm had said. The courtyard was packed not with coaches and carts, as one might expect, but with people crowded around a scaffold at the front.

  "Good day, young mistress. Pay yer penny here to see the play," said a snaggletoothed woman at the entry.

  "I be no playgoer," Meggy told her. "I would talk with Roger Old—"

  "Ye must pay yer penny. Everyone pays."

  "I have no penny, but 'tis important that I see Roger. I swear not to peek at the play."

  The woman looked at Meggy's walking sticks. "Ah, the show be nearly over. Go you in."

  Meggy thanked the woman and made her way into the courtyard, where she was assaulted by the smell of onions and stale ale. All around her, people shoved and shouldered, shouted and laughed, and pelted the platform with roasted nuts and apples.

  Despite her promise to the ticket woman, Meggy hoped to see a wee bit of this occasion called a play. "Make way," she said, "make way," as she tried to push to the front with her walking sticks. People looked down at her, clutched the purses at their waists, and turned back to the play. The girl finally nudged her way close enough to the platform to see and hear.

  Up on the platform two men in embroidered doublets leapt about, with shouts and a furious waving of swords, until a beauteous lady fell in a swoon at their feet. The taller man took the lady in his arms. The other man ran him through with his sword like a capon on a skewer, and blood streamed onto the stage. There was a good bit of weeping and moaning, both in the play and in the audience.

  Meggy's heart stopped for a moment. She cried out, "The poor man. Is he truly dead?"

  The fellow next her said with a kind smile, "It be but chicken blood, mistress, drawn by wooden swords."

  Chicken blood? Swords made of wood? It had been so real. This then was what Roger meant by playing. These people were pretending wondrous things and making them seem true.

  Meggy forgot the crowds and the courtyard, the chicken blood and wooden swords. She was swept up and far away.

  A king's army battled a monster, a queen died, a king died, there was more blood, and everyone was aggrieved. Then the players came out and bowed—even the dead ones—and danced a little jig, were pelted with more roasted nuts, and climbed down off the platform.

  The play was done. Meggy was once more in a reeky courtyard, slipping on apple cores. Her cheeks were wet with tears and her heart beat like a bird in her chest. She felt such pity, such anger, such joy, and such disappointment that she could scarce contain it all. A play was a marvelous thing, she thought, to inspire such a tumult of feeling.

  As the crowds pushed out, Meggy held on to a corner of the platform lest she be swept into the tide of playgoers like herring in fishing season. She heard a man's voice from behind the scaffold. "Good Master Player," she called, "I am in search of Roger Oldmea—ham. Roger Oldham. I saw him not in the play. Know you where might I find him?"

  A gold-crowned head peeked around the platform. Master Grimm. Go to! That was why the king, even in all his finery, had looked like a sack of flour on legs. "Ah, Mistress Swann, come to see us. How liked you the play?" he asked.

  "'Twas wondrous grand," she said. "I never knew of such a thing. I would be a player, too, if only women could be players. But it was excellent to watch."

  "Come sit with me and tell me more. Tell me how I out-braved and outbragged the other players." he said. "'Pon my honor, I did play brilliantly. Never was a king more kingly and a death more deadly. Come, tell me."

  "Nay, I must find Roger."

  "Go then, ill-mannered girl. I shall find some other one to dazzle. Roger be yon, behind the stage, leaving off his costume."

  She went where he pointed, and there was the beauteous lady who had swooned so distressingly. "Good mistress," Meggy began, and the lady turned. It was Roger. Roger! Meggy thought she would recognize that nose anywhere, even under a shipload of paint.

  "By my troth, it be the fetching Mistress Swann, come to see me play," said Roger. "Was I not grand? Do I not have the most magnificent gown?" He twirled. "And see my—"

  Were all players this boastful? Meggy wondered. "Enough, Sir Pridesome," she said to him. "I am confounded and bestraught and do seek your counsel."

  He curtsied, in tolerable style for one with such shoulders. "At your service, Dame Impatient. Let me become Roger again. I shall beg off from my fellows and escort you home, and you will tell me what you want of me."

  Roger returned in a moment, the golden curls and lace ruffles gone, wearing a leather jerkin over his doublet and hose.

  "More wages gone for clothes, Oldmeat?" Meggy asked.

  "Is it not fine? Real Spanish leather. Master Grimm grew too stout for it and now it is mine. Do I not look lordly?" He twirled.

  "You grow vain, Oldmeat," she said.

  "Not at all. I have always been vain. It be my tragic flaw. In all the very best dramas the hero has a tragic flaw." He started to walk across the courtyard, and Meggy wabbled alongside him.

  "Enough of your prattling, my Lord Vanity," Meggy said. "Tragic reminds me wherefore I am here. I fear my father is involved in misdeeds that might leave someone tragically dead and me tragically alone. I pray your help, Oldmeat."

  Roger stopped. "I do believe that the first rule of asking a favor of someone is to call that someone not Oldmeat but instead Roger."

  There was silence for a moment, but at last she said, "Aye, Roger. Now hearken, Roger, and be still. Men came to my father, Roger. They would poison a noble lord called Baron Eastmoreland, and they sought my father's assistance."

  "Poison? Nay, 'tis not so. What has the master to do with poisons?" He scratched his head, and his earring winked in the sunshine. "But I did hear comings and goings of strange men in the night ... and he did send me on useless errands at times..."

  "'Tis true. My father supplies poison for the elimination of rats and mice and unloved lords. And he is a fraud, doing tricks to cheat people out of their money. He be a poor father, indeed. But in truth a poor father is better than no father at all. I do not wish to see his head on London Bridge. Oh, Oldme—Roger, will you help me choose the right course?"

  Roger took her arm. "Come, we will visit a cookshop and eat pigs' trotters by the river while you tell me more."

  FIFTEEN

  Meggy and Roger took their food to the ruins of a wharf by the river. They sat on stones warm from the afternoon sun. The music of lutes and viols could be heard from the windows of a big house nearby, and barges with silken canopies sailed past, followed by a silent procession of swans like lanterns floating on the river.

  Meggy told Roger what she had overheard. "I could accuse him to the watch," she concluded, "but then he would be seized. Or worse."

  Roger stopped chewing to ask, "And if you do nothing?"

  Meggy sighed. "Indeed, I would prefer to do nothing, for it would mean less trouble for me. But a man would lie dead, my father would be murderer, and I would know it. And God would know it. I would be known to all as the daughter of a murderer." Tears filled Meggy's eyes, slipped down her cheeks, and splashed on her bodice.

  Finally she snuffled and wiped her face with her kirtle. "I cannot do nothing. I must try to save the baro
n and keep my father's head on his shoulders." She sighed again. She and Roger sat in silence for a time, and then Meggy asked, "Why does someone seek to dispatch this Baron Eastmoreland?"

  "He is an honest man, it is said, loyal to the queen, and thus misliked by those who are not."

  "Including," Meggy said, "his gorbellied food taster and an odious ginger-haired man." She thought a moment, chewing on her lip, and then said, "Mayhap if we warned the baron that there was danger, that he should be wary and look to his food, he would be on his guard."

  "And how might you do that? Mark me well, Meggy. He is a baron, and you be the daughter of an alchemist from Crooked Lane. Think you to knock at his door and say, 'Open to me. I would have speech with the baron'?"

  "Who might have speech with him then? A water carrier? Fishmonger? Chimney sweep?"

  "Meggy Swann," said Roger, "you know a poor pennyworth about barons. Tradesmen speak not with barons but with their servants."

  "A letter then. What think you of a letter?"

  "Know you how to write a letter?"

  "You do."

  Roger nodded. "Aye, in Latin. Does he read Latin?"

  Meggy shrugged.

  "Have you paper? Ink? A pen?"

  She shook her head.

  "We know not where he lives. We could not get past his door. And he would pay us no heed anywise."

  "Roger, all you say is not, not, not," Meggy said, slapping her hand against the stones. "I pray you be more help than that."

  "What then be your will, my lady?" Roger asked. "Shall I fly in through his window with a warning in my mouth? I say do not fret over this matter. It concerns your father and the baron. 'Tis naught of your affair."

  Meggy banged one of her sticks against the ground. "Oldmeat, you are a craven coward and no use to me at all!"

  Roger stood and bowed with a sweep of his cap. "Then I shall leave you, Mistress Crosspatch," he said, and turned and walked away.