Alchemy and Meggy Swann Read Online Free PDF Page A

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 and 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