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the simple sign RAGWORT, BUTCHER. A butcher—perhaps Ragwort himself, perhaps not—lolled in the doorway of the shop, flicking flies from his apron all beslubbered with blood. He eyed Louise greedily.
    Louise hissed as if she were aware of the horrors within. "It's right sorry I am, Louise," Meggy told her, "and I shall miss you sorely.
    "Good sir," Meggy called to the butcher, "I am told that the house next your shop is that of the player Cuthbert Grimm." The butcher nodded.
    Roger lodged there, he had told her. Belike he would know how to save Louise. Despite Master Peevish, Meggy would not see her turned into roast goose.

SEVEN
     

    Master Grimm's house leaned into the street, supported by half-rotted timbers and crumbling plaster. Broken windows were patched with oiled paper, and gargoyles grinned from rusted drainpipes. Players might be paid wages for pretending, Meggy thought, but it was plain they were not paid much.
    She lifted the door knocker, shaped like the paw of a great iron bear, and let it drop. The door opened with a creak that startled Louise into a clamorous honking. She struggled against her restraints once more, loosed her wings from the sack, and flapped them in triumph.
    "Master Grimm, Master Grimm!" shouted the woman who opened the door. "Come hither and see. There be an angel here!" Footsteps thundered, and faces popped up behind her. The woman peered closely at Meggy. "Nay, 'tis but a girl with the face of an angel, and a goose."
    Meggy was surprised by the remark. Face of an angel? Had she such? No one had remarked upon it ere now. The idea pleased her, and she felt a little more assured, but still she hid her sticks in the folds of her skirt. "Is this where I might find Roger Oldham?" she asked.
    "Indeed you might. You be Mistress Swann, I do expect. Come in from the rain." The faces moved back, and Meggy moved forward.
    The house was crowded with people and things, sweet and sour from the smells of stewing meat, baking bread, babies' nappies, and herbs strewn on the floor.
    The woman cuffed a boy aside his head. "Make haste, you, and fetch Roger," she ordered. Another boy came and helped Meggy untie Louise and put her down. A horde of children gathered and clamored about the goose.
    "I be Mistress Grimm," the woman said. She was small and round, dressed in black with sleeves slashed in yellow. Her face was brown and plain as a pot but open and warm. "And here be Master Grimm and Master Merryman."
    Two gentlemen stood either side of a blazing fireplace. One was round and roly-poly with a merry-looking face and several chins. The other was the bent and bony scar-faced man who had rescued Meggy in the alley. Her heart stopped its beating for a moment, alarmed again by his grotesque appearance.
    The man's eyebrows rose in recognition, but he said naught about the encounter in the alley, nor did Meggy. She nodded to him and said, "Pleased to meet you, Master Grimm," for he looked grim indeed.
    "Nay, nay," said Mistress Grimm. "He is Master Merryman.
This
gentleman be Master Grimm."
    The smiling and nodding Master Grimm was stuffed into a doublet so tight that Meggy thought his belly might burst forth and fire buttons like cannon-shot about the room. Sparse yellow hair peeped from beneath his cap. "'Tis Dick's 'Grimm' face that has deceived you," the man said. He barked a harsh and jangly sort of laugh at his own jest and poked the other man with his elbow. "I be Cuthbert Grimm, master player. You will come to know me. All of London knows me." He pulled at his hair again and smiled a smile of self-satisfaction. Master Merryman sneered a sad sort of sneer—if, Meggy thought, a sneer might be called sad.
    "Ah, Mistress Margret," Roger said, appearing at her side. "You have come to see me. Did I just see a pig fly by?"
    "No nonsense, Oldmeat," Meggy said. "I am not in a sportive humor. I have come for your assistance. My father demands my goose roasted for dinner—"
    Her speech was interrupted by the