The man with the hook, a curber by profession, did not see Meg. She had the advantage of surprise. With a pounding heart she waited until he was upon her, then she leaped up and threw an arm around his neck, cutting off his breath. This was a move she learned while wrestling with Davy and Peter.
“Unhand me!” he cried, choking and dropping his hook as he tried to pull Meg’s arm away.
“Do as I say,” said Meg in a low-pitched voice, “or I’ll raise the hue and cry and your profitable night strolling will end.”
The curber tried to nod. Meg released him, satisfied to see that he trembled. “What’s your name?” she demanded.
“Nick Grabwill,” he said, rubbing his neck with a wrinkled hand. With a start, Meg realized she had assaulted an old man.
“Pick up your hook, Nick, and filch me a bodice and skirt,” she said in a courteous tone. “Nothing cheap.”
Grabwill sighed but proceeded through the silent streets, shadowed by Meg. He lifted a pillow from one open window, a man’s shirt from another. The hook disappeared a third time, whereupon Meg heard sharp, high-pitched crying.
“Go to! Have you snatched a babe from its cradle?” she whispered.
Grabwill hurriedly withdrew his hook and they ducked into an alley. The babe’s cries ceased. Meg’s throat was dry.
“Give me the hook,” she said. At the next open window, she guided the hook to where she imagined a bedpost with clothing hanging from it might be. Something—a lantern or metal cup—clattered to the floor inside.
“Who goes there!” came a man’s voice at the window.
Meg ran, dragging the curber behind her. On a street by the wharf they paused before a three-storied house with its upper windows flung open to the fishy air.
Grabwill smiled. “Here’s many a skirt to be picked up with ease. Let’s try our fortunes within.”
“What do you mean?” said Meg.
“Why, here is the best bawdy house this side of the Thames,” he said, reaching for the knocker.
Meg struck his hand away. “I am not given to such lewdness!”
“What sort of boy are you?” said Grabwill, peering at her more closely than she liked.
“One who does not answer questions. Try your luck with the hook. Now!” She pointed to the windows but the curber stood still. He was losing his fear of her, so Meg reached out and cuffed his ear. She hated to hurt him but she had to have the clothing.
Angrily Grabwill fished in the window, his hook loudly striking the window jamb as it emerged at last with the necessary garments.
Meg heard cursing. A half-naked woman leaned from the window.
“Is that you, villain Nick? A pox on you, hedgehog.” She threw a bucket of night soil after them. Meg darted away in time but Grabwill was not so fortunate.
“Now my clothes are fouled and you owe me for the pains I’ve taken,” he said once they had left the brothel behind. He was surly and Meg was eager to be quit of him.
“Take off your clothes,” she said, seizing the hook from him.
Seeing his tool brandished against him Grabwill undressed, tripping as he removed his pants. With the hook Meg deposited his clothes in an open window. While he stood there helpless, Meg took off her jerkin and slipped on the bodice over the man’s shirt she wore. She did this in haste, trusting Grabwill not to look at her closely. She put on the skirt, removed her hose underneath, and tossed the jerkin and hose to the curber.
“These are worth more than the rags you wore, and thus you are paid for your pains.” In a softer tone she added, “I thank you, for now I am a reformed thief.”
“The hat too,” Grabwill demanded, pointing to her velvet cap.
Meg pulled off the cap and handed it to him. Even in the dark she could see his astonishment as her gold curls tumbled about her ears. He clapped Meg’s discarded clothes to the front of his body.
“What are you, a doxy from yonder brothel or a devil from hell?”
Meg could not help smiling. “I am as honest a man as you are,” she said. And then to spare him further shame she turned and ran away.
After an hour of searching Meg found her way back to the Boar’s Head. The gate to the innyard was locked and quiet reigned. She curled up against the smaller postern door and thought of sweet oranges and laughter and strutting players. But when she fell asleep her dreams were not so pleasant. A vengeful Nick Grabwill pursued her with his hook, but she couldn’t run because her feet were weighted with iron. Peter and Davy laughed soundlessly at her plight, the latter’s maw full of black teeth.
When the door creaked open, Meg tumbled into the yard and awoke to see a woman with a broom looming over her. It was the hostess, her mouth a wide O of surprise.
“What sort of creature have we here?”
Meg got stiffly to her feet. By the morning light she saw that her bodice was of red taffeta and gaped in the front. Her skirt of yellow sarcenet ended a long way from the ground, showing her man’s shoes and stockings. Even to herself she looked ridiculous. At least she no longer resembled Peter and Davy’s companion from the night before.
“A poor but honest maid in need of shelter,” Meg said humbly.
The hostess cocked her head. “How old are you, child?”
“I was twelve at my last birthday but I might be thirteen now.”
“Where are your mother and father?”
Meg did not know where her father’s body was buried or where her mother’s drowned body had come to rest. “Dead,” she said simply.
The hostess uttered a mew of pity. “How came you here?”
“By these two feet of mine.” Meg looked at her shoes. “I ran from some wicked men.”
The hostess stepped into the street with her broom raised and looked both ways. “You haven’t led them here? I’ll have naught to do with any villains. Did they harm you?”
“No, mistress.” There was nothing more to say without unfolding her entire doubtful history.
The woman had her own suspicions. “Are you a strumpet? Your clothes look like they were taken from a bawdy house.”
Meg gulped. How quickly the woman had hit on the truth—at least part of it.
“By this hand I am an honest girl,” she protested. Tears sprang to her eyes. So much depended on this woman’s mercy.
At that moment her stomach rumbled loudly.
“Bless me, you’re starving!” the hostess exclaimed, dropping her broom. “Come with me anon.”
Meg was glad to obey and followed her into the kitchen. She stared amazed at the hearth, which was wide enough to lie down in. It was fitted with pot hooks on swivels, spits for roasting meat, kettles, and stirring spoons. The hostess filled a trencher with porridge, bacon, and milk, which Meg devoured.
“Have you any kin?” the woman asked, regarding Meg with warm brown eyes.
Meg, her mouth full, shook her head.
“In all the world there is no one to care for you?” Her voice rose as if she might cry. She heaped more porridge onto Meg’s plate and dribbled honey over it.
“No one,” Meg echoed. The porridge tasted heavenly. She wanted so badly to stay.
“You have not run away from the Christ’s Hospital?” The hostess stood with her hands on her wide hips. She was as round as a kettle.
“No, I lived alone until our house burned down.” One lie could hardly hurt.
The hostess shook her head sadly. “What brought you to me?” she said more to herself than to Meg.
Meg chewed her food to avoid having to reply. She could hardly confess that she had first come to the Boar’s Head with the intention of stealing from the patrons.
“Don’t answer, for I already know.” The hostess looked upward. “Providence brought you here, child, for just yesterday I said to Master Overby, ‘I must hire a servant.’ If you will work for your bed and board, then you may stay.”
Meg leaped to her feet, threw her arms around the wide hostess, and—to her own very great surprise—lifted her right off the floor.
The woman’s little feet scrabbled in midair. She let out a cry of protest, but when Meg set her down again she looked almost pleased. Her large teeth showed in a grin.
“You may call me Mistress Gwin or Mistress Overby, I care not which,” she said, red-faced. “But I won’t have you pick me up again unless I have fallen down.”
“Yes, mistress!”
“What name did your parents, God rest their souls, give you?”
“Mack—Meg.” She quickly corrected herself but Gwin seemed not to notice the slip. Then she hesitated. Her surname, Macdougall, was a reminder of her parents’ shame and failure, which she preferred to forget. And yet her father had been a good man, not a thief like herself.
“I am Meg de Galle,” she said at last. For this was to be a fresh start in her life and she needed a new, unsullied name.