Marigold

Management, Allegedly

Marigold is a goat, and she would like that established first, because a good deal of nonsense gets talked about who this inn is named for. It is not her. She simply runs the place.

She came with the Goose and has no magic and no need of any. Her gifts are headbutting, climbing on things she should not, and eating whatever is not nailed down. The Keeper’s careful lists go first, and a flower garland will vanish off the end of a bench while no one is looking. She wakes in the best patch of new clover as though it had been laid on for her personally, chews once, and goes back to her breakfast. That is usually the whole of the conversation.

She grudgingly approves of almost no one, so when she does begin to warm to a person, it is worth noticing. The goat is a shrewder judge of character than she lets on. Offer her a heel of dark rye at the right moment and she will take it as her due, as though it had been meant for her all along. Which, she would tell you, it had.