by K. M. Grant
Luke was scarcely breathing. “I can,” he said, “but I think there’s more than one man.”
“No,” I said, “only one. He’s got a message for us from another world. Perhaps this is the knight of Walter’s story. Perhaps he’s a knight of the Round Table. In a moment he’ll pass in a scattering of dust, leaving only a nosegay of flowers and a promise to return.”
“He wants to leave with more than that!” Luke shouted.
“What?”
“Duck!” And when I didn’t, he threw himself from Picardy onto Dulcie, who snorted and tilted away, leaving Luke clutching at air. I could now see quite clearly what I had completely failed to see before, which was that Luke was right: there was not one imaginary knight approaching; there were at least a dozen real ones. What was more, these were not chivalrous nobles scattering flowers and enigmatic promises. Their matted hair, grime-gritted skin, and rough, mismatching armor revealed them as men-at-arms gone bad, their honor blemished, their swords stained, and their iron clubs spotted with old flesh. The pilgrimage route from London to Canterbury offered rich pickings. With our baggage carts bumbling behind, we must have looked to be a particularly juicy prize.
Thin and flat-eared with misuse, the bandits’ horses bared their teeth at ours. Luke squared up like a boxer. I screamed, for the bandits were whirling their clubs. In seconds, the shrill screams of the lady pilgrims echoed my own. The bandits were amongst them.
A man the shape and color of a dirty leather strap issued brisk orders, which were less briskly obeyed. When Luke had been restrained and Dulcie and Picardy seized, we were marched back to the rest of our party. With the bandits growling like dogs, we were herded off the road through the thicket into a scrubby clearing. The prioress’s dogs yapped and yapped and yapped. Luke managed to stay beside Dulcie, leaving Picardy whinnying in the rear. I begged Luke to go back for him, but he wouldn’t leave me, and I was so thankful for that.
Once in the clearing, we were all forced to dismount. Three of the bandits took our horses and tied them together. One tried to unwrap the prioress’s arms from around her dogs, but she clutched them as hard as the mother clutched her babies. I thought the man might just club the creatures—anything to stop their infernal noise—but though he threatened, he let them be.
Walter appeared on my other side, and he and Luke squashed me between them, with Master Chaucer forming a barrier in front. Sir Knight roared as loudly as a bull as the robbers divested him of his sword. Everybody else was forced to throw their weapons into a pile.
“If we’re to die, please God make it quick,” Madam Prioress sobbed. I held on to my pendant and thought of my father. I could hardly believe this was real. The dogs yapped and yapped.
The leathery leader banged two shields together. “Shut those damned animals up or I’ll do it myself.” He brandished a dagger. I whipped around and slapped both dogs hard on their rumps. The prioress was outraged and the dogs’ yaps rose to howls. I slapped them again. Only when I threatened a third belt did they finally quiver into silence.
“That’s better.” Sir Leather Strap dropped the shields. For effect, he thrust his sword into the ground in front of him. Earth is not unlike flesh. It slid in with a kind of squelch. I pressed closer into Master Chaucer’s back.
Sir Knight, hopping from foot to foot, objected to our treatment in the strongest possible terms. “We’re holy pilgrims on our way to the tomb of St. Thomas! God won’t forgive you for this.” But everybody knew that without his sword and horse, he was a tuskless boar. Eventually, knowing he looked ridiculous, he fell as silent as the dogs.
“Peace at last,” Sir Leather Strap said, as though we were a class of noisy children. “And now that I can get a word in, I’ll tell you what I want.” He leaned on his sword hilt. “I want gold.”
“Gold?” repeated Sir Knight stupidly. “Why would we have gold? I’ve told you, we’re just poor pilgrims on our way to the tomb of St. Thomas.”
“No pilgrims are poor,” Sir Leather Strap said. “If you were poor, St. Thomas wouldn’t be interested in you.”
“We’ve no gold,” Sir Knight declared. “You can search our baggage all you like.”
Sir Leather Strap pursed his lips. “As we will. I’ll be sorry if it turns out to be true because then we’ll have to check your teeth.”
The merchant shut his mouth with a snap, as did Summoner Seekum, Master Friar, and almost everybody else. I’d inherited my mother’s teeth, white and strong, but they were hardly going to take my word for that. When Sir Knight had nothing more to say, Sir Leather Strap ordered that we should be divided, men on one side and women on the other. I found I’d been holding Luke’s hand. Letting go was awful.
As we were pushed about, there was argument and agitation between the robbers themselves, and it became clear that some had more on their minds than gold. There were unmistakable gesticulations. I was the youngest, so they singled me out. They formed a line. They prodded me down it like a cow at auction. It’s hard to tell you what it felt like.
When I reached the end of the line, the men formed a circle. It amused them to whirl me around, and I grew dizzy as their faces flashed and disappeared, flashed and disappeared, in a grinning, pointing blur. I knew I must not fall. Once on the ground, I’d never get up again. But my feet were faltering, my legs were tangling, and I was pitching into a terrible, surging sea of arms that grasped with greedy and evil intent.
Just before the sea roared over my head, I heard Luke’s voice. “You want gold?” he was hollering. “I can give you more than gold. I can give you gold that will never be spent, but touch that girl and you’ll get nothing, nothing.” He hollered again and again. The sea wavered.
“You said if we gave you gold, you’d let us go. I can give you gold, I tell you. As much as you like. A hill—a mountain—a whole universe.”
The thieves sniggered. “What are you, some kind of a wizard?” Dirty fingers pulled at my skirt. The sea surged again. In a moment, the men would hear only the pumping of their blood.
Luke hollered louder. “Of course I’m not a wizard. I’ve much more power than that. I’m an alchemist. Do you understand? An alchemist. But I repeat, touch that girl and you’ll never know what I could have done for you. Never. What’s more, I’ll use my skills to hunt you down and I’ll make your skin burn and your toes rot so that you’ll believe yourself already in hell. I have that power and you’d better believe me when I tell you that God himself can’t stop me from using it.”
My padded trousers had come undone and my skirt was above my knees. Luke’s voice rang out once more. “Let the girl go and I’ll provide riches beyond your wildest dreams. Touch her and you’ll leave with nothing but a curse.” Then his voice changed. “I have the philosopher’s stone,” he said, and his voice boomed like a thunderclap.
Sir Leather Strap shifted. “What did you say?”
“I said I have the philosopher’s stone.”
There were exclamations amongst both pilgrims and thieves. Sir Leather Strap banged his two shields. “You’re telling me that you have the elixir that transforms base metal into gold?” His voice was an almost comic mix of deep mistrust and fascinated hope.
Luke paused for dramatic effect. “I don’t just have it,” he declared, “I make it,” and though his voice was deliberately soft, it was as though God himself had spoken. Momentarily, even I was forgotten. Sir Leather Strap recovered first. “I don’t believe you,” he sneered, but couldn’t disguise that Luke’s words sparked like a flint against a tinderbox.
“It’s because I make the elixir that I go as penitent to Canterbury,” Luke said.
The spark snuffed out. “You have, at your fingertips, the gift of eternal riches and you want us to believe that you’re going to do penance for it?” Sir Leather Strap was completely disbelieving.
Luke stood very tall. “I’ve trespassed onto God’s territory, meddling where man shouldn’t meddle. So I’ve decided to cast my tools and all the elixir I ha
ve left onto St. Thomas’s tomb and pray that God will help me forget the recipe.”
Sir Leather Strap’s lips dried even as his mouth watered. “But at this moment you can make gold?” The spark flickered back to life.
Luke nodded.
“If you’re lying …”
Luke blinked and his cheek twitched. Sir Leather Strap observed him closely. The spark had now lit a fire that flared out of his belly and into his veins. He could see the gold. He could smell it. He had a terror of losing it. He gestured to one of the men. “Bring the girl here and open her mouth, because if you are lying, boy, I’ll have everybody’s teeth, whether gold, bone or plain enamel, and I’ll start by plucking out this creature’s little treasures one at a time with the farrier’s nail pullers and have them made into a necklace.”
I was dragged over and forced to kneel. I remember Sir Knight calling out “For shame!” and beating his hands together. I remember Walter surging forward and being thrust back. I remember clammy, prying fingers crushing my tongue and making my lips bleed. Most of all, though, I remember the blankness that is a fear beyond terror, because I alone amongst this company knew that making gold was one trick Luke had refused to learn.
“Don’t hurt her.” Luke couldn’t keep his voice even.
Sir Leather Strap shrugged. “That’s up to you and you’d better hurry. We need to see gold before nightfall, and it’s already beginning to get dark.”
Luke swallowed, shrank, then, with a small jerk, was alive with movement. “Light every torch, every lamp there is,” he ordered, moving swiftly toward the baggage carts. “I’ll get what I need. You get kindling and twigs. We need a fire and a bowl of cold water.”
The men looked to their leader. “Well, get on then,” cried Sir Leather Strap, running after Luke. “Yes,” Luke said, not slowing his step, “you stay close. I’ll need an assistant.” He brushed past me. It was the only comfort he could give.
By the time a fire was lit, Luke had returned with his own pack and a brown leather box big enough for a child’s armor. Using two broad tree stumps as tables, he opened the box and set out two dozen unlabeled vials, half a dozen bottles, and several twists of paper. My guard, now more interested in Luke than in me, relaxed his hold. I closed my mouth. The filth on my tongue was sickening but I didn’t dare spit.
“You must tell us what everything is.” Sir Leather Strap peered at the vials by lantern light. Luke took a lantern too, and without looking at the vials or bottles, slowly began to recite in a hypnotic voice: “Borax, verdigris, bullock’s gall, arsenic, brimstone, sal ammoniac. I’ve chalk and quicklime and ashes and of course the white of eggs, and alkali, tartar, salt and saltpeter, iron for Mars, quicksilver for Mercury, lead for Saturn, and tin for Jupiter.” It was a litany, just like my mother’s bell litany, but though it reassured Sir Leather Strap, it did not satisfy him. “Where’s the elixir?”
“Be patient!” Luke admonished. He delved into his own pack and brought out a crucible, a retort, a pan for boiling water, and a small drab bag. Sir Leather Strap tried to grab the bag but Luke raised it above his head and the thief had to make do with the crucible. “I should have been an alchemist,” he said, running his hands lovingly all over it. “I’ve a real feel for it.”
“I’m sure you have,” said Luke, secreting the pouch in his sleeve. “How’s the fire? I’m ready to begin.” His skin gleamed. Beneath his eyeglasses his pupils were molten lapis. I think only I could sense that he didn’t dare pause, even for a moment, lest he lose his nerve. “Take an ounce of mercury from this vial and place it in the crucible,” he ordered Sir Leather Strap. This was done. There was utter silence now save for the grazing of the horses, the crackle of twigs, and Luke’s voice. His twitch had returned. “Place the crucible in the hottest spot.” Sir Leather Strap sweated and swore as he burned his fingers in his haste to obey.
With a great flourish, the small drab bag reappeared. Luke extracted a snatch of powder between finger and thumb and dropped the powder into the crucible. A puff of steam escaped as he clapped on the lid and threw the bag onto one of the tree stumps. “Poke the fire,” he said. “It must be hot as hell.” He seized a branch himself, pronging it purposefully amongst the embers. Flames shot up. “That’s better.” He let go of his stick. For several minutes, he did nothing but observe. Then suddenly he cried, “This is the moment!” and with a pair of tongs seized the crucible, withdrew it from the flames, and poured a bubbling flash of tawny liquid into a mold, which he at once dropped into a bowl of cold water. It hissed and spat. He stood back. His twitch was wild. Dropping the tongs, he put his hand into the water.
“Not so fast,” Sir Leather Strap snarled. “I’ll do it.”
Luke shrugged. “As you like.”
Without even rolling up his sleeves, Sir Leather Strap plunged both hands into the bowl, brought out the mold and tipped it over. Into his hand fell a dull-colored ball about the size of a marble. He held it up. Everybody gazed at it. It didn’t glint. It didn’t gleam. It looked like something you might find on the road and kick into the ditch.
Luke backed away. Sir Leather Strap’s neck bulged and his face flushed purple. He was sobbing with disappointment. “A dirty trick! Nothing but a dirty trick! Fetch the nail pullers! I’ll have that girl’s teeth and I’ll have them now.”
At once, my captor thrust both his hands back into my mouth, and seconds later I tasted the sourness of cold steel. I couldn’t scream but I heard Walter shouting and Luke cursing and the prioress’s dogs breaking their silence and yapping, yapping, yapping. There was blood on my tongue. Then, above the gurgle, another voice. “What are you doing, man? Let me see that!” Merchant Beaverhat thrust himself forward. He took the discolored ball. The steel in my mouth was suspended.
“Have you ever seen raw gold?” the merchant asked, and didn’t wait for an answer. “Gold’s my business, and believe me, I’ve been offered enough imitations in my time to know the difference. May I?”
Sir Leather Strap nodded dumbly. The merchant produced a magnifying glass and rolled the ball very slowly back and forth.
“Well?” Sir Leather Strap couldn’t keep still.
Merchant Beaverhat continued rolling the ball, then rubbed it on his sleeve, and, as he rubbed, like a princess shedding a beggar’s cloak, the ball shed its tarnish. When he held it up again, it shone like the moon. The silence that greeted it was the silence of reverence. Luke stepped toward me.
“Not so fast!” Sir Leather Strap seized his arm. “It’s proper gold?” he asked the merchant. “You’re absolutely sure?”
“As sure as I’m a pilgrim.”
“You swear it on your life?”
“On my life.”
I could have kissed the merchant. I never thought he’d lie so beautifully on our behalf. I was doubly sorry I’d ever been rude to him. “God’s blood, boy!” Sir Leather Strap reclaimed the ball quickly and kissed it with awestruck amazement. “You’ve really done it.”
Luke let out a long breath. His skin was ghost white though his pulse was racing. He had something else to say, a splash of truth as penance for the success of his deceit. “Nothing in this world is quite as it seems. Be in no doubt that what you have now will destroy you. When you’re at the devil’s gate, sir, don’t cry out against me. Do you understand?” He stood tall and brave and slightly spooky.
“Oh, I understand all right!” crowed Sir Leather Strap. “You’re trying to frighten me into not taking the elixir. You won’t succeed.” Backing away, he bumped against the tree stumps, and with one swift arm, he snatched up the powder bag, sealed it carefully, and dropped it into his pouch. Then he swept everything else onto the ground, stamping on the vials and containers until they and their contents were nothing but mud. The leather box itself he kicked until it split. “There’ll be no elixir for anybody else.” He wagged his finger at Luke. “There’ll be just what I have here, and I’d say that makes me the richest man not just in England but in the world!”
“Us,” his fellows echoed, just beginning to move again. “Makes us the richest men in the world.”
Sir Leather Strap had quite forgotten his men and now that he had his prize was not pleased to be reminded. Quicker than a rat, he scuttled to his horse, swung himself on, and galloped off. There was an immediate outcry. The nail pullers were dropped as his men rushed for their horses, then rushed back to us, then back to their horses, until, finding the lure of the elixir too great, they also sped off, alternately begging Sir Leather Strap to wait for them and damning him to hell. Before they’d even all gone, I found myself swept up and enclosed in Luke’s arms, our hearts hammering in unison, the smell of sulfur more welcome at that moment than the smell of jasmine.
Walter broke us apart. “Superbly done, Luke,” he said. Forced to let go of me, Luke gave a tiny groan. I can still hear that groan. It was sweet as a song.
Master Chaucer was congratulatory but anxious. “A performance worthy of a more discerning audience than those dimwits, my boy. We shall learn in time how you did it, but now we must move along. If the men return, they mustn’t find us here.”
“What do you mean, a performance? The gold wasn’t real?” The merchant couldn’t help himself. He had been gazing at Luke with more respect than he’d ever shown any man. “But it was real. I felt it. I tasted it.”
Luke blinked, and, like an actor stepping off the stage, became himself again. “It was real,” he said simply, “but not through alchemy. Gold balls are easily secreted in an alchemist’s bag. It’s a trick, a sleight of hand.” He reached his hand into his pouch and flicked something into the air. At once a tiny cloud appeared, a miniature of the one he had created when Dulcie bolted. “Like that,” Luke said.
Everybody gaped, then laughed nervously. The merchant’s face fell and my estimation of him fell correspondingly. He’d not been acting on our behalf after all. I felt less sorry that I’d been rude to him.
“Come on,” Master Chaucer urged again. “We must get out of here. Sir Knight, gather your wits!” Sir Knight could not, so in the end it was Luke, Master Chaucer, and Master Reeve who chivvied us into some kind of order.