A Verdict of Gilt

 Nestor stirred the steaming liquid one last time then strained it through a screen of silk.  Holding the fabric up to the early morning light coming through the barred window, he searched the thread for sparkles.  Nothing.  Nestor sighed and sank onto a stool.  No gold.

    Bubbling  over a charcoal fire, a cauldron emitted a nephritic stench of sulpher and dung.  Tables lining the walls were ladened with canisters of chemicals and herbs.  Alcoves held slabs of various metals and clay containers of bonemeal from all kinds of creatures, but in all the cavernous enclosure, there was only one bit of gold.  No bigger than a shriveled pea, it sat on a satin pillow atop  a pedestal beside a leatherbound tome open to an incantation.

    The magician shook a gnarled fist at the gleaming globule.

    “This is all your fault,” he said in a voice tremulous with age.

    Last night Lord Kravache had thundered in wrath, “Three years you’ve feasted in my castle promising to produce gold.  I just had to pay for a few more ingredients.  Then, you needed time to secure special devices, then you needed just a little more time for books to arrive.  Time for this, time for that.  No more excuses.  By morning, you’ll give me a lump of gold the size of your heart, or my soldiers will take your heart out.”

    Nestor considered whether the noble might have been too deep in his cups to remember come morning.  The alchemist sighed again.  This time Kravache would carry through.  Once before the wizard had nearly been booted out as a faker, but then he’d staged an impressive ritual involving the tiny ball of gold that shimmered on its pillow perch.

    Nestor had inserted the nugget into the eye of a dried toad.  Late one night after the lord had drunk much wine, the magician had lured him down to his laboratory with a promise of wonders.  Amidst clouds of incense, Nestor  had chanted and danced before oil fires until ready to drop.  At the very moment Kravache let out a yawn, the wizard had squeezed the toad’s eye.  The morsel of gold had popped out hitting Kravache square on the nose.

    The performance secured the wizard’s place at court, and he’d lived well on the money the lord supplied for materials, but Nestor had run out of ruses, and his deadline was imminent.

    “I can’t even afford to replace this robe, and I’m supposed to make gold,” he wailed.

    The magician nervously tugged at the sleeves of his finely embroidered garment.  Kravache had cut off his allowance months prior to spur his efforts.

    “I’ve lived a good long life, but to die by own ploy, that I can not bear,” Nestor lamented.

   Footsteps growing closer sounded in the corridor.  The door swung open, and Lord Kravache stood in the threshold.  He looked huge, exceedingly well fed.  Encased in folds of fat, his piggy eyes scanned the room.

    “You have the gold,” he demanded in a voice as large as himself.

    “No, my lord,” Nestor said and hung his head in shame.

    “Guards.”

    “But wait, I have something better.”

    In the desperation of the moment, an idea had burst upon the magician.

    “Better than gold?  Jewels perhaps?”

    The lord licked his lips.  Nestor prayed another trick would save him.

    “Better than both.”

    His voice was now calm, even smug.

    “What could be better than gold or jewels?” Kravache asked.

    “A shield of invincibility.  With it, no foe will be able to withstand you in combat.”

   The lord looked at him suspiciously, but Nestor detected a glimmer of hope in the gaze as well.  Vanquished in his last four campaigns, Kravache hungered all the more for success in battle.  He had already lost the better part of his kingdom, and half a dozen rivals were eager to finish him off.

    “I have melted copper with nickel and then nickel with iron, but dark forces demand I say no more.”

    “You stall for time,” Kravache bellowed.

    “No my lord.  Two days only  do I need.  Give me one of your shields, and I will gild it with this alloy.”

    “You guarantee this?” Kravache asked.

    “With my life,” Nestor said.

   He knew the lord would demand such so why not volunteer it?  Kravache had a shield brought down, and the magician began smelting  ores settling on a brass alloy that he polished until it gleamed like gold.  

    The shield was offered in an elaborate ceremony held in the great hall filled with knights of the realm.  The magician well understood his lord’s love and use of pageantry.  The turnout surprised Nestor.  He later learned that Kravache had boasted he would soon receive a magical marvel.

     The shield;s reputation spread through the land.  In addition to the extravagent claims Kravache told his court, Nestor paid agents to sing its praises.  He’d hocked the rich new robe, fine quilt, and silver candlesticks awarded him during the presentation ceremony in order to pay wanderng troubadors. tramps and and pilgrims trusting his reputation as master of black arts would keep these heralds from simply heading for the tavern.  Some did nonetheless, but word spread from there as well.

    When the weather warmed in spring, Kravache assembled his knights.  Nestor observed them from his chamber window.  They looked finer than he’d ever seen them, armor buffed and bright, gaily colored pendants held high flapping in the breeze, even the horses were prancing on exit.   

    Nestor was glad to see them go, for he’d planned an escape.  He’d known Kravache would lock him in his quarters.  Using the last of his coins and possessions, he’d bribed a guard to release him and have  a horse waiting outside the walls.  Nestor  would leave penniless, but he’d be alive and could always sell the horse.  Besides, hadn’t he always lived by his wits?   At the last minute however, Kravache took this man along as servant.

    Nestor spent several anxious days in his rooms.  One morning without warning, the door burst open waking him from sound sleep.  Kravache stood in the threshold.  When he spotted his magician lying still in bed, he rushed towards him.

    Nestor thought he was done for, but when the lord grabbed him up in a hug, he kissed him full on the mouth and shouted, “You are a Godsend.”

    Nestor received many fine presents from his victorious lord who could now afford to be generous given the prosperous new lands gained from success  The magiciann considered fleeing once again, this time with some loot, but the good life at court kept him in place.  Also, a nagging cough and increasing difficulty in walking served to convince him he’d groan too old to be a fugitive. When spring came round again, Kravache assembled what now qualified as an army both in numbers and strength for another campaign.

    Nestor had resigned himself to once more being locked up in his rooms, but this time the lord insisted he come along.  The magician pleaded old age and illness, but to no avail.

    They rode out the castle gates in triumphal procession.  Nestor noticed straight away that the cavalry did not look like it had in years past.  There was much song and laughter along the march, and each man sat ramrod straight on his mount.  Kravache also appeared changed.  He no longer seemed fat and ridiculous, but large and powerful.

    On the fourth day of march having camped two nights out in the open and one in a buggy barn, they at last came to the field of battle.  Twice as many knights as in Kravache’s column lay aligned across the clearing for they were drawn from a fiefdom with sizable towns.  Even at a distance, Nestor could see they didn’t look so bold.  Nor did they appear very well organized.  Instead of watching for signals from their leader, they were all pointing at Kravache’s shield.  The guard Nestor had once bribed had spent the entire night polishing the gilt, and it shone like the sun.

    Kravache held his shield aloft, shouted his battle cry, and charged across the meadow.  His knights took off after struggling to keep up with their lord’s galloping steed.  Nestor closed his eyes fearing the worst then opened them when he heard a mighty cheer.  The enemy line had broken; the knights were fleeing in panic.

    The skirmish had taken place in the afternoon too late to reach a village before nightfall.  Once more they were forced to camp out in the rough, and it was cold.  With nothing but a reed mat beneath him and a horsehair blanket atop. Nestor coughed up phlegm through the night. He swalloed a purgative from the bag of nostroms he kept cinched around his waist, but it only made him nauseous.  Morning found him too ill to mount a horse even with help.  Packed onto a wagon and covered in blankets, Nestor was hauled into a nearby village and set up in a backroom of a tavern.  He fell unconscious when tucked into bed.

    For several days, he was delerious with fever, and when it broke, Nestor didn’t know where he was or how  long  he’d been there.  Informed that he’d been there four days and was in a village some distance from his lord’s castle,  Nestor told the attendants that he would likely be fit enough to travel in a couple of weeks.   

    After one week, Nestor was notified that he wouldn’t be going back to the castle.  Kravache had sold him to a noble in a far off land.  They would leave on the mprrow.  The wizard understood his lord did not expect him to survive the journey and was simply wringing a last bit of profit out of him.

      “Well, we’ll see about that,” Nestor shouted to a startled maid who was helping him pack a load of supplies to take with him on the wagon.

    She looked on with increasing amazement as the magician volubly held forth,

“I shall survive, and not only will I give my new lord a shield of invincibility, he shall receive a sword of destiny designed specifically to dispatcch Kravache.”

       Determination fortified the magician for a good long time, but when days ran into weeks, and the weeks neared a month, his resolve ran out, and then his fever returned  He arrived at his destination near death.

     After taking one look at his expensive new acquisition, the new lord had servants carry Nestor to a richly appointed room in the castle.  He was carefully placed in a luxurious bed with warming pans set beneath the mattress.  His medicine bag was placed on the pillow beside him in case he needed something from it in the night.   

    The wizard woke weak but clear headed.  His resolve had returned, but with an altogether different focus.  Pain was passing, all things were passing, and with it went it went any desire for revenge.  What would be the point?  Kravache would be dispatched soon enough either in battle or from his dissolute ways.  Nestor was pleased with all the ploys he’d pulled, but such schemes required energy, and his was all used up.  He lay resting peacefully in the marevelous bed when his new lord entered.

    “Rest now and gain strength, for tomorrow you must begin work on a shield of invincibility,” the new lord said.

   “There is no such thing,” the wizard replied weakly.  “I convinced my lord he had a shield with special power and that gave him the confidence needed to prevail.  That was my only magic.  A sword, a crown or a coat would have worked as well, but now that you know this, anything I gave you would only lead you to doubt.  Your troops would see your worry, and it would be so infectious that even an army far smaller than yours would be sufficient to defeat you.”

    The lord glared at Nestor and spoke in rage,

    “Very well then, you will be tried tomorrow for heresy.  You know what the verdict will be.  You’ve already admitted your guilt.  I don’t supposed I have to tell you the sentence will be death.”

    Nestor smiled and nodded his head.

    A trial was held with a verdict of guilty, but the sentence couldn’t be carried out for when guards pulled back the satin sheets, they found a corpse clutching a small vial.  The alchemist had a potion for everything.

The end