"Yes, your Majesty," said Braun.
"We have neither permanent enemies nor permanent friends."
"Your Majesty. I did not choose these men to kill. They are not my enemies."
"As long as you serve me, Francisco, they are."
"Yes, your Majesty. They escaped the first assault," said Braun. "I have come because you have mentioned that with your power you have greater access to information than ever before."
"Greater every day," said Caldwell.
"I want to know more about these two so that I may better dispose of them for you."
"Enemies are not always enemies, you know." Braun hesitated. He did not know if he dared correct Caldwell now. But he had to. If he were going to eliminate those two, he had to have help. If not, better to leave with one's life.
"Your Majesty, you yourself wanted them eliminated because they were interfering with something, according to your reports. Have they stopped interfering?"
"Not to our knowledge."
"Then I need help. If they are more formidable, then to hang their heads on your walls, so to speak, would give you greater respect in the eyes of men who respect only force."
"Force is not only blood, Francisco. But a good sword would think that way. So be it. We will give you what you need."
"I need, your Majesty, to identify two men," said Francisco. He unsnapped the leather folder and presented the pictures to Mr. Caldwell, or His Highness Mr. Caldwell. Braun was not sure which.
Caldwell did not take the pictures, but made Braun hold them up before him.
"I see. What contempt in that face," said Caldwell. "What an arrogant smile. He must have thought very little of the photographer. I would have, too. They are not good pictures."
"What I need to know is where they have learned what they have learned. They have special skills." Braun held the pictures before His Majesty Mr. Caldwell. The extension of the arm pressured the nerves so that the pictures began to tremble. His Majesty Mr. Caldwell took no notice. He stared at the ceiling. Braun glanced there. It was a plain ceiling. His Majesty Mr. Caldwell must be off in his own mind, thought Braun. He lowered the pictures.
Caldwell snapped his fingers. Braun raised the pictures. Caldwell chuckled.
"An amusing idea has occurred to us," said Caldwell, who knew that his idea would not amuse Braun in the least. He lowered his eyes to meet his sword's. "Our good Francisco, do not let what I am about to say trouble you excessively. But in the days of the true monarchs, there was a person who fought the king's battles. He was called the king's champion. He was the best in the land. Our idea, the idea that amuses us, is that these two may wield powers that are greater than yours."
A bolt of anger shot through Francisco Braun. He felt like tearing the pictures away from Caldwell, this imitation king, His Highness of a court that had not existed for centuries, the old Spanish monarchy. But His Majesty Mr. Caldwell was also the richest man he had ever worked for. And up to now he had not been a fool at all.
Francisco Braun replied, with great control in an icy tone:
"All I have told your Highness is that the two men are not yet dead. But they are in the process of dying. Your sword begged his crown only to assist that process, to help establish your power in the eyes of those who would destroy you."
"Well spoken, good Francisco," said Caldwell. "We will arrange everything." With a slight beckoning motion he moved a single finger. A secretary clippety-clipped along the polished marble floors. Braun felt her come up behind him. She kissed Caldwell's feet and took the pictures.
"We will speak to you about those later," said Caldwell. The young woman nodded. Apparently she wasn't even allowed to speak to Caldwell. Braun had been given that honor.
Then Caldwell's hand came forward. Braun knew exactly what his liege wanted. He took a deep breath, kissed the ring, and backed toward the door. Before he left, an aide handed him a heavy briefcase and an address a few blocks away from Wall Street.
It was the gold exchange. He was carrying at least forty pounds of gold. Was he a delivery boy now? Was Caldwell demoting him to that? He delivered the gold to the exchange, and inside, with suppressed anger, he took bar after bar of gold out of the briefcase and slammed it on the counter.
A bespectacled old man in a vest weighed each bar, chuckling.
"Caldwell gold. A good family. Always liked dealing with the Caldwells. Real bullionists, if you know what I mean."
"Of course I don't," said Francisco. "What is a real bullionist?"
"Well, you have people who get into gold just for profit, and then you have the real old houses."
"Really. How old are the Caldwells?"
"Before the founding of America," said the old man. He took another bar to the assayer's scale. Braun looked around the room with a mild contempt. The building was heavily buttressed with steel that no one had bothered to polish for decades and a mustiness had settled on the whole place. The scale itself was old and battered, and the pans that hung from the balance bar were warped and bent. Yet if one put an exact weight on one side, one could be as sure as gravity that when the other side balanced, the weights were precisely equal.
That removed the remotest possibility of cheating. "It's a pleasure to deal with the Caldwells," said the old man. "They know their gold. You see the Caldwell crest, you know you are not dealing with someone trying to skim a few ounces on a ton. The crest means a lot. It's an old crest, an old forge that one is."
Braun looked at his watch. He made this obvious, so the old coot would not babble on. But the man stopped only until Braun looked at him.
"See this crest," said the old man, pointing to an apothecary jar and a sword stamped into the gold itself. "At least twenty times today," said Braun.
"That apothecary jar is the symbol for pharmacists now, but it used to be for alchemists. Do you know what an alchemist is, young man?"
"No," said Braun. He looked at the remaining bars in the bag. There were three more to be weighed. He sighed. So the money was good. So Caldwell had been extremely shrewd. Did this make up for kissing rings and delivering parcels?
"The word 'alchemist' is the root of our modern word 'chemist,' " said the old man. "It comes from the Egyptian, 'al hemist.' "
"Fantastic. I wonder if you might be able to tell me all these wonderful things about alchemists while you continue weighing the gold?"
The old man chuckled, but he did move. "Alchemists could do everything. And did everything. Cures, potions, everything. They were so valuable that every court in Europe had one. But they got ruined. You know why?"
"Yes," said Braun. "Weigh the damned gold."
"Right. Gold. They claimed they could make gold from lead. Got them the reputation of being phonies. Soon people wouldn't hire them because they were leery of the hoodoo. You know, hocus-pocus."
"Weigh the gold," said Braun.
"And the alchemists just died off like an extinct species. But here is the strange part, and it has something to do with this crest here. Ain't a forge mark. I know forge marks."
If it is getting this bad to work for Caldwell, thought Braun, maybe it will get worse. Maybe Caldwell has a disease of the brain.
"There's those in gold today who think maybe the old alchemists really did turn lead to gold, although there's no scientific proof for it."
"Did they do it while they weighed the gold?"
"Oh, yeah, okay," said the old man, hoisting a gold bar to the empty side of the balance. The weight used as a counterbalance was made of chrome, its surface polished to perfection. If any scratches had been added to take off weight, they would show immediately.
"Well, there was this legend about the philosopher's stone. The legend was that that one stone was the secret to turning lead into gold, and it was passed along as a sort of formula. Mix lead, the stone, and some other hocus-pocus and you've got it. Presto. But, of course modern chemists proved that no stone would ever cause that kind of chemical change. Can't be done by adding any kind of a single stone."
Braun watched the bar measure the perfect troy pound.