“You say everything Your Majesty touches turns to gold?”
“You’re not deaf, are you?” said the King testily.
“Are you sure Your Majesty feels quite well?”
The King knew he was going to get angry again in a minute.
“Of course I’m sure, you fool!” he snapped. “Watch this!”
And he picked up a lamb chop from the plate in front of him.
The manservant’s eyes nearly popped out of his head and he made swallowing noises.
“What are you staring at, fellow?” asked the King. “Have you never seen a solid gold lamb chop before?”
“N-no, Sire!” the poor man gasped.
“Well, you have now! Come here at once and feed me! Or will you stand there and watch your monarch dwindle to skin and bone from lack of nourishment?”
But the man didn’t move. At last he finished swallowing and croaked out in a shocked voice: “Forgive me, Sire, but I dare not feed you! You might – you might touch me by mistake, and then I should turn into gold, too!”
“You can’t imagine I’d be such an idiot as to touch a living—” The King’s eyes fell on the little bird that lay beside his plate, and he stopped shouting suddenly. “H’mph. Harrumph. I promise to be careful.” As the man dithered at the far end of the table, the King raised his voice again and shouted: “I said I won’t touch you! See! I’m sitting on my hands! Now come here at once and do as you’re commanded! Do you think I can’t control myself?”
When he still didn’t come, the King’s patience snapped. He snatched one hand out from under him and banged it on the table.
The gold started from where the King was sitting and went shooting down the length of the long table to the end where the servant stood. He gave a yell, jumped back three feet, knocked into the mantelpiece and tipped a vase full of flowers and cold water over his head.
This broke the poor man’s nerve completely.
“Help! Help!” he spluttered, waving his arms. “The King’s bewitched!” And he ran wildly from the room.
The King sat and ground his teeth with frustration. Once again he tackled the remains of his dinner with his gold knife and fork, but the magic passed straight through them to the food.
He bent his head to his plate and tried to eat like an animal. But it was hopeless. He couldn’t get a proper mouthful.
So he pushed away his useless food and sat alone at his golden table. First he sighed, then he groaned, then he sniffed, and at last a great sob came up from inside him and two large tears rolled down his cheeks, splashed onto his hands, and from there bounced onto the floor in drops of gold.
The King, in his misery, hadn’t noticed that he was not alone.
In through the french windows, open on the garden, had come a friend of his – a very dear friend, though not a human one. (Kings have some problems with human friends. It’s hard for them to be sure that people like them for themselves, and not just so they can go around saying they’re friends with a king.)
This friend, being a dog, cared absolutely nothing for anyone’s opinion except his master’s. His name was Stray, which explains how the King got him – he’d just wandered into the palace grounds one day when he was a forlorn lost puppy, the head gardener had brought him to the King and the King had given him to Delia. But dogs make their own arrangements as to whom they belong to. Stray belonged to Midas.
Stray sensed, the moment he came in, that all was not well. He thought the King’s bad mood might be due to something he had done, such as burying a certain bone in a certain rose-bed. So he slunk under the table, hoping for better times.
But then he heard strange noises – a sigh, a groan, a sob. Such sounds are very upsetting to a dog. Stray poked his nose out from under the golden cloth. He saw a familiar, and dear, hand hanging limply from the arm of the chair, and, as much as to say, “Cheer up, boss, how’s about a walk, eh?” he nuzzled his nose into the palm of it.
That was the last thing Stray knew.
Even as the King felt the gentle touch of Stray’s tongue against his hand, the warmth went out of it. It became cold and hard. Midas gave a cry of horror, and snatched his hand away. But too late.
Beside his chair stood Stray, not the dog he knew, friendly, full of life, sensitive to the King’s every mood, but a lifeless golden statue.
The King fell to his knees on the floor and embraced this – object. It felt repulsive to his touch. His eyes screwed up to shut out the hateful sight. Shame and regret welled up in his heart and sorrow almost choked him.
“Oh, blind, greed-crazed fool that I am,” he cried. “What have I done?”
But the pictures behind his tight-shut eyes were relentless. The rose, lifeless and scentless; the deathly, empty trees; the little bird with its sightless eyes; and now this – his faithful friend. He imagined them warm and living, and saw them now, cold and dead.
And he got up from his knees and ran to the open windows that led to the garden, to the place where the magician had told him to go to find him again.
But as he reached them, a great flash of lightning lit up the room. There was a roar of thunder, and the rain began pouring down in torrential streams so heavy he could see nothing but water. As it fell on his hands, it bounced onto the sodden ground in shining drops, and suddenly a zigzag of lightning struck hissing and flashing at the metal, like a giant’s pitchfork.
Be sure it’s not raining! The magician’s mocking last words sounded again in Midas’ ears.
Midas made one heroic effort to go out. He was drenched to the skin in two seconds. The lightning struck at his feet again, making him jump back into the dining-room – he couldn’t stop himself. He slammed the windows behind him, locked them, and leant against them, trembling with fright.
There was a strange silence. He raised his eyes. The french windows, glass and all, had turned to gold. The storm, the night, the garden, were closed off from his sight. When he tried tentatively to open them, he found they had fused into a solid gold wall. Of course, there were other ways out, but …
“I shall wait until tomorrow,” he muttered.
He went slowly upstairs to his bedroom, his head down, dragging his feet, and not even noticing how his magic made the gold shoot along the banisters. He was trying to keep from weeping because Stray was not trotting up after him, and then he thought of something even worse.
Delia!
Of course there was no question of going to her room as he always did, every night, to chat to her and tuck her into bed. Though he had never, ever needed her more … But the danger! No, he mustn’t, anything could happen!
What, then, am I never to see her again –? But he couldn’t face that terrible thought.
“I’ll try to sleep,” he told himself. “Tomorrow the weather will be better. I’ll go to the rose-garden and say –” For one appalling second he thought he’d forgotten the magic words, but then they came back to him: “‘Red rose, bloom again’. He’ll come, that fiend – no, no, not fair, mustn’t blame him, he gave me a chance to think and I didn’t, I didn’t! Oh, was there ever a man so stupid! – Anyway, he’ll return, and heaven alone knows what he’ll want as a fee this time, but whatever it is he shall have it, even if it’s half my kingdom or ten years