Once there was a king who possessed nearly everything a man could reasonably want and several things no reasonable man would have known what to do with.
He had seven palaces, thirty-nine horses, three summer crowns, a winter crown lined with ermine, a mechanical nightingale, a bath carved from a single piece of blue marble, and a cook who could make a pie so light that, if the windows were left open, it had to be tied to the table.
But what the king loved most was gold.
He liked the weight of it in his hand.
He liked the quiet authority of it.
He liked the way it did not wilt, argue, wrinkle, become bored, fall ill, contradict him, or leave home to marry somebody unsuitable.
Above all, he liked the fact that gold seemed permanent.
“Everything else may be taken from a man,” the king once told his Chancellor. “But gold is gold.”
The Chancellor, who had been Chancellor long enough to know when silence was a form of wisdom, said nothing.
So the king began to collect it.
At first he collected sensibly.
A chest became two chests.
Two chests became a cupboard.
The cupboard became a room.
The room became a treasury beneath the palace, with three iron doors and twelve guards who were forbidden to sneeze while on duty.
Every evening, just before sunset, the king went down to count his gold.
He counted every coin himself.
“One thousand nine hundred and ninety-eight,” he would murmur.
“One thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine.”
“Two thousand.”
Then he would smile.
Outside, the sun would sink.
At first no one thought anything of it.
There was always another sunset.
One evening, while the king was counting, the western sky turned the colour of ripe peaches.
A flock of silver swans flew across it.
Nobody had ever seen silver swans before.
Their wings caught the last light and scattered it over the rooftops like handfuls of stars.
The palace servants ran into the courtyard.
The cooks came out with flour on their faces.
The guards left their posts.
Even the Chancellor stood beneath the palace gates with his mouth open.
“Fetch the king!” cried the Chancellor.
A page ran down to the treasury.
“Your Majesty! Swans made of silver!”
The king did not look up.
“Seven thousand four hundred and eleven,” he said.
“Seven thousand four hundred and twelve.”
“But, Sire, they are flying across the sunset!”
“Will they be there tomorrow?”
“No one knows.”
The king frowned.
“Then I cannot rely upon them.”
And he continued counting.
By the time he reached seven thousand five hundred, the swans were gone.
The following year, a green comet appeared in the evening sky.
It burned above the kingdom like an emerald being drawn across black velvet.
The astronomers dropped their telescopes.
The priests rang bells.
People climbed onto roofs.
Children who had already been put to bed climbed out again.
The Chancellor hurried to the treasury.
“My king,” he said, “there is a green star in the sky.”
“Comet,” said the king.
“Whatever it is, come and see it.”
“I am busy.”
“You have counted those coins before.”
“Precisely. I must make sure none have disappeared.”
The Chancellor went upstairs alone.
The comet passed.
The gold remained.
This pleased the king enormously.
“You see?” he said the next morning. “The comet is gone. The gold is still here.”
Years passed.
The king’s treasury grew.
A second chamber had to be dug beneath the first.
Then a third.
Then a fourth.
The miners went so deep that eventually they came upon an underground river and had to divert it around the royal fortune.
The king had each new piece of gold weighed, polished, recorded and placed in its proper position.
And every evening, just before the sky began to change, he went below.
“One hundred and twelve thousand, six hundred and four.”
Outside, clouds shaped like enormous castles drifted over the mountains.
“One hundred and twelve thousand, six hundred and five.”
A rainbow appeared at sunset and remained until the stars came out.
“One hundred and twelve thousand, six hundred and six.”
A summer storm turned every raindrop red in the evening light, and for ten minutes it seemed as though rubies were falling from heaven.
“One hundred and twelve thousand, six hundred and seven.”
A flock of white birds formed the shape of a crown.
“One hundred and twelve thousand, six hundred and eight.”
The king saw none of it.
Sometimes people tried to persuade him.
His daughter had come when she was six.
“Papa,” she said, “the clouds are pink.”
“Clouds are often pink.”
“These are especially pink.”
“How pink?”
“Like raspberry pudding.”
The king hesitated.
He liked raspberry pudding.
Then somewhere in the treasury a stack of coins shifted.
He turned immediately.
“Not tonight.”
When his daughter was sixteen, she came again.
“There is a sunset over the lake,” she said. “It has turned the whole water gold.”
“Gold?”
“Yes.”
“Actual gold?”
“No.”
“Then why did you disturb me?”
When she was twenty-six, she stopped asking.
The king became richer.
He also became older.
He ordered brighter lamps for the treasury.
Eventually he needed spectacles to read the numbers stamped upon the coins.
He disliked the spectacles.
“They make me look old,” he said.
The Chancellor, who was now extremely old himself, inspected him carefully.
“They are not entirely responsible, your majesty.”
The king dismissed him.
Now it happened that the king had one particular gold coin he loved more than all the others.
It was not especially valuable.
Indeed, it was quite ordinary.
But it was the first coin he had ever saved.
He kept it beneath a glass dome.
Whenever he felt uncertain, he looked at it.
“Still there,” he would say.
For the king had become afraid.
This surprised everyone, because he owned more gold than any man alive.
But the more he possessed, the more things there were to lose.
He worried about thieves.
He worried about fire.
He worried about dishonest accountants.
He worried that gold might somehow cease to be gold while he slept.
So he spent longer in the treasury.
At last he had a bed brought in.
“Only for emergencies,” he explained.
Soon nearly everything seemed to qualify as an emergency.
Meanwhile, outside, life went on committing its terrible habit of not waiting.
The king’s daughter married.
A grandson was born.
Then a granddaughter.
The mechanical nightingale broke and was replaced by a real bird that nested in the palace ivy.
The old Chancellor died.
The silver swans returned once, after forty-three years.
No one knew why.
The king was counting.
There were eclipses.
Harvest moons.
A winter when the sunset turned every icicle on the palace roof into a tiny flame.
There was an evening when three rainbows stood one behind another above the northern hills.
There was another when the clouds opened into great golden staircases, and half the kingdom became convinced that heaven itself had left a door ajar.
At last, one morning, the king woke and discovered that he was very old indeed.
So old that his hands trembled when he lifted a coin.
So old that his legs shook when he tried to stand.
The king sat very still.
That evening, he did not want to remain in the treasury.
Instead, he ordered a chair to be carried to the highest balcony of the palace.
The servants gathered excitedly.
The bells rang.
The cooks opened bottles of wine.
The king’s great-grandchildren were brought from the nursery and told that something historic was about to happen.
The old king was carried up the tower very slowly.
At last he reached the balcony.
He sat.
The western sky was pale blue.
He waited.
“Does it begin soon?” he asked.
“Very soon, your majesty,” said a servant.
The king smiled.
“I have heard they can be beautiful.”
The king settled into his chair.
He felt almost young.
Then somebody sat down beside him.
The king looked around.
The stranger wore a long black coat, much patched at the elbows, and carried no crown, sword or badge of office.
The stranger removed his hat.
“I am Death.”
The king stared.
“But I am here to watch the sunset.”
Death looked towards the horizon.
“Yes.”
The king gripped the arms of his chair.
“You will have to come back later.”
“I cannot.”
“I command you.”
The king’s voice became small. “But I have only just finished counting.”
Death nodded.
“And now I should like my sunset.”
There was a silence.
“You have already spent them.”
“Spent what?”
“Your sunsets.”
The king looked towards the horizon.
The sky had begun to change.
A thin line of amber had appeared beneath the clouds.
“Just this one,” he whispered.
Death shook his head.
“But I am the king.”
“Not for much longer.”
“I am the richest man who has ever lived. I can pay you.”
Death almost smiled.
The king opened his mouth.
Then closed it.
Below, deep underground, lay rooms upon rooms of gold.
The first coin was still beneath its glass dome.
The chests were still locked.
The guards were still guarding.
Every piece remained exactly where he had left it.
For the first time, this gave him no comfort at all.
The sky brightened.
Orange became crimson.
Crimson became violet.
Far over the lake, a flock of birds turned suddenly in the light and became silver.
The king leaned forward.
“Oh,” he said.
Death placed a hand gently upon his shoulder.
For one tiny moment the old king saw the edge of the sunset.
Only the edge.
It was enough for him to understand what he had missed.
And not nearly enough to make up for it.
Above them, the clouds became islands.
The islands became ships.
The ships became dragons.
Then the whole sky turned gold.
