IN EVERY KINGDOM , empire, principality, archbishopric, duchy, and electorate Enoch had ever visited, the penalty for transmuting base metals into gold – or trying to – or, in some places, even thinking about it – was death. This did not worry him especially. It was only one of a thousand excuses that rulers kept handy to kill inconvenient persons, and to carry it off in a way that made them look good. For example, if you were in Frankfurt-on-Main, where the Archbishop-Elector von Schönborn and his minister and sidekick Boyneburg were both avid practitioners of the Art, you were probably safe.