The Kingdom of the Damned

by Mario Garrido Espinosa

  “These failures can only be due to the fact that the ring used is cheap and bad.”

  "It cost me fifteen bronze Alexandrians," the bachelor responded indignantly. “I have it here.”

  Castagno offered the ring to the healer on duty, but he did not want to touch it, knowing the unhygienic past that it had had. He observed it with a pretended gesture of study and said:

  “It's clear. That ring is not good enough. With these things, you cannot walk with miseries.”

  “And how good is it?”

  “The best thing is that you buy one of gold that at least costs you one hundred Alexandrians of silver...”

  Benito plunged into a depression that really gave pity. The liar asked him:

  “What happen?”

  “That's a lot of money. I can never have it.”

  “And how much could you spend?”

  “Ten or fifteen as much.”

  The healer put on the face of a sympathetic man and making people understand that he was someone who liked to solve other people's problems, he said:

  “Listen, Benito. Do not worry. We will do the following: Coincidentally I have a ring that has removed all traces of impotence in five men. Now they are not only happy, but they have provided Gurracam with two dozen strong male boys. I am going to sell it to you, because you are like a son to me. In its days, it cost two hundred Alexandrians of silver, but all for your own good, Benito. I will leave it in the fifteen you have.”

  “Really...”

  “Yes. It is hard for me to get rid of him, but I know it is for the best. I happen to have it here.”

  The healer pulled from his clothes a lead ring bathed in a substance that claimed to have the brilliance, color and texture of gold, but that, purely, did not imitate it in anything.

  "It is worthy of a caliph," said the deceiver, showing it in his right hand, trying to get some ray of sunlight out of it.

  Castagno paid like the idiot he was and left so happy.

  The next day he returned with a terrible disappointment:

  "I do not have any brothers left to marry," he said to the deceiver.

  The healer was a professional in his trade, but this time the answer he first came up with was not too high quality. Despite this, with Benito it was enough:

  “No problem. Once the process of your relatives of the same mother is finished, it is already valid with any other wedding.”

  Time passed and nobody close to Castagno seemed to have planned their wedding, so he tried, in his desperation, to invite himself to weddings where he was kicked out when the party attendees learned with astonishment that he was not family or friend of anyone.

  Finally, his cousin Justina Antonia got married in the walled and bustling city of Cartagemar, in the northern part of Gurracam, with a rich Portuguese merchant of wool and silk. Benito performed the ritual he had studied and rehearsed until he knew it as his own name. Upon contact with the urine, the fake gold layer of the ring melted or peeled off —according to what part of its surface—, showing the lead inside, which greatly missed Benito. By virtue of being optimistic, he thought that this was a positive signal and that now he would have triumphed. By the time he assimilated his new failure, he learned of the death of the charlatan who advised him at the price of gold, at the hands of another of his clients, who —according to everything he seemed to indicate— withstood with less patience the healer’s lies.

  Another dark individual confessed to him, upon learning that the formidable technique of the ring did not work on him, that he had not been told everything he had to do. He had stayed in the middle of the treatment, so to speak. The end of the infallible recipe consisted in taking with two fingers that ring —which reeked of piss like an abandoned alley—, filing it whole, always held by both fingers, and then mixing the filings with two arrobas of some wine that would meet the four following conditions: be white, of the vintage of the wedding, have at least twenty degrees and be made from the vine of a vineyard in the region of Castille.

  "My friend, that is the reason why so many foreign people expressly come to Castille to buy wine," the healer confided secretly, something that Benito immediately took for granted, although it was the first news that he had.

  The mixture was left to rest for three days and then it was necessary, in another two at most, to drink the two arrobas of wine with filings.

  "If you do it rigorously, impotence is cured with absolute certainty," the charlatan continued telling him, and, as a secret, added, "The more degrees in wine and the faster you drink, the more powerful you become at the time to perform intercourse.”

  With all this new information, Benito did not lose a second and after buying the wine in a warehouse of St. Josafar where he was assured that he fulfilled all the requirements that he demanded, he filed the entire ring, despite the difficulty of doing it with both fingers, which ended, logically, half filed too. However, everything seemed to be against him, because he was not able to drink all the liquid in the prescribed time, falling sick almost to death at the end of the first arroba.

  When he recovered, he was plunged into deep depression for several weeks. The past few years had been a terrible waste of time and money, and all because he was not aware that no one would have been able to get two arrobas of a twenty-seven-degree red wine into their body —capable of throwing round the floor the roughest man— in the unreasonable period of forty-eight hours.

  3

  For a while Benito calmed down and although it cannot be said that he forgot his disability, it is true that it did not occupy the first place in his thoughts. However, after a year, the St. Macias The Rich’s monastery existence, located in north of Gurracam, which had one of the most famous apothecary in the whole kingdom, came to his ears. Real miracles were narrated about the preparations that the Benedictine monks manufactured, capable of curing any good Christian who suffered.

  Benito did not hesitate and as soon as he had something saved traveled to the place, and just arrived at the door of the monastery without further delay and, giving three knocks to the heavy door, alerted Fray Gregory Loumbas, who was sleeping and was displeased to have to stop doing it.

  "Peace be with you, father," said Benito as soon as the door leaf gave way by the monk's thrust. “I come from far away to beg your Paternities help, to humbly request a little of your patience and valuable wisdom.

  “What does you want?” Friar Gregory Loumbas asked, stunned by the dream and the chatter of his interlocutor.

  “It happens that I'm sick. Very sick!”

  “Well, I see you very healthy.”

  “It is not like that. My illness is ..." At this point the bachelor realized that he had not thought how to explain to the good monks the singularity of his ailment.

  While Castagno pondered, Fray Gregory looked him up and down.

  “See... I cannot ... You will see, your fatherhood... It happens that my ...” —and here the part of his genitals was pointed out—. “Well, I cannot ... I cannot get it to..." Again he made a gesture that tried to replace the words.

  "You suffer from stratum without being," Fray Gregory Loumbas said, saying things in such a surprising way that he left the bachelor speechless. “Well, that, my son, is not a disease... It is a blessing and it would be better for The Most High to distribute more these mercies.

  “But...”

  “Nothing, go with God and give him every day thanks for the gift he has so generously entrusted to you.”

  And closed the door.

  Benito, after five seconds of total disbelief, got the knocker and used it without rest and with all violence. After a while the same monk appeared again.

  “Please, father, help me...”

  The Benedictine returned to cover the body from top to bottom and after putting on a face of enormous resignation, he nodded to him to accompany him. They went through a couple of corridors and then went out to the cloister. It was small but adorned with columns of capitals distinctly carved. They pa
ssed in front of a pair of doors that led to the chapter house and the ashlar. The bachelor was surprised to see that everything shone, as if it was treated with great care or took little time to build. Suddenly he noticed that the garden of the cloister was covered with all kinds of bushes and plants with brightly colored flowers that, for sure, he saw for the first time in his life.

  "They are medicinal plants," the monk clarified, noting that Castagno watched them closely. “All of them. Even the tree in the center produces a fruit that, when well used, relieves headaches.”

  At the bottom of the cloister was the apothecary. Before entering Benito could see a small but very bad looking pond between two very tall bushes. Again, Fray Gregory Loumbas explained what it was without anyone asking:

  “There we keep our small reservoir of leeches. Here, in St. Macias the Rich, we raise the best known to make a good sangria. It is nice to see them work... Some after half an hour of being applied to a patient they grow to at least twenty or thirty times their normal size..."The monk paused because with his enthusiasm he only managed to get Benito expresses on his face the greatest of panics. “Follow me around here and do not fear," he concluded. “Leeches do not work for your condition.”

  The apothecary was rather gloomy. The only light was the one that provided a small window two meters above the ground in a sidewall. The four walls were hidden behind furniture and shelves crowded with jars, jars of glass with ointments of dark colors and pottery pots with strange Latin names drawn, faithful indicators of their mysterious contents. The center of the room was presided over by a huge oak counter completely blackened. Above him lay a giant candle, two grimy retorts and a yellowish human skull.

  "Wait a moment here," the monk ordered as he stepped through an opening in the wall, barely a meter high, that led to the rebound.

  A little mouse crossed the room and went out to the cloister. Castagno gasped and, still without recovering, Fray Gregory Loumbas appeared out of nowhere, carrying a heavy book of thick covers.

  “In this volume is contained everything that is capable of healing a man. It was transcribed by a brother of our congregation two centuries ago. He spent part of his life searching old texts written in very different languages ​​and copying and translating them minutely in this volume... It's just a matter of looking for the right remedy...”

  The monk opened the book on the counter leaving that the dust covered the air. Then he began to leaf through it while his other hand drummed on the gleaming human skull. After half an hour of total silence Fray Gregory said to the bachelor:

  "Here it is. You are lucky: your illness can be treated. Think that if the healing recipe is not in this book you might forget to find some healing.

  “It really is a relief, father...”

  “Yes it is, but now I have to ask you to pay for the services that I am going to give you. In other circumstances, another being the look of your disorder and another the sick one might do it out of charity, but this, no doubt, is not the case... Also, your illness is...

  “I already take charge, father. What is the price?”

  “What your conscience of a good Christian dictates.”

  Benito, after hesitating a few seconds, put on the table three bronze Alexandrians.

  “I see that you are not a good Christian and you have a very dirty conscience. It does not surprise me...”

  But before the monk continued speaking, Castagno took out everything he had —ten bronze Alexandrians and one silver— and indicated with gestures that he brought nothing else.

  "Very well," said Fray Gregorio, satisfied. “Then let's proceed...”

  The monk climbed on a wooden slope. He examined the contents of the closet shelves and, after setting aside a porcelain bottle containing dried scorpions and another with solidified whale sperm, extracted a glass jar so dirty that it could not see its contents. With a lot of work, he managed to remove the cap that was stuck to the mouth of the bottle and embedded under pressure.

  “What is that?” The bachelor asked as soon as he saw the strange egg-shaped object that the monk extracted without any disgust. It should have been there for dozens of years, it was totally dehydrated and with so little weight that could think it was hollow.

  "It's a bull testicle.”

  Fray Gregory Loumbas cut the gland into three pieces with a huge knife that he kept in a drawer of the counter. Then with a mortar and great violence, he turned it into very fine ash.

  “Very well. Now take this powder in your hands and breathe it.”

  “How do you say?”

  “What you have heard. You did not come here to heal yourself... Come on, breath it without fear!"

  Benito obeyed and sniffed the bull's testicle powder. Instantly he began to feel overwhelmed, to sneeze, to scream like a lunatic and to make a fuss... The monk grabbed him by the back strongly because he feared that with his sudden movements he would break the valuable jars on the shelves.

  “Calm down, soul of God!”

  “It hurts, father... My nose burns!”

  “That's natural... Try to breathe normally... That pain, little by little, will subside.”

  An hour later the high school graduate left the walls of St. Macias The Rich monastery with his nasal appendix twice as big, blood red and feeling a pressure in the area as if it were about to explode.

  The nose returned to its usual form in the following weeks but its impotence did not improve one iota.

  4

  Benito continued looking for different formulas although with much skepticism. Whenever someone demanded money in exchange for remedies, he distrusted and left before he could hear anything.

  One day a classmate from the university —or at least that's what he seemed to be— after learning of Castagno misfortune, offered to help him with his problem. At that time, all the students enjoyed the small break between the seventh and the eighth class hours of the nine that formed the daily teaching load. Attendance had to be justified for all classes; for that reason, Luke Grigelmo Carbajo, Benito’s supposed friend, had not missed the last two grammar lessons; but he had totally abstracted himself from the Latin teachings that Professor John Baptist Plumtree explained with his best intentions, to devote himself to thinking about the infallible remedy that his idiot companion was looking for so much. When he promised to solve the problem the day before, which was one of the twenty a year that was celebrated for religious reasons, he did not ask for anything in return. Although Castagno did not know it, the laughter that was coming when Luke told in the tavern to his true friends was already enough payment.

  “Look, Benito, I'm telling you because I know that it works. I am the proof myself.

  “I do not understand, Luke.”

  “It is very simple. My father was also infertile. By doing what I am going to entrust you, not only he healed again, but he became..." He paused as if searching for a noun that perfectly defined his father's supposed transformation, although the word in question had been thought of since a few hours ago. “On a stallion. That’s it. A stallion! Thanks to it, we come to the world, strong and healthy, my six brothers and me.”

  "They have deceived me so many times...,” young Castagno admitted with resignation.

  “And why would I cheat on you? What do I earn with it?”

  “I suppose nothing. I hear you.”

  “Get this Benito...”

  However, Luke was interrupted by a feral student who, seeing poor Castagno, could not help but remember a certain lyrics and, without further ado, shouted it to the four winds:

  It seems male,

  but at the time

  Lady Benito

  Is a ladybug.

  The poet left laughing his nonsense and those who passed there smiled grace. Benito turned red with fury, impotence and, above all, embarrassment.

  "I'm not an inverted one," he protested to Lke Grigelmo.

  "I know, my friend, I know," his interlocutor admitted with great pomp. “If that were so, you wou
ld have no choice... Do not listen to the first fool who comes by you. Well, you're still interested in what I came to say.”

  “Of course.”

  “Very well. Let's go to the street. There nobody will bother us.”

  They left the campus by the Romanesque door called St. Magellan, next to the Roman bridge that crosses the river Broe and that in spite of its many centuries of age still retained in those days its fourteen almost intact arches.

  "My father told us, to all the brothers very clearly," Luke said, "in case we once suffered the calamity that worries you so much. He told us to be wary. That we were his children and we could carry this scourge some day for it.”

  “It is perhaps inherited...”

  "Of course," Luke Grigelmo Carbajo lied to him, quite naturally, calibrating in turn how the person in front of him could accept so quietly the fact that someone inherited something from his father if this one could not have children.

  “I did not know it”

  “Very few people know it. These kinds of things are very sad and nobody wants to talk about them. I do not like to keep secret what my father entrusted to me, because I understand that it should be known by every man as a child ... Never knows.”

  They went down the Gentlemen street. At night, it was the ideal place to find female company almost affordable to any pocket. In spite of being six in the afternoon you could already see some woman taking possession of her place of work, always hiding and watching carefully in case there were any couple of constables. Benito, seeing them, recalled oriental origin writings to which he had accessed during his time as a student. Some of them were even banned by the Holy Inquisition. In those sheets, he learned wonderful secrets about what a man and a woman could do that to increase his drama, he would never perform, although he had the unlikely opportunity to be with a group of women willing to support everything that he read... He told himself that he should try again.