by Mike Ashley
He tossed the rind into the fire and wiped his knife on a crust. “You have never seen the like of my complaint,” he said miserably. “Nobody can help me. I went to the physicians of the Church and they said that I was possessed by a devil. They wanted to torture me until it was driven out, but I’d have none of that. I broke free and ran. I run very fast.”
“Wise of you, but there are other ways.”
“I’m afeared of witchcraft too.”
“I am no sorcerer, I am a physician who has studied under some of the greatest Moorish and Jewish masters of the day, including Maimonides himself.”
“Who is Maimonides?”
“Ah, a great Jewish teacher and man of medicine. He is court physician to the great Saladin.”
“Saladin! So…you have Moorish training.”
“Why yes. I went to the Holy Land with the Crusade of 1147.I was badly wounded, then captured. The enemy physicians tended me so well that I resolved to learn their ways.”
“You place no faith in torture to rid a man of demons?”
“Oh no, I have been trained in far more civilized means.”
“Then I’ll show you…”
“No! Wait, and let me examine you first. I wager that I can tell your affliction in moments.”
I felt the glands beneath his jaw, looked into his eyes in the firelight and sniffed his breath. He was in good health, I could see that at once, yet I had to make a show of skill to gain his trust. He did not realise that I have acute vision at a distance, and had noticed a faint green glow through the cloth of his trews before he had wrapped himself in his cloak.
“You have a circlet of green fire about your penis,” I announced calmly. “It has been slowly moving higher, and in its wake your skin has lost all feeling.”
He gasped, then looked down to see if his glow was showing, which it was not. “Truly a man of great medical arts,” he said in awe. “What – what are your fees? I’m but a poor tinker, yet I’d give anything to be rid of the fire and numbness.”
I laughed disarmingly. “I have yet to meet a rich tinker, but do not worry. Your earnings for the week past will suffice. Open your robes, lower your trews, let me see your affliction.”
He stood, opened his cloak, raised his tunic, then pulled on the drawstring of his trews. They dropped, but only as far as his knees: cleverly placed straps held them just high enough for him to run. What manner of man might need to run while his trews were down, I mused.
His ring was brighter than any others that I had seen, and had moved so far up the shaft that it was almost at the base and glowed through his pubic hair. My companions looked up from their meal in surprise.
“Can you break this spell?” Watkin babbled eagerly. “Have you seen the like before?”
“Ah yes, and I have had great success where all others have failed.”
He sighed with relief as he raised his trews and retied them. “So, you have secret incantations and philtres, perhaps?”
“I have those, but they are for later. The real mode of breaking a spell is to learn the circumstances of its casting in the fullest detail possible. An honest, truthful account of the casting weakens the grip of the devil, who is behind all curses and spells. One lie, one slight deviation from the truth, however, and his grip is strengthened. How did you acquire your ring, Watkin?”
“It…appeared a month ago, after I bedded my wife, and each time that I enjoy her it moves a little higher…”
“Stop, stop,” I laughed. “Three lies within one breath! Watkin, you will have to do better than that. The ring of green fire begins at the tip of one’s member and moves higher only when you bed a woman for the first time. It also becomes brighter as time passes. In women the glow is all internal, yet there is also numbness and other such effects that increase with time and new lovers. I would say that you acquired it around May last year, and since then you have mounted eight dozen women. As to being married, no, not you. Am I wrong?”
He slowly shook his head and stared at his boots. “To my shame, no.”
“Then tell the truth, however reproachful your conduct has been.”
“It would burn the ears of a good Christian.”
“But Watkin, I am not a Christian.” He gaped at me. “When I was in the Holy Land I adopted more than the medical scholarship of Islam. Now tell me of how you were first snared by the ring, and tell the truth.”
“It was in a village called Delmy, to the south, near the coast. I arrived there early one afternoon, during the May festival. The villagers were celebrating the victory of summer over winter with feasting, May carols and dancing. Strangers were welcome, especially an honest tinker like myself.
“For a time I sampled the tartlets, manchets, fried figs and ales, then I turned my thoughts to a companion for a little frolic. I’d been travelling for a long time, I was lonely, it was spring…”
“I am not too old to know the needs and urgings of the flesh, Watkin. Go on.”
“It seemed easy pickings. Many young folk of the village were dancing and fondling most intimately, raising my hopes of a quick and easy conquest. Alas, no girl would spare me the deeper smile, indeed there seemed no girls unpaired at all. After so long tramping the road I was lonely, and with so many pairs of lovers cavorting before me I was quite beside myself to be part of it.
“At last I saw one girl who was unpaired, a big-boned, hairy-armed wench with a face that only a beard could have improved. She was alone, tending the tables, and she smiled broadly whenever I came near. At first it seemed worse to mount her than no wench at all, yet the fire of spring burned within me.
“I made up my mind, approached her, whispered words of compliment, then with unseemly haste did I shepherd her away from the fair – more in shame of being seen with her than in shame of the act to come. I chose a place among bushes behind a broad oak. I – I could not bear to look upon her, I just bent her over a rack of poles and flung her skirts up.”
He paused for a long drink from the crock. “And you did the deed with her?” I prompted.
“Ah yes, master physician, and she was a virgin, wouldn’t you know it? Hah, it was wearisome work, yet I am a diligent tradesman. To the beat of the distant village band, I placed my rivet and began tapping. At last I was spent. I eased back as she stood panting, then I slipped away as if I had been a wood sprite vanishing into air – lest she have thoughts about wedding me. I skirted the village, took up my pack and trotted away briskly.
“By evening I was five leagues gone and some way contented. My hammer had been well worked, in fact he even felt a little numb, so hard had I clinked the pan – or so I thought. Imagine my alarm when I unlaced to piss and saw a ring of cold, faint green fire encircling his head.”
“The girl was a virgin, you say?”
“Indeed, no doubt of it, I have initiated many. Alas, she passed this cold glow to me, and soon I noticed that as I worked the pots of goodwives and maids on my travels, the ring would move a little further up each time. Where it had been the feeling that is lust’s reward was no more.”
“But surely the women you have bedded since then noticed your green glow?”
“Ah no master, you are obviously not a tradesman. We visit houses and cottages during the day, when the menfolk are in the fields and their women are at home, alone. Most times will there be a sly look, or even a saucy suggestion, then we will be coupled on the hearthrug in the light of day. Since the ring was slipped upon me, I have shared the glow to, oh, ninety five women, mostly lowborn, though some were of no mean rank.” He nudged me, winking suavely. “Master, if foolish knights would do no better than fight and drink, well someone must plant the seeds of future knights.”
“One last question, Watkin. Could you write down the names and villages of all the women that you have bedded since the stout maid gave you the green fire?”
“Alas, Master, I cannot write, yet I could recite the names of all! When I lie alone at night I like to recall each wench that I have ev
er mounted and set a name against a star, but of late the number of stars has grown insufficient. Since the stout virgin of Delmy there have been…now let me think…one hundred and five, yes. Ah, but it is becoming difficult now, as so much of my hammer has no feeling.”
Without any warning I seized his wrist and twisted his arm hard behind his back. He cried out in surprise and pain as I shouted “A firebrand! A firebrand! Quickly!”
My men at arms jumped to their feet at once but Watkin tumbled in mid-air, twisted his arm free of my grip and darted for the woods with speed of a startled hind. Worse luck for him, the sentry had been alert for just such a flight. His hand-axe went spinning flat after him, tangled his legs and sent him sprawling in the mud with a cry of pain. We soon had him in hand and dragged him back to the fire.
“A good throw, Sir Phillip,” I said as they held him down and I tended the gashes and cuts in Watkin’s legs. “The great tendon is severed in his right leg, he will never again run from cuckolded husbands with such speed.”
Watkin’s moaning suddenly died away as he realized that something else was not as it seemed. Beneath their shabby robes my men-at-arms were well dressed warriors with fine weapons. They stood before us, glaring, their eyes sparkling with fury in the firelight.
“What – who are you?” the tinker stammered.
One of the men began to unlace, and the others followed his example. A moment later the light of five rings of green fire glowed steadily from their loins.
“Lied…you lied to me!” gasped Watkin.
“Lied, Watkin? I am indeed a physician and breaker of curses, and my faith is the Way of Islam.”
“Then who are these men?”
“You may call this man Sir Robert,” I said as he brought a coil of rope to tie the tinker’s hands. “This fine, burly warrior is Sir Peter, and Sir Phillip was the sentry who brought you down. Sir Charles is the blonde man, and Sir Douglas has the black beard and is scowling as if he would cheerfully cut your heart out. You may call me William.”
“Those are not your real names,” he said fearfully.
“Those names will suffice for you, false or not. Speaking for myself, I really am an Englishman, and although I do have an Islamic name now, I was christened William when I was born. I have returned to England at the request of Sir Peter here.”
“A Christian physician could well have had us denounced or burned for demonic possession,” Sir Peter explained. “Some folk afflicted by the green fire have already suffered such a fate. This infidel, who is also my friend, can be trusted not to do that. On your feet now!”
The nobles tied him spreadeagled in the rain between two trees. “False physician, you betrayed me!” wailed Watkin.
“And how many women did you betray by passing the green fire on to them?” I asked.
“No, no, I have ceased to spread the green fire,” he cried. “Look in my pack.”
“You certainly have,” I agreed as I rummaged through his goods. “Just look at these knick-knacks. All manner of little presents as might please a wench and entice her into bed. Aromatic oils and scents, and, and…less savoury items.”
There it was, in his pack, the sheepgut device. I sat back, and examined the sheath while my companions cheerily tormented Watkin with what was to come. With such a plague as the green fire to be caught from casual dalliance it was only a matter of time before these sheaths of sheepgut became very popular. Still, that was not my concern. Watkin was the man I had been seeking, the Alpha firebrand, the butterfly king. The plague of green fire was about to end and he would play a role.
I stood up. Sir Douglas had just proposed a crude surgical operation to rid Watkin of his green fire and the others were roaring their approval. “Stop! Stop!” I shouted, rushing forward to seize Sir Peter’s arm. “My good lords, this one is not to be killed.”
“But he’s the one who began it all,” exclaimed Sir Peter, so hot with anger that the rain steamed from his face.
“Precisely. Other firebrands may be killed for spreading the green glow, but this one might well be used for a cure.”
Their hard and vengeful glares were at once softened by amazement and hope. Even revenge took second place to removing the glowing green shackle from their manhood.
Watkin was bound, gagged and bagged, then taken to Sir Peter’s castle some seventy miles away. The journey was done in a single stretch, with no sleep, and even meals were had in the saddle. It rained for most of the way.
The castle was no great wonder, it was a mean, low fortification of rammed earth, logs and stone blocks from ancient Roman ruins. The thatch and log roofs leaked, and it rained most of the time that I was there.
Although surly at first Watkin became wonderfully cooperative after a single touch of the torturer’s red-hot iron. We wrote down the details of his 105 seductions, and in the weeks that followed established that only sixty two of the infected women had survived beatings by their husbands and attempts at exorcism by religious healers. Ten had escaped ensnarement by the green ring since he had begun to use his sheepgut armour.
In the months past we had travelled far and wide killing firebrands who had spread the green fire, and thanks to the fire their trails were easy to follow. With Watkin safely in chains we now visited Delmy the village from where he had borne the green fire to torment the world. The stout virgin that Watkin had seduced was named Gerelde, but while she was indeed not comely, she was skilled with herbal cures and was a surpassing good cook.
Her mother was buried nearby. The woman had once lived alone in a forest some way up the coast, and was reputed to have been a witch. Cornish brigands had raided the area and seized her, and their leader had ravished her until she was some months swelling with his child.
He had then taken her out to sea and cast overboard to drown, yet she lived to struggle ashore and be found by the villagers of Delmy. The village midwife said that she had treated herself with a glowing green paste to ease the pain of the birth. It was a difficult delivery, as Gerelde was a very big baby for such a small mother as she was. The witch had died of the stresses of birth and cursing her ravisher.
Sir Peter assembled a squad of men while I went with Sir Phillip to locate the witch’s house, a ransacked shell by now. We exhumed the witch’s bones and reburied them in the overgrown garden of her old home. In the meantime Sir Peter had attacked and annihilated the brigand stronghold, avenging the witch after eighteen years. Every one of his fighting men had the ring of green fire and was frantic for revenge against anyone connected with it.
On the evening that we returned to Sir Peter’s castle, I spoke with him in his dining hall. Rain dripped from the roof beams as we sat before the fire.
“That was clever work, finding the first firebrand of the green ring,” he said to me. “Why didn’t you tell us that we were on such a quest?”
“If I had told that I wanted a man of such-and-such a description you would have tortured dozens into confessing to be him. Better to take you on a vendetta against all firebrands and do the questioning myself.”
“Well then, what good came of it? We avenged the witch, yet her magical ring still glows on my gronnick, and the ring on Watkin the Tinker is still bright enough to light his way on a moonless night. What sort of a sorcerer are you…”
“I am a physician, not a sorcerer. Magic does not exist, only illness in all its guises. The full cure for the ring of green fire is close. I have made progress.”
“What kind of progress?”
“I returned the witch’s bones to her garden and reburied them there. A month has passed since then, so the aura from her bones will have permeated the roots of her herbs and be taken up into the leaves. I shall soon return to her grave and harvest some leaves to grind into a paste.”
“Will that be enough? Leaves?”
“There is more, Sir Peter, much more. Even though she is dead she is trying to teach us something of the new notion of chivalry – it’s new to you English at least, us Saracenic s
cholars have taught it for years.”
“That’s why we employed you, dammit!”
“And your faith in me is not misplaced. I can see some kind of symbolism of pain being avenged while its resulting sorrow still lives on. The witch wanted you to do more than just avenge her.”
“Well what did she damn well want?” shouted Sir Peter, pounding the table so hard with his goblet that a gemstone fell out of the silver filigree.
“Patience, patience, I dare not tell you everything yet.”
Sir Peter had a mistress as well as his wife, and it was this woman that Watkin had bedded one afternoon in the summer past. The noble had argued with her a little earlier, and she felt lonely and neglected. Watkin had arrived, and cleverly spoke in a cultivated voice, as if by accident. Then he hinted that he was himself a noble on some secret mission, and so he won her trust and bedded her. Understandably, Sir Peter was all for impaling Watkin on a stake at the castle gate until the crows pecked his bones clean, but I restrained him.
“Why do you have such sympathy for the little wretch?” asked Sir Phillip the next morning as we squelched our way through the muddy grounds of the castle, holding sodden cloaks up against the rain. We were on our way to visit the tinker.
“Sympathy? I have no sympathy for Watkin, but I do have a use for him.”
“The talk is that you are sorry for him.”
“Sorry? Me? Not likely. I once suffered because of his kind. I was a young merchants scribe in love with my master’s daughter. Although she cared for me, our courtship was slow. I did not have skill with the words and gestures of seduction. My master took her on a journey to Normandy, he had trade business there. She met one such as Watkin, but this youth was a noble.
“He charmed her with talk as sweet as a nightingale’s song, and settled upon her as softly as a butterfly. When she returned to England she grew round with child, and was desolate with remorse. I petitioned to marry her and the merchant consented, yet even then I was aflame with rage.
