The Mammoth Book of Extreme Fantasy

by Mike Ashley

“I travelled to Normandy and sought out her seducer. Although a mere scribe I was skilled in the use of shortswords. I killed a guard and wounded several more, but the butterfly nobleman escaped and I was wounded. I became a fugitive and outlaw, I could never return to my young wife. She gave birth some months later, then flung herself from a cliff and was drowned in the sea.”

  “When did all this take place?”

  “Your Christian year of 1150.”

  “But that was three years after the Crusade of 1147.”

  “Certainly. With a history like mine, would you let the truth be known? I began working aboard merchant ships, they were always in need of people who could write. After five years I had earned enough silver and learned sufficient Arabic to settle in the Zangid Sultanate and study medicine. I had an impressive wound, so I made up that tale of being on the crusade. Now you know my background, Sir Phillip. Please preserve my secret, yet reassure your folk about my intentions. A butterfly killed my sweetheart, and Watkin is another such butterfly.”

  “But why do you stay Sir Peter’s hand?”

  “As I said, Watkin has his uses. Although a mere tinker he is magnificent, the ultimate seducer. He can affect the voices and manners of all types of people, from nobles to ploughmen. His trews have a double strap, so that he can lower them to his knees for a dalliance, yet they stay high enough for him to run unencumbered from an outraged husband. He is a master of escape and could run like the wind until your axe severed his hamstring. He cleans his teeth with soft bark, he washes, and he scents himself with aromatic oils. His trade is tinking, yet even that takes him roving to meet an endless bevy of women.”

  We had reached the dungeon, a squat blockhouse of stone with a log roof and narrow slits for windows. I made to enter, but Sir Phillip barred my way. “I’m with Sir Peter, I’m for killing the little rat,” he declared. “He…”

  “He seduced a maid on intimate terms with your seneschal, and your seneschal then passed the fire on to his wife – who was already your secret lover. If the green fire has done anything, it has traced out a fine trail of humpery bumpery at all stations of society.”

  “So what are you saying? Are we no better than Watkin?”

  “I am saying that you can learn from Watkin. In spite of being a short, scrawny, low-born tinker, he charms greatly.”

  “He preys upon the most vulnerable of women.”

  “True, but were you English noblemen to clean your teeth, change your clothing at least weekly and take the care to give ladies little compliments instead of kicks, curses and belches, why the likes of Watkin would have no market for their charms. He is poor, but it costs him nothing to speak charmingly and wash. If you did the same, you would still be rich and powerful as well. Who would then choose Watkin over you?

  “A hot iron can wound Watkin’s type, but with good manners and clean fingernails you can hurt them a lot more. You English are adopting our Saracenic cooking, mathematics and music. Why not our chivalry as well?”

  Sir Phillip glared at me from under his cloak, but he was obviously thinking.

  “There is a lot of merit in what you say…but it’s hard to think chivalrous thoughts with a ring of green fire about my gronnick! What can I do about that?”

  “The tinker took a curse upon himself when he bundled into the witch’s daughter. He then dispersed that curse to nearly every woman he seduced in his travels, and hence to all their lovers. That has formed quite an avenging army.”

  “And we did avenge her!”

  “Yes, but there is more to it than that, so the glow remains. The green fire is a tool to force us to do certain tasks, and even teach us about the ways of men and women.”

  We entered the dungeon, where the tinker was practicing walking with a crutch and in good spirits.

  “Have you caught the Delmy witch?” he asked.

  “We found her grave and exhumed it. She is nought but bones after these eighteen years.”

  “Eighteen years? Bones? She was as well fleshed as a prize sow when I mounted her the May before last.”

  “That was her daughter. The witch herself died in childbirth, but her daughter unknowingly carried a curse. You turned that curse loose upon the world. Gerelde was raised by a peasant family, and has come to be a fine cook. I tasted her food, it was fine fare for a peasant table. She wants for nought but a husband. She’s plain of face and is built as solidly as Sir Peter, yet for all that she is a kindly girl.”

  Watkin sneered. “Why are you telling me about her? I’d never touch her again, she’s as ugly as a goat’s backside.”

  “She was quite taken by you, Watkin, and she is very concerned that you are imprisoned here. Still, you are more fortunate than the brigand who raped her mother. Sir Peter caught him, did you know? He was a great slab of a man, massive rather than fat, full of life and defiance, even eighteen years after the deed that caused all this. He was confident that we would not kill him because he knew where sundry hoards of gold and silver loot lay buried. Sir Peter had him taken to the graveside of his victim, and there his gronnick was sliced from between his legs and rammed down his windpipe so that he choked on it and died most horribly. Those of his men as were watching quickly babbled the location of hoards of coin, plate and jewelry, yet none heeded them. Sir Peter had to kill him with the same weapon that killed Gerelde’s mother.”

  Watkin was deathly pale by now, and had slumped against the wall. “Mother of God, but why?”

  “He was a link in the chain that ignited the green fire. You are another link.”

  “Me? But, but…”

  “You bedded Sir Peter’s mistress. That alone should have you in fear for your life, but you also passed the fire to her.”

  The tinker cowered, but said no more. Sir Phillip lurked in the shadows, smirking at his discomfort.

  “I need tears of pity that have been wept for you and no other. In all the world, Watkin, would anyone weep for you?”

  “Many regard me as comely.”

  “Someone must weep for you, Watkin. Your flesh is about to hiss with the touch of the red iron.”

  “No! As God is merciful, no! Take my pack, sell me into slavery! I’ll do anything…”

  “For the final ingredient to quench the ring of green fire you will be able to choose between death and a less daunting fate, but for now you will be tortured. I require that it be done, Watkin, and believe me that there are thousands of men and women who would fight to the death for the pleasure of holding the glowing iron to you. You have often been bold, now you must learn to be brave.”

  Once we were well away from the dungeon and Watkin’s hysterical pleading Sir Phillip took me by the arm.

  “That brigand was killed in battle by one of Sir Peter’s archers. It was a shaft through his skull, he died at once.”

  “True.”

  “Then what was that story about choking him on his own gronnick?”

  “Watkin has the attention span of a butterfly. I meant to…focus his mind.”

  “To what end?”

  “That is between myself and Allah. Rest assured, however, that Watkin will be tortured.”

  “And you will savour his screams with the rest of us?”

  “Oh no, I shall be hard at work, preparing certain ingredients to quench the ring of green fire.”

  “Lord physician, I don’t follow.”

  “You will never follow, Sir Phillip, but your ring of green fire shall be quenched, rely on my word for that.”

  By the time I had left Sir Peter’s castle for Delmy, Watkin had faced the first of the silent, hooded men that were to torment him. Thousands gathered outside the castle to hear his screams, but these did not last. After he was blinded, the tendons at the source of his voice were cut. This produced such a riot outside that all Watkin’s subsequent tortures had to be on public display. As I rode off for Delmy hot irons were being applied to the soles of his feet by the second torturer, Sir Douglas, while Sir Phillip held up a cloak up to keep the rain fr
om cooling the red-hot metal.

  I returned after three days, bringing Gerelde with me. Watkin was, of course, the only lover she had ever known, so he was a lot more special to her than the other way about. She was blind to his disfigurements, and she made heartfelt pleas for her feckless tinker. It was an impressive sight, for even on her knees she was taller than Sir Peter. I stood by and collected her tears on a small cloth. At a nod from me Sir Peter relented – on the condition that Watkin marry her, and that he never leave the village of Delmy under pain of death by torture. Watkin could only nod his head by way of agreement. Now Gerelde wept tears of joy, and I wiped these from her face as well.

  A great marriage feast was held, and a good many folk with the ring of green fire were brought in to participate. Before Sir Peter’s eyes I ground the cloth with its tears into a paste, then added cuttings of herbs taken from the witch’s garden. The food at the feast was wonderful village fare, and to this I added my mixture. All ate heartily, and by evening the green fire was gone from every afflicted man and woman at the feast. There were, well, unseemly celebrations in spite of the rain, but that was only to be expected. The following day I called upon Sir Peter.

  “Now that the curse is broken, a simple remedy can be used to quench the green fire in all others who still have it,” I told him. “I have trained several clerks and midwives in its preparation already, and they will train more. Soon the green fire will be no more, so my work here is done.”

  Sir Peter embraced me so strongly that I heard the joints of my spine pop. I was the physician who had returned the feeling to his penis, and he was brimming with gratitude.

  “You must have a reward, honours, you have done more good for this land than words can say.”

  “There is my agreed fee, of course.”

  “That? A mere trifle! Here’s twice your fee.” He tossed me a bag of gold. “Now, my Lord physician, if you could but renounce the faith of Islam you could also be given great rank.”

  “My faith is Islam, please respect that, and rank does not interest me. I am a physician, so although I find it an honour to treat caliphs and kings, I do not aspire to their thrones.”

  “Then treat a king you will! Our King Henry lies sick at Chinon, a town in his French provinces. I’m his trusted adviser, I’ll recommend you to him, I’ll recommend you in the very highest words of praise.”

  “I would be honoured to treat your king, Sir Peter.”

  Avenzoar gazed at the fountain at the centre of the courtyard for some moments before turning back to his guest. The constant rain, the glowing green fire, all the strange horrors of his visitor’s tale slowly retreated before the warm Spanish sunshine.

  “So the girl’s tears broke the curse,” he said.

  “No. My ‘other remedy’ would have worked by itself.”

  “Then you could have stopped the green fire months earlier. Why the charade?”

  The visitor paused to select a ripe fig, frowning as if troubled. “I was Watkin’s first torturer.” Avenzoar gasped with surprise. “Yes, I blinded him to Gerelde’s face and I silenced his voice that he might never abuse her.”

  “I see. You made him a match for her and no other.”

  “I did more than that. The ring of green fire was a type of purgative, it flushed out those men with great skill in coldly manoeuvring women into bed. Watkin was not the only firebrand, we discovered nearly two dozen men, and a few women too, who had hundreds of seductions behind them. They are all dead now, save for Watkin. Many other diseases are spread by the loveless lust of Watkin’s kind. We culled in the interests of good health.”

  Avenzoar considered this. “True, too much of any skill can be dangerous. Perhaps the witch did some good after all.”

  “The witch was no witch, and there was no curse. She was my dead wife’s daughter, sired by a butterfly and born just before her mother cast herself into the ocean. Gerelde was my step-grandaughter, but even though she and her mother were no flesh and blood of mine, I loved them as my own. I provided for them and visited them every few years.”

  “Ah yes, now it all makes sense. The green fire was a medicine to deaden the pain of childbirth. Your step-daughter died before she could give the antidote to herself and her baby. The fire escaped when Watkin mounted Gerelde.”

  The visitor nodded. Avenzoar stood up slowly and looked across to the delicate tracery and interlaced arches of the partly built minaret. He glanced at a nearby sundial.

  “It is time for my daily inspection of the minaret,” he said with his back to his guest, then he turned. “But first I must reproach you for mutilating in the name of medicine.”

  The guest remained calm, as if he had expected Avenzoar’s reaction, yet he did not meet his friend’s eyes. “No, not in the name of medicine. I disfigured Watkin to have my step-grandaughter married and happy. She has a lame, blind, mute tinker who is nevertheless a prince of seducers, and she has him all to herself. He will be grateful for all that she does for him until the day he dies. Yes, it was evil of me, but perhaps good has come of it. Watkin’s wings have been clipped, but at least he has his life.”

  Avenzoar sat down and fanned himself. “But what of my original question? You have not yet explained why you took so long to release your cure for the green fire? Surely it was not just to mark and slay the promiscuous?”

  “You are right, Avenzoar, as usual. I withheld the cure to increase its worth. That increased my reward, in turn.”

  “Reward? To treat King Henry? It must have been of little comfort to you. I learned recently that he died barely a fortnight after midsummer.”

  “Precisely,” the visitor agreed solemnly, and Avenzoar felt a sudden chill in spite of the bright sunshine. “As a teenage prince of Normandy he seduced my sweetheart. I spent a lifetime hating that royal butterfly, yet it was the accidental spread of the green fire that gave me a chance to get past his guards. Gerelde is his grandaughter, yes, and Watkin is unknowingly married to a princess.”

  He reached into his robes and took out a folded parchment, which he placed on the tray beside the pastries. “This details a cure for the mould that causes the ring of green fire.” Avenzoar unfolded the parchment and read it slowly. Suddenly he looked up in astonishment.

  “This also makes your fortune over to me!” he exclaimed.

  “That is because I am going now, and I shall never return,” said the visitor. “Our people will see no more of me. Use my fortune to train needy students and to foster the arts of healing in whatever way you will. Should any woman come to you complaining of numbness within, or any man disrobe to reveal a ring of green fire about his penis, well, you now have the cure.”

  “You cannot be serious!” exclaimed Avenzoar. “The loss of your skills would be a crime in itself.”

  “I killed under the guise of healing,” the visitor replied firmly. “To strike at King Henry I destroyed my integrity as a physician. Now I must pay…but I knew that all along.”

  He stood slowly and shuffled across to the fountain, with Avenzoar following. The poet put a hand on his shoulder as he washed the crumbs from his hands.

  “Accepting that you have done evil is a step towards atoning for it, my friend. Stay here for a while, rest and talk with Avenzoar, your friend and fellow physician.”

  “No, no. Have you not noticed that I cannot meet your eyes for more than a moment? Whenever I see a fellow physician I am shamed to remember that I have murdered, and I must hang my head.”

  “But where will you go?”

  “To places where I shall meet no other physicians. Along the salt road to the barren granite mountains of Aghadez and the marshy shores of Lake Tchad, then deep into the great deserts of Africa. My skills may find a welcome there.”

  “But this is terrible. Your very words show you to be of good heart. Please stay.”

  Now Avenzoar’s visitor held him by both arms and looked fleetingly into his eyes. “If I agreed to stay, you would despise me in the depths of your heart, whe
re your goodwill cannot reach.”

  “This is not the best way…”

  “My friend, it is the only way.”

  Later that afternoon, when his guest had departed, Avenzoar toured the partly completed Minaret with Ali al-Ghumari, his architect. As the sun’s disk shimmered near the horizon they gazed out across the capital of al-Andalus.

  “It is safe for now,” said Avenzoar, “but one day a green fire may come to blight this fair city.”

  “Is it a weapon?” asked the architect with mild interest. “Is it like Greek fire?”

  “It is English fire,” replied Avenzoar.

  “Hah! It must be fierce indeed to burn in spite of their rain,” the architect laughed. “What is its fuel?”

  Avenzoar fingered the scrap of folded parchment for reassurance. “Neglect and hatred,” he said softly.

  The architect pondered this for a moment, running his hand along the newly laid brickwork. “A cheap and plentiful fuel,” he replied at last, and Avenzoar nodded.