"Sean McMullen - A Ring of Green Fire" - читать интересную книгу автора (McMullen Sean)

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 merchant's 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.
"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 Saracen cooking, mathematics and music. Why
not our chivalry as well?"