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

"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-granddaughter, 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 expecting the outburst, yet he did not meet Avenzoar's eyes. "No, not
in the name of medicine. I disfigured Watkin to have my step-granddaughter 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 in 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 granddaughter, 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," he said as he stood up.
Avenzoar unfolded the parchment and read it slowly. Finally he nodded, and looked up at his guest in
silence. "Well, are you not going to censure me for killing a king?"
"To what end?" Avenzoar replied wearily. "You always have the best of reasons for your behaviour."
"Once more you are wrong," replied the visitor, but this time without his mask of smug composure. He
sat down heavily, tears running into his beard.
Avenzoar sat forward. "What is wrong, what did I say?"
"I killed under the guise of healing," he sobbed, suddenly looking much older. "I was so intent on