"Is that what you would say I hide from myself? Have you a mind to convert me to whatever Faith it is you hold, my lady?"
"My Faith is not too dissimilar to yours."
"So I thought."
"Soul? Conscience? These words mean little, I'm sure you'd agree, without specification."
"I do most readily agree."
We continued to debate this subject only for a short while and then the discussion broadened.
She proved to be an educated woman with a fine range of experience and anecdote. The longer we were together, however, the more I desired her.
The noon meal was forgotten as we continued to talk and to drink. She quoted the Greeks and the Romans, she quoted poetry in several tongues. She was far more fluent in the languages of modern Europe and the Orient than was I.
It became obvious to me that Sabrina must be highly valued by her master and that she was probably something more than his mistress. A woman could travel the world with a little more danger but a little less suspicion than a male envoy. I formed the impression that she was familiar with a good many powerful Courts. Yet I wondered how her servants must be received if they accompanied her to such places.
Evening came. She and I retired to the kitchen where, from the same ingredients, she prepared a far better meal than anything I had been able to make for myself. We drank more wine and then, without thought, took ourselves up to one of the main bedrooms and disrobed.
Sheets, quilts, bed-curtains, were all creamy white in the late sunshine. Naked, Sabrina was perfect. Her pale body was flawless, her breasts small and firm. I had seen no woman like her, save in statues and certain paintings.
I had not believed in perfection before that night, and although I retained a healthy suspicion of Sabrina's motives I was determined to offer no resistance to her charms.
We went quickly to bed. She became by turns tender, savage, passive and aggressive. I turned with her, whatever her mood, as she turned with mine. My senses, which had become almost as dead as those of Sabrina's servants, had come to life again.
I felt my imagination coming back to me, and with it a certain amount of hope, of the old optimism I had known as a youth in Bek.
Our union, it seemed to me, was preordained, for there was no doubt that she relished me as thoroughly as I relished her. I absorbed her scents, the touch of her skin.
Our passion seemed as endless as the tides; our lust conquered all weariness. If it had not been for that nagging memory that she was in some way pledged to another, I should have given myself up to her entirely. As it was, some small part of me held back. But it was a minuscule fraction. It need hardly have existed.
Eventually we fell asleep and woke in the morning, before light, to make love again, A week or two went by. I was more and more entranced by her.
Half-asleep as one grey dawn came, I murmured that I wanted her to come with me, to leave her ghastly servants behind, to find some other place which the War did not touch.
"Is there another place?" she asked me, with a tender smile.
"In the East, possibly. Or England. We could go to England. Or to the New World."
She became sad and she stroked my cheek. "That isn't possible," she said. "My master would not allow it."
I became fierce. "Your master would not find us."
"He would find me and take me from you, be assured of that."
"In the New World? Is he the Pope?"
She seemed startled and I wondered if, with my rhetorical question, I had struck upon the truth.
I continued: "I would fight him. I would raise an army against him if necessary."
"You would lose."
I asked her seriously: "Is he the Pope? Your master?"
"Oh, no," said she impulsively, "he is far greater than the Pope."
I frowned. "Perhaps in your eyes. But not the eyes of the world, surely?"
She stirred in the bed and avoided looking directly at me, saying softly: "In the eyes of the whole world, and Heaven, too."
In spite of myself, I was disturbed by her reply. It took another week before I found the courage to make a further statement. I would rather not have pursued the subject:
"You have promised to answer my questions," I said to her, again in the morning. "Would it not be fair to tell me the name of your all-powerful lord? After all, I could be endangering myself by remaining here."
"You are in no particular danger."
"You must let me decide that. You must offer me the choice."
"I know…" Her voice died away. "Tomorrow."
"His name," I insisted the next day. I saw terror reflected and compounded, hers and mine.
Then from where she lay in bed she looked directly into my eyes. She shook her head.
"Who is your lord?" I said.
She moved her lips carefully. She raised her head as she spoke. Her mouth seemed dry, her expression strangely blank.
"His name," she said, "is Lucifer."
My self-control almost disappeared. She had shocked me in several ways at the same time, for I could not decide how to interpret this remark. I refused to let superstition attack my reason. I sat up in bed and forced myself to laugh.
"And you are a witch, is that it?"
"I have been called that," she said.
"A shape-changer!" I felt half-mad now. "You are in reality an ancient hag who has en-glamoured me!"
"I am who you see me to be," she said. "But, yes, I was a witch."
"And your powers come from your compact with the Prince of Darkness?"
"They did not. I was called a witch by the people who determined to kill me. But that was before I met Lucifer…"
"You implied some time ago that you shared my opinions of witches!"
"Aye…of those poor women so branded."
"Yet why call yourself one?"
"You used the word. I agreed that I had been called that."
"You are not a witch?"
"When I was young I had certain gifts which I put to the service of my town. I am not stupid. My advice was sought and used. I was well-educated by my father. I could read and write. I knew other women like myself. We met together, as much to enjoy each other's intelligence as to discuss matters of alchemy, herbalism and the like." She shrugged. "It was a small town. The people were small merchants, peasants, you know… Women are, by and large, denied the company of scholars, even if they resort to the nunnery. Christians do not permit Eve wisdom, do they? They can only suggest that she was influenced by a fallen angel." She was sardonic. Then she sighed, leaning on one bare arm as she looked at me.
"Scholarly men were suspect in my town. Women could not admit to scholarship at all. Men are afraid of two things in this world, it seems…women and knowledge. Both threaten their power, eh?"
"If you like," I said. "Were there not other women in the town afraid of such things?"
"Of course. Even more afraid in some ways. It was women who betrayed us, in the end."
"It is in the way of events," I said. "Many speak of freedom, of free thought, but few would want the responsibility of actually possessing them."
"Is that why you insist that you are a soldier?"
"I suppose so. I have no great hankering after real freedom. Is that why you let me call you a witch?"
Her smile was sad. "Possibly."
"And is that why you now tell me that Satan is your Master?"
"Not exactly," she replied. "Though I follow your reasoning."
"How did you come to be branded a witch in your town?"
"Perhaps through Pride," she said. "We began to see ourselves as a powerful force for good in the world. We practised magic, of sorts, and experimented sometimes. But our magic was all White. I admit that we studied the other kind. We knew how it could be worked. Particularly by the weak, who sought spurious strength through evil."
"You came to believe that you were strong enough to resist human prejudice? You grew incautious?"