Unbeknownst to Max, it was the latter Bennett craved the most, for the endless hours sitting alongside the man had been excruciating for one reason and one reason alone. Bennett was a farm girl. She was used to being on her feet for most of the day, tending to livestock or traipsing back and forth from the stream to gather water. Now, she felt like an old woman, her muscles having lost their tone and her fortitude all but drained by the lack of activity. For the first three days of her newly found freedom, Bennett remained in the study for another hour or so before going back to her room, but on the fourth morning, she cautiously ventured to the stairs leading down to the great hall. Taking a deep breath, Bennett continued down the steps and then walked back up again, repeating this until the muscles in her legs screamed. She limped back to her room, fully aware she’d overdone her first attempt at exercise, but Bennett didn’t care. She was starting to feel alive again.

Bennett never allowed her daily pursuit of exercise to interfere with her studies. Each night, once Max would leave to go to his room, Bennett would flip over the hourglass he had on his desk and study until the sand ran out. It was then and only then when she would venture into the rest of the castle. She would walk every corridor, quietly acknowledging the servants silently cleaning this and that. Much to the amusement of those draped in aprons tasked with scrubbing the floors, Bennett would pace the great hall like a soldier until finally she would lift her skirt and run up and down the stairs until her lungs burned.

Before the first flake of snow had fallen the following winter, Bennett could read in three languages and write in two. During that time, members of two other covens had visited, and she now understood what Max had said about the ridicule he’d receive. While the vampires in his flock would never dare to speak against him, the leaders of two others let their insults fly.

Concepcion Garza was the first to visit, and early in the summer of 1630, while Bennett lurked in the shadows above the great hall, the stiff-necked matriarch arrived with her sycophants in tow. Appearing to be in her mid-thirties, Concepcion was a full-figured woman. Ropes of pearls and plumes of ostrich embellished the dark brown hair piled high atop her head, and her high-waisted, square-cut bodice gown was in the deepest of reds, the fabric swishing as she sailed into Max’s home.

Like dutiful pets, the men who accompanied her lined up along a wall while Concepcion greeted Max with an air kiss, and cooling herself with her hand fan of feathers, she announced it had been a long trip. She was tired…and she was hungry.