"Why torment me like this?" she protested. "I know none of it can be true!"

He set aside his charcoal and turned the paper to her. "What do you see?"

Her eyes rounded with surprise. "You drew this?"

"You saw me doing it. Who is it?"

"The Madonna!" she exclaimed. "You can draw! But you had no model!"

"I had a model."

"But you were looking at me-" She faltered. "It cannot be! She is so lovely!"

"It is you, Jolie-as you can be. When properly fed and dressed. When your beauty manifests to others as it does to me now."

"No!" she said, bemused and flattered.

"It is what you will be, if you come to me. If you love me, and let me love you. It is the potential I see in you, that I know will appear if it is allowed."

She stared at the sketch, fascinated. "You believe this?"

"I know this. Yet this is only the lesser half of it. Even as the soul is more than the flesh, your mind is more than your body. You can be brilliant!"

"I cannot even read," she said. "Or figure."

"I can teach you these. I know you can learn. I believe you have the desire. Will you not allow me to try?"

Her gaze became canny. "So I will return to you every night for your pleasure? You would fool me with impossible promises, so that this night will be not the end, but only the beginning?"

"Only the beginning," he agreed. "But not of delusion. All that I have told you is true-or will be true, if you accept it. Please, I beg of you-give me this chance!"

"You beg of me? You have no need to beg, only to command. You know that."

"A command is made to an unwilling person, without love," he said. "A plea is made to a person one respects."

"Peasants are not respected!" she exclaimed.

"Jolie, I will offer you a job, so it is legitimate. To be my servant. I will pay you a fair wage. I will give you a coin tonight, that you can take home and show as evidence. Then will you return?"

"But you said you don't want my body, you want my love. A servant doesn't love."

"It is only a pretext. I will not treat you as a servant. I will treat you as an apprentice."

"An apprentice! To be a sorcerer?"

"And to be my wife."

"Blessed Mary!" she breathed, staring at him almost in shock.

"What more can I promise you?" he asked. "I want your love. I want you to know me and to love me. I will do anything you ask."

She sighed."I know my place. I am a poor, ignorant peasant giri. I know that none of this is to be believed. I wish you would just do what you mean to do and let me go, so that I need not fear evil anymore, because it will be behind me. You have no cause to mix up my mind."