me to the Albergo. I'm so tired. Here, take this, no, you must." I gave him more money "I 
got lost. I didn't listen. I'm about to faint. I need wine and supper and a bed. Here, 
good man, no, no, no, take more, I insist. The Bardi would not have it otherwise."
  He ran out of pockets for the money, but managed somehow to stuff it in his shirt and 
then led me by torchlight to the Inn, banging on the door, and a sweet-faced old woman 
came down, grateful for the coins I thrust into her hand at once, to show me to a room.
  "High up and looking out over the valley," I said, "if you please, and some supper, it 
can be stone cold, I don't care."
  "You're not going to find any books in this town," said the Watchman, standing about as 
I beat it up the stairs after the woman. "All the young people go off; it's a peaceable 
place, just happy little shopkeepers. Young men today run off to universities. But this 
is a beautiful place to live, simply beautiful."
  "How many churches do you have?" I asked the old woman when we'd reached the room. I 
told her that I must keep the lighted candle for the night.
  "Two Dominican, one Carmelite," said the Watchman, slouching in the little door, "and 
the beautiful old Franciscan church, which is where I go. Nothing bad ever happens here."
  The old woman shook her head and told him to be quiet. She set the candle down and 
gestured that it could stay.
  The Watchman went on chattering as I sat on the bed, staring at nothing, until she'd 
brought a plate of cold mutton and bread, and a pitcher of wine. "Our schools are 
strict," the man went on. Again the old woman told him to hush up.
  "Nobody dares to make trouble in this place," he said, and then both of them were gone.
  I fell on my plate like an animal. All I wanted was strength. In my grief I couldn't 
even think of pleasure. I looked out on a tiny bit of high star-sprinkled sky for a 
little while, praying desperately to every saint and angel whose name I knew for help, 
and then I locked up the window tight. I bolted the door.
  And making sure that the candle was well sheltered in the corner, and plenty big enough 
to last until dawn, I fell into the lumpy little bed, too exhausted to remove boots or 
sword or daggers or anything else. I thought I'd fall into a deep sleep, but I lay rigid, 
full of hatred, and hurt, and swollen broken soul, staring into the dark, my mouth full 
of death as if I'd eaten it.
  I could hear distantly the sounds of my horse being tended to downstairs, and some 
lonely steps on the deserted stone street. I was safe, at least that much was so.
  Finally sleep came. It came totally and completely and sweetly; the net of nerves which 
had held me suspended and maddened simply dissolved, and I sank down into a dreamless 
darkness.
  I was conscious of that sweet point where nothing for the moment matters except to 
sleep, to replenish and to fear yet no dreams, and then nothing.
  A noise brought me around. I was immediately awake. The candle had gone out. I had my 
hand on my sword before my eyes opened. I lay on the narrow bed, back to the wall, facing 
the room and in a seemingly sourceless light. I could just make out the bolted door, but 
I couldn't see the window above me unless I turned my head to look up, and I knew, 
positively knew, that this window, heavily barred, had been broken open. The little light 
which fell on the wall came from the sky outside. It was a fragile, weak light, slipping 
down against the wall of the town and giving my little chamber the attitude of a prison 
cell.
  I felt the cool fresh air come down around my neck and felt it on my cheek. I clutched 
the sword tight, listening, waiting. There were small creaking sounds. The bed had moved 
ever so slightly, as if from a pressure.
  I couldn't focus my eyes. Darkness suddenly obscured everything, and out of this 
darkness there rose a shape before me, a figure bending over me, a woman looking right 
into my face as her hair fell down on me. It was Ursula.
  Her face was not an inch from mine. Her hand, very cool and smooth, closed over my own, 
on the hilt of my sword, with a deadly force, and she let her eyelashes stroke my cheek 
and then kissed my forehead.
  I was enveloped in sweetness, no matter how hot my rebellion. A sordid flood of 
sensation penetrated to my very entrails. "Strega!" I cursed her.
  "I didn't kill them, Vittorio." Her voice was imploring but with dignity and a curious 
sonorous strength, though it was only a small voice, very young in tone and feminine in 
timbre.
  "You were taking them," I said to her. I tried in a violent spasm to free myself. But 
her hand held me powerfully fast, and when I tried to free my left arm from under me, she 
caught my wrist and held me there too, and then she kissed me.
  There came that magnificent perfume from her which I had breathed in before, and the 
stroking of her hair on my face and neck sent shameless chills through me.
  I tried to turn my head, and she let her lips touch my cheek gently, almost 
respectfully.
  I felt the length of her body against me, the definite swell of her breasts beneath 
costly fabric, and the smooth length of her thigh beside me in the bed, and her tongue 
touched my lips. She licked at my lips.
  I was immobilized by the chills that went through me, humiliating me and kindling the 
passion inside me. "Get away, strega," I whispered.
  Filled with rage, I couldn't stop the slow smolder that had caught hold in my loins; I 
couldn't stop the rapturous sensations that were passing over my shoulders and down my 
back, and even through my legs.
  Her eyes glowed above me, the flicker of her lids more a sensation than a spectacle I 
could see with my own eyes, and again her lips closed over mine, sucking at my mouth, 
teasing it, and then she drew back and pressed her cheek against me.
  Her skin, which had looked so like porcelain, felt softer than a down feather against 
me, ah, all of her seemed a soft doll, made of luscious and magical materials far more 
yielding than flesh and blood yet utterly on fire with both, for a heat came out of her 
in a rhythmic throb, emanating right from the coolness of her fingers stroking my wrists 
as they held them, and then the heat of her tongue shot into my lips, against my will, 
with a wet, delicious and vehement force against which I could do nothing.
  There formed in my crazed mind some realization that she had used my own hot desire to 
render me helpless, that carnal madness had made of me a body constructed about metal 
wires that could not help but conduct the fire she poured into my mouth.
  She drew her tongue back and sucked with her lips again. My entire face was tingling. 
All my limbs were struggling both against her and to touch her, yes, embrace her yet 
fight her.
  She lay against the very evidence of my desire. I couldn't have hidden it. I hated her. 
"Why? What for!" I said, tearing my mouth loose. Her hair descended on both sides as she 
lifted her head. I could scarcely breathe for the unearthly pleasure.
  "Get off me," I said, "and go back into Hell. What is this mercy to me! Why do this to 
me?"
  "I don't know," she answered in her clever, tremulous voice. "Maybe it's only that I 
don't want you to die," she said, breathing against my chest. Her words were rapid, like 
her heated pulse. "Maybe more," she said, "I want you to go away, go south to Florence, 
go away and forget all that's happened, as if it were nightmares or witches' spells, as 
if none of it took place; leave this town, go, you must."