For Love of Evil Read Online Free Page B

not understand you. Parry."
     
    He tried to explain. "I could pay a village girl, and she would do whatever I asked, because of the money. But she would not love me, only my money. I want your love, and that I cannot buy."
     
    "I wish I could believe."
     
    "I wish I could make you believe."
     
    She glanced sidelong at him. "I thought you would give me a reason."
     
    He was puzzled. "What reason?"
     
    "That you wished to catch a unicom."
     
    He laughed. "And for that I would need a virgin! I should have thought of that!"
     
    "Is it true?"
     
    "That you can catch a unicom only with a virgin? Yes, in a manner. It is possible without, but the animal is killed in the process."
     
    "I meant, that this is why you want me?"
     
    He spread his hands. "No. I could have gotten an ugly or stupid virgin for that. You are neither."
     
    "But you could make me feel safer with you if you tell me that it is for the unicorn."
     
    "It is an assurance I cannot give you."
     
    "Then why do I feel reassured?"
     
    "Because you realize I am telling you the truth, and that is more important than a facile rationale for your presence."
     
    She considered. "Am I really neither?"
     
    "Neither what?" he asked, unable to follow her thread.
     
    "Ugly or stupid."
     
    "Oh! Yes."
     
    "You could take me now, and I would not protest."
     
    "Do you love me?"
     
    "I fear you."
     
    "I will wait for your love."
     
    "But I fear you less than I did."
     
    "That is good." He liked the fact that she spoke her mind directly. Some in the village evidently took that for social ignorance, but he took it for innocence. "I must go home now. But I will return in the morning."
     
    "I will walk you home."
     
    "No. It is not fully dark yet, and I must conquer my fear."
     
    "Then let me give you a spell to ward away bad animals." She considered again. "Yes, that would help." He gave her a pouch that exuded a foul odor. "Open this at need. Hang it outside your cottage, or it will drive out your family."
     
    She tittered. "Bad animals!"
     
    He nodded. "The smell is versatile."
     
    She departed, and he clenched his hands together in an expression of sheer joy. He would win her!
     
    Jolie came the next morning, and the morning thereafter. He prevailed on her to wash herself; she was distrustful of this peculiar requirement, but acceded and became clean in the new dresses he provided. Her hair became lustrous, and her skin as smooth as milk. But when she went home each evening, she donned her old garment and smudged her face with dirt, so as not to cause suspicion.
     
    She was, as he had judged, a bright girl, and Parry used mesmeric techniques to teach her more rapidly and fully, just as the Sorcerer had used them on him. There was an enormous amount to learn, for sorcery was mainly a matter of knowledge and experience in the correct lores; true magic could be mastered only by those with special talent and dedication. Few folk had the cleverness or the patience to do it well; most who claimed to be adept were to some degree charlatans, buttressing their minimal magic with illusion. She learned to read, and to fight, and the arts, so that she could study on her own or defend herself from molestation or play prettily on the little harp he gave her. Her flesh quickly filled out, because of the good feeding, and she became the woman of his picture: not the Madonna, but as beautiful.
     
    This progress did not pass unnoticed in the village, despite her effort to conceal it. Rags and dirt could hide only so much. The peasant boys oriented on her, and Parry had to give her a spell to repel them. But he knew this would not be effective for long, for she was nubile and the other girls her age were getting married.
     
    Jolie's emotional progress was as dramatic as her physical and intellectual progress. One day she accompanied him with her harp as he sang, and drew on the magic she was learning to make of it far more than a single instrument. He had always had a fine