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/> I was sobered, looking at him. His very manner made me reflect before I uttered a word.

"On everything, Sir?" I asked.

"Yes," he said. Then he came again to kiss me. "Will you be this forever?" he asked. "This man, this young man, that you are now?"

"Yes, Master! Forever, and with you!" I wanted to tell him that there was nothing I couldn't do that a man could do, but this seemed most unwise, and also it would not seem true to him.

He laid his hand fondly on my head, pushing my hair back.

"For two years, I've watched you grow," he said. "You've reached your full height, but you're small, and your face is a baby's face, and for all your good health, you're slight and not the robust man yet that you are surely meant to be. "

I was too enthralled to interrupt him. When he paused, I waited.

He sighed. He looked off as if he couldn't find words.

"When you were gone, your English lord drew his dagger on you, but you weren't afraid. Do you remember? It wasn't two days ago. "

"Yes, Sir, it was stupid. "

"You could easily have died then," he said with a raise of his eyebrow. "Easily. "

"Sir, please open up these mysteries to me," I said. "Tell me how you came to your powers. Entrust these secrets to me. Lord, make it so that I can be with you forever. I don't care anything for my own judgment of such things. I yield to yours. "

"Ah, yes, you yield if I fulfill your request. "

"Well, Sir, that is a form of yielding, to give myself up to you, your will and your power, and yes, I would have it and be like you. Is that what you promise, Master, is that what you hint at, that you can make me like you? You can fill me with this blood of yours that makes a slave out of me, and it will be accomplished? It seems at times I know this, Master, that you can do it, and yet I wonder if I know it only because you know it, and you are lonely to do it to me. "

"Ah!" He put his hands to his face, as though I had displeased him totally.

I was at a loss.

"Master, if I offended, hit me, beat me, do anything to me but don't turn away. Don't cover your eyes that would look on me, Master, because I can't live without your gaze. Explain it to me. Master, take away what divides us; if it be only ignorance then take away that. "

"Oh, I will, I will," he said. "You are so clever and deceiving, Amadeo. You would be the fool for God all right, as you were told a long time ago that a saint should be. "

"You lose me, Sir. I am no saint, and a fool, yes, because I conjecture it's a form of wisdom and I want it because you prize wisdom. "

"I mean that you appear simple, and out of your simplicity comes a clever grasp. I am lonely. Oh, yes, I am lonely, and lonely to tell my woes if nothing else. But who would burden one so young as you with my woes? Amadeo, what age do you think I am? Gauge my age with your simplicity. "

"You have none, Sir. You neither eat nor drink, nor change with time. You need no water to wash you clean. You are smooth and resistant to all things of nature. Master, we all know this. You are a clean and fine and whole thing. "

He shook his head. I was distressing him when I wanted just the opposite.

"I have done it already," he whispered.

"What, my Lord, what have you done?"

"Oh, brought you to me, Amadeo, for now-. " He stopped. He frowned, and his face was so soft and wondering that it made me ache. "Ah, but these are just self-serving delusions. I could take you, with a heap of gold, and plant you down in a distant city where-. "

"Master, kill me. Kill me before you do this, or make sure your city is beyond the compass of the known world, because I will journey back! I will spend the last ducat of your heap of gold to journey here and beat on your doors. "

He looked wretched, more a man than I'd ever seen him, in pain and trembling as he looked off, deep into the endless dark divide that separated us.

I clung to his shoulder and kissed him. There was a stronger, more virile intimacy due to my crude act of hours ago.

"No, no time for such comforts," he said. "I have to be gone. Duty calls me. Ancient things call to me, things which have been my burden for so very long. I am so weary!"

"Don't go tonight. When the morning comes, take me with you, Master, take me to where you conceal yourself from the sun. It is from the sun that you must hide, isn't it, Master, you who paint blue skies and the light of Phoebus more brilliantly than those who see it, you never see it-. "