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to do?
    The bishop regarded him in concern. “Come, Brother, are you well? Have you eaten at all today?”
    Gerbert nodded. “Master Ibrahim was hospitable.”
    Hatto’s eyes sharpened. “Indeed. You were gone for a very long time. Did you find one another congenial, then?”
    â€œNo!” It came out as a yelp. Gerbert drew a deep breath. “No, my lord. Not — not exactly.” Hatto said nothing. Gerbert could not meet his eyes. He scowled at his sandaled feet. “My lord, he horrified me. What he is, what he does...it was too much for me.”
    â€œTherefore you fled him.”
    â€œYes, my lord,” said Gerbert, though it hurt to say it. He stiffened his spine, dragged up his eyes, put on courage that felt rather too much like defiance. “But I went back. I fetched Pythagoras. I — talked to Master Ibrahim.”
    â€œTo good purpose, I trust.”
    Hatto’s face was as cryptic as a page of Arabic. “We talked about magic, my lord,” said Gerbert. He paused, and let it all go at once. “He wants to teach me. I want to learn. It frightens me, how much I want it.”
    â€œYet still you want it.”
    â€œI can’t help it, my lord.”
    â€œNo,” said Hatto. “I suppose you cannot.” He considered his laced fingers, turning them until the amethyst of his ring caught the light and flamed. “What would you do if I forbade you?”
    Gerbert was braced for that. He answered steadily, “I would tell you what I tell you now: that I must learn, and that I will learn. No one has ever been able to stop me.”
    â€œThat is arrogant.”
    Gerbert bowed his head. “Yes, my lord.”
    â€œHonest,” said Hatto, “as always. Has it occurred to you that you could deceive me and do as you will, with none the wiser?”
    â€œI’m a terrible liar, my lord,” Gerbert said.
    Hatto laughed, startling him. “You may never be a saint, Brother, but neither will you please the Lord of Lies. What would you do if I gave you leave to study magic under Ibrahim the Moor?”
    It was a jest, it must be; or a test. Gerbert found that he was frowning. It was not his place to rebuke his master, but his brow would not smooth for prudence. “My lord, if indeed you gave me leave, I would thank you with all my heart, and wonder what Mother Church would say to both of us.”
    â€œMother Church,” said Hatto, crossing himself with honest devotion, “has no firm law against the high white Art. I know what it is, and I say that it is dangerous, but I believe that you are one whom God has given the capacity to master it.”
    â€œYou know? You’ve known all along?” Gerbert said it almost before he thought it. “You said to Abbot Gerald, ‘I would teach him whatever wisdom Spain may have to offer.’ You didn’t mean only numbers. You meant this.”
    â€œYes,” Hatto said.
    â€œIt was all a test and a trap. You tried me in your arts, to see if I had the wits to master another Art altogether. You sent me to the magus — knowing — ” Gerbert choked into silence.
    Hatto’s voice was quiet, almost gentle. “I did. But I never bound you with compulsion. I left you free to choose, if you could perceive that there was a choice. I leave you free now. You may go back to Aurillac without constraint, and with my goodwill.”
    Gerbert shook his head. “I’m not free. I can’t choose that, not now. And you know it.”
    â€œNo,” Hatto said, “I do not know it. You thought that you came here to learn numbers. You have learned enough of them to find your way through the rest. Magic was no part of it, nor need it be. Unless you choose.”
    â€œI have chosen. As you knew I would.”
    â€œAs I hoped.”
    â€œWhy?” Gerbert demanded. “You’re no magus. Even I can see that. Why do you offer me up like a