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A thousand years ago, in the Scottish Highlands, I was faced with a situation similar to the one that now confronts me At the time I had a royal lover, the Thane of Welson, my Harold We lived in a moderate-size castle on the northwestern coast of Scotland, where the biting winter winds blew off the foaid h to h Hawaii had yet to be discovered I liked Harold More than any other mortal I had met, he reminded me of Cleo, my old Greek friend They had a similar sense of humor and they were both leches I like horny men; I feel they are true to their inner natures

Harold was not a doctor, however, like Cleo, but an artist, and a great one at that He painted me in a nus now hangs in the Louvre in Paris, and is attributed to an artist who never even existed Once I visited thea copy of the work Coest tia little closer he even acted kind of scared He wanted to say so I just sht my likeness perfectly

At that tiure in the area, a certain Lord Tensley, who had a reat object of his desire, which just happened to bein his power to woo es and jewels-the usual Middle Ages fluff But I will take a sense of humor over power and h I have been known to bite a few necks in ht of myself as one who enjoys pain at another&039;s expense One story had it that Lord Tensley had beheaded his first hen she refused to shtly handicapped female firstborn All of Lord Tensley&039;s subsequent lovers had stiff necks fro their backs constantly

While I ith Harold, I was going through one of ths to keep my true identity secret, and it wasn&039;t as if I ro the neck of every MacFarland and Scottie Boy alked by in the dark But during that ti with people, I used the power of et what I wanted Naturally, after a ti a witch This did not bother Harold, as it had not bothered Cleo before hiressive thinkers But unlike Cleo, Harold actually knew that I was a vampire, and that I often drank huirlfriend When he painted me, I often had blood on my face Harold occasionally asked row old and die, but be knew of Krishna and the vow I&039;d made to him and so he didn&039;t press me Once Harold painted a picture of Krishna for me from my descrip?tion, and that was a work I treasured above all others, until it was destroyed in England in a Ger World War II

Because I had shunned Lord Tensley, and had developed the reputation of being a witch, the good man of God felt it was his duty to have me tried and burned at the stake, a practice that was later to co the Inquisition In a sense Lord Tensley was a man ahead of his ti me in, and because Harold&039;s entire security force consisted of ent myself before they reached our castle and sent their heads back to Lord Tensley with a note attached: The answer is still no I thought that would scare him off, at least for a while, but Lord Tensley was more determined than I realized A week later he kidnappedthat unless I surrenderedLord Tensley&039;s heavily fortified castle would have been a difficult proposition, even for a creature such as I, and besides, I thought a little feigned cooperation would bring Harold back to me all the sooner I sent another note back: The answer is yes, but you have to coht Harold and twenty of his best knights Hearing thehters and I didn&039;t want theate that cold dark night with a bow and arrow in hand as the witch-squad rode up on their horses The nervous exhalations of the e glow of the flickering torches Lord Tensley carried Harold before hiht at my lover&039;s throat He called up to me to surrender or he would killabout Lord Tensley was that he didn&039;t underesti?htest Naturally, one would expect the ten heads I sent back to him to make hi Harold directly in front of hi in my direction made me think he honestly believed I was a witch

That was a problem Generally in the past, before the advent of modern weapons, I could extricate th An arrow or spear shot in my direction-I could just duck aside or catch it in midair There was never a chance soht, even when I didn&039;t have a sword It wasn&039;t until guns were developed that I had to move more careful?ly and usemoment I licked the tip of the arrow inmy best shot at Lord Tensley The chances were excellent that I would be able to kill hi Harold The prob?lem was I would not be able to stop the otherup my lover

"I will surrender," I called down "But first you hed He was an intensely hand?some man, but his face so a wolf What I mean is he was sly and proud at the saot his snout bloody, as long as it was at ly as a ht places He had broken his nose on three occasions, each ti was that each shattered cartilage actually ih and he could ht and what did the rest of it matter? I would do my best to save him, I knew, even at the risk of my own life Cowards I have always despised above all else

"You surrender first," Lord Tensley called back "And then ill let hio"

"I am all alone here," I said "A frail woet me?"

"We will not debate with you, witch," Lord Tensley replied And with that he stabbed his knife through Harold&039;s upper right arm, a serious injury to receive in those days without s Even in the cold wind, I could s, I had et to hi aside ate even as I peered , I had placed a fresh horse and supplies just beyond a nearby bluff If Harold could get to the animal, I kneould ride to a cave two miles distant that only the two of us knew about There he could hide until his girlfriend extraordinaire figured out a way to wipe out the enemy Harold had the ut as he was, he sive &039;e him alive at the saht to focus ate He continued to avoid o," I called, pitching iven the chance, that eye contact would nify my subtle influence tenfold

"Come out noitch, or I stab his other arm," Lord Tensley called back "Then your heathen lover will be doing no s of your filthy body"