"You weren't waiting up for me, were you?" Gerbert shrugged. "You know how little I sleep. I was contemplating my sins." "Sleep will do you more good… - Judith Tarr

Gerbert recognized quality in the plainness of the woman’s robe, and in the carving of a lintel, and in the hanging of a rug on a whitewashed wall. The only magic in it was the alchemy of taste.

So eager still! Do you never tire?
"Oh, yes, my Lord," said Gerbert. "But when I've struggled long and hard, and then at last I understand, I forget everything but that."

Now there was sophistry. A mage was a perilous beast, but a mage who was also a logician and a theologian was deadly enough to outface the devil himself.