After Westfall and the others had departed, Azzie stayed on awhile at the tavern. He wasn't sure what to do next. Azzie considered following Ylith and again trying his seductive wiles, but he realized it would not be a good move. He decided instead to travel on to the Continent, as he had originally intended. He was thinking of staging a play of his own. A play that would run counter to these morality plays with their insipid messages. An immorality play!
Chapter 3
The idea of staging an immorality play had seized and inflamed Azzie's imagination. He wanted to do great things, as he had in the past, first in the matter of Prince Charming and then again in the affair of Johann Faust. Now he wanted to strike again, to amaze the world, both spiritual and material.
He knew it was no small task; he knew he had some strenuous work ahead of him. But he also knew of the man who could help him create such a play: Pietro Aretino, one day to be eminent among Europe's Renaissance playwrights and poets. If Aretino could be convinced…
He made up his mind sometime after midnight. Yes, he would do it! Azzie walked through the town of York and out onto the fields. It was a splendid night, with a great spangling of stars shining from their fixed sphere. All good God-fearing folk had gone to bed hours ago. Seeing there was no one about, God-fearing or not, he stripped off his satin coat with the double row of buttons and opened his crimson waistcoat. He was splendidly muscled; supernatural creatures are able, by paying a modest fee, to keep their bodies in shape magically, utilizing the Hellish service that advertises "Sound body, evil mind."
Stripped, he unfastened the linen binder that pulled his batlike demon's wings flat to his body in order to conceal them during his journeys among mankind. How good it felt to stretch his wings again! He used the linen binder to tie up his clothing to his back, taking care that his change was securely placed. He had lost money this way before through careless stowage. And then, with three running steps, he was aloft.