Disclaimer: Vetinari is the invention and property of Terry Pratchett. So is the woman he loves (and the idea of their relationship) - I hope I've made it clear who she is! I'm not very good at mysteries...
He kissed the beautiful woman with the halo of fair curls as she faded. For a moment after the dream had gone he lay still, unwilling to open his eyes, tormenting his mind to recover every last detail. Her eyes, her hair, the soft, yielding lips beneath his...
That was what his life could have been. He could have had her forever. He wouldn't have been crying now.
The sadness, the mad misery when the dream faded was worse than never seeing it at all. He almost feared the pictures of her that would come to him when he slept.
He couldn't stand too much of the bitter sweetness in his sleep. His work was an excuse. Most Patricians had managed to sleep. He could have lived and worked.
But he had given her up and without her he could not live. Not a complete life. There could be no pleasure that did not involve her.
Love? He had loved her, and nobody else could he love. She had been a ray of hope in a life he had hated for nine years. She had been the only one, and she would - she could - never be replaced. Nobody else could bring him sunbeams.
Drink? He had drunk wine with her, and all wine without her was a pale imitation of the two glasses and his mad love that had filled the cup with rich pleasures.
Food? No fine food could make up for his memories of that breathtaking voice and those ravishing eyes, the slender hand lifting the glass that contained her sustenance to the full pink lips on the other side of the table. The food had been by no standards sumptuous, her servant usually cooked only for himself - but love had filled the plate with rainbow hues of flavour.
Sleep? Sleep was his one pleasure, for in sleep she would come to him and comfort him. But even that pleasure was mixed. Sweet was the pain it brought him, but still it was such dreadful, dreadful pain that he could hardly stand his waking moments. Once he had lived each day for the night it would bring, and sobbed all that day for the pain of each morning's fresh loss. He couldn't stand that any more.
And for what reason had he given up all this? Why had he ruined for himself all the pleasures of life? He was out of bed now, and as he seated himself fully dressed at his desk he looked at the piles of paperwork and smiled. No, she had already been ousted from her place as his only love.
And, except in his rare sleep, he could not regret that he had given her up for Ankh-Morpork.
A/N So who is she, then?