Part 4

Now the priest wore a simple black surplice and mitred hat and carried the crook symbolic of his office. He was a small, rotund man with dark olive skin and a thin, sharply-hooked nose that seemed highly misplaced in his otherwise plumply rounded countenance. He paused at the door, smiling benignly, and made the sign of the cross with two swift motions in the air.

"Come on in, Santana," Miguel ordered.

The priest approached Miguel and bowed deeply, then glanced at Kesley. Suspicion was evident on his smoothly-shaven face.

"This is Dale Kesley of North America," Miguel said.

"We have met," the priest said unctuously. "This young man knocked me down while fleeing from your guards, sire."

Kesley grinned imperceptibly, catching Miguel's faint, involuntary wince at the _sire_. "It was an accident, Father. I was fleeing hastily; I didn't see you."

"Time wastes," Miguel said. "Santana, swear this young man quickly into my service. I have work for him."

The priest began to raise his crook, but Kesley shook his head. "No, Don Miguel. I told you I'm a vassal of Duke Winslow."

Miguel smiled. "But Duke Winslow's oath is no longer binding upon his vassals, you know."

"I didn't know. When did this happen?"

"It hasn't, yet. But it will shortly--when Duke Winslow is assassinated."

"But--when--"

"Soon," Miguel said. His cold smile was painful to watch. "And your hand," the Immortal continued, "will be the one that strikes him down."

"You're crazy," Kesley said shortly.

Miguel paled, and Santana crossed himself rapidly several times.

"You don't talk like that to your Duke," the Archbishop said.

"_My_ Duke? But--"

Don Miguel regained his composure and put one hand on Kesley's shoulder. "I ask you to join me and perform this service. I am prepared to pay well for it."

"The price?"

"My daughter," Miguel said. "Kill Winslow, and she's yours."

"Your _daughter_? But I thought--"

"_Adopted_ daughter," Miguel said smoothly. "My ward. The girl is but twenty-two, and lovely. Kill Winslow, and she's yours."

Kesley felt perspiration dripping down his body. Kill Duke Winslow? Upset the balance of the Twelve Empires, break the fragile harmony on which the world depended? It was impossible!

But--

He realized suddenly that he was a totally free agent, detached and uninvolved. Van Alen had led him forth from Iowa Province, and van Alen was dead. He owed nothing to van Alen, nothing to Iowa.

He stood alone, unknown and unwanted in the world of the Twelve Empires, able to shape his own destinies. And Miguel was offering him a title, a home, an allegiance, at the cost of an assassination.

_Well, why not?_ he asked himself. _My hand is free. Why not strike down a Duke?_

He moistened his lips. "I'll consider it," he said. "But first--let me see the girl."

* * * * *

Alone, waiting for Miguel to return, Kesley tried to think.

Kill Winslow?

Kill a Duke--an Immortal?

The idea seemed incredible, almost obscene. It was like saying, "Snuff out a star," or, "Destroy a world." The Dukes were centers of their universes, and one did not kill them.

Yet--

Kesley's self-searching in the past few minutes had revealed one jarring fact: he did not have the qualms he had supposed he would have. Assassinating Winslow would not be star-snuffing; he knew he could do it as casually as van Alen had blasted the blue wolf, back in Iowa Province.

He knew he should be quaking at the thought of murdering his own Duke, but the necessary quaking refused to come.

_What's wrong with me?_ he asked himself desperately. _Why am I different?_

A man was supposed to feel loyalty to his Duke. Kesley did not. _Why?_

He had had a chance to kill Miguel. Perhaps that had all been illusion; perhaps he would have been struck down by an invisible guard the moment the knife's tip approached the Immortal's flesh. Perhaps not. He had drawn back, only because he had nothing to gain by killing the Duke.

And now he was asked to kill another. _Dale Kesley, Hired Assassin. We Kill Dukes._ He grinned mirthlessly.

The faint hum of the sliding panel sounded behind him. He turned.

"Have you reached any decision yet?" Miguel asked, stepping into the room.

"You know what I'm waiting to see," Kesley said.

"Of course."

Miguel beckoned to someone standing beyond the panel. "My daughter," he said to Kesley. "The Lady Narella."

No one appeared. Miguel scowled and reached through the open panel. He yanked--and The Lady Narella appeared.

"Oh," Kesley said.

Narella was quite a woman.

She stood with her hands on her hips, smoky, violet-hued eyes blazing in defiance of Kesley and even of Miguel. She was making it clear that she was no one's pawn, not to be bandied about.

Narella wore an ermine wrap, and a low-cut tunic that clung tightly to her high breasts and lean form. She was a tall girl with wide hips and shoulders. Dark hair fell loosely about her face; she wore the diamond-encrusted tiara of a Ducal Princess, and her full lips were bright with a fluorescing cosmetic of some sort. Here and there--on her forehead above the left eyebrow, on her right cheek, on the creamy flesh where the base of her throat swelled into rising breasts--she wore a scintillating dab of brightness, a dot of some chemical that glittered radiantly from its own inner light.

Kesley had never seen a royal woman before. Strangely, or not so strangely, he felt all the reverence for her that he had failed to feel in the presence of the Immortal alone. Had Miguel not been there, he probably would have knelt despite himself and begged to kiss the tip of her cloak.

"Is this the man, sire?" she asked. Her voice was a fit complement to her body, deep and warm, throbbing and throaty.

"It is," Miguel said. "Dale Kesley--the Lady Narella."

"Hello," she said coldly.

A muscle quivered in Kesley's cheek. He nodded curtly to the girl. "Hello."

She ignored him and turned to Miguel. "Is this the man to whom you're selling me, sire?"

Miguel grimaced. "You wound me, girl. I'll leave the two of you together to talk."

"No!" she said imperiously, but it was too late. Miguel, with an enigmatic smile, had bowed and stepped backward into the waiting elevator. The panel slid shut. The wall was once again unbroken.

Slowly, she turned to face Kesley. "I won't have any part of this! I don't belong to Miguel! He can't give me away like this--to a _commoner_!"

Kesley smiled. "Your nostrils flare very nicely when you're angry, milady."

She whirled and stalked across the room, where she stood, her back to him. Kesley grinned amiably. This display of temper was enjoyable. The girl had spirit. Kesley liked that.

"Miguel called you his _daughter_," he said loudly. "How come? That's impossible, of course."

"How do you know?" she snapped, turning to face him. Her dark eyes glittered angrily. "I'm Miguel's daughter. Who says I'm not?"

"Miguel. He told me you were adopted. He told me Immortals were sterile, that their children didn't survive. Whose daughter are you?"

"What is it to you?"

Kesley shrugged. "Curiosity, I guess. You're quite lovely, you know."

She said nothing.

"You're supposed to thank people when they compliment you, milady. It's hardly polite to--"

"Quiet!" She crossed the room and faced him across a desk. At close range her faint perfume reached Kesley's nostrils; it was a delightful odor. The violet of her eyes, he saw, was flecked lightly with gold. "Why has Miguel promised me to you?"

"He wants me to carry out a job--an assassination. You're the price."

"Blunt, aren't you?"

"Would you rather have me lie?"

"No," she said, after a moment's thought. She threw back her shoulders and glared defiantly at him. "Well, do I pass your inspection? Am I fit for you?"

Kesley made no answer. Instead, he circled deftly around the desk, drew her close, pulled her mouth up to his. He kissed her warmly without eliciting any response. She remained passive in his arms, as if she were a particularly lovely statue rather than a living woman.

He released her. "Are you through?" she asked acidly.

"You pass the test," he said. Then he shook his head tiredly. "No. This is insane. Narella, who are you?"

Apparently his sudden sincerity, after the romantic pretense of the minutes before, told upon her. "My father was a court singer in Chicago, court poet to Duke Winslow. I was raised at the court. Four years ago, my father disappeared. Then Duke Winslow gave me to Miguel as a wife, but Miguel didn't want any wives. He adopted me instead. I've lived here ever since, as his daughter. As for my father, I suppose he's dead. He was blind, and--"

"_Blind?_" Kesley snapped instantly out of his mood of weariness as if a bolt of electricity had seared through him. "Did you say your father was a blind court singer?"

"Yes," she said.

Words came from nowhere and rumbled in Kesley's mind, words spoken on an Iowa farm in the deep, booming voice of van Alen the Antarctican:

"_We have the treasure, now; we lack only the key to the box. Daveen the Singer, the blind man. The search for him continues._"

Slowly Kesley raised his head. He blinked a little as his eyes encountered the flashing glitter of the girl's jewelry; then he looked at her eyes and at the lips whose cosmetic fluorescence remained in neat array despite his kiss. "Your father's name--was it Daveen?"

"Yes," she said. "Yes! But how do you know?"

"I don't. It's a name I've heard mentioned, a name that has something to do with me. Only ... have you ever seen me before?"

"I think so," she said slowly. "But I don't remember it. Were you ever at the court of Duke Winslow?"

"Never. But I recall you from somewhere. I--"

Dizzily, he looked away as a burst of sudden pain flooded his mind. He shuddered and felt sick.

"What's the matter?" she asked anxiously.

"I--don't know."

"You look ill. You've gone completely pale." She put her arms around him as if to steady him, and her warmth sustained him through the moment of terror that had overtaken him. It was as if he had struck some particularly sensitive nerve, and the resonances were carrying agony through his body.

When it was over, he mopped the beads of cold sweat from his forehead. He looked up at her and saw that her glacial remoteness had been replaced by a sort of feminine warmth, almost a maternal solicitude.

"Would you like to find your father again?" he asked in a low voice.

She nodded.

"So would I. I don't know why, but I feel Daveen holds the key to the hidden areas of my life, the inconsistencies. I'd like to find him for myself. And for you."

"Would you?"

"First ask, _could you_? Your father may be dead, for all I know." He took her hand. "Narella--you don't want to stay here with Miguel?"

"No," she said.

"Good. Listen carefully. Does Miguel have big ears?"

She frowned. "I don't understand."

"Never mind. Come here."

She came close and he pulled her up against him. This time her lips rose willingly for the kiss, but he brushed her pale cheek instead and let his mouth graze lightly along her face until it reached the tip of her earlobe. "Does Miguel have this room wired for sound?" he whispered. "Can he hear what we say?"

She nodded almost imperceptibly. "Probably," she whispered back.

"That's what I thought. Stay close to me, then, and hear what I have to say. If he's watching he'll think we're making love."

"Go ahead," she said.

"I'm going to accept Miguel's commission and leave here to assassinate Duke Winslow, as ordered."

She gasped. "Assassinate--"

"That's the terms of our agreement," he said. "One Duke more or less doesn't matter to me. I'll go to Winslow's court and try to find out what happened to your father. Somehow I'll give Winslow what's due him. Then I'll return here and claim you as Miguel's agreed, and we'll go looking for your father together. If you're willing, give me a kiss."

She hesitated for just a moment, then lifted his face from her ear. Their eyes met. She was pale, he saw, and frightened; the aloof haughtiness of the court lady had been almost completely replaced by an appealing little-girl terror.

He looked past her to the brooding eyes of Don Miguel glowering down at him from the row of paintings on the wall. _After Winslow--Miguel_, he thought with sudden savagery. The unprovoked thought surprised him.

"Very well," she murmured. She touched her lips lightly to his, and then gave herself to him with a sort of desperate abandon that astonished Kesley.

After a moment or two, he slipped from her grasp and looked around the room, wondering if he'd find a concealed television camera or something similar. There was nothing. The battery of screens and lights on the far wall seemed dead, as they had been since Miguel had shut them off.

Finally he cupped his hands. "Miguel!"

The Duke reappeared almost instantly, followed closely by the chubby form of Archbishop Santana. The Archbishop once again performed the sign of the cross piously as he entered.

"Well?" Miguel asked.

"State your terms once again," said Kesley.

Miguel frowned. "The room is crowded."

"I know, sire. Witnesses may be in order."

"Very well," Miguel said wearily. "In return for services to be rendered, I do promise the hand of my ward, the Lady Narella, to Dale Kesley of my vassalage."

"When?"

"Upon his return from the successful completion of his endeavors in my behalf."

"Said endeavors being?" Kesley prodded mercilessly.

"The elimination of Duke Winslow of North America," Miguel said. "His death by any means whatsoever."

"All right," Kesley said. He glanced from Miguel to the Archbishop--who seemed somewhat pale beneath his olive skin--to Narella. "Now that terms have been stated, we can talk business. Miguel, what assurance do I have that I'll get the girl when I come back?"

"An Immortal is good to his word," the Duke said gruffly. "You have a witness in the person of the Archbishop."

"Surely you will not require the Duke to swear an oath?" Santana exclaimed in a shocked voice. "My presence will certify--as if certification were necessary--that--"

"Enough, padre," Kesley said. There was nothing to be won by forcing Miguel into an oath; he had already given his word as an Immortal, and if he would break that, it was reasonable to suspect that no other oath would bind him.

He looked at the girl again. _Daveen's daughter_, he thought. He wondered what tangled relationship of cause and effect had brought him to this place at this time, and where van Alen, who had set the whole chain of events in motion, was now.

In a month's time Kesley had been transformed from an ignorant Iowa farmer into a killer of Dukes and a wooer of noble ladies. It was a strange progress, but it was hopeless, Kesley thought, to try to account for the vagaries of fate.

"Will you accept and enter my vassalage?" Miguel asked.

Kesley met the Immortal's gaze squarely and this time, it seemed to him, it was those dark, four-hundred-year-old eyes that gave ground instead of his own.

"I accept," he said.

He forced himself to kneel and kiss the golden hem of Don Miguel's jeweled cloak.

V

The ducal capital of Chicago sprawled in a lazy ring on the banks of Lake Michigan, in Illinois Province. As Dale Kesley and his small retinue waited outside the city's walls before requesting admission, the thought occurred to him once again that the world's cities were similar. As he looked at Chicago, it seemed to him that he might never really have left Buenos Aires.

Duke Winslow's palace, visible high in the background overlooking the calm lake, might have been an exact replica of Don Miguel's, except that its flat walls were hewn from broad slabs of flesh-red feldspar instead of spun, as Miguel's were, from shimmering polyethylene. In the stagnant, late-August air, the sun's rays hit the palace walls weakly, giving them an oily glare that Kesley found displeasing. But still he preferred the natural blockiness of the stone to the consistent slickness of the plastic that formed the walls of Miguel's palace. Polyethylene walls were the products of controlled hard radiation and, controlled or no, Kesley, like all men, found the concept of radiation repugnant. It jarred against ingrained taboos.

His eye, becoming city-familiar now, began to detect other differences between Winslow's capital and Miguel's. The guards posted in Chicago's outer walls lacked the tense urgency of the small brown men who protected Buenos Aires; they stared outward with a sleepy complacency that seemed to characterize the entire city and possibly, Kesley admitted, the entire North American Empire. Here in the north, there was none of the crackling atmosphere of tension that seemed to prevail in Buenos Aires.

Kesley's horse, a firm-fleshed black thoroughbred of the Old Kind, furnished by Miguel and transported with finicking care from South America, pawed impatiently at the layer of fine ash that covered the ground outside the city, and snorted. Kesley steadied the animal with soothing pressures of his calves and thighs; the horse detected the signals and subsided.

"Shall we go in?" Kesley asked.

"Why not?" came the reply from his left. Kesley glanced over at the rider, Archbishop Santana. "We are here, and the time is proper," the priest said.

Kesley turned in the saddle to gesture at his six men. They rode behind at a respectful distance, six well-muscled members of Miguel's guard, resplendent in their imperial blue shorts and flashing yellow jackets. Kesley urged his horse forward; Santana, a surprisingly good horseman despite his unathletic physique, did the same, and the six guards followed. They advanced to the wall.

A toll-keeper waited there, a dried old man in Ducal uniform seated beside an immense tollbox ornamented with Duke Winslow's arms. Kesley reined in before him and drew out a jangling leather pouch.

The toll-keeper's lips moved silently as he counted the party. "Eight dollars," he said.

"_Por cierto._" Kesley leaned far to the right and handed the man the pouch. "Eight dollars of that is for toll, _amigo_."

Frowning, the old man undid the drawstrings, emptying the contents of the pouch into his wrinkled palm. Eight tiny golden dollars rolled out, followed by a massive imperial doubloon of Miguel's coinage. A faint blink was the only acknowledgement the toll-keeper showed; nodding curtly, he dropped the eight dollars in the till, pocketed the doubloon as if by divine right, and gestured casually within with a quick toss of his head.

As Kesley and his party proceeded through the heavy gate, Kesley grinned quietly to himself. He wished van Alen could have seen the strange metamorphosis of his one-time protege: here he was, clad in the lustrous velvet robes of a Knight of the Empire of South America, riding a full-blooded, spirited, Old-Kind horse instead of a swaybacked, scaly old mutant, and distributing largesse with the natural air of the high-born.

He entered the city proper at a slow canter, the Archbishop at his side, his men behind. The streets were crowded. Chicago, built on the very ashes of the Old City of that name, was the largest city of Duke Winslow's territories, home to some three hundred thousand souls. Kesley saw eyes brighten at the sight of his magnificent horse; men in the streets cleared back, giving way, as the South American party entered.

"We should find an inn first of all," the Archbishop advised. "Tomorrow, you and I will try to seek audience with the Duke."

Kesley shook his head. "We announce ourselves to the Duke at once; we tell him we'll have an audience tomorrow. None of this begging for an appointment."

Santana shrugged. "As you wish, _Señor Ramon_." The sudden, hard, sardonic inflection in the Archbishop's purring voice mocked the false title Miguel had bestowed on Kesley for the purpose of the journey.

Kesley rode silently on, brooding over his mission. He had agreed lightly enough, back in Buenos Aires, to the assassination of Winslow, but now that he actually was in Winslow's own capital, with the rosy bulk of the Ducal Palace towering ahead, he wondered how he could have acceded so casually to so dangerous and so terrible a mission.

The looming palace ahead was the nerve-center of a continent, and one man--_one man_--controlled the multitude of ganglia. The entire vast spread of North America, from the dismal radiation-roasted Eastern seaboard to the broad plains of the Middle-West farming country to the open, relatively unscathed lands of the far West, depended for its organization on Chicago and on Chicago's Duke.

For the first time, Kesley realized the immensity of the confusion that would result when he struck down Winslow. He had no motive for the crime, either; it would be a sheerly gratuitous act, performed as a gesture of disengagement and nothing more.

But what could Miguel's motive in upsetting the balance of the world possibly be? Surely, Kesley thought, the South American Duke knew what would happen once Winslow was removed. The taut framework of North American life would collapse inward on itself like a puffball that had discharged its dusty cloud of spores.

Who would profit? Miguel? Were assassins now drawing near the Ducal Palaces of Stockholm, of Johannesburg, of Canberra, readying themselves to rid the world of all Dukes but Miguel at one bold stroke? If so, why? Did Miguel want the crushing responsibility of the entire globe's governance strapped to his shoulders for all eternity?

It seemed unlikely. Kesley thought of the Immortal's deep, weary eyes, and of the moment of weakness when Miguel had let his heavy head sink between his hands. No, Miguel had some other motive.

Amusement, perhaps.

Kesley nodded. That was it: amusement. Having long since exhausted the pleasures of his power, having tasted everything human life had to offer, the timeless man was searching desperately for a relief from boredom.

For that reason he had bared his chest to Kesley's knife and, perhaps, he had not cared whether Kesley struck or not. For the same reason, he had chosen Kesley at random to remove Winslow, to upset the balance, to _change things_.

Kesley shuddered. What a nightmare an Immortal's life must be, he thought, once the first few centuries had passed.

* * * * *

Later, Kesley rode back from the palace with a little less lordliness than he had had going forth.

"That major-domo had nerve," he remarked mournfully, as the little band of South Americans trotted through the broad palace approaches toward the gate leading back into the city. "An appointment next week! Who does Winslow think he is? And what does he think of Miguel, if he treats his ambassadors this way?"

"Peace, son," the Archbishop said. "Be philosophical. Duke Winslow is a busy man and a proud one. I warned you this would happen."

"But we're _ambassadors_!"

"Exactly so. Had we been ragamuffins we would have had a better chance of an immediate audience." Santana shook his head. "You fail to see that Winslow is deliberately humbling us to stress his own superiority over Miguel."

"I hadn't thought of it that way," Kesley admitted. "Of course. He was just telling us to stand outside and wait around until he was ready to let us kiss the Ducal robe."

"Precisely. And our course now is simple. We find lodging, and we allow a week to pass. Then, Winslow will see us. And then, my friend, the time will come for you to carry out our Duke's command."

"I know."

Kesley felt himself perspiring heavily beneath his ambassadorial robes, and not entirely because of the humid air. He knew--and Santana as well, evidently--that he had no plan for slaying Winslow. He was counting on some random twitch of the Immortal's psychology to put the Duke in his power. But would Winslow, as had Miguel, bare his chest willingly to the blade?