Kesley watched Miguel pace uneasily back and forth. The room he had
blundered into was evidently one of the Ducal offices; a broad desk at
the back was littered with a great many official-looking papers, and
on one wall hung a glossy shield bearing Miguel's coat of arms.
Suddenly Miguel turned. "Where are you from?" he asked. His voice was
deep, resonant, commanding.
"Iowa Province. I was a farmer."
"Oh? Then what might you be doing in my lands?"
Kesley saw that he had blundered. Farmers, normally, did not take
pleasure jaunts to South America. He tried to repair the damage. "I was
on a buying tour. I was down here for cattle, and grain, and--"
Miguel chuckled. "Enough, please. One does not have to be an Immortal
to see through your lies." He pulled out a chair and sprawled his big
form down. Smiling strangely, he said, "You can speak the truth. Why
are you here?"
"I--I--" Kesley's face reddened. He realized that he had no rational
answer to give. He was here only because van Alen had led him here--and
van Alen was dead or wounded now, far to the south.
Miguel sighed. "You assassins are all alike. At the moment of capture,
you lose the sacred fire." Swiftly he leaned over and undid Kesley's
bonds.
"There. You are free. Kill me, now. We're alone; this is your chance!"
Miguel slipped an ornamented stiletto from his sash and handed it to
Kesley. Opening his cloak, the Duke fumbled with buttons and pulled the
cloth aside, baring a broad, muscular chest covered with graying hair.
"Here! Plunge the dagger in--_now_!"
Kesley weighed the stiletto in his hand, balancing the haft on his
palm, fingering the weapon's keen point and well-honed blade. Miguel
waited patiently. One corner of the Duke's wide mouth was drawn up in
a cold smile; the other sagged almost uncontrollably into a drooping
sneer.
"Well?"
Kesley feinted with the stiletto and flicked it through the air past
Miguel's head and into the center of the arms-bearing shield on the
wall. The Duke, who had not so much as blinked, laughed heartily.
"A good man with a knife! A good man indeed." Serious again, he said,
"But you could have killed me. Why didn't you?"
"Kill an Immortal?" Kesley replied listlessly. "I'd sooner try to
harness a whirlwind. How could I possibly kill you?"
"By plunging the knife into my heart," Miguel said. "You obviously fail
to understand the true nature of our immortality."
"Which is?"
"Cell regeneration. Gradual rebuilding and replacement of decayed
cells. We remain as we are because the decays of age are counteracted
as rapidly as they occur. There are no organic defects to plague us.
This process, however, does not guard against a knife in the heart, or
a slit throat, or a bullet in the back."
"And yet you gave the knife to me. Why?"
"I knew you wouldn't use it," Miguel said. "You short-lived ones are so
terribly easy to understand. Only...."
The Duke's voice trailed off. "Only _what_?" Kesley prodded after a
moment.
"Only nothing," Miguel said. He rose. "Come upstairs with me, young
one, to my office. I am a slave to my duties ... more thoroughly
enslaved than the basest serf on my lands."
Miguel touched a panel in the wall and it slid back, revealing what
looked to Kesley like an adjoining room.
"My private elevator," Miguel explained. "Come."
The elevator rose silently. When it stopped, the door slid open and
Kesley found himself in an even vaster room, almost completely lined
with books on one wall from floor to ceiling. Another wall was bright
with paintings; on a third, strange lights flickered on a wide board,
and glowing above their multicolored glitter were eight rectangular
gray screens.
Seeming to forget Kesley, Miguel strode across the room and seated
himself in an imposing chair facing the screens. He covered the
flashing red light with his palm. The upper-most of the screens became
illuminated. Kesley gasped as the face of a man grew visible.
The man in the screen gesticulated humbly. "Your blessing, sire.
Mendoza of Quito reporting, Don Miguel."
"Speak, Mendoza." Miguel's tone was regally impatient. "It has not
rained here for sixteen days, sire," Mendoza said anxiously. "The
people are discontented. Crops are dying, and--"
"Enough." Miguel flipped a switch and a second screen came to life.
"Luis, take care of this fool from Quito, and explain to him that we
have no control over the weather. Then transfer all these other calls
to your own line. I'll be busy for the next fifteen minutes."
The screen went blank; the flickering lights died away.
"What is that thing?" Kesley asked.
"Closed-screen television. I use it to keep in contact with my
governors in the various provinces."
Miguel took a seat behind a desk; this one, like the other downstairs,
heaped high with papers. He lowered his great, bearlike head between
his hands and stared at Kesley for what must have been more than a
minute. Finally he said, "I offered you a chance to kill me. You
declined it."
"Perhaps if I got the chance again, I'd act differently," Kesley said.
"Perhaps. But the chance comes but once. I am not yet tired of
life ... I think." The Duke's eyes drooped wearily. They seemed to be
staring backward into yesterday--and ahead at the burden of an endless
tomorrow. "Four hundred years is many years, though. Are you married,
young man?"