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?"