"I'm amused by the fact that you're not afraid of me. Awed, yes, but not servile. How many times a day do you think I hear that hateful word 'Sire'? _Sire!_ Me, who has sired eight dead babes and nothing more." Kesley looked away, embarrassed. "Sire also means ruler," he pointed out in a muffled voice. "That, too," Miguel said. "I rule, and it is my life to rule. I have ruled four hundred years, and I will rule four thousand more--or four thousand thousand, or four million. But I can never stop ruling. It is a burden I can never put down. Who would fill the vacuum I would leave?" "There were rulers before the Twelve Dukes." "And they destroyed the world! Destroyed it--and in so doing, brought _us_ into being. No, stranger, my Dukedom I can never put down. But it wearies me to make always the petty decisions, to govern the lives of petty--" "Why are you telling me all this?" Kesley burst out. "Mere amusement," Miguel said evenly. "I enjoy talking to you. What is your name?" "Dale Kesley." "Dale Kesley," Miguel repeated. "A fine North American name, square-cut and undistinguished. I like it." The Duke gestured toward a communicator-tube on his desk. "Bring that to me." Shrugging, Kesley handed him the tube. Miguel switched it on. "Send Archbishop Santana here at once," he barked, and cut the channel. He glanced at Kesley. "The Archbishop will swear you to my service, Dale Kesley." "But I'm a vassal of Duke Winslow," Kesley protested. Miguel chuckled heartily. "A vassal of Duke Winslow," he mimicked. "Vassal, indeed. You turn down my offer? You throw Duke Winslow in my face?" "An oath is an oath, Don Miguel." "Oaths? Who are you to talk of oaths? You're nothing but a paid assassin--don't think I haven't overlooked that." Kesley started to protest, but saw there was nothing to be gained by arguing. Miguel would never believe him. "His Holiness Archbishop Santana," the wall-announcer said. The door slid open and the Archbishop entered. As the plump figure waddled into the room, Kesley grinned in recognition. The Archbishop was the fat man in velvet robes whom he had bowled over in his mad flight downstairs. 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."