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