Scowling, Kesley drew his robe tighter around his sweating body and remounted his horse. The mutant ghetto seemed like a nightmare world, shifting in and out of reality almost at random, blurring into dream and then focusing sharply on hideous actuality. Without looking back, he spurred his animal and rode hastily out of the valley. * * * * * Somehow, the long week passed, and somehow Kesley endured it. Each day brought him closer to the audience with Winslow, when he would be called upon to act as assassin. And he still had not a shred of plan. Kesley's imagination had throbbed in constant feverish play all week, picturing and re-picturing the scene. Winslow--what did he look like? Suave and bearded, with dark tired eyes like Miguel's? Thin, pallid? Bloated? It didn't matter. There was _a_ Winslow on the throne, faceless and personalityless, and surrounding him were blurred shadows of courtiers: a priest perhaps, a few generals in formal armor, men like that. Kesley saw himself kneeling in the Duke's long hall, rising to advance on nerveless legs to the throne-- Plunging a knife into the Ducal bosom. Firing an echoing pistol shot as he rose from obeisance. Leaping forward and throttling Winslow on the throne. Actually, he knew, it would not be that way. A Duke had an eternity to lose at an assassin's hands, and would be expected to surround himself with protection. No one, not even Miguel, would place himself at the mercy of anyone begging audience simply for the sake of "amusement." There were too many years to be lost. Yet Kesley's active mind continued to develop a multitude of alternative methods for the killing, and always the picture ended with the moment of death. He found himself unable to project the action past the actual assassination; the sequel escaped his mind completely. Seven days passed and, on the eighth, Kesley and Duke Winslow were to come face to face. On the morning of the final day, Kesley rose early. Sleep had been intermittent during the just-ended night, and he left his quarters wearily shortly after dawn. On foot, he wandered through the awakening city, in full regalia. By now it was generally known that ambassadors from Miguel's court had been in Chicago for the past week, and he drew uneasy stares from the curious early risers. He walked on, down one cobbled street after another, smelling the early morning smells of fresh air and the fresh food offered in the stalls. The bright sunlight was glinting off Winslow's palace, sending down showers of scattered light. _Winslow is awakening now_, Kesley thought. _For his last morning. After four centuries he's come to his final day._ Suddenly hungry, Kesley turned into a food shop that appeared a few feet away. "Good morning," the proprietor said unctuously. Kesley swung himself down into a booth without replying. After a moment, he looked up. "Coffee," he said. "Certainly, _señor_."