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.