I simply must do something. Gaius Helen was here again all morning, lecturing me at first and then actually threatening me. I HATE that self-righteous bitch. And she says that Shaddam is wasting his seed on nobodies while I squander all my time and attention on Binnbec. That woman has neither humor nor soul. She sits each evening during the music and flyting, glaring at me from under her black hood.
I never did agree with the Sisterhood's directive and she knows it. She told me today that she's already made it impossible for me to delay any longer, but she wouldn't say any more. When she left I did two careful psychokinesthetic probes looking for poison, but there was nothing unusual except a dim aura mingling with my cells. Whatever that is, it seems to enhance rather than harm my chemistry. Maybe that's why my complexion has cleared.
But then, two months later, Anuril discovered the truth of the threats and the "aura."
Mohiam was here again this afternoon. I must seduce poor Shaddam alter all. It will be difficult after all these years of trust and friendship. She hates him, though, as much as she hates me — him for his "inattention to the Empire" and me for my lack of daughters. That aura that lives in me is a little gift from the Sisterhood, a residual poison that only kills upon withdrawal. We were told of such a thing on Gamont, and now I know why that was the one poison they didn't allow us to neutralize — they use it on us! I knew there was a good reason to hate Mohiam, but how I hate my own order.
Obviously this Bene Gesserit stratagem was effective, for the couple produced five daughters: Irulan, 10165; Chalice, 10168, Wensicia, 10170, Josifa, 10172, and Rugi, 10175.
Anuril's relationship with her daughters was never very close. She began Irulan's Bene Gesserit training almost from birth, as she was instructed to do by the Sisterhood, but the two showed little affection for each other. Irulan adored her father, was jealous of any time her mother spent with him, and so spent most of her time trying to turn Shaddam against his wife. While Anuril was merely cool toward Irulan, she was actually repelled by Wensicia. Anuril's journals show that she despaired of the child's aggressive, hostile, and even malicious behavior. When Anuril found the four-year-old Wensicia using a prism to burn holes in the fur of the family lap-cat, Anuril renounced her completely. Apparently the only daughter Anuril loved was Chalice, a sweet child with a voice as golden as her hair.
Anuril's days were spent with her music, her books, and her gardening, while her nights were spent performing the Sisterhood's duties. She produced several hundred poems, two folios of lusichord music, and thirty-eight journal volumes. But Anuril was frequently unhappy during the final ten years of her life. The constant pregnancies interrupted her work and disturbed her psyche.
I was not meant to be a womb only. My real children come not from my body but from my mind. The poems show my soul, but the songs which float from Binnbec are my real delights. They carry my spirit while these daughters, these vessels of blood and bone, are my duty, meaning no more to me than did those daily lessons I used to hand in so reluctantly.
Finally, when she learned that five daughters were not enough to satisfy the Sisterhood's demands, Anuril decided death was preferable to everlasting breeding. First she stopped ingesting any food or liquid in an attempt to avoid the poison, but she continued to find the aura present among her cells. She then deduced that the poison was a contact one and eliminated touching things intimate to her until she finally found the source. R.M. Mohiam had impregnated the wood and the strings of Anuril's beloved Binnbec, making the instrument of her joy also the instrument of her destruction.
In a commentary on her music, Harq al-Ada writes of his grandmother, "I wish I had known Anuril. Her portrait shows a slender, elegant, golden-haired woman whose large amber eyes glow in a heart-shaped face. But her songs introduced me to a fragile dryad dancing through a world far lovelier than any I have ever known. May she and Binnbec be given a corner of Eternity in which to play their melodies."
G.W.E.
Further references: Princess Irulan Atreides-Corrino, In My Father's House, tr. Rebeth Vreeb, Arrakis Studies 4 (Kaitain: Linthrin UP); Harq al-Ada, Houses and Homes, L.C. Temporary Series 99 (contains excerpts from Anuril's diaries).
CORRINO, FARAD'N
(10200-10419; also known as Harq al-Ada). Born Farad'n Fenring to the Princess Wensicia (Corrino) and her consort, Count Dalak Fenring, Farad'n was the only grandchild of deposed Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV. After the death of her husband in 10208 the Princess replaced her son's surname with that of her late father, giving as reason her desire that the Corrino line, however reduced in fortune, be preserved. Farad'n Corrino was, in later years, Leto II's chief scribe and was known thus as Harq al-Ada; all of the completed works of history and analysis attributed to Harq al-Ada are by Corrino. As explained in Corrino's unfinished autobiography, Notes to My Life, his court name, meaning "Breaking of the Habit" in Fremen, was given to him by Leto, as a reminder to them both of the differences between past empires and that which Leto wished to establish.
Farad'n's childhood on Salusa Secundus was isolated and lonely. His father left his mother when Farad'n was only two years old, having never married her. When the boy was three, his devoted grandfather Shaddam IV died. A year later Dalak Fenring returned to Salusa Secundus only to claim his daughter Jeunne (Farad'n's sister) and take her to live with him on Giedi Prime. Thus, Farad'n was raised by his mother and his tutors, never knowing the company of others his own age. Farad'n recorded his feelings about his early years in a particularly poignant passage in Notes:
I must have been an intolerably solemn child, always with my nose in a book or my body working on self-defense exercises. Mother desired my company only at the midday meal (lunch for me and breakfast for her!). How I used to dread those hours — she'd stretch out on her lounge chair and question me about my lessons, always reminding me about my duties as the future emperor. She was so hungry for power that she almost convinced me of its growth, but most of the time I just wanted to get out of that room and away from her eyes. It wasn't until I knew Ghanima that I learned to relax, and even at that, I think we suited each other because neither of us had ever really been children.
Perhaps it was because of his deprived childhood that Farad'n later spent so much time with his own children.
It was undeniably his mother's tutelage which shaped Farad'n's earliest attitudes toward his own House, as well as toward House Atreides. A bitter, vengeful woman, Wensicia told her son from his earliest years that he had been destined to become emperor, and that the usurping Atreides had denied him his rightful place. She was aided in this by members of her father's Imperial Sardaukar, also exiled to the former prison planet, who had felt the Corrino defeat as keenly as most of the Family's members.
Their combined influence, however, did not achieve the results any of the participants expected. Rather than igniting in the boy a rage against the Atreides, the constant haranguing about their successful rebellion set the curiosity of Farad'n — a distinguished scholar from an early age — ablaze regarding House Atreides, and particularly regarding the emperor who had replaced his grandfather.
That he studied the history of his own House with only a fraction of the interest he showed in their enemy would have alerted a guardian of sensitivity. But Wensicia had always been the least astute of the Corrino daughters — which accounted for the Bene Gesserit's pointed lack of interest in her — and she suspected nothing, even when Farad'n began to exhibit highly un-Corrino-like attributes.
The Prince had taken his family's exhortions to heart, but in his own way. He had studied the Atreides code, their history, every record and snippet of information his aunt Irulan documented in her histories, contrasted their results with those obtained by his own House, and made what seemed to be his only logical decision: to emulate the traits which had given the Atreides a clear-cut superiority over the House they had defeated.
By his seventeenth year, when the Lady Alia was in her eighth year as regent for the Atreides twins,
Leto and Ghanima, Farad'n had already patterned himself as closely as possible after the man who had wrested the Imperium from Shaddam IV. He conducted himself with his subordinates in the manner of Paul Atreides; developed an Atreides-style battle language with which he commanded his Sardaukar; even acquired many of the better-known mannerisms of the emperor and of his father, Duke Leto. Every avenue of training which his model had used, Farad'n used also — with one, much regretted exception.
The Corrino youth lacked a teacher of the caliber of the Lady Jessica; Wensicia, despite her royal upbringing and early exposure to members of the B.G. Sisterhood, could not even be offered as a comparison, and her son, better than any other, knew it. When he was presented a chance to remedy his lack in 10218, by Duncan Idaho's delivery of Jessica herself to House Corrino, he accepted at once.
It was with Farad'n's acquisition of — in his own words — a "renegade Bene Gesserit of (his) own" that the events were put into motion which determined the young man's quite unexpected destiny. As condition to her declaring herself a Bene Gesserit plenipotentiary responsible for educating Farad'n, Jessica demanded he denounce and banish Wensicia, giving as cause her machinations in the "death" of the young Leto II; her new pupil accepted the solution to his own dilemma concerning his mother with a most unfilial haste. By this action, he removed himself forever from any further Corrino influence.
What happened over the course of the months Farad'n spent in training with the Lady Jessica is simply enough stated: he threw himself passionately into her teachings, eventually becoming one of a very rare breed, a male Bene Gesserit.
Jessica's motivations for instructing Farad'n have sparked considerable controversy. The Lady had trained her own son and daughter without making converts of them; as an untrusted member of the Sisterhood, she might be expected to be in no more hurry to add to their ranks by initiating the heir to House Corrino. A few cynical scholars — most notably, Bram of Talos — have suggested that this act on Jessica's part was no more than a taking of revenge, that she believed the best way to avenge her grandson was to force Wensicia's banishment and subvert Farad'n. While this "eye for an eye" rationale may well have played a part in determining Jessica's decision, it is blatant disregard for her well-documented subtle intellect to imply that there was no other reason.
By introducing Farad'n to the Sisterhood, Jessica first ensured his loyalty to her, as teacher and mentor, beyond that which might normally occur. While this devotion could not be trusted never to give way — as witness Jessica's turning from her own mentor, the Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam — it could be depended upon for a good deal. The advantages to Jessica of having the young man firmly on her own side were manyfold: chief among them, however, were two.
First, she could be assured that he would preserve her life, rather than allowing her to be murdered by his Sardaukar when her usefulness was ended, as several of his officers suggested during Jessica's tenure on Salusa Secundus. Second, she would have an ally at her side in her battle against her daughter, Alia. With Farad'n's help, she stood a far better chance of saving Arrakis and, on a more personal level, Ghanima (her supposedly only surviving grandchild). Both of these expectations were fulfilled. Upon his arrival on Arrakis with Jessica, Farad'n permitted Alia to believe that she had drawn him into her trap, making her less wary, more willing to admit the boy and her mother into her presence, and eager to summon Ghanima to meet them. This set the stage for Leto II's confrontation with his aunt.
Farad'n, having assisted in setting up the encounter, could do little to help with it. Following Alia's plunge from her Temple aerie, however, the accounts tell of the young Corrino performing a function for his teacher no one else would attempt: It was Farad'n who comforted the Lady Jessica as she wept for her children.
In 10219, with the ascension of Leto II, Farad'n — now Harq al-Ada — was appointed Royal Scribe, responsible for maintaining records and histories for the Imperium. It was his official role, and one in which the scholarly Harq al-Ada excelled. His unofficial role, the one Leto II more urgently demanded of him, was that of mate to Ghanima, the emperor's sister. All the accounts in the memoirs and in the Book of Ghanima detail a loving relationship with Ghanima, first as friends then as lovers and parents, and finally as colleagues in their literary work. While Ghanima was maturing physically, Farad'n acted as her tutor and as her companion, beginning the histories and translations they would continue to write throughout their life together. Though the overt motivation for their ten children came from Leto's breeding program, Farad'n and Ghanima enjoyed raising their large family. Apparently Leto wanted his new line to unite the Corrino and Fenring traits with Ghanima's Atreides-Harkonnen/Liet-Kynes heritage. Farad'n was delighted with his children, particularly with his eldest son Trebor and his daughter Jeunne who had inherited her grandmother Anuril's musical talent.
Prepared by Lady Jessica's, instruction, Harq al-Ada accepted both his functions with an impressive dignity. His prowess as an historian is illustrated, many times over, by the writings he left behind: it would be possible to completely outfit a library with the works of Harq al-Ada. Many of his books — most notably, Testament of Arrakis and The Story of Liet-Kynes1 — applauded as seminal works dealing with the planet whose destiny so closely intertwined with that of humanity at large. These, combined with his other words, would have been enough to give him a well-earned reputation as an author; curiously, however, it was for writings not his own that Harq al-Ada acquired a reputation more exalted still.
The first two centuries of Leto II's reign were marked by an upsurge in all the arts, but most particularly in the art of the stage. (It has been suggested, and probably with truth, that the climate of Imperial encouragement was due in part to the Royal Scribe, who had been patron to several artists and musicians even before his move to Arrakis). One figure especially stands out even amid so much excellence: Harq al-Harba, whose match in historical playwriting has yet to be found. His first play, The Sandrider, was produced in Arrakeen in 10280. It dealt, as did the author's later works, with the history of Arrakis, and brought to a much larger audience the kind of information provided scholars and academically inclined readers by the writings of Harq al-Ada.
Many prominent historians in the centuries between this time and our own have suggested that this overlap was not coincidental. A quote from The Prince/The Playwright, by Cybele Harik, best explains their line of thought.
It was a favorite axiom of Harq al-Ada's that the medicine of knowledge, in order to be effective, had often to be disguised. It seems safe to assume, then, that he was sufficiently astute to realize that a dramatic treatment of his histories would better reach the masses of Imperial citizens than the strict tonic represented by his books.
There are other clues pointing to the al-Ada/al-Harba identities being the same, of course — the playwright's refusal ever to appear in public, the convenient fitting-in of his own lifespan to that of the historian, the nonavailability of even the most basic information concerning the dramatist's life — but they serve chiefly as confirmation of that one assumption.
Harq al-Ada was raised as a prince, trained as a Bene Gesserit, shaped as a valuable tool. It should be obvious that such a person would recognize instantly a means so favorable to. achieving his chosen ends.2
This theory, which occasionally waned in popularity but never completely disappeared, may finally have been discredited by recently translated fragments from the Rakis Hoard (see entry THE AL-HARBA QUESTION).
Both in his Notes and in other Atreides materials, some evidence suggests that Farad'n might have had traces of prescience. For example, Farad'n comments on his one meeting with the Prophet, Paul Atreides:
I shall always remember that blind old man who seemed to see into my soul. I had never told anyone the details of my dreams before, and they had frightened me so I scarcely allowed myself to remember them. I wish that I had been more open to him, more sympathetic.
Now, living with two beings w
ho so frequently communicate with the "otherworlds" of past and future, I am less frightened by my dreams which still come to me. But I can't really accept those pictures that I see at night as having too much significance. I am a historian — the recorder of verifiable reality, not a mystic. But the images of sandworms and water haunt me, the images of a lovely woman named Noree and the sparkling crystals of the disintegrating world. Some mornings I awaken with such strong feelings of foreboding and sadness — what will become of my friend in his evergrowing body of strangeness.3
Though Farad'n was never obsessed with youth, as were his mother and aunt, he was reluctantly persuaded by Ghanima and Leto to use Bene Gesserit rejuvenation techniques so that he might "keep them company," as Leto put it, as long as possible:
I really feel too tired to go on much longer. Ghanima is so dear to me, I hate to leave her — and there will always be "just one more thing" to write. But I've lived so long and seen so many changes that I'm not sure I can be an accurate historian much longer. I try to observe impartially and to record objectively, but the echoes of all those yesterdays begin to cloud my perspective.
Only now can I begin to understand what Leto and Ghanima have lived with — the constant reiteration of those few parts we feel compelled to play. And the voices in my memory are soft and familiar, while the voices that they live with bring the strength of separate personalities. How awful it must be for them to carry all of human history within their minds, alive and clamoring for attention.4
Eventually Farad'n gave up his struggle, and the voice of Ghanima ends his shigawire memoir:
Goodbye my love. I will be without my daily anchor now. The oneness that I know with Leto is the two halves of a single being, but the oneness that I have known with you is different. With you I could find the love of goodness; in you I have been able to see outside myself and through you find truth and joy and fulfillment. You are my love.5
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