The death of her father turned Muertana's feelings toward Gunseng from indifference to hatred. Sil, Reeve Perrin was again on the scene for the last act in the drama:
I never planned to return to Giedi, but Gunseng's surprising longevity gave me second thoughts. Everyone knew that Sarobella had united with Harkonnen in marriage to absorb and overthrow Gunseng. But they underestimated him, and when he succeeded in avoiding chaumurky and poison needles in his clothes, I decided the relative stability of his reign was a good opportunity to visit.
I will never know why Gunseng didn't execute Muertana out of hand following the overthrow of Sarobella. Perhaps he thought her powerless, retained a mistaken fondness for the mother of his sons, merely pitied her, or may simply have grown weary of the deadly intrigue. Who knows? But he had become depressed, and as his judgment eroded, his command began to falter.
You had then but to visit a Harko watering-place to hear of Araskin's exploits in the arena, private affairs with drugged slaves pushed into combat against the crippled giant while Muertana watched with relish. The tale went that Gunseng arranged these mortal minuets to satisfy the killer frustration of Muertana and the martial fantasies of Araskin. He would gut his foes in fury; she would be the first to cry for a head. I saw one of these "games" myself, and suspected that House Harkonnen was on the drop to a new nadir, one not long in coming.
Gunseng had arranged a formal dinner to celebrate the spoils from Sarobella, with all the minor aristocrats in attendance. In his degeneracy, he permitted Muertana to sit at one end of the table, but given the occasion it must have been the cruelest humiliation. Vladimir and Araskin were seated on his right and left.
I was present as poet en passage, to warm up the evening with verse for a solo by Vladimir, but it never happened. Gunseng toasted the future prosperity of his house, whereupon they all emptied their goblets. Then Araskin, already drunk and prompted perhaps by a signal from his mother, turned and brought his cup down on his father's head with all his might. Gunseng fell dead and Araskin threw himself on his brother, squeezing Vladimir's throat with those huge hands.
Only two persons remained calm, Muertana and Chardin Klees. Moving resignedly to the struggling figures, Klees touched a needle to Araskin's neck, killing him instantly. Then he started to turn to the Baroness when Vladimir cried "Hold!" The boy was breathing heavily, staring at his father. I could see that the fingers on his throat and the murder of Gunseng had worked their transformation. The new Baron was the picture of his grandfather Granuk.
"Don't kill her," he said.
"It should have been done before," Klees responded. (Muertana must have been mad by then; she actually chuckled.)
"No," said Vladimir, "I will take care of — mother. You guards, see to the bodies, now!"
Muertana laughed as they took her away, and that was the end of the banquet. One heard the wildest rumors about the subsequent events; I give here guesses and gossip.
After the immediate cremation of the two bodies, according to the Sardaukar ritual, Vladimir visited his mother in her chambers. Some say the Black Widow actually offered herself to her son. Vladimir was driven to a frenzy. During those long hours before dawn, who knows how he dealt with his mother. One says he succumbed; another says he tortured her; another thinks he did both. Whatever the truth, Muertana was found strangled in her bed the next morning. Now Vladimir had his chance to be either Granuk or Gunseng.
S.T.
Further references: HARKONNEN, VLADIMIR; RABBAN, GLOSSU; Sil, Reeve Perrin, Notes of a Will-o-the-Wisp, tr. T. H. Erussus (Fides: Manx).
HARKONNEN, HOUSE OF
Successively Colonel Bashars of the Sardaukar, Dukes of Eluzai, Emperors of the known universe, Counts of Hirtius, Lords Tupelo, Dukes Chamizai, Barons Saugus, Siridar-Counts of Touro, Barons Plynimon, and Siridar-Barons of Arrakis; distaff titles include Lords Rabban, Counts of Lankiveil, Barons Rautha, Lords Feyd, and Lords Montilla. The Harkonnens claim descent from Count Palaigo Corrino, grandfather of Sheuset I, founder and first ruler of the empire; according to their traditions, Sheuset's father, Count Costin, was a demibrother of Harkonnen Obeshev, the first Harkonnen mentioned in historical records; this claim has not been proved, however. Some historians claim that Obeshev was actually the son of a trashman who seduced one of Costin's daughters or sisters. The Harkonnens further claim common ancestry with the Corrinos in the Palaiologoi, the last ruling house of the Byzantine Empire, via Constantine XI's younger brother, Thomas Palaiologos. Finally, through Harkonnen Obeshev's wife, Lisia Pozzo di Borgo, this family claims descent from Kiril' Romanov, cousin to Nikolai II, Russia's last tsar, and heir to his empty throne.
As with many of the Great Houses, the Harkonnens' fortunes rose and fell many times over the centuries. Obeshev's son, Abulurd Harkonnen, a Colonel Bashar in the Sardaukar, was given command over one of the five fleets that constituted Sheuset I's main force at the key Battle of Corrin in 88 B.G. When it appeared that the battle was going against Sheuset, Harkonnen withdrew his fleet to a rearguard position, awaiting the outcome; only the timely intervention of Demetrios Atreides provided the impetus that won the day for Sheuset, resulting in the establishment of the empire. Because of Harkonnen's close relationship with the now-royal family, he was spared execution; however, he and his family were banished from the Imperium indefinitely. Abulurd Harkonnen blamed Demetrios Atreides for his disgrace, and vowed vengeance for himself and for his house.
Abulurd's demibrother, Ivan Harkonnen, was spared the family's disgrace through his selfless act of courage in giving his life to save those he commanded; his son, Nikolai Harkonnen, was created Duke of Eluzai in 82 B.G., and awarded several lucrative wine monopolies. Nikolai's descendant, Saudir Harkonnen, usurped the throne from the Regent Henli al-Qair in 388, becoming Saudir III; he was himself overthrown and murdered in a palace revolt by the Sardaukar, who rescued the blinded ex-emperor, Wallach I, from his prison cell, and restored him to his former position. Saudir's family was butchered by the rampaging guards, who raped and then strangled his widow, battered three of his children against the walls of his bedroom, and even killed his pet birds. One son, Duke Saudir II, escaped the carnage. Saudir had made Abulurd's descendant Yevgeny Harkonnen the Count of Hirtius, returning him to civilized space, and giving him a small estate on the planet Powys, in the Mandalay Sector. Yevgeny now returned the favor by sheltering Saudir II from questing troops, and raising him as one of his own sons. The young Saudir gained his revenge in 445, when he organized a revolt of the provincial Sardaukar, and took the throne in a brief battle that deposed and exiled Sheuset II. Saudir IV, as he was now called, ruled six brief years before succumbing to an infected monkey bite. He never married, and the Duchy of Eluzai became extinct at his death.
For centuries thereafter, the Harkonnens, while not officially disgraced, nonetheless filled the role of businessman and planetary squire, and stayed out of Imperial politics. Count Abulurd III was stripped of his title when he refused to support the Imperial aspirations of Regent Harmon II al-Qair in 601; he regained it two years later when Audrii I seized the throne, but was disgraced a second time when his son, Iosif Harkonnen, was discovered in bed with the emperor's son. The Harkonnens were demoted to their lesser title of Lords Tupelo, and were required to pay a large fine into the Imperial treasury.
Lord Aleksandr IV Harkonnen (reigned 966-1029) supported the ambitions of his demicousin, Feyd al-Feyd, engineering his election to the throne in 1027; Feyd returned the favor by having Aleksandr executed in 1029, and placing his small son, Count Vladimir II, in a foster home, Vladimir was raised without the knowledge of his father's background; when Feyd II was murdered by his officers in 1099, the new emperor, Josif I of the Alman Corrino line, issued an edict restoring all lost titles, lands, and properties to their original owners before the accession of Feyd I; where families no longer existed, the land reverted to the crown, and new grants of nobility and estates were issued to Josif's supporters. Vladimir Harkonnen became Duke o
f Chamizai.
About this time the Harkonnens were first proposed for membership among the Great Houses; the Harkonnen family had always been enterprising, specializing in the trading of goods for profit, the renting of mercenaries, and the pursuit of exotic luxuries for the wealth. To translate these assets into power required political acceptance of their family as one of the elite. Vladimir Harkonnen persuaded Count Ernst von Wikkheiser to sponsor a resolution in the Landsraad proposing the Harkonnens as a voting house; the motion failed by a small number of votes when the Atreides spoke against it.
At the death of Emperor Henoor in 1604 without immediate heirs, Duke Abulurd VI attempted to seize power himself, bribing the Commander of the Sardaukar, Col. Bashar Nadab Nadar, to institute a popular "draft" of Harkonnen over the other possible and potential successors among the Corrino Cousines. Abulurd was able to purchase much support from the poorer Great Houses, but so were several of the other contenders, and civil war seemed certain, with a possible disintegration of the empire, until Count Philippos Atreides persuaded a special session of the Landsraad that time was needed to sort out the various contentions of the heirs, and that a Regency controlled by the Landsraad would be the appropriate vehicle with which to settle the opposing claims. Abulurd carried his objections from the assembly to his awaiting fleet, and was on the verge of attacking the Landsraad meeting site when the Atreides challenged him to kanly. Abulurd accepted the challenge, and the match was held before the assembled Houses, with the Imperium at stake. Harkonnen was defeated after a match lasting more than an hour, the Landsraad then brought a bill of attainder forward while Abulurd's body lay bleeding on the dais; the Harkonnens were stripped of their titles and possessions, and exiled once again. Many of the family were killed by kanly challenges from the other Great Houses; all of Abulurd's children were killed in this way before they could flee, as well as many of his cousins, brothers, and cousines; one grandson, Iraklii Harkonnen, sold several of his precious jewels before they could be confiscated, used the money to buy passage on a ship to the rim planets, and there purchased a disguise and new name, setting himself up in business as a weapons salesman to frontier worlds.
"Rak Kharn," as he called himself, soon found that he could sell more weapons where weapons were being actively used; instead of advertising, as other businessmen might have done, he used some of his capital to foment civil disobedience, revolts, small-scale civil wars, political unrest, vendettas, and religious pogroms. The results were astonishing; Iraklii discovered that he could increase his profits by selling an advanced weapon to one faction, peddling information about that weapon to the other faction's spies, and then disposing of the weapon in turn to the first group's enemies. By such enterprise he became a rich man, and determined to restore his family's honor. Carrying his knack for creating chaos to the interplanetary level, he stimulated so much unrest that Regent Maria Mustami was forced to resign her position in 1680; her successor, Damiano Fulgencio, followed suit within two weeks, leaving the Landsraad in the unhappy position of having a Regency with no Regent. During the ensuing interregnum, the only government that existed on an Imperium-wide basis was a loosely-organized committee of Great Houses.
Iraklii rooted out a distant Corrino heir, Prince Corrin bin Alman bin Henoor, and promoted the restoration of the Corrinos as a solution to the Imperium's ills. This lone hope in the midst of chaos seemed a divine solution to the harried ranks of the Great Houses, and they elected the pretender emperor as Corrin IV in 1701. One of Corrin's first acts was to introduce the Harkonnen name to the ranks of the Great Houses, naming Iraklii Baron Saugus, in the Colton Sector, and pressing the Landsraad to confirm his actions, which they did in 1717.
Noteworthy Harkonnens during the ensuing centuries and millennia include:
Baron Vasilii IV, who claimed to have received a vision from God in the year 1988, and founded the New Islambahai Church, sometimes called the Last Church of Christ;
Siridar-Count Konstantin II, who renounced his title in 2444, gave up all of his possessions, and became a hermit on the desert planet of Arrakis. He returned to his home a year later, claiming to have been deluded when he signed his abdication, and suing for restoration of his lands and tides when his son, Siridar-Count Pavel VIII, refused to return them. The Landsraad, as court of last resort, finally decided to split the estates, and made both of them joint Siridar-Counts, the only such instance in Imperial History;
Siridar-Count Aleksei Harkonnen, murdered by his wife in 2829 when be left her for one of his male slaves;
Baron Pimen Harkonnen-Rabban, who used his fortune to stage massive recreations of ancient gladiatorial contests in which men and beasts fought each other to the death. He was finally thrown into the ring by his wife and son when he threatened to disinherit them, and was killed by one of the gladiators before his guards could intervene;
Siridar-Count Petr III, who was haunted by the fear of his own death, and who used artificial drugs and prohibited mechanical means to keep his withered body alive for four hundred years, finally dying during an orgy when his frail flailing accidentally dislodged one of his life-support tubes;
Baron Stepan Harkonnen-Montilla, who, when he failed to volunteer to represent the emperor in kanly, was ordered to be the target in the contest;
Lady Irina Harkonnen-Lankiveil, one of the few scientists in the Harkonnen line, who discovered a means of making tobacco harmless;
Lord Andrei Harkonnen, heir to the County of Harkonnen Touro, a renowned cheops player, writer of sonnets, lover, and raconteur, whose handsome good looks and genteel manner made him the darling of the Imperial social set, and a subject of jealousy by Emperor Destrym. Andrei's foul murder at the hands of Destrym's hired assassins created such an outcry from the Great Houses and the populace in general that Destrym was deposed and executed by the Landsraad, and the Third Protectorate set in place to keep the royal claimants off the throne;
Andrei's brother, Siridar-Count Dmitrii Harkonnen IV, and Dmitrii's son, Vsevelod II, and Vsevelod's son Sviatopolk, all were renowned for their furthering of charitable institutions and public good works, traits not characteristically those of the Harkonnens.
Baron Vladimir Harkonnen XIX, whose struggle with the Atreides is recounted so ably in Harq al-Ada's official chronicle of that period, was the 228th Head of the House of Harkonnen before his murder in 10193 by Alia Atreides, his granddaughter. Vladimir's successor, Feyd-Rautha II, reigned only a few minutes before his death in kanly by Emperor Paul I. The Harkonnen title then should have passed to Feyd-Rautha's elder brother, Count Glossu Rabban, but because Glossu's father, Abulurd, had renounced his rights to the Harkonnen title when assuming the County of Lankiveil, Emperor Paul I ruled that the title had passed to the Baron's daughter, Lady Jessica Atreides, and she having renounced the title also, had then passed to the next heir, himself, thus being subsumed into the throne. The Counts Harkonnen-Rabban, generally known only as Counts Rabban, continued to survive as a House Minor for several hundred years into Leto II's reign, but gradually lost its noble status, along with the other Houses Minor. No mention of the Rabban name appears in local records after the year 10884.
R.R.
Further references: HARKONNEN, GUNSENG; HARKONNEN. VLADIMIR; Rezhinaud Sagi, The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea: My Years with House Harkonnen, tr. Leewi Stiin (Giedi Prime: Trammel); Marya von Wikkheiser, House Harkonnen, tr. Arazrii Pezh, Studies in Atreidean History 76 (Paseo: Inst. of Galacto-Fremen Culture); the standard modern work is Klevanz D. Kiinar's Fear My Power, Respect My Name: Ten Thousand Years of Harkonnen (Giedi Prime: Trammel).
HARKONNEN, VLADIMIR
(10110-10193). Siridar-Baron of Giedi Prime during the reign of Shaddam IV. All current translations of the Rakis manuscripts agree on the pivotal role House Harkonnen inadvertently played in the ending of the Padishah imperial line and the accession of Duke Paul "Muad'Dib" Atreides to the Golden Lion Throne in 10193. Nor is there substantial dispute about the nature of the Siridar-Baron or of
the House from which he sprang. House Harkonnen — even in an era of deadly political maneuvering and ruthless exercise of power was noted for its overweening cynicism and cruelty, its hunger for power and profit, and its total subordination of means to ends.
Vladimir Harkonnen embodied the characteristics of his ancestry to a high degree: shrewd, cunning, a glutton in every sense, he carried a weight of approximately 180 kg at the time of his death, most of it borne by suspensor units placed about his person. He was, in addition, a voracious pederast, culling lithe bedmates from an inexhaustible supply of slaves. But power was his greatest appetite. In the last years of the Padishah Imperium, his driving ambition was to put a Harkonnen on the Throne. Had he succeeded it would have been an ironic triumph: House Harkonnen rising from the depths of ignominy to the apex of intergalactic rule.
Vladimir Harkonnen was the scion of a family with a history of ruthless self-aggrandizement. Ethical complacency may condemn its practices, but only with the caveat that the entire Imperium be condemned. The Padishah feudal structure was stable only insofar as there existed a balance of power among ambitiously antagonistic forces. Constant distrust and the willingness to resort to any means remained the price of security. House Harkonnen is best viewed as displaying the excesses of a political morality which did, after all, originate to a large degree on Salusa Secundus.
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