When the Illerdan campaign was launched, Leto used his influence to order Kauznet taken alive, if possible, but Kauznet gathered a remnant of Kaastaarians around him, went into the hills, and waged a guerrilla war. Leto's first suspicion that Kauznet had survived came from the style of anti-Caladanian ballads emanating from the resistance. Without native support, the resistance was hopeless, and was soon rooted out. Leto never saw Kauznet alive.
For almost 5000 years, scholars have speculated on the identity of the L.A., who saw to it that Kauznet's artistry did not die with him. With the translation of the records in M Section of the Rakis Finds, we now know the answer — Leto Atreides.
The last Corrino Court Poet was Imelda Vizhyarad (10182-10239), who followed Shaddam IV into exile on Salusa Secundus. Her later work shows a growing obsession with inescapable destiny, most frequently in connection with Shaddam and his companion, Count Hasimir Fenring. In his youth, Fenring loved the sea: he was a fine amateur sailor (and a surpassingly skillful athlete in many pursuits), and was nicknamed "Windmaster." The Vizhyarad poem that follows3 takes its name from Fenring and pictures him in the later years after the death of Shaddam. He withdrew into himself increasingly during those years, spending day after day on the beach, sheltered from the sun beneath the crumbling hull of his old racing boat.
WINDMASTER
This dweller by the sea-walls sheer.
Dreaming beneath his rotting shell,
Ponders a prophecy of fear.
He dreams a great loss, a long year
Of distant fields where heroes fell,
This dweller by the sea-walls sheer..
He dreams of one* who sweeps a sere
World, whose desert sight and demon spell
Ponders a prophecy of fear.
He dreams a child who carves a peer†
Hears mentat toll the nephew's knell‡
This dweller by the sea-walls sheer.
He dreams shadow-heirs, never near,**
While his mother, bearing magic hell,††
Ponders a prophecy of fear.
He dreams the star he marked to steer
His ship now steers his life as well;
This dweller by the sea-walls sheer
Ponders a prophecy of fear.
*Paul Atreides.
†The death of Baron Harkonnen at the hands of the child Alia.
‡Thufir Hawat, according to popular tradition a traitor to the Atreides, was supposed to have warned Feyd-Rautha not to challenge Paul. By incorporating this legend, Vizhyarad shows that she was not present at that climactic scene, since we now know that Hawat killed himself shortly before the challenge was issued.
**Fenring was impotent, incapable of begetting heirs.
††This line is the most obscure in all of Vizhyarad's work. It has been suggested that Fenring's mother was the R.M. Gaius Helen Mohiam, and if this conjecture is correct, then the "magic hell" must refer to the neural-stimulating box she carried for the gom jabbar. In any case, Fenring would have had personal experience with the test of the gom jabbar.
The premier achievements of Galach poetry from 10000 to 10200 were lyrical, and as we have seen, often marked by a note of warning. Obviously, poetry did not cease to be written in Galach when the Atreides rose to power, despite the changes in taste of form and language that the ascension produced. As the final example illustrates, poetry in Galach continued, but that on the central worlds took an elegaic tone, expressing muted and somber emotions.
ATREIDEAN PERIOD. Paul Atreides' seizure of the throne in 10196 marked the greatest change the empire had known for a hundred centuries. Disruption of this magnitude leads invariably to changes in the arts, but the effects of the new ruling house on poetry were not to be felt for several decades. The upheavals both physical and spiritual that Paul's Jihad caused were almost unthinkable: House Corrino had reigned for so long that its existence took on the status of a natural law. The fall of Shaddam shocked many of the foremost writers into a silence from which they never recovered. For this reason, few poets have productive careers bridging the two dynasties.
The writers of the Atreidean period were new, as were their forms and their language.
Muad'Dib's Imperium firmly concentrated political and economic power. The center of empire was fixed on Arrakis with a solidity that Kaitain had never experienced. Creators of culture flocked to Arrakis, adorning the capital planet with the pick of the talents of the inhabited worlds. Yet Arrakis was in many ways a much more provincial place than even the worlds those artists and poets had left. Whereas Galach had been the language of convenience under the Corrinos, Fremen was now the language of God under the Atreides. Moreover, the tastes of the Fremen, who now made up the bulk of the audience for the products of art, were different. The Fremen preferred history to fiction in general, and in particular, preferred the epic to the lyric, the drama to the narrative (many were illiterate), and moral fable to realistic comedy. The literature of Galach had been diffused among many planets, but that of Fremen was concentrated on Arrakis; Galach poetry, casual and mannered, gave place to Fremen poetry, strictly traditional in both meter and form. And finally, the vigor which Galach poetry drew from its roots on many planets was replaced in Fremen verse by an intense intellection; this last change needs some explanation.
The Fremen writers who might have filled their works with their own Dune-bred energies were scattered across a thousand worlds by the Jihad. Many of them died in its progress; many others, whose natural bent might have been artistic, were channeled into military, administrative, or judicial careers. Yet the population of Arrakis was never very large, and the outflow of the Fremen legions decreased it noticeably. Into this vacuum surged not only a spectrum of fortune hunters but also writers from around the empire, attracted by the wealth and patronage that now only Arrakis could offer. The surprising yet logical conclusion of these causes was the fact that of all the writers who brought luster to Fremen literature from 10200 to 10400 — the "Golden Age" — not one was Fremen-born. For instance, among the supreme dramatists of the age, Harq al-Harba was born Aitu Cinoli on Yorba; Tonk Shaio was born on Aerarium IV; al-Mashrab, also an occasional poet, took her Fremen name from a nickname — "the vivid one" — which gradually replaced that given her on her homeworld of Parlon, Sorri Camwold. And the situation was much the same with the poets of the era.
No sketch, however brief, of the poetry of this time would be complete without mention of Deeziir Astiki (10189-10250), who occupied a singular position among the early Atreidean poets. He began in 10214 as a minor functionary under the regency of Alia, and was alone among the poets of his time in knowing Leto II and Ghanima personally. Astiki felt a genuine affection for the growing twins, beginning with his "Birth Poems," a pair of works celebrating their births. The poem written for Leto4 is provocative in view of that emperor's later reign, but whether Astiki's poem shows a premonition about the preborn Leto remains an open question.
LETO
A child new-born, testimonial to man,
Moves in powers of potency like clouds
With no hint yet of future shapes,
Sets bells in the philosophic mind ringing.
Echoing in the lower depths of birth's mystery,
The sound, radar-like, reflecting on the child.
A Delphic simplicity surrounds the child,
Of unheard oracles foreshadowing the man,
The guilt of whose actions will smudge the mystery
Of his horning blamelessness like hanging clouds—
But now at this time of matin's ringing
He is not menaced by these dark shapes.
But how avoid the destiny that shapes
His end? Is there an innocence in the child,
Or wilt he find in the lead and silver ringing
Of time that advances the maturity of man,
That the guiltlessness that shone in trailing clouds
Of glory was a fraud, and kill a mystery?
&n
bsp; Explaining is the only death of mystery,
But who explains? the craftsman, drawing shapes
From clay? the steersman in nebular clouds?
For who has found the way to tell the child
That good and bad alone defines a man,
In words that won't set his ears ringing?
Too soon he'll see the wolf-thoughts ringing
Him in, tearing rending — what? a mystery?
Ripping away till all that's left is man.
Paradise is lost, but in the golden shapes
That sometimes stir, we see the child,
And sometimes see our future in his clouds.
Sadly, Astiki died at the height of his powers, mistakenly killed by a palace guard on the night following an unsuccessful early uprising against Leto.
Some students of Astiki's work have argued that his poetry after 10240 hints at a change in his attitude toward Leto. To be sure, his later verse is much freer, experimental in form, and notably so when compared to an early work like "Leto," which follows exactly the ancient form called a sestina. His last poem, "Martyrs," may reflect his feelings about Leto, but in the absence of secure corroboration, a definite statement about its meaning is risky.
MARTYRS
Martyrs have uses, but to God only;
Utility's relationship to man is lost,
For martyrs are arisen corpses
Come to the graveyards of our sensibilities.
If eyes shrouded with the film of power
Could see the mockery of their postures
In opposition to a will on fire,
They would know their fight was lost
In loins a generation past all fruitfulness.
But nonetheless they don their suits of custom
As shelter from the mountainfall of the divine.
Martyrs always were and will and never needed be,
But it comes as little comfort when they die
That the mouth of hell is hot and licks its lips
In pleasure drooling for the taste of oppressor.
With this enigmatic work, Astiki's career ended, and with him died the last personal poetic link with the era before the reign of Leto II. The poets who followed him were from a new generation, and continued the Golden Age of Atreidean Fremen literature from the standpoint of those who looked back on, rather than witnessed, the events that molded their times.
W.E.M.
NOTES
1Henoor Sentrafcs, Lyrics, tr. Mauzan Gwidin (Grumman: Hartley UP), p. 306.
2Dwaidr Kauznet, Posthumous Poetry, Edited in His Honor by L.A.., tr. Tuubat Hetter (orig. pub. Caladan; rep. Kaitain: Varna), p. 127.
3Imelda Vizhyarad, Barren Branches: Later Works, ed. Aubergine m'Soca (Salusa Secundus: Gravlak), p. 66.
4Deeziir Astiki, Occasional Poetry, ed. and tr. O.B. Pithiviers, Studies in Atreidean History 85 (Paseo: Institute of Galacto-Fremen Culture), p. 145.
5Idem, Later Works, ed. and tr. O.B. Pithiviers, Studies in Atreidean History 87 (Paseo: Inst. of Galacto-Fremen Culture), p. 289.
Further references: FREMEN POETRY; HARQ AL-HARBA; O.B. Pithiviers, A History of Atreidean Literature (Grumman: Hartley UP).
IMPERIUM, FEUDAL PATTERNS OF
While precise details of the relationships among the empire's most powerful forces, the emperor, the Houses Major and Houses Minor, the Landsraad, and the Spacing Guild, will have to await the completion of translations of all documents now available in the Rakis Finds, the fundamental feudalism of the old empire has been established beyond all doubt. Feudalism — a political system often regarded today as primitive — was feasible in that past as a way to most efficiently govern such a widely dispersed empire of established planets — each with the capability to be self-sustaining while retaining unique characteristics — and a constantly expanding frontier of new planets. For an empire that lacked the technological developments necessary to efficiently offset the distances and differences between such planets, feudalism alone had the proper combination of stability and flexibility, centralization and decentralization, to make accommodation under one system possible. Even so, the feudal empire required the most delicate balance of forces, of interlocking loyalties and responsibilities, to maintain itself. Political power, civilization itself, rested upon a tripod made up of the emperor, his vassals, and their means of communication and contact — the Spacing Guild.
All power was centralized in the person of the Padishah Emperor, who, in name at least, owned the entire empire. In practice, the term "Padishah Emperor" meant the head of House Corrino from the Battle of Corrin in 88 B.G., which established the ascendancy of the Imperial House, to the downfall of Shaddam IV and the establishment of the Regency in 10196 — an uninterrupted period of 10284 years standard. (For the fate of the empire after 10196, see ATREIDES HOUSE.)
Although House Corrino could be said to have reigned over the entire galaxy, it ruled only a minuscule portion of that galaxy directly — most notably Kaitain, the seat of the Imperial Court, and Salusa Secundus, homeworld of House Corrino, transformed into the Imperial Prison Planet. The rest of the galaxy was held in fief by individual Houses Major, any one of which could hold a large number of planets or even planetary systems in precaria from the emperor. Such fiefs were normally granted in perpetuity to a Great House, yet they could escheat to the emperor in default of an heir to a House (a circumstance resulting more often from a House being forced into exile than from the failure of a genetic line), or the emperor could declare a fief forfeit owing to the failure of a House to fulfill its feudal obligations. Such reversions of a fief to direct Imperial control were, however, comparatively rare, except in the case of those fiefs that carried with them exceptional wealth and/or political power, such as Arrakis (documented by Omar Bruus, The Political History of Dune [Fides: Malta]).
The granting of a fief to the ruler of a House Major carried with it Imperial protection against violations of the Great Convention in House-to-House disputes, and against the (possible, but never realized) threat of invasion by extra-galactic, non-human adversaries. An Imperial fief also guaranteed the holder status as a House Major and thus representation in the Landsraad, membership (although not necessarily a directorship) in CHOAM, Guild shipping privileges (contingent upon Guild approval), and immunity from direct Imperial interference. Indirect interference, in the form of spies, official "visits" by dignitaries, and even sabotage, was constant and expected (as detailed by Zhuurazh Nimkii, I Lived Three Lives: Memoirs of a Double Agent [Zimaona; Kinat]). The granting of planetary tenure without such nominal "immunity" gave the holder a "quasi-fief" in which governmental power was shared with a Caid of the Imperial Sardaukar — an arrangement held to be eminently unsatisfactory by most Houses Major.
In return, the recipient of a planetary fief agreed to accept the title of "vassal," swore perpetual homage and fealty to the Padishah Emperor and his descendants, and pledged yearly tithes of all profits accruing to the fief, including supporting levies for the Imperial forces amounting to no fewer than one-tenth of all military conscripts for planetary armies. In addition, various feudal "aids and incidents" had gotten attached to the system over the years and were regarded as inviolable through long custom. These included "relief," basically an inheritance tax payable upon the death of a vassal and the assumption of a fief by that vassal's legal heir; the "incident" of marriage, to be paid by an heiress for the right to choose her own husband (in practice merely a wedding tax, but taken very seriously by the Imperium, as evidenced in the legal precedent of Lady Angelica Hagal vs. the Imperium [Landsraad Archives 9183], when the High Council of the Landsraad ruled that "marriage among the members of Houses Major cannot be construed otherwise than as a political and economic merger, and as such is under the direct jurisdiction of our Sublime Padishah Emperor himself"); and — most expensive of all — the right of "hospitality" or droit de gite, dreaded by all Houses Major, since to entertain the emperor in the style to which he was accustomed could bre
ak all but the wealthiest of Houses. Fortunately, few emperors made injudicious use of this right. Indeed, the last emperor to indulge in a processional circuit throughout his Empire, Corrin XXII, 9235-9294, occasioned no fewer than 143 food riots on seventeen planets, dozens of Bills of Particulars laid before the Landsraad, and four successful revolutions (quickly overturned by his successor, Ezhar X) before succumbing to chaumas while still on procession on Bolchef (see The Last Banquet, by Lors Karden [Yorba: Rose]).
Imperial feudalism differed from historical feudal systems in one very important respect: the Padishah Emperor did not rely on his feudal vassals for his soldiery. True, he did require supporting levies. These troops served two functions: as a sham to cover the real source of the Sardaukar (Salusa Secundus), and as cannon fodder in the training of the Imperial legions. They were not used in actual battle. The emperor relied, instead, on the Sardaukar, who, at their prime, were each rated a match for any ten ordinary Landsraad conscripts. This fact, combined with the knowledge that House Corrino's weaponry and atomics could be matched only by the combined forces of all the Houses Major, and that House Corrino had, by virtue of its melange stockpiles, almost unlimited wealth, gave the Padishah Emperor the power to enforce his decisions if necessary, and, more importantly, the authority to expect his decisions to be carried out without enforcement.
Such authority and wealth also gave rise to an Imperial Court (and bureaucracy) that grew every year in splendor and in solaris spent. The Imperial Palace on Kaitain housed not only the emperor and his immediate relatives of House Corrino, their servants, bodyguards, and slaves, but also the emperor's slave-harem with its adjacent nursery for the offspring of the stave-concubines, and, on a higher level, quarters for the generally-ignored-but-tolerated string of aristocratic visitors with suits, petitions, diplomatic errands, and the like. Lesser beggars waited out of doors. All, however, craved permission to enter the Imperial selamlik, to pass beyond the plasteel and marble doors, under the sculptured arches with the Imperial legend, "Law is the ultimate science," past the captive banners of defeated Great Houses, to stand within ten feet of the Golden Lion Throne, in the presence, finally, of Power itself. The great audience hall would be crowded with Imperial bodyguards, courtiers, noukkers, pages, slaves, hangers-on, but still with only a fraction of those who clamored to get in; the audiences would seem endless, but would accommodate only a few petitioners out of the many who waited. The emperor, dressed in a gray Sardaukar uniform with only the Imperial crest on the helm to indicate his position — to indicate, if such a blatant reminder were necessary, exactly where the Imperial power lay — would listen as each petitioner stated his name and case in almost identical words, the formulae having been established through ancient usage: "I, a Duke of a Great House, an Imperial kinsman, give my word of bond under the Convention..."
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