Astoundingly, the recovering Swordmaster did not bother to deny his involvement when Korba confronted him in his quarters. “I had expected you to talk with me sooner. You could have saved yourself a great deal of difficulty.” He sniffed. “And you could have saved the lives of all those poor innocents you interrogated. Before I say more, I demand to speak with Paul Atreides.”
Bludd wore his finest, most outrageously formal outfit. Though Korba himself had begun to dress in the finery of offworld clothiers, unconsciously following the Swordmaster’s lead in fashion, he snapped orders for the foppish man to be stripped, searched, and scanned as thoroughly as they would have done to any captive Sardaukar.
Korba took great delight in yanking the sleeves and collars, ripping the fabric, and slicing open Bludd’s breeches until he stood naked, his well-toned body a patchwork of bandages from his various cuts. Handling him roughly, guards scanned his hair for shigawire garrotes, analyzed his teeth for hidden suicide weapons, tested the sweat from his pores for specifically targeted neurotoxins. They even peeled off his fingernails and toenails to make sure they contained no hidden wafer weapons.
The Swordmaster endured the excruciating pain without so much as a whimper; rather, he looked impatient and offended. “You have nothing to fear from me.” Not believing this, they probed him again.
Finally, bruised and bloody yet still walking with a somewhat graceful limp, Bludd was brought before Emperor Muad’Dib. Instead of his finery, the traitor wore only a plain loincloth. His bandages showed bright spots of fresh blood from wounds that had reopened. He smiled ruefully up at Paul. “I am sorry I could not be more presentable, my Lord. My garments were damaged by your zealots. But no matter.” He shrugged his shoulders. “These rags take me back to my roots. I feel like a young Swordmaster in training on Ginaz, somewhat like Duncan Idaho.”
Paul rose to his feet. He felt weary and furious; wanted to understand Bludd’s motivations as much as he wanted revenge. “You don’t deny what you did?”
“To what purpose? You could detect a lie the moment I spoke it. Ah, I wish it had not come to this. It wasn’t what I intended.”
Korba stepped forward and shouted at the prisoner. “Tell us all of the members of your conspiracy. How far does it spread? How many others are traitors in Muad’Dib’s court?”
Bludd gave the Fremen leader a withering frown. “I needed no one else. This was my plot, and mine alone. I wanted to be a hero — and I succeeded. Everyone saw me save you, Chani, and the Princess.”
Korba confronted the near-naked man in his bindings. “You could not have done this by yourself. No man could.”
“Maybe not one ordinary man, but one Swordmaster could. I planned it all in every detail, without help.” Then Bludd began to regale them with the entire scheme, rattling off specific details of every phase of the operation that had taken him many months to put into place — step by step, one part of the plan after another.
Korba snorted in disbelief at the preposterous claims, but Paul realized that Bludd was not exaggerating. As the Swordmaster talked, he seemed impressed with his own cleverness, though a bit sheepish to reveal it. “I have been caught with my hand in the proverbial cookie jar, and now you have me. I presume that my service to you is at an end, Sire? You must admit, I did excellent work on your citadel.”
Paul was genuinely baffled. “But why did you turn on me?” He couldn’t remember the last time he had felt so confused. His words came out in a rush. “What did you have to gain? How did I offend you? What could possibly have sparked such absolute hatred?”
“Hatred? Why, I do not hate you, Sire. You have been exceedingly fair and kind to me, and I never sought to harm you.” He sighed, and Paul finally detected a deep-seated wound that the man had carried inside for many years, a scar that had never faded. “But history has been less kind to me. I wanted to add my own flourish to the record.” “Explain yourself, man!” Korba growled.
“I lived my life as a great Swordmaster and accomplished many deeds of valor. Can you name them?” He raised his eyebrows, looked wearily at Korba, then at the guards, and back at Paul. “Come, you must remember some of them? Any of them? You certainly do, my Lord. Or do you only remember Rivvy Dinari, who died protecting Archduke Armand during the wedding-day attack? Not poor Swordmaster Bludd, who failed to save Ilesa.” He lowered his head. “I missed my chance then. I failed and was brushed aside, but Rivvy went out in a final flash of glory, a true hero. In fact, he was the star of all the historical accounts. Have you read them, my Lord Paul?”
“I was there. I don’t need to read them.”
“I fought with the Ecazi and Atreides soldiers on Grumman. I helped in the final showdown with Viscount Moritani — does anyone remember? As Archduke Armand clung to life all these years, I served as steward of House Ecaz and apparently accomplished nothing! For you, I oversaw the construction here of the greatest work of architecture in human history, but it will always be known as the Citadel of Muad’Dib. Korba is right about that. I am just another footnote.”
Defiant tears sparkled in his eyes, but he drew no shred of sympathy from Paul. “I demand a grand ending for the history books, not a fading-away. No matter what I’ve done before, this should have been seen as my last great act as a Swordmaster.” Bludd looked around, as if expecting cheers.
“Your secret police can relax, my Lord. I had no political motivations in doing this, I assure you. All your security, your protective measures, your tests… kept looking outward for enemies, imagining motives and eliminating any threats you could perceive. But my motive? I just wanted the attention, the recognition, the respect.” He smiled and lowered his voice. “Despite all, I must confess that I am glad to see you are still alive. And I suppose I will not be remembered as a hero after all. Ah well, it is better to be famous than infamous, but it is better to be infamous than forgotten altogether.”
Anger honed Paul’s voice to a dangerous edge. “What makes you think I will not have your name stricken from the historical record — like House Tantor after they unleashed their holocaust on Salusa Secundus?”
Bludd crossed his sinewy arms over his chest. “Because, Paul Atreides, you have too much respect for history, no matter what Princess Irulan writes.” He brushed at his bare chest, as if imagining wrinkles in a ruffled shirt he no longer wore. “You will sentence me to death, of course. There is nothing I can do about that.”
“Yes, you are sentenced to death,” Paul said, as if in an afterthought.
“Muad’Dib, I refuse to believe he acted alone! Such a complex conspiracy?” Korba said. “The people will never believe it. If you execute this one man, they will see him as a token, perhaps even a scapegoat. They will believe we are unable to find the true perpetrators.”
Bludd laughed sarcastically. “So you will punish random people because you are too narrow-minded to believe that a man with talent and imagination could accomplish what I did? How appropriate.”
Paul was too tired and sickened to deal further with the matter. “Continue your investigations, Korba. See if what he says is true. But do not take too long. There’s enough turmoil on Arrakeen, and I want to end this.”
Bludd was taken away in chains, looking oddly satisfied, even relieved.
Individuals can be honorable and selfless. But in a mob, people will always demand more — more food, more wealth, more justice, and more blood.
—Bene Gesserit analysis of human behavior, Wallach IX Archives
The open square in front of the Citadel of Muad’Dib was spacious enough to hold the population of a small city, but it could not encompass all those who clamored to witness the execution of Whitmore Bludd.
From just inside his high balcony — designed by Bludd himself, so that the Emperor could stand above all his people and address the multitudes — Paul watched the throng shift like waves of sand on endless dunes. He heard their grumbles and shouts, felt their charged anger ready to ignite.
It concerned him, bu
t he could not deny them this spectacle. His Empire was based on passion and devotion. These people had sworn their lives to him, had overthrown planets in his name. While pretending to be a brave hero, the traitor Bludd had tried to harm their beloved Muad’Dib, and they felt a desperate need for revenge. Paul had little choice but to grant it to them. Even with his prescience, he could not foresee all the harm that would arise if he dared to forgive Bludd. If he dared! He was the ruler of the Imperium, and yet he was not free to make his own decisions.
Out in the square, guards cleared a central area so that the group of condemned prisoners could be brought out. Guards wearing personal shields used clubs to drive the people back, but it was like trying to deflect the winds in a raging sandstorm. In the mob’s frenzy, some of them turned upon each other, overreacting to an unintentional shove or the jab of an elbow.
It is a tinderbox down there. Paul saw now that he had addicted them to violence as much as they were addicted to spice. How could he expect them simply to accept peace? The crowd below was a microcosm of his entire Empire.
Fedaykin guards brought Bludd and ten other men forward from the citadel’s prison levels. The men plodded along in heavy chains.
Seeing them, the crowd responded with a roar that rolled through the square like a physical wave. At the forefront of the captives, Whitmore Bludd tried to stride along with a spring in his step, though he had been severely beaten, his feet were bruised and swollen, and he was so sore he could barely walk. The men behind him were allegedly fellow conspirators who’d had some part in the terrible massacre.
Two of the ten were the pair of inept assassins who had also plotted to kill Muad’Dib but had been caught in the early stages of their plan. Korba had offered up the other eight as sacrificial lambs, but it was clear to Paul that the evidence against them had been doctored, their confessions forced. Paul was sadly unsurprised to note that all eight were known to be Korba’s rivals, men who had challenged his authority. Paul felt sick inside. And so it begins….
In the square beneath the balcony, a stone speaking platform had become a gathering place for priests, news-criers, and orators proclaiming the glory of Muad’Dib. Now the platform had been reconfigured as an execution stand.
Though limping, Bludd maintained some semblance of grace and courage, but three of the men behind him stumbled or resisted and had to be dragged along. Those men protested their innocence (correctly, perhaps) by their gestures, their expressions, their wails of anguish. But the thunderous roar of the crowd drowned out their words.
As soon as the foppish Swordmaster was hauled up to the speaking platform, the crowd let out another roar that soon began to coalesce into words, a chanted, mocking, hate-filled chorus of “Bad Bludd, Bad Bludd!”
Half of the doomed men fell to their knees trembling, but not the Swordmaster, who stood with his chin high. The others turned their heads down in dismay and terror.
Defiant, Bludd squared his shoulders and gazed at the crowd. His long ringlets of silver-and-gold hair blew in the hot breeze. Even now the Swordmaster seemed to consider this to be part of a performance, determined not to be remembered by history as a gibbering coward. He smiled boldly, swelling his chest. If he was going to be infamous, then Bludd would be truly extravagant in his infamy.
Paul allowed the crowd’s emotions to rise. Finally, passing smoothly through the moisture seals, he emerged onto the balcony and stood under the warm yellow sunlight. Many faces in the crowd turned rapturously toward him. For a long moment, he said nothing — just absorbed the throbbing wash of emotions, and let the onlookers absorb him. The shouts rose to a cacophony, and Paul raised his hands for silence.
He could have spoken in a normal voice, not even requiring the amplifiers that were spaced around the vast square. But he shouted, “Justice is mine.”
Even Bludd turned to face him. It seemed as if the Swordmaster wanted to give him a salute, but his hands were bound.
Paul had decided against a long and ponderous speech. The crowds already knew the crime, and knew who had been found guilty. “I am Muad’Dib, and I give you this gift.” He gestured down toward Bludd and the other men. “Justice is yours.”
The guards removed the shackles from Bludd and the other prisoners, and let the chains tumble heavily onto the speaking platform. Knowing what was to come, the guards vanished quickly into the crowd. With a dismissive gesture, Paul stepped back into the shadows, out of sight, as if he had washed his hands of the matter. But he continued to watch.
The mob hesitated for a minute, not sure what they were supposed to do, unable to believe what Muad’Dib had just said. Two of the prisoners tried to bolt. Bludd stood on the execution platform with his arms crossed over his chest, waiting.
The crowd surged forward like a crashing wave. They howled and clawed at each other to get closer. Paul watched, sickened, as they tore Bludd limb from limb, along with the ten hapless scapegoats.
Chani slipped into the shadows beside him, her face dusky, her eyes large and hard. She had a Fremen’s bloodthirstiness, wanted to see pain inflicted upon those who had tried to harm her and her beloved. Even so, at the sight of such violence and fanaticism, revulsion showed on her face.
Paul knew exactly what he had created here. For so long, he had been forced by prescience to use violence as a tool in order to achieve what needed to be done. And violence was an effective and powerful tool. But now it seemed that the slippery instrument had turned, and the violence itself was using him as its tool. A dark part of him wasn’t sure if he would be able to control what he had unleashed. Or if he even wanted to.
True morality and honor can never be codified into law, at least not for every eventuality. A nobleman must always be prepared to select the high road, thus avoiding the pitfalls of shadowy paths and spiritual dead ends.
—CROWN PRINCE RAPHAEL CORRINO
“They are reasonably good fighters,” Bashar Zum Garon admitted as he looked at the trained group of gholas that the Tleilaxu presented in an enclosed arena in Thalidei. “No match for my Sardaukar or Muad’Dib’s Fedaykin, but I do see considerable skills out there. Emperor Shaddam may find them acceptable for his secret army.”
“Ah, hm-m-m-m,” Count Fenring said, sitting next to Margot in the spectator seats of the combat area. “That was a nice parry from the tall, bearded one.” They watched a hundred uniformed soldiers engage in practice matches with an array of simulated weapons that left marks on their opponents to show “kills” and “wounds.” They were using swords, stunners, knives, darts, and projectile simulators.
“And the man in red just made a decent thrust against his opponent, but they’re half a step slow,” Lady Margot pointed out.
Dr. Ereboam nodded knowingly. “When we have finished honing them, they will successfully compete against Sardaukar and Fedaykin, because they begin with the same raw material. Their minds remember nothing of their past lives, but their bodies remember their training. Our battlefield harvesters take cells from fallen warriors, even intact bodies if they are reparable. These gholas have the same muscle reflexes and superior potential as the most celebrated fighters. They are the most celebrated fighters.”
“Hmmm, I would submit that any soldier who does not survive a battle is not, ahh, by definition, the best fighter.”
The albino researcher scowled. “These are the best of the best, those who not only possessed superior skills, but who died bravely. These resurrected fighters can become a spectacular army for Emperor Shaddam — an army that Muad’Dib knows nothing about. They appear on no census rolls, their names no longer exist. Provided we can smuggle them to Salusa Secundus, they will seem to have appeared out of thin air.”
Garon nodded seriously. “I will inform the Emperor of what you offer. As gholas, none of them fear death. Yes, they can be fierce, indeed.”
Though Fenring was loathe to participate in any more of Shaddam’s schemes that were bound to fail, he had to admit that this one showed a certain measure of promise
. He feared, however, that the fallen Emperor would never truly understand how different and formidable a foe Muad’Dib was, with his fanatical armies that felt no sense of self-preservation.
Count Fenring and Lady Margot knew their own plans for Marie were much more likely to succeed than Shaddam’s tiresome schemes to restore himself to power. Even at her young age, Marie had outwitted and outfought the deranged Thallo. The Tleilaxu were quite dismayed after the disaster, but Fenring did not need their flawed Kwisatz Haderach candidate for his own success.
Yes, the little girl’s skills were developing nicely.
Fenring watched as a mock town appeared at the center of the enclosed arena; building facades emerged from places of concealment in the floor. The ghola soldiers divided into two squadrons designated by red or blue waist sashes, then faced off on the faux town streets and alleys, firing marker darts at one another. None of them spoke a word.
“My Marie could defeat the whole pack of them down there,” Count Fenring mused. “You’ll have to do better than that, Doctor.”
Ereboam let out a shrill, scoffing sound. “Against so many trained opponents she would not stand a chance!”
“Oh, she would stand a chance all right,” Lady Margot agreed. “But perhaps saying she could kill a hundred warrior gholas is a bit too boastful. I am confident she could eliminate a dozen of them, however.”
“Yes,” Fenring said, correcting himself. “Make it fifteen.”
Bashar Garon seemed deeply disturbed by the suggestion. “That little girl? Against hardened warriors? She can’t be more than seven years old.”
“Ahh-hm-mm, she is six,” Fenring said. “And her age is not the question here, only her skill level.” He lowered his voice, adding a dangerous undertone. “Perhaps I should send her to Shaddam’s court. Our dear Emperor would find her far more difficult to kill than my dear cousin Dalak.”
He had not loved Wensicia’s husband, or even known him well, but the fool had indeed been a member of Fenring’s family. When Garon reported the “unfortunate incident” of Dalak’s death — first telling Shaddam’s lie, then admitting to the dishonorable truth — the Count had been extremely annoyed. He could not ignore the insult, even for the sake of his supposed childhood friend. For his own part, the Bashar remained offended by many of Shaddam’s recent actions, and Dalak’s murder was only one of them.
Paul of Dune Page 37
