“There is no need to be impertinent,” Lady Margot said. “We were cleared on the shuttle. Our daughter is a guest in the Emperor’s household, and we have come in response to an urgent message sent by the Princess Irulan.”
“Hmm-m-mm, you will treat us with the respect we are due,” Fenring said, his eyes dangerous. “I am a Count of the Landsraad and this is my Lady.”
Too late to do anything about it, Margot saw that her husband was provoking the self-important brute. When the soldier began to draw the dagger at his waist, it was like touching a trip wire. Fenring hurled himself upon the larger man and struck his wrist a sharp blow, causing the fingers to release the knife just as it came free of the sheath, and the blade clattered to the ground. A second blow to the elbow numbed the soldier’s entire arm, followed by a blurring kick that snapped his ankle sideways, causing the man to topple to the ground. With the side of his hand, Fenring then delivered a precise blow to his opponent’s temple, after which he slammed an elbow into the man’s face. The soldier moaned and went limp, bleeding from one of his eyes.
Fenring stepped back, looking amused. “Ahh, one of Muad’Dib’s finest, I see.”
Margot spoke over the sound of running boots and the shouts of other soldiers. “Well, my dear, at least we have their attention now.”
In a fluid motion, Count Fenring crouched with the recovered knife in his hands, ready to face the men running toward them. Margot went into her own fighting stance with her back to his. This had been one of their projected scenarios, and she hoped it would play out as she anticipated. They could act greatly affronted, insulted by the treatment Muad’Dib gave to his invited guests, and they might experience the slightest relaxation in security around them, later.
And even if that didn’t happen, she was confident they would survive this minor confrontation.
The special guards circled them warily, a score of men with drawn weapons — long guns, pistols, dart throwers, swords. Without personal shields, the two of them could easily be cut down, regardless of their fighting skills. But these guards would need instructions from higher up before doing that to a nobleman and his lady. “Hmm-ah-hmm, my apologies,” Count Fenring said, raising his hands in surrender. “That man insulted my Lady, and I, ahh, tend to be overprotective. Entirely my fault.”
The soldier behind them — who had cleared the Fenrings before they left the shuttle — conferred in low tones with a superior officer. The gruff officer nodded, which seemed to reduce the level of tension by a fraction. He looked in disgust at the wounded soldier trying to recover himself on the ground.
Then the ranking officer ran his gaze up and down Fenring. “Any soldier who can be so easily bested by a mere… visitor has no business serving among Muad’Dib’s guards. He is relieved of further duty.” He motioned, and the tense Fedaykin put their weapons away. The officer said, “Allow me to show you into the citadel. You can state your business to Princess Irulan herself.”
Fenring grinned as Margot took his arm, and the two strolled after their escort.
WHILE SERVANTS STOOD nearby, Irulan greeted the Fenrings at the arched door of her private citadel wing. Tall and elegant, the eldest daughter of Shaddam IV wore a long gown of black parasilk, cut low at the front and sparkling with tiny Hagal emeralds on the bodice and half sleeves. Her blonde hair was tightly coiffed with a brilliant fire-diamond tiara. She had obviously donned one of her finest court dresses, as if she were back in the Imperial Palace on Kaitain.
After greeting her guests, Irulan escorted them past a writing desk piled with notes. Fenring glanced curiously at one of the pages, but Irulan quickly directed him toward a dining table where a sumptuous luncheon had been set out. “Won’t you join me for a light repast? I have already summoned Marie, but as you can see this royal fortress is very large.”
“We are, hmm, quite anxious to see our dear daughter.” Fenring leaned forward to sniff at a sealed tureen, but no odors escaped. He glanced back at the desk, still interested in what Irulan had been doing. Was she writing another one of those damnable propaganda tracts?
Margot continued, “We were most disturbed to hear about the Sisterhood’s attempt to take over her training. We chose to send Marie here because we did not want her to be entirely indoctrinated in Bene Gesserit ways. But it seems even in the Imperial Court she could not entirely escape them. Is she safe here on Arrakis?”
The Princess slipped gracefully into a chair at the head of a long table covered in white linen and laid out with silver. “Although you and I are Bene Gesserits, Lady Margot, even we can admit that occasionally the Sisterhood oversteps its bounds. There is no longer a problem as far as your daughter’s schooling is concerned, because Muad’Dib has spoken.” At the memory, her lips quirked in a tight smile. “The Mother School made a grave error in offending him, and he is not likely to forget anytime soon.”
A servant unsealed the tureen to reveal a thick, dark potage. “Caladanian boar soup,” the Princess said. “My husband’s favorite.”
Though the visitors tasted their soup and made appropriate sounds of appreciation, Irulan did not sample hers. She said, “Even without Bene Gesserit supervision, questions remain about your daughter and the instruction she has already received. The child is showing certain unusual signs. How has she been trained?”
Fenring exchanged a quick glance with his wife and said, “Only… ahh, as required, as we saw fit. Her upbringing in Thalidei has not been especially pampered. She has received a broad foundation in numerous disciplines.” The Count ran a finger around the lip of an empty glass. “In our zeal to protect the child, I taught her what I know, as did my wife. And the Tleilaxu had some interesting… ahhh, seasoning for us to consider.”
Worried that some detail might have slipped, Margot looked at Irulan and asked, “What sort of unusual signs have you seen? Has Marie done anything wrong?”
“Not at all. She and Alia have become quite close in only a few short months. And Alia, as you are well aware, was born under extremely strange circumstances.”
“An Abomination,” Margot said, then quirked her lips in a smile. “Another overzealous Bene Gesserit label. Do you suggest Marie is also pre-born?”
Irulan shook her head. “No, but she seems every bit Alia’s match and equally as cunning. You have not been entirely candid with us from the beginning.”
“Our daughter is a special child,” Margot said.
The Count smiled. “Ah, um-m-m. It sounds to me like the two girls are quite suited to each other as playmates. We couldn’t have asked for better.”
Moments later, little Marie came running into Irulan’s private apartments. She wore a pink-and-white party dress with a lacy frill on the hem and white shoes that clicked on the floor as she ran. Her parents rose to their feet, and she went to the Count first and hugged him.
“Thank you for sending me to Arrakeen. I love it here,” Marie said to him. “Everyone treats me well, and I’ve been a good girl.”
“We’re pleased to hear that, darling.”
Paul Atreides, like his father the Red Duke, allowed dangerous people into his inner circle. A risk-taker, he claimed it was the best way to keep his senses honed.
—from The Life of Muad’Dib, Volume 1, by the PRINCESS IRULAN
Your daughter is an interesting child, Count Fenring,” Paul said, as he led his visitor down an underground stairway. “She has remarkable genes,” Fenring answered, without elaborating further. “I am pleased you find the girl as exceptional as we do.”
Workers had found this old passage when they were excavating the citadel, deeper than the original foundation of the Arrakeen Residency, so well hidden that it had not been detected during the initial scan for Harkonnen traps long ago. Paul doubted Fenring knew of its existence, though the tunnel was incomparably older than the building above, and its existence led him to believe there might be other passages tangled beneath the ancient structure. The air here was clean and cool, the steps heavily worn from the p
assage of many feet in ancient times. Thousands and thousands of years ago.
Fenring followed several steps back, descending carefully in the dim light, looking around with his overlarge eyes. In the low yellow illumination from glowstrips recently applied to the sides of the steps, the narrow-faced man looked nocturnal, ever alert and wary.
On short notice that morning, Paul had summoned the Count, taking him beneath the eastern wing of the citadel — away from guards and eavesdroppers. “Do you doubt my ability to defend myself — even from someone like him?” Paul had asked the anxious Fedaykin, and they had withdrawn their objections. Nevertheless, where this man was concerned, Paul’s prescience was hopelessly unreliable.
Count Hasimir Fenring. Such a notorious, dangerous reputation he had, but Paul had always felt a faint echo of compassion for this person who had served Shaddam IV, sensing that perhaps he had more in common with Fenring than either of them realized.
“I know what you are, Count — what the Bene Gesserit wanted you to be. I sensed things about you from the moment I laid eyes on you in the Padishah Emperor’s presence. You are much like me.”
“Hm-m-m-m. And how is that?”
“Each of us is a failed Kwisatz Haderach — failed in the eyes of the Sisterhood, at least. They didn’t get what they wanted from you, and they cannot control me. I am not surprised they would be so fascinated with your daughter.”
“Ahh, who can understand the myriad breeding schemes of witches?”
“Who can understand the many things we must do?” Paul added.
After ending the Thorvald rebellion with emphatic violence, Paul had been forced to sterilize two more planets, completely eradicating their populations. Sterilization… worse even than what had happened on Salusa Secundus, worse than what Viscount Moritani had threatened to do on Grumman. Paul realized that he barely felt any guilt over what he had done.
Have I become so accustomed to causing death and destruction? At the thought, a cold wave passed through his chest.
He remembered killing Jamis in combat, the first life he had ever taken. He had been shaken but proud of his accomplishment, until his mother brought down a hammer of guilt on him. Well, now — how does it feel to be a killer?
He had grown too comfortable with the feeling. Muad’Dib could order the annihilation of worlds without a second thought, and no one would question him. Paul, the human, could never allow himself to forget that.
Because Count Fenring had also been groomed as a Kwisatz Haderach, also intended to be a pawn… maybe the two of them had a common basis for understanding that Paul could not experience with anyone else, not even with Chani.
Reaching the bottom of the stairway, Paul stood at the opening of a rock-lined tunnel. “I am not a god, Count Fenring, despite the mythology that has arisen around me.” He motioned to the left, where a side passageway was illuminated by glowglobes that bobbed with the slight disturbance in the air.
“We, hmmm, have much to learn from one another. And perhaps through that understanding we can better learn about ourselves. You would like us to be, ahh-hmm-mm, friends? Do you forget that Shaddam told me to fight you after the Battle of Arrakeen?”
“I remember that you refused. It is the difference between pragmatism and loyalty, Count. You saw who was the victor and who was the vanquished, and you made your choice.”
“Yes, hmm, but I did voluntarily accept exile with Shaddam, until I felt the need to move on. We did not want our daughter raised on Salusa Secundus.”
They rounded a bend, where the passageway narrowed. “All relationships change, Count Fenring, and as humans we must adapt to them or die.”
“Adapt or die?” Warily, the Count peered down the tunnel in one direction and another. “Um-m-m-ah, do you have interrogation chambers down here?”
“All Empires require such things,” Paul answered. “The Corrinos certainly did.”
“Hmm-ahh, of course. I am sure that the intrigues in your citadel are not so very different from what they once were on Kaitain.” He cleared his throat, as if something dry had lodged there.
“Actually there is a difference, Count, because I am as much Fremen as Atreides. The desert determines my actions as much as my noble blood, and I have more than mere politics — I have religion. As much as I don’t want to be, I am a religion. Similarly, my warriors are more than simple fighters. They also see themselves as my missionaries.”
Paul paused at a small, dark opening, where he activated controls to seal a metal door behind them, removing all light. In the darkness, he heard Fenring breathing, and smelled his fear-saturated perspiration. Involuntary moisture loss. After only a brief pause, he opened a second door and entered a larger chamber where dim, awakening illumination responded to their arrival.
“In a sense, we’re going back in time.” He waited for Fenring to notice the paintings and writings all around them, strange designs on every possible surface of walls, floor, and ceiling. “This is an ancient Muadru site, long buried. Probably older than the Fremen presence on Dune.”
“Fabulous. How fortunate you are to find such a site. In all my years in the Residency, it seems I was unaware of the treasures beneath my feet.”
Hearing this, Paul felt his truthsense twinge, like an alarm beginning to go off but not quite sounding. Did it have something to do with Paul’s inability to see Fenring with his own prescience, some clashing of the auras of two failed Kwisatz Haderachs? Or was it a bit of a lie from the Count about the Muadru site? But if so, why would he hide such knowledge?
The Count was careful not to disturb any of the markings. “Ahh, I was far too interested in the more obvious treasures of melange, I suppose.”
Paul did not try to conceal the awe in his voice. “This chamber is the smallest hint of the race that settled numerous planets, long before the Zensunni Wanderers. Apparently they arrived on Dune before it became such a desert. Some legends suggest they even brought the sandworms from elsewhere, but I cannot say. We know very little about them.”
“Your name comes from the Muadru?”
“There appears to be a linguistic connection between the Fremen and the Muadru, but the latter race vanished at independent sites all over the galaxy — suggesting a terrible cataclysm that took them all at once.”
The unlikely pair walked around the chamber, looking closely at the drawings, numerals, letters, and other artwork; there were color paintings using unknown pigments, and etchings in the cool stone. “Hmm-ah, perhaps you missed your calling, Sire — you might have been an archaeologist instead of an Emperor.” Fenring chuckled at his own suggestion.
“People know me for my Jihad, but I like to think I am excavating the truth of humanity, digging up what must be found and purging what must be eliminated. Always seeking the truth, always pointing toward it.” Paul sealed the chamber again and led Fenring back the way they had come. “So many legends and stories surround me, but how many of them are really true? Who can know what really happens in history, even when you live through it yourself?”
Fenring fidgeted. “I happened to observe, ahh-hmm, that Princess Irulan is writing yet another volume in her ever-growing biography. Revisionist history?”
“Just more of my story. The people demand it. Billions speak of me in heroic terms, but the stories about me are incomplete. Just as they are about you, I suspect. We’re alike, aren’t we, Count Fenring? We are much more than what people say about us.”
“We have our loyalties,” he said enigmatically.
Paul had no illusions about his guest. If it suited his needs, Fenring could very well turn against him. On the other hand, an Emperor could use a man with Fenring’s clandestine skills and subtlety. The Count certainly knew his way around in elite circles. Paul guided him down a new corridor rather than returning to the stone steps that would lead them back up into the light.
“Where, hmm, are we, ahhh, going now?”
Paul opened another door. “One of my private cellars. I’d like t
o share a bottle of Caladanian wine with you.”
“Much better than a torture chamber,” Fenring said.
The human body and the human soul require different types of nourishment. Let us partake of a feast in all things.
—CROWN PRINCE RAPHAEL CORRINO, Call to the Jongleurs
It was supposed to be an intimate banquet for Paul and the Fenrings, with Chani, Irulan, and the two girls, but for the Emperor Muad’Dib nothing was permitted to be informal.
Alia knew that the places had been chosen with care. Paul and Chani would sit beside one another at the head of the table, with Alia next to her brother on his right side, then little Marie, and farther down the table would be Count Fenring and his Lady, far enough away from Paul, should the Fenrings make any attempt against him. On the left side, Irulan would sit closest to the head of the table, across from Alia and Marie; then Stilgar, and finally Korba where the two Fremen could watch the Count and Lady.
The room had been swept for chemical explosives such as the bomb that had detonated beneath Muad’Dib’s throne, metal objects, weapons of any kind, automated tools of assassination. Grim Fremen stood guard in the kitchen, monitoring the preparation of every dish. Poison-sniffers hovered over the banquet table. All utensils were smooth and dull, minimizing their potential use as weapons.
Ever since Bludd’s hunter-seeker attack, Stilgar had insisted that Paul and his party wear shields when in the presence of visitors, even at meals, though it always made the process of dining somewhat awkward.
Korba felt that Paul’s own prescient skills, though erratic, could enhance even the most extravagant security preparations. During the planning stages he had insisted, “Muad’Dib, if there is danger, your predictive powers could give us warning.”
Paul had cut the man off. “Where Count Fenring is concerned, Korba, little is clear to me, ever.”
Paul of Dune Page 48
