This one bowed awkwardly. “May you be inspired to accelerate the terraforming work being done here, in the name of God.”
With a smooth step, Jessica reached out her hands to greet the two women. Clasping Chani’s hand in her right and Irulan’s in her left, the movement also neatly put herself in front of the fallen Emperor. “My son asked me to join both of you here to ensure a successful visit.”
Chani bowed, and her expression showed genuine warmth. “Thank you, Sayyadina. It has been too long, and I’m glad you’re here.”
Irulan chose to address Shaddam, and she did not bow. “We welcome this visit to your home on Salusa Secundus, Father. In return, please accept the good wishes of my beloved husband, the true Emperor.”
So many sharp barbs loaded in that one statement, directed at both Chani and the Corrinos, Jessica thought. And Irulan knew exactly what she had done.
The willowy lady Margot Fenring escorted Jessica to her quarters inside the domed city, an obvious ploy to keep her, Chani, and Irulan separate. “I am pleased to have a little time with you, Lady Jessica. Our paths do continue to cross, don’t they?”
Jessica controlled her voice. “Are you my ally or enemy this time, Lady Fenring? You have been both in the past.” The Count’s wife had left her a secret message in the Arrakeen Residency, warning Jessica of Harkonnen treachery . . . but she had later sent her monstrous little daughter Marie as a pawn to kill Paul.
“This time, I am just an associate of the Sisterhood,” Margot said, showing her to her room. “We have chosen our own paths, for good or ill.”
Left to freshen up inside the room before a planned evening banquet, Jessica regarded the gaudy trappings: the intricate carvings, gold filigree, interlocked stained-plaz windows. The decorations seemed rushed and showy, a desperate effort to demonstrate that House Corrino had not lost all of its glory. Sparse artwork hung on the walls. Jessica gleaned the impression that the exiled Corrinos didn’t have enough possessions to furnish every room. Then she wondered if that, too, was a carefully calculated impression designed to make her believe that the deposed Emperor’s circumstances were more difficult than they really were. Was that what they wanted her to report to Paul?
Later, Count and Lady Fenring smiled as Jessica entered the banquet room. At the opposite side of the long table, Shaddam Corrino IV sat with his surviving daughters: Chalice, Josifa, and Wensicia. Irulan and Chani had been seated next to each other—an attempt to promote friction, Jessica wondered.
As she faced Shaddam before taking her seat, she hesitated, realizing that she had not decided how to address this man. Shaddam still deserved a certain degree of respect, but not too much. She swept her gaze around everyone in attendance. “Thank you for the kind reception—all of you.”
Irulan turned to the small boy who sat at the table next to Wensicia. Little more than a year old, his eyes were bright and intelligent. “This is your son, Wensicia? Where is his father?”
The temperature in the air seemed to drop. “Farad’n is now the heir to whatever is left of House Corrino.”
Wearing a vinegary expression, Shaddam glanced to his immediate right, where Count Fenring sat. “His father unfortunately passed away in my service.”
Jessica noted a fractional flash of annoyance on Count Fenring’s face, instantly hidden. Interesting. What did Fenring have to do with the child’s father?
Chani drank sparingly from a goblet of water in front of her. She did not touch the wine. “His Holiness the Emperor Muad’Dib has dispatched us here to ensure that terraforming operations are being conducted with all due speed, to make Salusa into the garden world he envisions, full of gentle things.”
Jessica wanted to twist the knife. “Paul is always true to his word.”
Shaddam did not try to conceal his scowl, and then called for the first course, apparently anxious to be done with this meal. Jessica made a swift assessment of Shaddam. The Corrino patriarch saw only what he had lost, not what he retained. For a man who could well have been executed as a threat to Muad’Dib, Shaddam still had plenty of comforts, and yet the man must grieve for his palace on Kaitain, which had long since been burned by Muad’Dib’s fanatical hordes.
Count Fenring deftly raised a prickly subject. He looked from Chani to Irulan, then finally rested his gaze on Jessica. “Aaah, tell me, now that we’ve had seven years of . . . this, do you truly believe the human race is better off under your son’s leadership, hmmm?”
Shaddam put his elbows on the table. “Or would you say that more people prospered under Corrino rule? What do you say, Irulan? The answer is obvious enough to me.”
“I am sure many planetary populations are asking themselves the same question,” Lady Fenring added.
“And we know what their answer must be.” Wensicia raised her voice, drawing attention to herself. Receiving a rebuking glance from her father, she fell silent again. To deflect her embarrassment, she scolded Farad’n for fidgeting.
Chani spoke up. “Here in exile, you must have endless evenings to debate the same topic, but the question is moot for all of you. Muad’Dib is Emperor now, and House Corrino no longer rules.”
Shaddam drummed fingers on the table and let out a long, weary sigh that sounded rehearsed. “I should have seen it coming. I am ashamed to admit my failings as an Emperor.” He had to drag the words out of his throat, because they would not come willingly. Jessica did not recall any previous instance in which the Padishah Emperor had admitted his own mistakes. She didn’t believe for a moment, though, that he had been humbled. “Alas, I was not attentive enough to my people, and did not notice the growing weaknesses on the planets that served me. Storm clouds were gathering, and I did not see the signs.”
When she noticed a tiny smile of approval on Fenring’s face, Jessica realized who had coached the fallen Emperor for this conversation.
“My failings may have softened the Imperium and allowed the bureaucracy to swell, but what Muad’Dib has done is far more damaging to CHOAM, the Landsraad, the Spacing Guild, everyone. Any fool can see that.”
Count Fenring quickly inserted himself into the conversation when he saw Chani ready to leap to her feet and reach for her crysknife. “Ahhh, my Ladies, forgive us, but my friend Shaddam and I have had many such discussions. And we cannot find a convincing answer as to what Muad’Dib really intends. He seems to be a force for chaos, driven by the blind energy of religious fanatics. How does this ultimately help the Imperium?”
Jessica looked at the first course that had been placed in front of her—sparkling imported fruits and thin slices of raw meat. She picked at it without eating. “I can’t deny that the Jihad has caused a lot of damage, but Paul must fix many generations of neglect. That is, by necessity, a painful process.”
“Corrino neglect, you mean?” Shaddam asked, with a glare.
“All Great Houses were to blame, not just yours.”
Like a serpent about to strike, Fenring leaned forward, folded his hands together. “Ahhhh, hmmm, can you explain to us how these continuing massacres by jihadis benefit mankind, in either the short or long run? How many planets has your son sterilized now? Is it three or four? How many more does he intend to destroy?”
“Emperor Muad’Dib makes his difficult decisions according to the harsh necessities of his rule,” Irulan interrupted, “as you well know, Father. We are not privy to all of his reasons.”
Around the table, no one was eating. All were listening to the conversation, even young Farad’n Corrino.
Count Fenring shrugged his shoulders. “Even so, do you all remain convinced that Muad’Dib’s work is necessary? Tell us, for we are eager to hear your answer. How is the sterilization of planets and the slaughter of populations helpful to humanity in any way? Explain this to us, please, hmmm?”
“Muad’Dib sees things that others cannot. His vision extends far into the future,” Chani said.
The plates were taken away, hardly touched, and the next course arrived—small roast
ed squabs in a bitter citrus sauce, garnished with spears of fresh flowers. Pressed for a definite answer, Jessica used one of her common refrains, even though it had not sounded convincing to her for a long while.
“My son understands the pitfalls that await all of us. He once told me that the only way to lead humanity forward is to build bridges across those pitfalls. I believe in him. If he has determined that continuing violence is necessary, then I trust him implicitly.”
Wensicia made a sarcastic noise. “She sounds like one of the fanatics herself. All three of them do.” Her venomous glare was directed toward Irulan, who ignored her.
Shaddam gave a rude snort, then caught himself and wiped his mouth with his napkin, pretending that the sound had been no more than an unpleasant belch. “Paul Atreides implies he has good reasons, but won’t reveal them? Know this, all of you—a man on the Imperial throne can say anything he likes and expect others to believe him. That is what followers do. They believe. I know—I took advantage of that fact myself, many times.”
The day the flesh shapes and the flesh the day shapes.
—DUKE LETO ATREIDES
While the Duchess was away from Caladan, an old woman struggled up the steps of the Cala City town hall, refusing the assistance offered by two kindly onlookers. She muttered at them with enough sourness that the two gave her a wide berth. The mood of the gathered people was already stormy, which fit the weather outside. In the past hour it had rained heavily, leaving the streets wet and the buildings dripping.
She ascended the laid-stone stairs, step by painful step. A tall man in a formal suit held the door open for her, and she moved past him with a grunt of appreciation. To anyone watching, the climb had taken its toll on her, and she needed a place to sit down, but she concealed her strength. She had arrived early enough to secure an aisle seat in the front row, where the most people would notice her.
So far, her performance was quite convincing. No one would suspect that Gaius Helen Mohiam was a Reverend Mother of the Bene Gesserit.
Her bird-bright eyes took in the surroundings. This was an old government structure, with frescoes painted on the walls depicting the exploits of famous Atreides dukes. In one of the newer paintings, she recognized Paulus in his matador outfit, facing a huge Salusan bull.
Paul Atreides, the reckless, out-of-control Kwisatz Haderach, had become a Salusan bull in the political arena, rampaging and goring Imperial traditions. In only a handful of years, Muad’Dib had single-handedly stripped the Bene Gesserit of their power and influence, heaping scorn on them and sending them running back to Wallach IX . . . not in defeat, but to regroup. Mohiam knew with every fiber of her being that the Sisterhood had to remove Paul and hope that his successor could be more easily controlled.
He is my grandson, she thought bitterly. How she wished she’d never been a part of the Bene Gesserit breeding chain that led to such a monster. After what he had done, Mohiam found him to be even more loathsome than Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, who had gotten her pregnant in the first place. Now, she deeply regretted not killing her grandson when she’d had the chance. There had been numerous opportunities, including one shortly after his birth, when she killed the original Piter de Vries and saved the baby.
That was a mistake.
But a Bene Gesserit was capable of looking at the broader picture of history. Mistakes could be corrected. And she was intent on doing so now.
As she sat in the town hall, exaggerating her discomfort with sounds and sighs and restless shiftings, townspeople continued to stream into the hall. Mayor Horvu appeared on the stage, fiddled with something on the podium, then looked at the agenda with a preoccupied muttering. All around her, the noise level increased to a loud, buzzing murmur—a decidedly angry murmur, because of the Imperial edict that changed the name of their planet.
Patience. Mohiam concealed her smile.
She remembered another opportunity to kill Paul Atreides, and again she had failed to act. When he was but a teenager, wide-eyed and earnest, she had held the poisoned gom jabbar to his neck, testing him with the agony box. Just a little jab then, and none of the ensuing horrors would have happened, hundreds of billions dead in his name, four planets sterilized and no doubt more on the planning sheets, all of human civilization reeling from an onslaught of fanaticism. One little jab of a needle.. . .
Another mistake. A big one.
She vowed not to make another one, though Mohiam doubted if she would ever get close to Paul again, because of the political machinery of his empire and his religion all around her. Paul’s stinging words that day after his victory against the Emperor lingered in her memory: “I think it better punishment that you live out your years never able to touch me or bend me to a single thing your scheming desires.”
Instead, the Sisterhood would have to carry the battle into a different arena, one at which they were masters. They would use individual populations as weapons. And what better weapon to turn against the Atreides than the people of Caladan? Though explicitly forbidden from traveling to Arrakis, she had quietly made her way here.
Now, in disguise among the locals, she had all of the necessary identity documents, contact lenses to cover her spice-addicted blue-in-blue eyes, overlaid fingerprints, altered facial features—she would fool anyone. Mohiam had worried that Lady Jessica or Gurney Halleck might recognize her, but the Duchess of Caladan had departed on an errand for her son to Salusa Secundus, and Earl Halleck was at his rural estate. All the better. No one else on this planet would know her.
The Sisterhood’s campaign to undermine Paul-Muad’Dib would begin here. She would stir up the anthill and watch what scurried out. Paul had already slighted the people of Caladan and lost their respect. He had turned his back on them, offended them with his proclamation to rename their world as “Chisra Sala Muad’Dib.” A ridiculous mouthful. Mohiam couldn’t have asked for a better opportunity.
The local mayor called the town hall meeting to order, coming forward on bird-thin legs that did not seem capable of supporting his potbelly. He seemed avuncular, well-liked. “We all know why we’re here today.” His rheumy eyes scanned the crowd. “We cannot let some distant bureaucrat rename our world. The question is, what are we going to do about it?”
The audience roared their unfocused outrage, years of uneasiness and dissatisfaction with the pilgrim mobs, blundering offworlders, the intrusion of outside events that should have remained safely far away.
“Caladan is Caladan.”
“This is our planet, our people.”
Horvu shouted into the voice pickup at the podium. “So then, what if we propose ‘Muad’Dib’s Caladan’ as a compromise?”
“What if we find a new mayor?” a woman called in response. The crowd laughed.
One man was particularly vehement. “Desert fanatics do not decide our daily lives. What do grubby, dirty people know about the sea and the tides, the fish harvest, the thunderclouds and storms? Hah, they’ve never even seen rain! What do they know of our needs? A Fremen wouldn’t survive a week on the high seas.”
“We have nothing to do with Muad’Dib’s Empire,” said another man. “I don’t know this ‘Muad’Dib’—I know only Paul Atreides, who should be our Duke.”
“Let’s build up our army and fight them!” a woman cried in a shrill voice.
Mohiam watched the interchange with great interest, but the last comment was so absurd that some of the shouts died down. The mayor shook his head, looking sad. “No, no, none of that. We cannot stand up to Muad’Dib’s vast military—you all know that.”
“Then don’t fight them.” Mohiam struggled to her feet and turned toward the audience. “We don’t want war. We want to be left alone. As many of you have said, Caladan is not part of this endless, bloody Jihad, and we should declare our indepen dence. Paul Atreides is our lawful Duke, not this man who calls himself by a foreign name. Caladan isn’t part of this struggle. We never wanted a part of it. We never invited these crazed pilgrims who sweep like locu
sts into our towns. We just want things back the way they were.”
Mohiam heard bits of conversation around her. “Independence . . . Independence! Wouldn’t it be wonderful?”
Independence. The word was like a fresh sea breeze curling through the town hall. The people naively thought that this new idea would not require them to take up arms and go against screaming Fedaykin killers.
The mayor raised a bony hand in an attempt to silence the crowd. “We are not here to discuss rebellion. I will have no part in that.”
“Then you are in the wrong place,” Mohiam said, very pleased with the discussion. “I am old and I have seen much. I was once a house servant for Old Duke Paulus, back when Atreides honor and human dignity still meant something. After he died, I withdrew inland where I have led a quiet life. Many of you may have seen me over the years, but probably didn’t notice me.” A planted idea, and the listeners would ponder and decide that, yes, they might have seen her in the town from time to time.
“What happened to Atreides honor? We just want a measure of respect. Enough of this folly. Either stand up to those priests or become doormats for them. Do not lose your backbone! If Paul Atreides bears any love for Caladan—and I believe he must—then surely he will accept the will of the people. We mean him no harm, but we must retain our identity. For the people of Caladan!” Her eyes scanned the crowd one last time. “Or would you rather be forever known as the people of Chisra Sala Muad’Dib?” She practically spat the name.
It was time to make her exit. The audience muttered, then began to cheer Mohiam as she worked her way down the aisle and back to the outer doors, the stone steps, and the damp night outside. She had barely needed to use Voice at all. . . .
As she departed, she heard Mayor Horvu changing his tune, enthusiastically accepting her suggestions as a reasonable compromise. Oblivious to her manipulations, he would carry the torch from here, and in later days no one would be able to name her, nor would they find her. Horvu would now lead them in increasingly dangerous directions. By the time Jessica came home from Salusa Secundus, the groundswell would be uncontrollable.
The Winds of Dune Page 27
