Dune - House Atreides

by Brian Herbert

  "That wouldn't have been enough," Leto said, flaring his nostrils. "My father was a good fighter. The best."

  The Mentat shook his shaggy head. "The bull was also given a neutralizing agent, a chemical that counteracted the neurotoxin in the Duke's banderillas and simultaneously triggered a release of the stimulant. When the bull should have been paralyzed, the stimulant was increased instead. The beast became an even more dangerous killing machine, just as the Old Duke was growing tired."

  Leto glowered. With an angry lurch he rose from the breakfast table and glanced up at the omnipresent poison-snooper. He paced, letting his rice pudding grow cold. Then he turned and spoke sharply, summoning all the techniques of leadership he had been taught. "Mentat, give me a prime projection. Who would do this?"

  Thufir sat motionless as he entered deep Mentat mode. Data streamed through the computer inside his skull, a human brain that simulated the capabilities of the ancient, hated enemies of mankind.

  "Most likely possibility: a personal attack from a major political enemy of House Atreides. Because of the timing, I suspect it may be a punishment of the Old Duke for his support of House Vernius."

  "My suspicion exactly," Rhombur muttered. The son of Dominic Vernius seemed very much an adult now, hardened and tempered, no longer just a good-natured study companion who had lived a pampered life. Since coming to Caladan he had trimmed down, tightened his muscles. His eyes had taken on a flinty gleam.

  "But no House has declared kanly on us," Leto said. "In the ancient rite of vendetta there are requirements, forms to be followed, are there not, Thufir?"

  "But we can't trust all of the Old Duke's enemies to adhere to such niceties," Hawat said. "We must be very cautious."

  Rhombur reddened, thinking of his own family's ouster from Ix. "And there are those who twist the forms to match their needs."

  "Secondary possibility," the Mentat continued. "The target could have been Duke Paulus himself, and not House Atreides -- the result of a small vendetta or personal grudge. The culprit could perhaps be a local petitioner who didn't like a decision the Duke had made. Though this murder has galactic consequences, its cause could, ironically, be a trivial thing."

  Leto shook his head. "I can't believe that. I saw how much the people loved my father. None of his subjects would turn on him, not a single one."

  Hawat did not flinch. "My Duke, do not overestimate the strength of love and loyalty, and do not underestimate the power of personal hatred."

  "Uh, what's a better possibility?" Rhombur inquired.

  Hawat looked his Duke in the eye. "An attack to weaken House Atreides. The death of the patriarch leaves you, m 'Lord, in a vulnerable position. You are young and untrained."

  Leto drew in a deep breath, but restrained his temper as he listened.

  "Your enemies will now see House Atreides as unstable, and could make a move against us. Your allies may also see you as a liability and support you with somewhat . . . limited enthusiasm. This is a very dangerous time for you."

  "The Harkonnens?" Leto asked.

  Hawat shrugged. "Possibly. Or some ally of theirs."

  Leto pressed his hands against his temples and drew another deep breath. He saw Rhombur looking uneasily at him.

  "Continue your investigation, Thufir," Leto said. "Since we know that drugs were introduced to the Salusan bull, I suggest you target your interrogations around the stables."

  THE STABLEBOY DUNCAN Idaho stood in front of his new Duke, bowing proudly, ready to swear his fealty again. The household staff had cleaned him up, though he still wore stable clothes. The ruined garments he'd been given for the ill-fated final bullfight had been discarded. His curly black hair was disheveled.

  A rage burned inside him. He was certain that Duke Paulus's death could have been avoided if someone had only listened to him. The grief struck him sharply, and he agonized over whether he might have done more: Should he have insisted harder or spoken to someone other than Stablemaster Yresk? He wondered if he should reveal what he had tried to do, but for the moment held his tongue.

  Looking too small in the ducal chair, Leto Atreides narrowed his gray eyes and skewered Duncan with a gaze. "Boy, I remember when you joined our household." His face looked thinner, and much older than it had been when Duncan had first stood inside the Castle hall. "It was just after I escaped from Ix with Rhombur and Kailea."

  Both of the Vernius refugees also sat in the main hall, as did Thufir Hawat and a contingent of guards. Duncan glanced over at them, then returned his attention to the young Duke.

  "I heard stories of your escape from the Harkonnens, Duncan Idaho," Leto continued, "of how you were tortured and imprisoned. My father trusted you when he gave you a position here at Castle Caladan. You know how unusual it was for him to do that?" He leaned forward on the dark, wooden chair.

  Duncan nodded. "Yes, m'Lord." He felt a hot flush of guilt on his face at having failed the benefactor who had been so kind to him. "Yes, I know."

  "But someone drugged the Salusan bulls before my father's last fight -- and you were one of those tending the beasts. You had ample opportunity. Why didn't I see you at the paseo when all the others marched around the arena? I remember looking for you." His voice became much sharper. "Duncan Idaho, were you sent here, all innocent looking and indignant, as a secret assassin in the employ of the Harkonnens?"

  Duncan stepped back, appalled. "Indeed not, m'Lord Duke!" he cried. "I tried to warn everyone. For days I knew something was wrong with the bulls. I told Stablemaster Yresk again and again, but he wouldn't do anything. He just laughed at me. I even argued with him. That's why I wasn't at the paseo. I was going to go warn the Old Duke myself, but instead the stablemaster locked me in one of the dirty stalls during the fight." Tears welled up in his eyes. "All the fine clothes your father gave me were ruined. I didn't even see him fall in the arena."

  Surprised at this, Leto sat up in his father's large chair. He looked over at Hawat.

  I will find out, m'Lord," the Mentat said.

  Leto scrutinized the boy. Duncan Idaho stood before him showing no fear, only deep sadness. As he studied him, Leto thought he recognized an openness and a heartfelt devotion on the young face. By appearances, this nine-year-old refugee seemed truly glad to be part of Castle Caladan, despite his demeaning, thankless chores as a stableboy.

  Leto Atreides did not have many years of experience in judging devious people and weighing the hearts of men, but he had an intuition that he could trust this earnest boy. Duncan was tough and intelligent and fierce -- but not treacherous.

  Be cautious, Duke Leto, he told himself. There are many tricks in the Imperium, and this could be one of them. Then he thought of the old stablemaster; Yresk had been with Castle Caladan ever since the arranged marriage of Leto's parents . . . . Could such a plan have been so many years in germination? Yes, he supposed it could. Though he trembled at the implications.

  Unaccompanied, the Lady Helena glided into the reception hall, taking furtive steps. Deep shadows hovered around her eyes. Leto watched his mother slip into the empty chair beside his, the one reserved for times when she had sat beside her husband. Straight-backed and without words, she examined the young boy before them.

  Moments later, Stablemaster Yresk was unceremoniously brought into the hall by Atreides guards. His shock of white hair was mussed, and his baggy eyes seemed wide and uncertain. When Thufir Hawat finished summarizing the story Duncan had told, the stablemaster laughed and his bony shoulders sagged with exaggerated relief. "After all the years I served you, would you believe this stable-rat, this Harkonnen?" He rolled his puffy eyes in indignation. "Please, m'Lord!"

  Overly dramatic, Leto thought; Hawat saw it, too.

  Yresk placed a finger to his lips, as if considering a possibility. "Now that you mention it, m'Lord, it could well be that the boy himself was poisoning the bull. I couldn't watch him every moment."

  "That's a lie!" Duncan shouted. "I wanted to tell the Duke, but you locked me
in a stall. Why didn't you try to stop the bullfight? I warned you and warned you -- and now the Duke is dead."

  Hawat listened, his eyes distant, his lips moist and cranberry-stained from a fresh swallow of sapho juice. Leto saw he had entered Mentat mode again, racing through all the data he recalled of the events involving young Duncan and Yresk as well.

  "Well?" Leto asked the stablemaster. He forced himself not to think of old times with the lanky man who had always smelled of sweat and manure.

  "The stable-rat may have prattled some at me, m'Lord, but he was afraid of the bulls. I can't simply cancel a bullfight because a child thinks the beasts are terrifying." He snorted. "I took care of this pup, gave him every chance-"

  "Yet you didn't listen to him when he warned you about the bulls, and now my father is dead," Leto said, noting that Yresk suddenly seemed afraid. "Why would you do that?"

  "Possible projection," Hawat said. "Through the Lady Helena, Yresk has worked for House Richese all his life. Richese has had ties to the Harkonnens in the past, as well as an adversarial relationship with Ix. He may not even be aware of his part in the overall scheme or --"

  "What? This is absurd!" Yresk insisted. He scratched his white hair. "I have nothing to do with the Harkonnens." He flashed a glance at the Lady Helena, but she refused to meet his gaze.

  "Don't interrupt my Mentat," Leto warned.

  Thufir Hawat studied Lady Helena, whose icy stare was leveled at him. Then his gaze slid to her son, where it remained as he continued to lay out his projection: "Summary: The marriage of Paulus Atreides to Helena of House Richese was dangerous, even at the time. The Landsraad saw it as a way to weaken Richese/Harkonnen ties, while Count Ilban Richese accepted the marriage as a last-ditch effort to salvage some of his family fortune at the time they were losing Arrakis. As for House Atreides, Duke Paulus received a formal CHOAM directorship and became a voting member of the Council -- something this family might never otherwise have achieved.

  "When the wedding party came here with Lady Helena, however, perhaps not all of her retainers granted their full loyalty to Atreides. Contact could have been made between Harkonnen agents and Stablemaster Yresk . . . without Lady Helena's knowledge, of course."

  "That's wild conjecture, especially for a Mentat," Yresk said. He looked for support from anyone in the room, Leto noticed -- with the exception of Helena, whose eyes he now seemed to avoid. On his thin throat, his Adam's apple bobbed up and down.

  Leto stared at his mother sitting in silence beside him, at the set of her jaw. A sharp cold sliced unbidden down his spine. Through the carved wood of their closed bedroom door, Leto had heard her words concerning his father's Vernius policy. You're the one who's made a choice here, Paulus. And you've made the wrong one. Now the words echoed in Leto's head. That choice will cost you and our House dearly.

  "Uh, nobody really watches a stablemaster, Leto," Rhombur pointed out in a low voice.

  But Leto continued to observe his mother. Stablemaster Yresk had come to Caladan as part of Helena's wedding entourage from Richese. Could she have turned to him? What sort of hold did she have on the man?

  His throat went dry as all the pieces interlocked in his mind with a sudden realization that must have been similar to what a Mentat experienced. She had done it! Lady Helena Atreides herself had set the wheels in motion. Oh, perhaps she'd had some outside assistance, possibly even from Harkonnens . . . and most certainly Yresk had been the one to carry out the actual details.

  But she herself had made the decision to punish Paulus. He knew it in the core of his soul. With her fifteen-year-old son, she would now control Caladan and make the decisions she believed best.

  Leto, my son, you are Duke Atreides now. Those had been his mother's words only moments after her husband's death. An odd reaction for a shocked and grief-stricken woman.

  "Please stop this," Yresk said, wringing his hands. "M'Lord, I would never betray the House I serve." He pointed at Duncan. "But you know this stable-rat must be a Harkonnen. He came from Giedi Prime not that long ago."

  Lady Helena sat rigidly, and when she finally spoke, her voice cracked, as if she hadn't used it much in recent days. She leveled a challenging look at her son. "You've known Yresk since you were a child, Leto. Would you accuse a member of my entourage? Don't be ridiculous."

  "No accusations yet, Mother," Leto said very carefully. "It's just discussion at this point." As leader of House Atreides, he had to work hard to distance himself from his childhood, from when he had been an eager boy asking the white-haired stablemaster if he could see the bulls. Yresk had taught him how to pet various animals, ride some of the older mounts, tie knots, and fix harnesses.

  But the wide-eyed child Leto was the new Duke of House Atreides.

  "We must study the evidence before we draw any conclusions."

  Emotions roiled across Yresk's face, and suddenly Leto was afraid of what the stablemaster might say. Pressed into a corner and afraid for his life, would he implicate Helena? The guards in the hall listened attentively. Kailea watched, drinking in every detail. Others would no doubt hear and repeat everything that was spoken here. The scandal would rock Caladan, perhaps the Landsraad itself.

  Even if his mother had arranged for the accident at the bullfight, even if Yresk had done it under orders -- or because he had been bribed or blackmailed somehow -- Leto did not dare let the man confess it here. He required the truth, but in private. If word got out that Lady Helena had been behind the Old Duke's death, it would tear House Atreides apart. His own rule could be damaged beyond repair . . . and he would have no choice but to deal out the harshest possible justice to his own mother.

  He shuddered as he thought of the play Agamemnon, and the curse of Atreus that had dogged his family since the dawn of history. He drew a deep breath, knowing he must be strong.

  "Do what you must, lad," his father had said. "No one can blame you for that, as long as you make the right decisions."

  But what was the right decision now?

  Helena stood up from her chair and spoke to Leto in a cool maternal tone. "The death of my husband was no treachery -- it was a punishment from God." She gestured toward Rhombur and Kailea, who seemed stunned by the proceedings. "My beloved Duke was punished for his friendship with House Vernius, for allowing these children to live in our Castle. Their family has broken the commandments, and Paulus still embraced them. My husband's pride killed him -- not a lowly stablemaster. It's as simple as that."

  "I've heard enough, Mother," Leto said.

  Helena gave him an indignant, withering glare, as if he were a child. "I am not finished speaking. There is much to being a Duke that you couldn't possibly understand yet --"

  Leto remained seated, putting all the power he could muster into his voice and composure. "I am the Duke, Mother, and you will be silent, or I shall have the guards forcibly evict you from the hall and lock you in one of the towers."

  Helena's skin paled, and her eyes went wild as she fought to contain her shock. She couldn't believe her own son had spoken to her in this manner, but thought better of pressing him. As usual, she struggled to maintain appearances. She had seen similar expressions on the Old Duke's face and didn't dare bring the storm closer.

  Though it would have been better for him to remain silent, Yresk shouted, "Leto, boy, you can't believe this fatherless stable-rat over me --"

  Leto looked at the frantic, scarecrowish man and compared his demeanor with the proud young Duncan's. Yresk's puffy-eyed face sparkled with perspiration. "I do find him more credible, Yresk," Leto said slowly. "And never call me 'boy' again."

  Hawat stepped forward. "We might retrieve further information through deep interrogation. I shall personally question this stablemaster."

  Leto's gaze fell on his Mentat. "In private would be best, Thufir. No one but you." He closed his eyes for the briefest moment and swallowed hard. Later, he knew, he would have to send a message to Hawat that the stablemaster must not be allowed to survive th
e interrogation . . . for fear of what else he might reveal. The Mentat's fractional nod told Leto that he understood much that had been left unsaid. All information Hawat extracted would remain a secret between himself and his Duke.

  Yresk howled as the guards grasped his thin arms. Before the stablemaster could shout anything, Hawat clapped a hand over his mouth.

  Then, as if it had been timed to occur during the moment of greatest confusion, the guards opened the main hall doors to allow the entry of a uniformed man. He strode in, eyes fixed on Leto and Leto alone, who sat on the chair at the end of the hall. His electronic identity badge marked him as an official Courier, newly disembarked from a lighter at Cala City Spaceport. Leto stiffened, knowing this man could not possibly bear good tidings.