Paul of Dune hod-1 Page 26

  The Archduke lay back in his bed coughing, fighting for words. “Too weak to fight… it was the only way I could summon help.”

  “It made all the difference.” Fuming with anger at the invasion, Duncan heard shouts from down the hall. “At least you are safe, Archduke.”

  “I am not safe,” the one-armed man replied hoarsely. “And neither are you — nor any member of House Atreides.”

  4

  Even if you lose all your riches, your home, and your family… so long as you retain your honor, you are still a wealthy man.

  —DUKE PAULUS ATREIDES

  In the War Council chamber, Leto could barely find words to express his outrage. “One massacre wasn’t enough for the Viscount? Not only has he violated my home, crippled my friend, cut down a great warrior, and murdered my bride-to-be — now he has tried to kill my son!”

  Archduke Armand sat wearily at the table, his arm stump still wrapped in bandages, a few scabbed cuts showing on his face and hands, like badges of honor. “You are not the reason for this, Leto. The Viscount meant to attack me. Those boys were just convenient additional targets.”

  “No, Armand, it was no accident. That assassin purposely sought out Paul’s chamber. Now that Moritani has set his sights on killing my son, he will not stop. None of us are safe.” Leto’s expression remained dark. “If I ever was a mere bystander, I am not anymore. I am as involved as you.”

  He turned to his own Swordmaster. “Duncan, I charge you with a task more important than any other service you have performed for House Atreides. I think it likely the Grummans have other assassins in hiding. Take Paul away from Castle Caladan and keep him safe — go someplace where he will never be found.”

  Duncan frowned. “Does such a place exist, my Lord?”

  “The Eastern Continent, the Sisters in Isolation. Their abbey is a veritable fortress. Have him stay there with his grandmother.”

  “My son was also a target last night,” Rhombur rumbled like a steam engine about to explode. “You are not in this alone, Leto. If you join this War of Assassins, I will fight at your side — even though the technocrats would prefer that I go back and watch over the assembly lines.”

  “No, that is exactly what you should do, my friend,” Leto said. “Thanks to House Moritani, this firestorm has already spread beyond the Ginaz School and Ecaz to involve Caladan. If you bring Ix into this as well, Emperor Shaddam will punish all of us rather than let this explode into a conflict that spreads through the whole Landsraad.”

  “But you can’t just let him get away with this!” Rhombur exclaimed.

  “No indeed — we must take the offensive.” Leto looked at Archduke Ecaz. “My marriage to your daughter was not completed, but I am still bound by my word of honor. House Atreides and House Ecaz are allies — not just for politics and commerce, but in all things. I pledge the forces of House Atreides to your military. My military will accompany you to Ecaz to gather your forces, and together we will bring the bloodshed to the Viscount’s doorstep. Perhaps God Himself can forgive Hundro Moritani for what he has done, but I shall not.”

  ***

  WHEN LETO FINALLY lifted the travel embargo to and from Caladan, the wedding guests and noble visitors clamored for positions on the waiting Heighliner above, bidding for berths to hold their family frigates. But the Duke commandeered every available spot in order to carry an entire Atreides military fleet to Ecaz. He told the other travelers they would have to wait for the next Guildship.

  The Spacing Guild representatives were at first offended that a nobleman from a minor planet would give them such instructions, but Leto displayed images of the massacre caused by Viscount Moritani. Slamming his palm on the hard tabletop, Leto said, “These matters extend outside the scope of normal commerce. I invoke the Rules of the Great Convention.”

  Thufir Hawat had offered specific legal arguments for Leto to cite, but the Guildsmen knew their own rules. When the representative from the orbiting ship saw the uncompromising expressions on the faces of Leto and the one-armed Archduke, he conceded. “So long as you pay for the passage of all your ships, we will take you where you need to go.”

  Gurney Halleck came with them, bringing his baliset, although Leto doubted there would be much opportunity for singing. In the meantime, Thufir was dispatched directly to Kaitain to present the horrific evidence of Viscount Moritani’s crime and demand Imperial justice or, if possible, Sardaukar intervention.

  For as long as Leto was gone, Jessica would remain on Caladan to act in the Duke’s stead. She was torn between wanting to accompany him and remaining behind to shield their son — although Duncan had already taken the twelve-year-old and vanished before dawn. Without trying to sway the Duke, Jessica said goodbye to him at the Cala City spaceport, giving him an embrace that expressed her depths of emotion.

  Leto froze for a moment, thinking of how lovely Ilesa had looked on their wedding day. But Jessica was here, and real, and warm against him. His expression nearly broke, his resolve wavered. But he could not allow that, neither in his mind nor in his heart. He was going to fight beside Armand Ecaz because of the attack on his House, the death of Ilesa, and the threat against Paul’s life.

  Leto hardened himself, just as he had done after Victor’s death and the suicide of Kailea. He had no time for the weakness or hesitation of love. Wasn’t that what the Bene Gesserits always taught? Leto finally pushed Jessica away, gave her one more kiss, and then marched into the frigate beside his waiting companions. Right now he had only one focus, as sharp and as all-consuming as a singularity.

  A promised marriage was different from any other trade agreement or business arrangement. His father’s mistake with Helena had been that he had viewed their marriage as nothing more than a strategic move in a large Imperial game. Paulus had never invested himself personally in it. He may have been a beloved Duke and a good father, but he’d never been much of a husband.

  Leto felt a sense of relief when his ships rose from Caladan to be engulfed in the cavernous hold of the Heighliner. The giant doors closed them in, and it was done. He did not want, or need, a chance to change his mind.

  He rode with the Archduke in the lead frigate of the Ecazi delegation. The man was damaged and deeply hurt, and Leto would remain at his side as friend and staunch ally against the evil they now faced.

  Pale and agitated, Whitmore Bludd rode next to Gurney. The Swordmaster’s fine clothes were rumpled now, with no indication of the peacock finery he usually wore. He carried the rapier at his side, though he seemed loathe to use it.

  A small amount of the ashes from Rivvy Dinari’s funeral pyre had been mixed into a polished plaz cube to be the keystone of a new monument. Archduke Ecaz had already promised to build a towering memorial to the beefy Swordmaster for his selfless bravery.

  Bludd flinched as he looked at the transparent cube, in which the ashes were suspended like dark stars floating in a bright nebula. The Archduke spoke very little to him, pointedly ignoring his remaining Swordmaster. Whitmore Bludd’s name would barely be mentioned in any historical recounting of this event.

  Now that Leto had time to consider the scope of the military operation under way, as well as the Guild’s transport fees, the realization of how much this full-scale war was going to cost finally began to sink in. If the mad Grumman leader had followed the rules set down for a War of Assassins, there would have been precise targets, specific victims, and no need for a gigantic armed fleet with all of its attendant support costs. “This could bankrupt me, Armand.”

  The Archduke turned a gaunt face toward him. “House Ecaz will pay half of your expenses.” He blinked, and his eyelids seemed heavy. “What is the price of honor?”

  Though there was nothing to see within the Heighliner’s hold, the Archduke stared out the small porthole, looking at all of the Atreides military ships there, which would soon be joined with his own warships.

  ***

  WHEN THE HEIGHLINER reached Ecaz and the hold opened for the A
treides vessels to drop down as a magnificent escort for the Archduke’s frigate, a great deal of confusion tangled the communication lines from the palace below.

  With a dismissive gesture toward his surviving Swordmaster, Armand said, “Bludd, inform them who we are! Tell them there is no threat.” His face looked dead, rather than gloating, as he added, “I want to look Duke Vidal in the eye and watch him squirm. He will be most surprised to see me still alive. How will he make excuses, I wonder?”

  “He will claim that the evidence we bring of his treachery was falsified,” Leto said.

  “He can claim whatever he likes… but I will believe only the truth.”

  But Duke Vidal did not give them the chance. On the main continent, a swarm of ships scrambled from the Ecazi Palace at the appearance of the overwhelming force coming down from orbit. Hundreds of vessels flew swiftly across the sea to the Elaccan continent. A mass exodus had begun as soon as the unexpectedly large military force began its descent.

  Leto could understand the panicked reaction, though. “With a military force this size, they must think we’re invading.” But weren’t the Ecazis honorable enough to defend their women and children, even if they thought they faced an overwhelming enemy force? Why were they fleeing like thieves in the night?

  “I’ll set them straight.” Bludd eagerly spoke into the microphone. “Archduke Armand has returned, and he calls for an immediate war council. We bring grave news.”

  “The Archduke is alive?” blurted the spaceport manager. “We were told he was assassinated, along with his daughter and much of the Atreides household!”

  Armand scowled. Leto rose halfway to his feet from his passenger seat. “Who told you this? How did this information come to Ecaz?”

  “Why, Duke Prad Vidal announced it. He has assumed temporary control of the planet, as acting leader.”

  Armand’s face darkened with anger, and Gurney growled. “There is no way a courier could have brought that information, my Lord. We allowed no ships to leave Caladan. We are the first. No one could have spread the word.”

  “He didn’t need a courier,” Leto said. “He knew the attack was going to happen, but I did not expect he would act precipitously. He’s a fool.”

  “He is impatient. He could not have guessed we would cut off all communication from Caladan after the massacre, or that either of us would survive. It seems he was too anxious to steal my seat of power to wait for confirmation.” Armand wrested the communication controls from Bludd and issued orders to the spaceport manager. “Have Duke Vidal arrested immediately. He has many questions to answer.”

  At the main palace, Leto could see the great confusion, numerous ships still lifting off and streaking away, an entire military force in disorganized retreat. Vidal’s supporters? The small gang that supported the Elaccan governor’s bid for power could not possibly withstand the full Atreides fleet, and they knew it.

  “He wanted to take over my palace, but didn’t realize he’d have to fight for it. Now he runs back to Elacca to hide behind his own fortifications — for all the good they’ll do him.” The Archduke’s expression was a barely contained thunderstorm.

  “Before we can crush the Grumman threat, we will have to deal with the cockroaches under your own doormat, my Lord,” Gurney said.

  The stream of frantic ships continued to evacuate from the Ecazi Palace, racing toward the coast and the open ocean. Armand clenched and unclenched his one remaining fist. “Duke Leto, have your warships destroy those vessels. That will take care of our problem.”

  Leto straightened. “Armand, that would break the rules of the War of Assassins. Minimize collateral damage. Take out only the noble target. If this is not handled properly, you could begin a civil war here on Ecaz and be censured by the Landsraad.”

  Armand nodded slowly as his lead frigate came in for a landing. “I cannot accept that. A civil war would delay my strike against Grumman.”

  5

  The Harkonnens killed my family, and I survived, even though Beast Rabban tried to hunt me down. I fought many battles during my Swordmaster training on Ginaz, then helped Duke Leto’s troops retake Ix from the Tleilaxu, and through it all I survived. I cannot begin to count the number of battles I have fought in the name of House Atreides. Those numbers do not count. The only thing that matters is that I am still alive to defend House Atreides.

  —DUNCAN IDAHO, A Thousand Lives

  With his wiry black hair and distinctive features, Duncan Idaho bore no resemblance to young Paul Atreides. Since they could not pose as father and son traveling together, they decided instead upon uncle and ward.

  They wore comfortable but ill-fitting clothes and carried patched travel sacks, all of which had been picked up at a secondhand market in Cala City. Duncan concealed the Old Duke’s sword beneath a loose cape. Paul’s hair had been cropped short, and his recent scabs and scrapes also altered his appearance. The Swordmaster inspected him and said, “The job of a disguise is not to be perfect, but to deflect attention.”

  They boarded a large passenger ferry that slowly crossed the ocean, carrying cargo, farm crews, vacationers who preferred the leisurely pace, and others who were simply too poor to afford a long-distance flight. Most of the passengers in the lower decks were pundi rice farmers who moved from paddy to paddy along the continental coasts, following the monsoon season. Short in stature, they had broad faces and aboriginal features, and they spoke a dialect that Paul did not understand; many were descended from tribes that still resided in the dense jungles, isolated for hundreds of generations. In filmbooks Paul had read about the mysterious “Caladan primitives,” but little was known about them, since for many generations the Atreides rulers had adhered to a policy of noninterference in the natural, self-contained societies.

  Some passengers amused themselves by fishing from the main deck. The ferry’s cook dragged a net from the stern and used his catch for the day’s communal meal. All passengers ate at a common table, though Paul and Duncan kept to themselves. Paul was satisfied enough with the thin fish stew and dried wedges of paradan melon.

  Once, a storm came close enough to make the large ferry sway back and forth, but Paul had his sea legs and stood on deck with Duncan, watching the clouds and whitecaps, seeing flashes of lightning in the distance. He thought of the stories of electrical creatures named elecrans that preyed upon lost sailors, but this was a more mundane form of lightning, a simple thunderstorm that passed away to the north.

  When the ferry finally arrived at the Eastern Continent’s largest city, little more than a village with docks and wooden houses that extended out over the shoreline, they disembarked. Paul regarded the rugged mountains that rose abruptly from the coastline. “Are we going to the interior, Duncan? I don’t see any roads.”

  “It will probably be no more than a trail. The Sisters keep themselves hidden, but there’s no isolation so great that I can’t find it.”

  When they asked villagers about the mysterious fortress abbey, they received sour, suspicious looks. Though the Sisters in Isolation were not revered, the locals viewed strangers with even less enthusiasm. Nevertheless, Duncan continued to press, insisting that his interest in the abbey was a private matter. Finally he received vague directions, which enabled the two of them to set off.

  It took them days to make the journey on foot, following a wide road that degenerated into a dirt one, then a rutted trail, and ultimately dwindled to a muddy path that wound upward into the mountains. Around them the jungle grew denser, the trees taller, the rugged slopes steeper.

  When they finally reached the fortress nunnery on the third afternoon, it seemed almost as if they had stumbled upon it by accident. Sheer black walls rose from the ground like artificial cliffs. Paul stared at the imposing razor-edged corners and lookout turrets on which small figures could be discerned. The communal home of the Sisters in Isolation had few windows, only small slots in the thick barricade — perhaps to minimize vulnerabilities, or to give the Sisters few o
pportunities to view the outside world.

  Duncan and Paul strode up to the barred, unwelcoming gates. “They must receive visitors occasionally,” Paul mused. “How else do they get supplies and equipment? They can’t be entirely self-sufficient.”

  “No sense hiding our identity, now that we’re here. I’m sure they’ve been watching us for the past several kilometers.” Duncan threw back his hood and put his hand on the young man’s shoulder. He shouted at the gate. “Hello!”

  Other than the tiny figures stationed at the highest towers, he detected no movement, heard no sound. Duncan called again, “Open the gate! We demand entry in the name of Duke Leto Atreides of Caladan!”

  After a moment, Paul saw a flurry above. One of the blocks of stone over the gate shifted aside to reveal a camouflaged window. “Duke Leto the Just? Your claim is easy enough for any man to make,” came a gruff voice. A male voice, Paul decided. He wondered why a man would be guarding the door of the towering abbey.

  “But it’s not easy for a man to bring the Duke’s own son, Paul,” Duncan countered. “His grandmother Helena is with you. She won’t recognize her grandson, since she’s never looked upon him, but she will recognize me.”

  Paul turned his face upward, sure that hidden imagers were capturing every detail.

  “And why should the Abbess wish to see her grandson? Your Duke himself told her never again to have contact with his family.”

  Paul absorbed this information quickly. The Abbess? He was not actually surprised. From what he’d read of Helena Atreides, she was a scheming, highly intelligent woman with lofty ambitions.

  Duncan said, “That is a matter we will discuss in private with Lady Helena. She knows why she is there — or would she rather I shout the reasons at the top of my lungs?”

  A mechanical click was followed by a heavy droning hum as the gates swung inward. The man who came down to meet them had once been handsome — Paul could see that from his features — but now his face was lined and weathered, as though psychological pressures and sadness had eaten away at his heart for years. Amazingly, he wore a faded and much-mended House Atreides uniform.