Malky!
Leto summoned a guard and told her to ask if the Reverend Mother Anteac had yet left Arrakis. The guard returned in a moment to report.
"Anteac is still in her quarters. The Commander of the Fish Speaker Guard there says they have not come under attack."
"Send word to Anteac," Leto said. "Ask if she now understands why I put her delegation in quarters at a distance from me. Then tell her that while she is on Ix she must locate Malky. She is to report that location to our local garrison on Ix."
"Malky, the former Ixian Ambassador?"
"The same. He is not to remain alive and free. You will inform our garrison commander on Ix that she is to make close liaison with Anteac, providing every necessary assistance. Malky is to be brought here to me or executed, whichever our commander finds necessary."
The guard-messenger nodded, shadows lurching across her features where she stood in the ring of light around Leto's face. She did not ask for a repetition of the orders. Each of his close guards had been trained as a human-recorder. They could repeat Leto's words exactly, even the intonations, and would never forget what they had heard him say.
When the messenger had gone, Leto sent a private signal of inquiry and, within seconds, had a response from Nayla. The Ixian device within his cart reproduced a nonidentifiable version of her voice, a flatly metallic recital for his ears alone.
Yes, Siona was at the Citadel. No, Siona had not contacted her rebel companions. "No, she does not yet know that I am here observing her." The attack on the Embassy? That had been by a splinter group called "The Tleilaxu-Contact Element."
Leto allowed himself a mental sigh. Rebels always gave their groups such pretentious labels.
"Any survivors?" he asked.
"No known survivors."
Leto found it amusing that, while the metallic voice provided no emotional tones, his memory supplied them.
"You will make contact with Siona," he said. "Reveal that you are a Fish Speaker. Tell her you did not reveal this earlier because you knew she would not trust you and because you feared exposure since you are quite alone among Fish Speakers in your allegiance to Siona. Reaffirm your oath to her. Tell her that you swear by all that you hold holy to obey Siona in anything. If she commands it, you will do it. All of this is truth, as you well know."
"Yes, Lord."
Memory supplied the fanatic emphasis in Nayla's response. She would obey.
"If possible, provide opportunities for Siona and Duncan Idaho to be alone together," he said.
"Yes, Lord."
Let propinquity take its usual course, he thought.
He broke contact with Nayla, thought for a moment, then sent for the commander of his plaza forces. The bashar arrived presently, her dark uniform stained and dusty, evidence of gore still on her boots. She was a tall, bone-thin woman with age lines which gave her aquiline features an air of powerful dignity. Leto recalled her troop-name, Iylyo, which meant "Dependable " in Old Fremen. He called her, however, by her matronymic, Nyshae, "Daughter of Shae," which set a tone of subtle intimacy for this meeting.
"Rest yourself on a cushion, Nyshae," he said. "You have been working hard."
"Thank you, Lord."
She sank onto the red cushion which Hwi had used. Leto noted the fatigue lines around Nyshae's mouth, but her eyes remained alert. She stared up at him, eager to hear his words.
"Matters are once more tranquil in my City." He made it not quite a question, leaving the interpretation to Nyshae.
"Tranquil but not good, Lord."
He glanced at the gore on her boots.
"The street in front of the Ixian Embassy?"
"It is being cleansed, Lord. Repairs already are under way."
"The plaza?"
"By morning, it will appear as it has always appeared."
Her gaze remained steady on his face. Both of them knew he had not yet reached the nubbin of this interview. But Leto now identified a thing lurking within Nyshae's expression.
Pride in her Lord!
For the first time, she had seen the God Emperor kill. The seeds of a terrible dependency had been planted. If disaster threatens, my Lord will come. That was how it appeared in her eyes. She would no longer act with complete independence, taking her power from the God Emperor and being personally responsible for the use of that power. There was something possessive in her expression. A terrible death-machine waited in the wings, available at her summons.
Leto did not like what he saw, but the damage had been done. Any remedies would require slow and subtle pressures.
"Where did the attackers get lasguns?" he asked.
"From our own stores, Lord. The Arsenal Guard has been replaced."
Replaced. It was a euphemism with a certain nicety. Errant Fish Speakers were isolated and reserved until Leto found a problem which required Death Commandos. They would die gladly, of course, believing that thus they expiated their sin. And even the rumor that such berserkers had been dispatched could quiet a trouble spot.
"The arsenal was breached by explosives?" he asked.
"Stealth and explosives, Lord. The Arsenal Guard was careless."
"The source of the explosives?"
Some of Nyshae's fatigue was visible in her shrug.
Leto could only agree. He knew he could search out and identify those sources, but it would serve little purpose. Resourceful people could always find the ingredients for homemade explosives--common things such as sugar and bleaches, quite ordinary oils and innocent fertilizers, plastics and solvents and extracts from the dirt beneath a manure pile. The list was virtually endless, growing with each addition to human experience and knowledge. Even a society such as the one he had created, one which tried to limit the admixture of technology and new ideas, had no real hope of totally eliminating dangerously violent small weapons. The whole idea of controlling such things was chimera, a dangerous and distracting myth. The key was to limit the desire for violence. In that respect, this night had been a disaster.
So much new injustice, he thought.
As though she read his thought, Nyshae sighed.
Of course. Fish Speakers were trained from childhood to avoid injustice wherever possible.
"We must see to the survivors in the populace," he said. "See to it that their needs are met. They must be brought to the realization that the Tleilaxu were to blame."
Nyshae nodded. She had not reached bashar rank while remaining ignorant of the drill. By now, she believed it. Merely by hearing Leto say it, she believed in the Tleilaxu guilt. And there was a certain practicality in her understanding. She knew why they did not slay all of the Tleilaxu.
You do not eliminate every scapegoat.
"And we must provide a distraction," Leto said. "Luckily, there may be one ready at hand. I will send word to you after conferring with the Lady Hwi Noree."
"The Ixian Ambassador, Lord? Is she not implicated in ..."
"She is entirely guiltless," he said.
He saw belief settle into Nyshae's features, a readymade plastic underlayment which could lock her jaw and glaze her eyes. Even Nyshae. He knew the reasons because he had created those reasons, but sometimes he felt a bit awed by his creation.
"I hear the Lady Hwi arriving in my anteroom," he said. "Send her in as you leave. And, Nyshae ..."
She already was on her feet, but she stood expectantly silent.
"Tonight, I have elevated Kieuemo to sub-bashar," he said. "See that it is made official. As for yourself, I am pleased. Ask and you shall receive."
He saw the formula send a wave of pleasure through Nyshae, but she tempered it immediately, proving once more her worth to him.
"I shall test Kieuemo, Lord," she said. "If she suits, I may take a holiday. I have not seen my family on Salusa Secundus for many years."
"At a time of your own choosing," he said.
And he thought: Salusa Secundus. Of course!
That one reference to her origins reminded him of who she res
embled: Harq al-Ada. She has Corrino blood. We are closer relatives than I had thought.
"My Lord is generous," she said.
She left him then, a new spring in her stride. He heard her voice in the anteroom: "Lady Hwi, our Lord will see you now."
Hwi entered, backlighted and framed in the archway for a moment, hesitancy in her step until her eyes adjusted to the inner chamber. She came like a moth to the brightness around Leto's face, looking away only to seek along his shadowy length for signs of injury. He knew that no such sign was visible, but there were still aches and interior tremblings.
His eyes detected a slight limp, Hwi favoring her right leg, but a long gown of jade green concealed the injury. She stopped at the edge of the declivity which held his cart, looking directly into his eyes.
"They said you were wounded, Hwi. Are you in pain?"
"A cut on my leg below the knee, Lord. A small piece of masonry from the explosion. Your Fish Speakers treated it with a salve which removed the pain. Lord, I feared for you."
"And I feared for you, gentle Hwi."
"Except for that first explosion, I was not in danger, Lord. They rushed me into a room deep beneath the Embassy."
So she did not see my performance, he thought. I can be thankful for that.
"I sent for you to ask your forgiveness," he said.
She sank onto a golden cushion. "What is there to forgive, Lord? You are not the reason for ..."
"I am being tested, Hwi."
"You?"
"There are those who wish to know the depths of my concern for the safety of Hwi Noree."
She pointed upward. "That ... was because of me?"
"Because of us."
"Oh. But who ..."
"You have agreed to wed me, Hwi, and I ..." He raised a hand to silence her as she started to speak. "Anteac has told us what you revealed to her, but this did not originate with Anteac."
"Then who is ..."
"The who is not important. It is important that you reconsider. I must give you this opportunity to change your mind."
She lowered her gaze.
How sweet her features are, he thought.
It was possible for him to create only in his imagination an entire human lifetime with Hwi. Enough examples lay in the welter of his memories upon which to build a fantasy of wedded life. It gathered nuances in his fancy-- small details of mutual experience, a touch, a kiss, all of the sweet sharings upon which arose something of painful beauty. He ached with it, a pain far deeper than the physical reminders of his violence at the Embassy.
Hwi lifted her chin and looked into his eyes. He saw there a compassionate longing to help him.
"But how else may I serve you, Lord?"
He reminded himself that she was a primate, while he no longer was fully primate. The differences grew deeper by the minute.
The ache remained within him.
Hwi was an inescapable reality, something so basic that no word could ever fully express it. The ache within him was almost more than he could bear.
"I love you, Hwi. I love you as a man loves a woman ... but it cannot be. That will never be."
Tears flowed from her eyes. "Should I leave? Should I return to Ix?"
"They would only hurt you, trying to find out what went wrong with their plan."
She has seen my pain, he thought. She knows the futility and frustration. What will she do? She will not lie. She will not say she returns my love as a woman to a man. She recognizes the futility. And she knows her own feelings for me--compassion, awe, a questioning which ignores fear.
"Then I will stay," she said. "We will take such pleasure as we can from being together. I think it is best that we do this. If it means we should wed, so be it."
"Then I must share knowledge with you which I have shared with no other person," he said. "It will give you a power over me which ..."
"Do not do this, Lord! What if someone forced me to ..."
"You will never again leave my household. My quarters here, the Citadel, the safe places of the Sareer--these will be your home."
"As you will."
How gentle and open her quiet acceptance, he thought.
The aching pulse within him had to be calmed. In itself, it was a danger to him and to the Golden Path.
Those clever Ixians!
Malky had seen how the all-powerful were forced to contend with a constant siren song--the will to self-delight.
Constant awareness of the power in your slightest whim.
Hwi took his silence to be uncertainty. "Will we wed, Lord?"
"Yes."
"Should anything be done about the Tleilaxu stories which ..."
"Nothing."
She stared at him, remembering their earlier conversation. The seeds of dissolution were being planted.
"It is my fear, Lord, that I will weaken you," she said.
"Then you must find ways to strengthen me."
"Can it strengthen you if we diminish belief in the God Leto?"
He heard a hint of Malky in her voice, that measured weighing which had made him so revoltingly charming. We never completely escape the teachers of our childhood.
"Your question begs the answer," he said. "Many will continue to worship according to my design. Others will believe the lies."
"Lord ... would you ask me to lie for you?"
"Of course not. But I will ask you to remain silent when you might wish to speak."
"But if they revile ..."
"You will not protest."
Once more, tears flowed down her cheeks. Leto longed to touch them, but they were water ... painful water.
"It must be done this way," he said.
"Will you explain it to me, Lord?"
"When I am gone, they must call me Shaitan, the Emperor of Gehenna. The wheel must turn and turn and turn along the Golden Path."
"Lord, could the anger not be directed at me alone? I would not ..."
"No! The Ixians made you much more perfectly than they thought. I truly love you. I cannot help it."
"I do not wish to cause you pain!" The words were wrenched from her.
"What's done is done. Do not mourn it."
"Help me to understand."
"The hate which will blossom after I am gone, that, too, will fade into the inevitable past. A long time will pass. Then, on a far-distant day, my journals will be found."
"Journals?" She was shaken by the seeming shift of subject.
"My chronicle of my time. My arguments, the apologia. Copies exist and scattered fragments will survive, some in distorted form, but the original journals will wait and wait and wait. I have hidden them well."
"And when they are discovered?"
"People will learn that I was something quite different from what they supposed."
Her voice came in a trembling hush. "I already know what they will learn."
"Yes, my darling Hwi, I think you do."
"You are neither devil nor god, but something never seen before and never to be seen again because your presence removes the need."
She brushed tears from her cheeks.
"Hwi, do you realize how dangerous you are?"
Alarm showed in her expression, the tensing of her arms.
"You have the makings of a saint," he said. "Do you understand how painful it can be to find a saint in the wrong place and the wrong time?"
She shook her head.
"People have to be prepared for saints," he said. "Otherwise, they simply become followers, supplicants, beggars and weakened sycophants forever in the shadow of the saint. People are destroyed by this because it nurtures only weakness."
After a moment of thought, she nodded, then: "Will there be saints when you are gone?"
"That's the purpose of my Golden Path."
"Moneo's daughter, Siona, will she ..."
"For now she is only a rebel. As to sainthood, we will let her decide. Perhaps she will only do what she was bred to do."
"What is that, Lord?"
"Stop calling me Lord," he said. "We will be Worm and wife. Call me Leto if you wish. Lord interferes."
"Yes, L ... Leto. But what is ..."
"Siona was bred to rule. There is danger in such breeding. When you rule, you gain knowledge of power. This can lead into impetuous irresponsibility, into painful excesses and that can lead to the terrible destroyer--wild hedonism."
"Siona would ..."
"All we know about Siona is that she can remain dedicated to a particular performance, to the pattern which fills her senses. She is necessarily an aristocrat, but aristocracy looks mostly to the past. That's a failure. You don't see much of any path unless you are Janus, looking simultaneously backward and forward."
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