“Dare the Emperor charge me with treason before a full Landstraad Council?” And the Baron held his breath with the hope of it.
“The Emperor need dare nothing.”
The Baron whirled away in his suspensors to hide his expression. It could happen in my lifetime! he thought. Emperor! Let him wrong me! Then—the bribes and coercion, the rallying of the Great Houses: they’d flock to my banner like peasants running for shelter. The thing they fear above all else is the Emperor’s Sardaukar loosed upon them one House at a time.
“It’s the Emperor’s sincere hope he’ll never have to charge you with treason,” the Count said.
The Baron found it difficult to keep irony out of his voice and permit only the expression of hurt, but he managed. “I’ve been a most loyal subject. These words hurt me beyond my capacity to express.”
“Um-m-m-m-ah-hm-m-m,” said the Count.
The Baron kept his back to the Count, nodding. Presently he said, “It’s time to go to the arena.”
“Indeed,” said the Count.
They moved out of the cone of silence and, side by side, walked toward the clumps of Houses Minor at the end of the hall. A bell began a slow tolling somewhere in the keep—twenty-minute warning for the arena gathering.
“The Houses Minor wait for you to lead them,” the Count said, nodding toward the people they approached.
Double meaning … double meaning, the Baron thought.
He looked up at the new talismans flanking the exit to his hall—the mounted bull’s head and the oil painting of the Old Duke Atreides, the late Duke Leto’s father. They filled the Baron with an odd sense of foreboding, and he wondered what thoughts these talismans had inspired in the Duke Leto as they hung in the halls of Caladan and then on Arrakis—the bravura father and the head of the bull that had killed him.
“Mankind has ah only one mm-m-m science,” the Count said as they picked up their parade of followers and emerged from the hall into the waiting room—a narrow space with high windows and floor of patterned white and purple tile.
“And what science is that?” the Baron asked.
“It’s the um-m-m-ah-h science of ah-h-h discontent,” the Count said.
The Houses Minor behind them, sheep-faced and responsive, laughed with just the right tone of appreciation, but the sound carried a note of discord as it collided with the sudden blast of motors that came to them when pages threw open the outer doors, revealing the line of ground cars, their guidon pennants whipping in a breeze.
The Baron raised his voice to surmount the sudden noise, said, “I hope you’ll not be discontented with the performance of my nephew today, Count Fenring.”
“I ah-h-h am filled um-m-m only with a hm-m-m sense of anticipation, yes,” the Count said. “Always in the ah-h-h proces verbal, one um-m-m ah-h-h must consider the ah-h-h office of origin.”
The Baron did his sudden stiffening of surprise by stumbling on the first step down from the exit. Proces verbal! That was a report of a crime against the Imperium!
But the Count chuckled to make it seem a joke, and patted the Baron’s arm.
All the way to the arena, though, the Baron sat back among the armored cushions of his car, casting covert glances at the Count beside him, wondering why the Emperor’s errand boy had thought it necessary to make that particular kind of joke in front of the Houses Minor. It was obvious that Fenring seldom did anything he felt to be unnecessary, or used two words where one would do, or held himself to a single meaning in a single phrase.
They were seated in the golden box above the triangular arena—horns blaring, the tiers above and around them jammed with a hubbub of people and waving pennants—when the answer came to the Baron.
“My dear Baron,” the Count said, leaning close to his ear, “you know, don’t you, that the Emperor has not given official sanction to your choice of heir?”
The Baron felt himself to be within a sudden personal cone of silence produced by his own shock. He stared at Fenring, barely seeing the Count’s lady come through the guards beyond to join the party in the golden box.
“That’s really why I’m here today,” the Count said. “The Emperor wishes me to report on whether you’ve chosen a worthy successor. There’s nothing like the arena to expose the true person from beneath the mask, eh?”
“The Emperor promised me free choice of heir!” the Baron grated.
“We shall see,” Fenring said, and turned away to greet his lady. She sat down, smiling at the Baron, then giving her attention to the sand floor beneath them where Feyd-Rautha was emerging in giles and tights—the black glove and the long knife in his right hand, the white glove and the short knife in his left hand.
“White for poison, black for purity,” the Lady Fenring said. “A curious custom, isn’t it, my love?”
“Um-m-m-m,” the Count said.
The greeting cheer lifted from the family galleries, and Feyd-Rautha paused to accept it, looking up and scanning the faces—seeing his cousines and cousins, the demibrothers, the concubines and out-freyn relations. They were so many pink trumpet mouths yammering amidst a flutter of colorful clothing and banners.
It came to Feyd-Rautha then that the packed ranks of faces would look just as avidly at his blood as at that of the slave-gladiator. There was not a doubt of the outcome in this fight, of course. Here was only the form of danger without its substance—yet….
Feyd-Rautha held up his knives to the sun, saluted the three corners of the arena in the ancient manner. The short knife in white-gloved hand (white, the sign of poison) went first into its sheath. Then the long blade in the black-gloved hand—the pure blade that now was unpure, his secret weapon to turn this day into a purely personal victory: poison on the black blade.
The adjustment of his body shield took only a moment, and he paused to sense the skin-tightening at his forehead assuring him he was properly guarded.
This moment carried its own suspense, and Feyd-Rautha dragged it out with the sure hand of a showman, nodding to his handlers and distractors, checking their equipment with a measuring stare—gyves in place with their prickles sharp and glistening, the barbs and hooks waving with their blue streamers.
Feyd-Rautha signaled the musicians.
The slow march began, sonorous with its ancient pomp, and Feyd-Rautha led his troupe across the arena for obeisance at the foot of his uncle’s box. He caught the ceremonial key as it was thrown.
The music stopped.
Into the abrupt silence, he stepped back two paces, raised the key and shouted. “I dedicate this truth to….” And he paused, knowing his uncle would think: The young fool’s going to dedicate to Lady Fenring after all and cause a ruckus!
“… to my uncle and patron, the Baron Vladimir Harkonnen!” Feyd-Rautha shouted.
And he was delighted to see his uncle sigh.
The music resumed at the quick-march, and Feyd-Rautha led his men scampering back across the arena to the prudence door that admitted only those wearing the proper identification band. Feyd-Rautha prided himself that he never used the pru-door and seldom needed distractors. But it was good to know they were available this day—special plans sometimes involved special dangers.
Again, silence settled over the arena.
Feyd-Rautha turned, faced the big red door across from him through which the gladiator would emerge.
The special gladiator.
The plan Thufir Hawat had devised was admirably simple and direct, Feyd-Rautha thought. The slave would not be drugged—that was the danger. Instead, a key word had been drummed into the man’s unconscious to immobilize his muscles at a critical instant. Feyd-Rautha rolled the vital word in his mind, mouthing it without sound: “Scum!” To the audience, it would appear that an undrugged slave had been slipped into the arena to kill the na-Baron. And all the carefully arranged evidence would point to the slavemaster.
A low humming arose from the red door’s servo-motors as they were armed for opening.
Feyd-
Rautha focused all his awareness on the door. This first moment was the critical one. The appearance of the gladiator as he emerged told the trained eye much it needed to know. All gladiators were supposed to be hyped on elacca drug to come out kill-ready in fighting stance—but you had to watch how they hefted the knife, which way they turned in defense, whether they were actually aware of the audience in the stands. The way a slave cocked his head could give the most vital clue to counter and feint.
The red door slammed open.
Out charged a tall, muscular man with shaved head and darkly pitted eyes. His skin was carrot-colored as it should be from the elacca drug, but Feyd-Rautha knew the color was paint. The slave wore green leotards and the red belt of a semishield—the belt’s arrow pointing left to indicate the slave’s left side was shielded. He held his knife sword-fashion, cocked slightly outward in the stance of a trained fighter. Slowly, he advanced into the arena, turning his shielded side toward Feyd-Rautha and the group at the pru-door.
“I like not the look of this one,” said one of Feyd-Rautha’s barb-men. “Are you sure he’s drugged, m’Lord?”
“He has the color,” Feyd-Rautha said.
“Yet he stands like a fighter,” said another helper.
Feyd-Rautha advanced two steps onto the sand, studied this slave.
“What has he done to his arm?” asked one of the distractors.
Feyd-Rautha’s attention went to a bloody scratch on the man’s left forearm, followed the arm down to the hand as it pointed to a design drawn in blood on the left hip of the green leotards—a wet shape there: the formalized outline of a hawk.
Hawk!
Feyd-Rautha looked up into the darkly pitted eyes, saw them glaring at him with uncommon alertness.
It’s one of Duke Leto’s fighting men we took on Arrakis! Feyd-Rautha thought. No simple gladiator this! A chill ran through him, and he wondered if Hawat had another plan for this arena—a feint within a feint within a feint. And only the slavemaster prepared to take the blame!
Feyd-Rautha’s chief handler spoke at his ear: “I like not the look on that one, m’Lord. Let me set a barb or two in his knife arm to try him.”
“I’ll set my own barbs,” Feyd-Rautha said. He took a pair of the long, hooked shafts from the handler, hefted them, testing the balance. These barbs, too, were supposed to be drugged—but not this time, and the chief handler might die because of that. But it was all part of the plan.
“You’ll come out of this a hero, ” Hawat had said. “Killed your gladiator man to man and in spite of treachery. The slavemaster will be executed and your man will step into his spot. ”
Feyd-Rautha advanced another five paces into the arena, playing out the moment, studying the slave. Already, he knew, the experts in the stands above him were aware that something was wrong. The gladiator had the correct skin color for a drugged man, but he stood his ground and did not tremble. The aficionados would be whispering among themselves now: “See how he stands. He should be agitated—attacking or retreating. See how he conserves his strength, how he waits. He should not wait.”
Feyd-Rautha felt his own excitement kindle. Let there be treachery in Hawat’s mind, he thought. I can handle this slave. And it’s my long knife that carries the poison this time, not the short one. Even Hawat doesn’t know that.
“Hai, Harkonnen!” the slave called. “Are you prepared to die?”
Deathly stillness gripped the arena. Slaves did not issue the challenge!
Now, Feyd-Rautha had a clear view of the gladiator’s eyes, saw the cold ferocity of despair in them. He marked the way the man stood, loose and ready, muscles prepared for victory. The slave grapevine had carried Hawat’s message to this one: “You’ll get a true chance to kill the na-Baron. ” That much of the scheme was as they’d planned it, then.
A tight smile crossed Feyd-Rautha’s mouth. He lifted the barbs, seeing success for his plans in the way the gladiator stood.
“Hai! Hai!” the slave challenged, and crept forward two steps.
No one in the galleries can mistake it now, Feyd-Rautha thought.
This slave should have been partly crippled by drug-induced terror. Every movement should have betrayed his inner knowledge that there was no hope for him—he could not win. He should have been filled with the stories of the poisons the na-Baron chose for the blade in his white-gloved hand. The na-Baron never gave quick death; he delighted in demonstrating rare poisons, could stand in the arena pointing out interesting side effects on a writhing victim. There was fear in the slave, yes—but not terror.
Feyd-Rautha lifted the barbs high, nodded in an almost-greeting.
The gladiator pounced.
His feint and defensive counter were as good as any Feyd-Rautha had ever seen. A timed side blow missed by the barest fraction from severing the tendons of the na-Baron’s left leg.
Feyd-Rautha danced away, leaving a barbed shaft in the slave’s right forearm, the hooks completely buried in flesh where the man could not withdraw thim without ripping tendons.
A concerted gasp lifted from the galleries.
The sound filled Feyd-Rautha with elation.
He knew now what his uncle was experiencing, sitting up there with the Fenrings, the observers from the Imperial Court, beside him. There could be no interference with this fight. The forms must be observed in front of witnesses. And the Baron would interpret the events in the arena only one way—threat to himself.
The slave backed, holding knife in teeth and lashing the barbed shaft to his arm with the pennant. “I do not feel your needle!” he shouted. Again he crept forward, knife ready, left side presented, his body bent backward to give it the greatest surface of protection from the half-shield.
That action, too, didn’t escape the galleries. Sharp cries came from the family boxes. Feyd-Rautha’s handlers were calling out to ask if he needed them.
He waved them back to the pru-door.
I’ll give them a show such as they’ve never had before, Feyd-Rautha thought. No tame killing where they can sit back and admire the style. This’ll be something to take them by the guts and twist them. When I’m Baron they’ll remember this day and won’t be a one of them can escape fear of me because of this day.
Feyd-Rautha gave ground slowly before the gladiator’s crablike advance. Arena sand grated underfoot. He heard the slave’s panting, smelled his own sweat and a faint odor of blood on the air.
Steadily, the na-Baron moved backward, turning to the right, his second barb ready. The slave danced sideways. Feyd-Rautha appeared to stumble, heard the scream from the galleries.
Again, the slave pounced.
Gods, what a fighting man! Feyd-Rautha thought as he leaped aside. Only youth’s quickness saved him, but he left the second barb buried in the deltoid muscle of the slave’s right arm.
Shrill cheers rained from the galleries.
They cheer me now, Feyd-Rautha thought. He heard the wildness in the voices just as Hawat had said he would. They’d never cheered a family fighter that way before. And he thought with an edge of grimness on a thing Hawat had told him: “It’s easier to be terrified by an enemy you admire.”
Swiftly, Feyd-Rautha retreated to the center of the arena where all could see clearly. He drew his long blade, crouched and waited for the advancing slave.
The man took only the time to lash the second barb tight to his arm, then sped in pursuit.
Let the family see me do this thing, Feyd-Rautha thought. I am their enemy: let them think of me as they see me now.
He drew his short blade.
“I do not fear you, Harkonnen swine,” the gladiator said. “Your tortures cannot hurt a dead man. I can be dead on my own blade before a handler lays finger to my flesh. And I’ll have you dead beside me!”
Feyd-Rautha grinned, offered now the long blade, the one with the poison. “Try this on,” he said, and feinted with the short blade in his other hand.
The slave shifted knife hands, turned inside both parr
y and feint to grapple the na-Baron’s short blade—the one in the white gloved hand that tradition said should carry the poison.
“You will die, Harkonnen,” the gladiator gasped.
They struggled sideways across the sand. Where Feyd-Rautha’s shield met the slave’s halfshield, a blue glow marked the contact. The air around them filled with ozone from the field.
“Die on your own poison!” the slave grated.
He began forcing the white-gloved hand inward, turning the blade he thought carried the poison.
Let them see this! Feyd-Rautha thought. He brought down the long blade, felt it clang uselessly against the barbed shaft lashed to the slave’s arm.
Feyd-Rautha felt a moment of desperation. He had not thought the barbed shafts would be an advantage for the slave. But they gave the man another shield. And the strength of this gladiator! The short blade was being forced inward inexorably, and Feyd-Rautha focused on the fact that a man could also die on an unpoisoned blade.
“Scum!” Feyd-Rautha gasped.
At the key word, the gladiator’s muscles obeyed with a momentary slackness. It was enough for Feyd-Rautha. He opened a space between them sufficient for the long blade. Its poisoned tip flicked out, drew a red line down the slave’s chest. There was instant agony in the poison. The man disengaged himself, staggered backward.
Now, let my dear family watch, Feyd-Rautha thought. Let them think on this slave who tried to turn the knife he thought poisoned and use it against me. Let them wonder how a gladiator could come into this arena ready for such an attempt. And let them always be aware they cannot know for sure which of my hands carries the poison.
Feyd-Rautha stood in silence, watching the slowed motions of the slave. The man moved within a hesitation-awareness. There was an orthographic thing on his face now for every watcher to recognize. The death was written there. The slave knew it had been done to him and he knew how it had been done. The wrong blade had carried the poison.
“You!” the man moaned.
Feyd-Rautha drew back to give death its space. The paralyzing drug in the poison had yet to take full effect, but the man’s slowness told of its advance.
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