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"Remove the Guard from the Bene Gesserit Embassy." Leto said. "Send them a
message. Tell them that their audience will still be the last one, but they
are not to fear this. Tell them that the last will be first. They will know
the allusion."
"What about the Tleilaxu?" Idaho asked.
Leto kept his attention on Moneo. "Yes, the Tleilaxu. We will send them a
signal."
"Yes, Lord?"
"When I order it, and not until then, you will have the Tleilaxu Ambassador
publicly flogged and expelled."
"Lord!"
"You disagree?"
"If we are to keep this secret=" Moneo glanced over his shoulder= "how will
you explain the flogging?"
"We will not explain."
"We will give no reason at all?"
"No reason."
"But, Lord, the rumors and the stories that will . . ."
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"I am reacting, Moneo! Let them sense the underground part of me which does
things without my knowing because it has not the wherewithal of knowing."
"This will cause great fear, Lord."
A gruff burst of laughter escaped Idaho. He stepped between Moneo and the
cart. "He does a kindness to this Ambassador! There've been rulers who
would've killed the fool over a slow fire."
Moneo tried to speak to Leto around Idaho's shoulder. "But. Lord, this action
will confirm for the
Tleilaxu that you were attacked."
"They already know that," Leto said. "But they will not talk about it."
"And when none of the attackers return. . ." Idaho said.
"Do you understand, Moneo?" Leto asked. "When we
march into Onn apparently unscathed, the Tleilaxu will believe they have
suffered utter failure."
Moneo glanced around at the Fish Speakers and courtiers listening spellbound
to this conversation.
Seldom had any of them heard such a revealing exchange between the God Emperor
and his most immediate aides.
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"When will my Lord signal punishment of the Ambassador?" Moneo asked.
"During the audience."
Leto heard 'thopters coming, saw the glint of sunlight on their wings and
rotors and, when he focused intently, made out the fresh canopy for his cart
slung beneath one of them.
"Have this damaged canopy returned to the Citadel and restored," Leto said,
still peering at the approaching 'thopters. "If questions are asked, tell the
artisans to say that it's just routine, another canopy scratched by blown
sand."
Moneo sighed. "Yes, Lord. It will be done as you say."
"Come, Moneo, cheer up," Leto said. "Walk beside me as we continue." Turning
to Idaho, Leto said, "Take some of the guards and scout ahead."
"Do you think there'll be another attack'?" Idaho asked.
"No, but it'll give the guards something to do. And get a fresh uniform. I
don't want you wearing something that has been contaminated by the dirty
Tleilaxu-"
Idaho moved off in obedience.
Leto signaled Moneo to come closer, closer. When Moneo was bending into the
cart, face less than a meter from Leto's, Leto pitched his voice low and said:
"There is a special lesson here for you, Moneo."
"Lord, I know I should have suspected the Face. . ."
"Not the Face Dancers! It is a lesson for your daughter."
"Siona? What could she. . ."
"Tell her this: In a fragile way, she is like that force within me which acts
without knowing.
Because of her, I remember what it was to be human. . . and to love."
Moneo stared at Leto without comprehension.
"Simply give her the message," Leto said. "You needn't try to understand it.
Merely tell her my words."
Moneo withdrew. "As my Lord commands."
Leto closed the bubble canopy, making a single unit of the entire cover for
the approaching crews on the 'thopters to replace.
Moneo turned and glanced around at the people waiting on
the flat area of the viewpoint. He noted then a thing he had not observed
earlier, a thing revealed by the disarray which some of the people had not yet
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repaired. Some of the courtiers had fitted themselves with delicate devices to
assist their hearing. They had been eavesdropping. And such devices could only
come from Ix.
I will warn the Duncan and the Guard, Moneo thought.
Somehow, he thought of this discovery as a symptom of rot. How could they
prohibit such things when most of the courtiers and the Fish Speakers either
knew or suspected that the God Emperor traded with Ix for forbidden machines.
===
I am beginning to hate water. The sandtrout skin which impels my metamorphosis
has learned the sensitivities of the worm. Moneo and many of my guards know my
aversion, Only Moneo suspects the truth, that this marks an important
waypoint. I can feel my ending in it, not soon as Moneo measures time, but
soon enough as I endure it. Sandtrout swarmed to water in the Dune days, a
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problem during the early stages of our symbiosis. The enforcement of my will
power controlled the urge then, and until we reached a time of balance. Now, I
must avoid water because there are no other sandtrout, only the half dormant
creatures of my skin. Without sandtrout to bring this world back to desert,
Shai-Hulud will not emerge; the sandworm cannot evolve until the land is
parched.
I am their only hope.
-The Stolen Journals
IT WAS midafternoon before the Royal Entourage came down the final slope into
the precincts of the
Festival City. Throngs lined the streets to greet them, held back by tight
lines of ursine Fish
Speakers in uniforms of Atreides green, their stunclubs crossed and linked.
As the Royal party approached, a bedlam of shouts erupted from the crowd. Then
the Fish Speaker guardians began to chant:
"Siaynoq! Siaynoq! Siaynoq!"
As it echoed back and forth between the high buildings, the chanted word had a
strange effect on the crowd which was not initiated into the meanings of it. A
wave of silence swept up the thronged avenues while the guardians continued to
chant. People stared in awe at the women armed with stunclubs who guarded the
Royal passage, the women who chanted while they fixed their gaze on the face
of their passing Lord.
Idaho, marching with the Fish Speaker guards behind the Royal Cart, heard the
chant for the first time and felt the hair on the back of his neck rise.
Moneo marched beside the cart, not looking left or right. He had once asked
Leto the meaning of the word.
"I give the Fish Speakers only one ritual," Leto had said. They had been in
the God Emperor's audience chamber beneath Onn's central plaza at the time,
with Moneo fatigued after a long day of directing the flow of dignitaries who
crowded the city for Decennial festivities.
"What has the chanting of that word to do with it, Lord?"
"The ritual is called Siaynoq-the Feast of Leto. It is the adoration of my
person in my presence."
"An ancient ritual, Lord?"
"It was with the Fremen before they were Fremen. But the keys to the Festival
secrets died with the old ones. Only I remember them now. I recreate the
Festival in my own likeness and for my own ends."
"Then the Museum Fremen do not use this ritual?"
"Never. It is mine and mine alone. I claim eternal right to it because I am
that ritual."
"It is a strange word, Lord. I have never heard its like."
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"It has many meanings, Moneo. If I tell them to you, will you hold them
secret?"
"My Lord commands!"
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