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"There are no innocent any more," Paul said.
"Tell that to Chani," Jessica said, and gestured toward the passage from the rear of the Residency.
Chani entered the Great Hall there, walking between the Fremen guards as though unaware of them. Her hood and stillsuit cap were thrown back, face mask fastened aside. She walked with a fragile uncertainty as she crossed the room to stand beside Jessica.
Paul saw the marks of tears on her cheeks--She gives water to the dead. He felt a pang of grief strike through him, but it was as though he could only feel this thing through Chani's presence.
"He is dead, beloved," Chani said. "Our son is dead."
Holding himself under stiff control, Paul got to his feet. He reached out, touched Chani's cheek, feeling the dampness of her tears. "He cannot be replaced," Paul said, "but there will be other sons. It is Usul who promises this." Gently, he moved her aside, gestured to Stilgar.
"Muad'Dib," Stilgar said.
"They come from the ship, the Emperor and his people," Paul said. "I will stand here. Assemble the captives in an open space in the center of the room. They will be kept at a distance of ten meters from me unless I command otherwise."
"As you command, Muad'Dib."
As Stilgar turned to obey, Paul heard the awed muttering of Fremen guards: "You see? He knew! No one told him, but he knew!"
The Emperor's entourage could be heard approaching now, his Sardaukar humming one of their marching tunes to keep up their spirits. There came a murmur of voices at the entrance and Gurney Halleck passed through the guard, crossed to confer with Stilgar, then moved to Paul's side, a strange look in his eyes.
Will I lose Gurney, too? Paul wondered. The way I lost Stilgar --losing afriendto gain a creature?
"They have no throwing weapons," Gurney said. "I've made sure of that myself." He glanced around the room, seeing Paul's preparations. "Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen is with them. Shall I cut him out?"
"Leave him."
"There're some Guild people, too, demanding special privileges, threatening an embargo against Arrakis. I told them I'd give you their message."
"Let them threaten."
"Paul!" Jessica hissed behind him. "He's talking about the Guild!"
"I'll pull their fangs presently," Paul said.
And he thought then about the Guild--the force that had specialized for so long that it had become a parasite, unable to exist independently of the life upon which it fed. They had never dared grasp the sword... and now they could not grasp it. They might have taken Arrakis when they realized the error of specializing on the melange awareness-spectrum narcotic for their navigators. They could have done this, lived their glorious day and died. Instead, they'd existed from moment to moment, hoping the seas in which they swam might produce a new host when the old one died.
The Guild navigators, gifted with limited prescience, had made the fatal decision: they'd chosen always the clear, safe course that leads ever downward into stagnation.
Let them look closely at their new host, Paul thought.
"There's also a Bene Gesserit Reverend Mother who says she's a friend of your mother," Gurney said.
"My mother has no Bene Gesserit friends."
Again, Gurney glanced around the Great Hall, then bent close to Paul's ear. "Thufir Hawat's with 'em, m'Lord. I had no chance to see him alone, but he used our old hand signs to say he's been working with the Harkonnens, thought you were dead. Says he's to be left among 'em."
"You left Thufir among those--"
"He wanted it ... and I thought it best. If ... there's something wrong, he's where we can control him. If not--we've an ear on the other side."
Paul thought then of prescient glimpses into the possibilities of this moment--and one time-line where Thufir carried a poisoned needle which the Emperor commanded he use against "this upstart Duke."
The entrance guards stepped aside, formed a short corridor of lances. There came a murmurous swish of garments, feet rasping the sand that had drifted into the Residency.
The Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV led his people into the hall. His burseg helmet had been lost and the red hair stood out in disarray. His uniform's left sleeve had been ripped along the inner seam. He was beltless and without weapons, but his presence moved with him like a force-shield bubble that kept his immediate area open.
A Fremen lance dropped across his path, stopped him where Paul had ordered. The others bunched up behind, a montage of color, of shuffling and of staring faces.
Paul swept his gaze across the group, saw women who hid signs of weeping, saw the lackeys who had come to enjoy grandstand seats at a Sardaukar victory and now stood choked to silence by defeat. Paul saw the bird-bright eyes of the Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam glaring beneath her black hood, and beside her the narrow furtiveness of Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen.
There's a face time betrayed to me, Paul thought.
He looked beyond Feyd-Rautha then, attracted by a movement, seeing there a narrow, weaselish face he'd never before encountered--not in time or out of it. It was a face he felt he should know and the feeling carried with it a marker of fear.
Why should I fear that man? he wondered.
He leaned toward his mother, whispered: "That man to the left of the Reverend Mother, the evil-looking one--who is that?"
Jessica looked, recognizing the face from her Duke's dossiers. "Count Fenring," she said. "The one who was here immediately before us. A genetic-eunuch ... and a killer."
The Emperor's errand boy, Paul thought. And the thought was a shock crashing across his consciousness because he had seen the Emperor in uncounted associations spread through the possible futures--but never once had Count Fenring appeared within those prescient visions.
It occurred to Paul then that he had seen his own dead body along countless reaches of the time web, but never once had he seen his moment of death.
Have I been denied a glimpse of this man because he is the one who kills me? Paul wondered.
The thought sent a pang of foreboding through him. He forced his attention away from Fenring, looked now at the remnants of Sardaukar men and officers, the bitterness on their faces and the desperation. Here and there among them, faces caught Paul's attention briefly: Sardaukar officers measuring the preparations within this room, planning and scheming yet for a way to turn defeat into victory.
Paul's attention came at last to a tall blonde woman, green-eyed, a face of patrician beauty, classic in its hauteur, untouched by tears, completely undefeated. Without being told it, Paul knew her--Princess Royal, Bene Gesserit-trained, a face that time vision had shown him in many aspects: Irulan.
There's my key, he thought.
Then he saw movement in the clustered people, a face and figure emerged--Thufir Hawat, the seamed old features with darkly stained lips, the hunched shoulders, the look of fragile age about him.
"There's Thufir Hawat," Paul said. "Let him stand free, Gurney."
"M'Lord," Gurney said.
"Let him stand free," Paul repeated.
Gurney nodded.
Hawat shambled forward as a Fremen lance was lifted and replaced behind him. The rheumy eyes peered at Paul, measuring, seeking.
Paul stepped forward one pace, sensed the tense, waiting movement of the Emperor and his people.
Hawat's gaze stabbed past Paul, and the old man said: "Lady Jessica, I but learned this day how I've wronged you in my thoughts. You needn't forgive."
Paul waited, but his mother remained silent.
"Thufir, old friend," Paul said, "as you can see, my back is toward no door."
"The universe is full of doors," Hawat said.
"Am I my father's son?" Paul asked.
"More like your grandfather's," Hawat rasped. "You've his manner and the look of him in your eyes."
"Yet I'm my father's son," Paul said. "For I say to you, Thufir, that in payment for your years of service to my family you may now ask anything you wish of me. Anything at all. Do you need my life now, Thufir? It is yours." Paul stepped forward a pace, hands at his side, seeing the look of awareness grow in Hawat's eyes.
He realizes that I know of the treachery, Paul thought.
Pitching his voice to carry in a half-whisper for Hawat's ears alone, Paul said: "I mean this, Thufir. If you're to strike me, do it now."
"I but wanted to stand before you once more, my Duke," Hawat said. And Paul became aware for the first time of the effort the old man exerted to keep from falling. Paul reached out, supported Hawat by the shoulders, feeling the muscle tremors beneath his hands.
"Is there pain, old friend?" Paul asked.
"There is pain, my Duke," Hawat agreed, "but the pleasure is greater." He half turned in Paul's arms, extended his left hand, palm up, toward the Emperor, exposing the tiny needle cupped against the fingers. "See, Majesty?" he called. "See your traitor's needle? Did you think that I who've given my life to service of the Atreides would give them less now?"
Paul staggered as the old man sagged in his arms, felt the death there, the utter flaccidity. Gently, Paul lowered Hawat to the floor, straightened and signed for guardsmen to carry the body away.
Silence held the hall while his command was obeyed.
A look of deadly waiting held the Emperor's face now. Eyes that had never admitted fear admitted it at last.
"Majesty," Paul said, and noted the jerk of surprised attention in the tall Princess Royal. The words had been uttered with the Bene Gesserit controlled atonals, carrying in it every shade of contempt and scorn that Paul could put there.
