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Stilgar obeyed, then, in the Fremen manner, kissed Paul's knife arm. At a nod from Paul, he sheathed the blade, got to his feet.
A sighing whisper of awe passed through the cro
wd, and Jessica heard the words: "The prophecy--A Bene Gesserit shall show the way and a Reverend Mother shall see it." And, from farther away: "She shows us through her son!"
"Stilgar leads this tribe," Paul said. "Let no man mistake that. He commands with my voice. What he tells you, it is as though I told you."
Wise, Jessica thought. The tribal commander must lose no face among those who should obey him.
Paul lowered his voice, said: "Stilgar, I want sandwalkers out this night and cielagos sent to summon a Council Gathering. When you've sent them, bring Chatt, Korba and Otheym and two other lieutenants of your own choosing. Bring them to my quarters for battle planning. We must have a victory to show the Council of Leaders when they arrive."
Paul nodded for his mother to accompany him, led the way down off the ledge and through the throng toward the central passage and the living chambers that had been prepared there. As Paul pressed through the crowd, hands reached out to touch him. Voices called out to him.
"My knife goes where Stilgar commands it, Paul-Muad'Dib! Let us fight soon, Paul-Muad'Dib! Let us wet our world with the blood of Harkonnens!"
Feeling the emotions of the throng, Jessica sensed the fighting edge of these people. They could not be more ready. We are taking them at the crest, she thought.
In the inner chamber, Paul motioned his mother to be seated, said: "Wait here." And he ducked through the hangings to the side passage.
It was quiet in the chamber after Paul had gone, so quiet behind the hangings that not even the faint soughing of the wind pumps that circulated air in the sietch penetrated to where she sat.
He is going to bring Gurney Halleck here, she thought. And she wondered at the strange mingling of emotions that filled her. Gurney and his music had been a part of so many pleasant times on Caladan before the move to Arrakis. She felt that Caladan had happened to some other person. In the nearly three years since then, she had become another person. Having to confront Gurney forced a reassessment of the changes.
Paul's coffee service, the fluted alloy of silver and jasmium that he had inherited from Jamis, rested on a low table to her right. She stared at it, thinking of how many hands had touched that metal. Chani had served Paul from it within the month.
What can his desert woman do for a Duke except serve him coffee? she asked herself. She brings him no power, no family. Paul has only one major chance--to ally himself with a powerful Great House, perhaps even with the Imperial family. There are marriagable princesses, after all, and every one of them Bene Gesserit-trained.
Jessica imagined herself leaving the rigors of Arrakis for the life of power and security she could know as mother of a royal consort. She glanced at the thick hangings that obscured the rock of this cavern cell, thinking of how she had come here--riding amidst a host of worms, the palanquins and pack platforms piled high with necessities for the coming campaign.
As long as Chani lives, Paul will not see his duty, Jessica thought. She has given him a son and that is enough.
A sudden longing to see her grandson, the child whose likeness carried so much of the grandfather's features--so like Leto, swept through her. Jessica placed her palms against her cheeks, began the ritual breathing that stilled emotion and clarified the mind, then bent forward from the waist in the devotional exercise that prepared the body for the mind's demands.
Paul's choice of this Cave of Birds as his command post could not be questioned, she knew. It was ideal. And to the north lay Wind Pass opening onto a protected village in a cliff-walled sink. It was a key village, home of artisans and technicians, maintenance center for an entire Harkonnen defensive sector.
A cough sounded outside the chamber hangings. Jessica straightened, took a deep breath, exhaled slowly.
"Enter," she said.
Draperies were flung aside and Gurney Halleck bounded into the room. She had only time for a glimpse of his face with its odd grimace, then he was behind her, lifting her to her feet with one brawny arm beneath her chin.
"Gurney, you fool, what are you doing?" she demanded.
Then she felt the touch of the knife tip against her back. Chill awareness spread out from that knife tip. She knew in that instant that Gurney meant to kill her. Why? She could think of no reason, for he wasn't the kind to turn traitor. But she felt certain of his intention. Knowing it, her mind churned. Here was no man to be overcome easily. Here was a killer wary of the Voice, wary of every combat stratagem, wary of every trick of death and violence. Here was an instrument she herself had helped train with subtle hints and suggestions.
"You thought you had escaped, eh, witch?" Gurney snarled.
Before she could turn the question over in her mind or try to answer, the curtains parted and Paul entered.
"Here he is, Moth--" Paul broke off, taking in the tensions of the scene.
"You will stand where you are, m'Lord," Gurney said.
"What ...." Paul shook his head.
Jessica started to speak, felt the arm tighten against her throat.
"You will speak only when I permit it, witch," Gurney said. "I want only one thing from you for your son to hear it, and I am prepared to send this knife into your heart by reflex at the first sign of a counter against me. Your voice will remain in a monotone. Certain muscles you will not tense or move. You will act with the most extreme caution to gain yourself a few more seconds of life. And I assure you, these are all you have."
Paul took a step forward. "Gurney, man, what is--"
"Stop right where you are!" Gurney snapped. "One more step and she's dead."
Paul's hand slipped to his knife hilt. He spoke in a deadly quiet: "You had best explain yourself, Gurney."
"I swore an oath to slay the betrayer of your father," Gurney said. "Do you think I can forget the man who rescued me from a Harkonnen slave pit, gave me freedom, life, and honor ... gave me friendship, a thing I prized above all else? I have his betrayer under my knife. No one can stop me from--"
"You couldn't be more wrong, Gurney," Paul said.
And Jessica thought: So that's it! What irony!
"Wrong, am I?" Gurney demanded. "Let us hear it from the woman herself. And let her remember that I have bribed and spied and cheated to confirm this charge. I've even pushed semuta on a Harkonnen guard captain to get part of the story."
Jessica felt the arm at her throat ease slightly, but before she could speak, Paul said: "The betrayer was Yueh. I tell you this once, Gurney. The evidence is complete, cannot be controverted. It was Yueh. I do not care how you came by your suspicion--for it can be nothing else--but if you harm my mother ...." Paul lifted his crysknife from its scabbard, held the blade in front of him. "... I'll have your blood."
"Yueh was a conditioned medic, fit for a royal house," Gurney snarled. "He could not turn traitor!"
"I know a way to remove that conditioning," Paul said.
"Evidence," Gurney insisted.
"The evidence is not here," Paul said. "It's in Tabr sietch, far to the south, but if--"
"This is a trick," Gurney snarled, and his arm tightened on Jessica's throat.
"No trick, Gurney," Paul said, and his voice carried such a note of terrible sadness that the sound tore at Jessica's heart.
"I saw the message captured from the Harkonnen agent," Gurney said. "The note pointed directly at--"
"I saw it, too," Paul said. "My father showed it to me the night he explained why it had to be a Harkonnen trick aimed at making him suspect the woman he loved."
"Ayah!" Gurney said. "You've not--"
"Be quiet," Paul said, and the monotone stillness of his words carried more command than Jessica had ever heard in another voice.
He has the Great Control, she thought.
Gurney's arm trembled against her neck. The point of the knife at her back moved with uncertainty.
"What you have not done," Paul said, "is heard my mother sobbing in the night over her lost Duke. You have not seen her eyes stab flame when she speaks of killing Harkonnens."
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So he has listened, she thought. Tears blinded her eyes.
"What you have not done," Paul went on, "is remembered the lessons you learned in a Harkonnen slave pit. You speak of pride in my father's friendship! Didn't you learn the difference between Harkonnen and Atreides so that you could smell a Harkonnen trick by the stink they left on it? Didn't you learn that Atreides loyalty is bought with love while the Harkonnen coin is hate? Couldn't you see through to the very nature of this betrayal?"
"But Yueh?" Gurney muttered.
"The evidence we have is Yueh's own message to us admitting his treachery," Paul said. "I swear this to you by the love I hold for you, a love I will still hold even after I leave you dead on this floor."
Hearing her son, Jessica marveled at the awareness in him, the penetrating insight of his intelligence.
"My father had an instinct for his friends," Paul said. "He gave his love sparingly, but with never an error. His weakness lay in misunderstanding hatred. He thought anyone who hated Harkonnens could not betray him." He glanced at his mother. "She knows this. I've given her my father's message that he never distrusted her."
Jessica felt herself losing control, bit at her lower lip. Seeing the stiff formality in Paul, she realized what these words were costing him. She wanted to run to him, cradle his head against her breast as she never had done. But the arm against her throat had ceased its trembling; the knife point at her back pressed still and sharp.
"One of the most terrible moments in a boy's life," Paul said, "is when he discovers his father and mother are human beings who share a love that he can never quite taste. It's a loss, an awakening to the fact that the world is there and here and we are in it alone. The moment carries its own truth; you can't evade it. I heard my father when he spoke of my mother. She's not the betrayer, Gurney."
Jessica found her voice, said: "Gurney, release me." There was no special command in the words, no trick to play on his weaknesses, but Gurney's hand fell away. She crossed to Paul, stood in front of him, not touching him.
"Paul," she said, "there are other awakenings in this universe. I suddenly see how I've used you and twisted you and manipulated you to set you on a course of my choosing ... a course I had to choose--if that's any excuse--because of my own training." She swallowed past a lump in her throat, looked up into her son's eyes. "Paul ... I want you to do something for me: choose the course of happiness. Your desert woman, marry her if that's your wish. Defy everyone and everything to do this. But choose your own course. I ...."
