Dune_ House Atreides - Brian Herbert [145]
The guards laughed again, but the boy saw grudging respect seep into their expressions. One went away and came back with some breakfast, tiny roasted eggs for Duncan. After thanking the guard, he wolfed down the eggs, licked his fingers, and sat on the ground to wait. Hours passed.
The guards kept looking at him and shaking their heads. One asked him if he carried any weapons, or any money, both of which Duncan denied. As a steady stream of petitioners came and went, the guards chatted with each other. Duncan heard talk about a revolt that had occurred on Ix, and the Duke’s concerns over House Vernius, especially because of the Emperor’s acceptance of a bounty on Dominic and Shando Vernius. Apparently, the Duke’s son Leto had just returned from war-torn Ix to Caladan with two royal refugees. Everything in the Castle was in quite a turmoil.
Nevertheless, Duncan waited.
The sun passed overhead and slipped below the horizon of the great sea. The young man spent the night curled up in a corner of the courtyard, and with the next morning and a change of guards, he repeated his story and his request for an audience. This time, he mentioned that he had escaped from a Harkonnen world and wished to offer his services to House Atreides. The Harkonnen name seemed to catch their attention. Once again the guards checked him for weapons, but more thoroughly.
By early afternoon, after being frisked and probed—first by an electronic scanner to root out hidden lethal devices, then by a poison-snooper—Duncan was finally ushered inside the Castle. An ancient stone structure whose interior corridors and rooms were draped with rich tapestries, the place bore a patina of history and worn elegance. Wooden floors creaked underfoot.
At a wide stone archway, two Atreides guards passed him through even more elaborate scanning devices, which again found nothing suspicious. He was just a boy, with nothing to hide, but they wore their paranoia as if it were a strange and uncomfortable garment, as if new procedures had just been instituted. Satisfied, they waved Duncan into a large room with vaulted ceilings supported by heavy, dark beams.
At the center of the room the Old Duke sat back and surveyed his visitor. A strong, bearlike man with a full beard and bright green eyes, Paulus relaxed in a comfortable wooden chair, not an ostentatious throne. It was a place where he could be at ease for hours as he conducted the business of state. Atop the chairback, just above the old patriarch’s head, a hawk crest had been carved into the dark Elaccan wood.
Beside him sat his olive-skinned son Leto, thin and tired-looking, as if he hadn’t fully recovered from his ordeal. Duncan met Leto’s gray eyes, and sensed that both of them had much to tell, much to share.
“We have here a very persistent boy, Leto,” the Old Duke said, glancing at his son.
“From the looks of him, he wants something different from all the other petitioners we’ve heard today.” Leto raised his eyebrows. He was only five or six years older than Duncan—a large gulf at their ages—but it seemed they had both been thrust headlong into adulthood. “He doesn’t look greedy.”
Paulus’s expression softened as he leaned forward in his great chair. “How long have you been waiting out there, boy?”
“Oh, that doesn’t matter, m’Lord Duke,” Duncan answered, hoping he used the right words. “I’m here now.” Nervously, he scratched a mole on his chin.
The Old Duke flashed a quick scowl at the guard who had escorted him in. “Have you fed this young man?”
“They gave me plenty, sir. Thank you. And I also had a good night’s sleep in your comfortable courtyard.”
“In the courtyard?” Another scowl at the guard. “So why are you here, young man? Did you come from one of the fishing villages?”
“No, m’Lord—I am from Giedi Prime.”
The guards tensed hands around their weapons. The Old Duke and his son flashed a glance at each other, disbelief at first. “Then you’d better tell us what’s happened to you,” Paulus said. Their expressions changed to grim disgust as Duncan told his story, omitting