Dune_ House Atreides - Brian Herbert [217]
“How can you . . .” Seeing a peculiar gleam in Fenring’s eyes, Shaddam cut himself short, then glanced at the doctor and said to him, “I must confer with my advisor.”
“Of course.” Yungar watched them move off to one side, by the door.
“Are you mad?” Shaddam whispered, when he and Fenring were a distance away.
“Go along with him for the moment. Then through a . . .” Fenring smiled, selected just the right word. “ . . . misunderstanding . . . old Elrood will be cremated before they can cut him open.”
“I see,” Shaddam said, with sudden understanding. Then, to Yungar, he said, “Send for your associate and complete your autopsy. My father will be moved to the infirmary, where you may complete the procedure.”
“A day will be needed to bring in the other doctor,” the Suk said. “You can arrange to keep the body chilled?”
Shaddam smiled politely. “It shall be done.”
“By your leave then, Sire,” the Suk said, bowing and retreating hastily. The doctor hurried away with a rustling of medical robes. His long steel-gray hair dangled in its ponytail, clasped by a silver ring.
When they were alone, Fenring said with a crafty smile, “It was either that or kill the bastard, and we didn’t dare risk that.”
An hour later, through an unfortunate series of events, Emperor Elrood IX was reduced to ashes in the Imperial crematorium, and his remains were misplaced. A Court orderly and two medical attendants paid for the mistake with their lives.
Memory and History are two sides of the same coin. In time, however, History tends to slant itself toward a favorable impression of events, while Memory is doomed to preserve the worst aspects.
—LADY HELENA ATREIDES,
her personal journals
Father, I was not ready.
The nighttime seas on Caladan were rough, and wind-driven rain pelted the windows of the Castle’s east tower. Another sort of storm raged within Duke Leto, though: concern for the future of his troubled House.
He had avoided this duty for too long . . . for months, in fact. On this isolated evening, he wanted nothing more than to sit in a fire-warmed room in the company of Rhombur and Kailea. Instead, he had decided at last to go through some of the Old Duke’s personal items.
Storage chests containing his father’s things were brought in and lined up along one wall. Servants had stoked up the flaming logs in the fireplace to a fine blaze, and a crock of mulled wine filled the room with the spicy scents of terrameg and a bit of expensive melange. Four small glowglobes provided enough light to see by.
Kailea had found a fur cloak in storage, taken it as her own, and wrapped herself just to keep warm—but it also made her look stunning. Despite the radical changes in her life, how far she had fallen from her dreams of sparkling at the Imperial Court, the Vernius daughter was a survivor. Through sheer force of will Kailea seemed to bend the environment around herself, making the best of things.
Despite the political drawbacks of any romance with the renegade family, Duke Leto—now ruler of his Great House—found himself even more attracted to her. But he remembered his father’s primary admonition: Never marry for love, or it will bring our House down. Paulus Atreides had hammered that into his son as much as any other leadership training. Leto knew he could never shrug off the Old Duke’s command; it was too much a part of him.
Still, he was drawn to Kailea, though thus far he hadn’t found the courage to express his feelings to her. He thought she knew, even so; Kailea had a strong, logical mind. He saw it in her emerald eyes, in the curve of her catlike mouth, in the contemplative looks she gave him when she thought he wouldn’t notice.
With Leto’s permission, Rhombur searched curiously through some of the massive storage chests, looking for old wartime mementos of the friendship between Duke Paulus and Dominic Vernius. Reaching deep into one chest, he brought out an embroidered cape and unfolded it. “What’s this? I never saw your father wear it.”
Leto studied the design and knew instantly what it was—the hawk of House Atreides embracing