Dune_ House Atreides - Brian Herbert [233]
Frieth gasped, and for a moment Kynes saw through the porcelain mask of her face, saw much more than he had ever noticed before. “This is paradise, my love!”
A hummingbird hovered in front of her with a tiny blur of wings, then darted off again. In their own euphoria Fremen gardeners moved about, tending the plants.
“One day gardens like this will grow all across Dune, out in the open air. This is a showcase with growing crops and plants and open water, fruit trees, decorative flowers, green grasses. We have here a symbol for all Fremen, to show them my vision. Seeing this, they’ll understand what they can accomplish.”
Moisture ran down the walls of the cavern, touching parched rock that had known nothing but thirst for uncounted eons. “Even I did not truly comprehend,” Frieth said, “. . . until now.”
“Do you see why all this is worth fighting for? And dying for?”
Kynes walked around, inhaling the scents of the leaves, sniffing the perfume of the flowers. He found a tree from which dangled orange globes of ripening fruit. He plucked one, large and golden. None of the workers would question his right to the fresh produce.
“A portygul,” he said, “one of the fruits I was talking about back at Red Wall Sietch.” He gave it to Frieth as a gift, and she held it reverently in her tanned hands as the greatest treasure she had ever been offered.
Kynes waved expansively at the enclosed grotto. “Remember this well, my wife. All the Fremen must see this. Dune, our Dune, can be like this in only a few centuries.”
Even innocents carry within them their own guilt in their own way. No one makes it through life without paying, in one fashion or another.
—LADY HELENA ATREIDES,
her personal journals
Immediately after hearing the announcement of the first Imperial coronation ceremony in almost a century and a half, House Atreides began work on their family preparations. From dawn until the fall of darkness, the servants in Castle Caladan went from wardrobe to storeroom, gathering the clothing, trinkets, and gifts necessary for the formal journey to the Imperial Court.
Meanwhile, Leto wandered through his rooms, trying to refine his plan and decide the best way to obtain a dispensation for Rhombur and Kailea. The new Emperor Shaddam must hear my plea.
His protocol advisors had bickered for hours over the proper colors of capes, armbands, and merh-silk tunics . . . whether the jewelry should be gaudy or understated, expensive imported Ecazi stones or something simpler. Finally, because of his memorable times with Rhombur, Leto insisted on wearing a small coral gem suspended in a transparent sphere filled with water.
Kailea desperately wanted to go. Visiting the Palace on Kaitain, where her mother had once served the Emperor, had been a lifelong dream of hers. Leto could see the longing in her green eyes, the hope on her face, but still he had no choice but to forbid it. Rhombur had to accompany the entourage, to make his family’s case, but if they failed, the Vernius heir could be executed for having left his sanctuary. Kailea’s life would be forfeit as well.
If their mission succeeded, though, Leto vowed to take Kailea to the capital world himself, a glamorous vacation that would be all she imagined it to be.
Now, in the quiet hour before dawn, he paced back and forth on the wooden floors of his upper room, listening to the old beams creak. It was the comforting sound of home. How many times had other Dukes paced the same floor pondering decisions of state? Duke Paulus had undoubtedly done so time and again, troubled as he was by uprisings of the primitives in the southern continent or by requests from the Emperor to put out brushfire rebellions on outer worlds. In those times, Paulus Atreides had first blooded his sword, and had become a comrade-in-arms with Dominic Vernius.
Throughout his years the Old Duke had served with talent and finesse, knowing when to be hard and