A few moments later, Leto heard a muttering sound and turned, gazing out at the calm waters of the sea, where the wreaths continued to float. This protected cove was home to many luminous jellyfish that now swam forward, drawn to the floating flower wreaths. Like a galaxy of pale blue stars, the glowing creatures clustered around the flowers and escorted them out to sea, as if souls were wafting away into the deep currents.
The people at the honorance gasped, and Leto even saw a few smiles among them. He loved these people. He never wished to do them wrong. He looked at the silvery jellyfish and whispered, “Thank you.”
Then he glanced at Paul and Jessica beside him, the other two pillars of his strong family. He turned to face his people and raised his voice.
“Thank you.”
* * *
YOUNG PAUL WAS consumed with sudden thoughts of mortality. In the great dining hall of Castle Caladan, he stared at the monstrous bull’s head and the blood of his grandfather still on the horns. Years ago, Leto had told him the story. “It is an Atreides tale for you to know and never forget, but do not cry when you think about it. Remember your grandfather’s strength, and one day, you will be strong, as he was.”
Though he was just a boy at the time, Paul had promised to be strong. “Yes, sir.”
Now the mounted head was a striking reminder that his father had almost died, too. Countless innocent victims had been killed on Otorio. If Duke Leto had been in a different part of the reception hall, if that Sardaukar officer hadn’t rushed him to the escape lighter—almost on a whim!—Leto would have been vaporized along with the rest of the complex.
A chill ran down the young man’s back. Although his father had gone to the Imperial gala without enthusiasm, he had done it to fulfill his political obligations, representing House Atreides and Caladan. And he had nearly died, an innocent victim of a terrorist attack. Such a thin line of mortality!
Thinking back, Paul couldn’t even remember if he had said goodbye to his father before the Duke set off for Otorio. It was likely just a casual farewell without any notion that it could have been the last time he ever saw Leto.
If the Duke of Caladan had died, where would that have left Paul and his mother? He was the only son, the heir apparent … but did a fourteen-year-old boy have enough political acumen to hold House Atreides against what would surely have been strong political maneuvers in the Landsraad? Sensing weakness, would some other family have tried to oust the illegitimate Atreides son?
He realized that same situation must be happening on scores of worlds even now, in the wake of Otorio.
Paul took a long breath, his gaze unfocused. He felt frustrated. Duke Leto wanted the best for his family fortunes and for his son. He made sure that Paul trained hard, with the most intense instructors, and the young man did his best to meet expectations. His father placed a heavy burden on him, and Paul placed the same on himself.
As the young man stood unobtrusively in the dining hall, the chief server, a dark-skinned man in formal castle livery, tested the spiderlike poison snoopers dangling over the long table. Humming quietly to himself, the server held a plate of carefully measured poisonous powders and liquids beneath each detector. Small indicators turned red as he moved down the length of the table, and then reverted to green when he passed. All the while, Thufir Hawat monitored the calibration from the doorway with a dour expression, plainly not satisfied, but that was the way of the chief of security.
One of the snoopers failed, and Hawat barked orders to a man in work clothes. “Replace this entire unit, and I want to see it tested again.”
The man hurried out of the hall to get a replacement.
Paul appreciated their attentiveness. Even here on Caladan, they could not let down their guard and had to worry about a new War of Assassins, like the one he and Duncan barely survived a year ago. There were rules governing inter-House warfare, and each noble knew them, but mistakes happened, excuses were made, exceptions slipped through the cracks.…
Paul took nothing for granted, knowing full well he would be the primary target for any enemies, because he represented the future of House Atreides. Duke Leto had once told him the harsh truth. “To lose my son is to lose our future.” Thus, he insisted that Paul always remain alert, practice situational awareness, and never fail to have a contingency plan. Disturbing words, and hard to hear, but Paul would rather know the truth than be left in ignorance of it. His father’s next statement, though, stood out like a beacon in his memory: “Prepare to live.”
Paul faced other challenges appropriate for the son of a Duke. In the strict nobility rules of the Imperium, he was still only a bastard, an “assumed” heir. Leto had named Jessica his bound concubine, which provided some security, but everything could change if political expediency required his father to marry some other noble daughter, as he had almost done with Ilesa Ecaz. Leto had promised Jessica that would not happen again, that he did not intend to accept any other offer of marriage. Paul wanted to believe him.
If Leto had died on Otorio, Paul knew that Thufir, Gurney, Duncan, and the Atreides troops would remain loyal to him as the Duke’s son, but Emperor Shaddam IV could easily reassign the fief and deliver Caladan to some other noble house. It was unsettling to consider.
Though he loved and even revered his father, Paul also resented him for not marrying his mother. The decision was wise in one way, foolish in another. As Thufir might have said during one of his intense thought exercises, Paul was not an objective observer in such matters.
Finished with calibrating the poison snoopers, the chief server and his companions departed, leaving Paul alone in the hall. On a side table, he found paper and a stylus and took them to his customary place at the table, to his father’s right-hand side. He needed to organize and record his thoughts. He stared at the blank surface, trying to will his emotions into words.
He had barely sketched out a few unsatisfactory lines before Leto himself entered the hall. When Paul looked up and saw him, he slid the paper aside to conceal what he was doing.
Leto frowned. “Secrets between us, son?”
“No secrets. I was writing you a letter. I thought it would be best to be logical and judicious about my words.”
Leto at first seemed amused, then noted his son’s seriousness. “Oh? And the subject?”
“I would rather write it out, choose my phrasing, but—” He inhaled a deep breath. “I might as well get it off my chest right now.”
“This sounds serious.” Leto took his customary seat, placed his elbows and hands on the table, and regarded Paul as if he were an important diplomatic visitor.
Wrestling with his thoughts, the young man expressed his uncertainty, his concerns for himself, his future, and the future of House Atreides, and his mother. After a brief pause, while Leto listened intently, he also revealed his fear—and anger—at how close he had come to losing his father. Duke Leto had indeed escaped, by mere good fortune, but the brush with death had chilled Paul to the core.
Leto did not interrupt. When Paul had said everything that was on his mind, sure that it must be a jumbled, irrational mess, he finished by saying, “That’s what I wanted to write in the letter.” His hands and voice shook with the passion of his emotions, and he tried to compose himself using Bene Gesserit techniques, but it did not work well.