With an innocuous smile, Torono opened his hands expansively to draw a blessing out of the air. “Duke Leto Atreides, my Duke, we did not expect to see you again so soon. You honor us with a return visit.”
Leto took two steps forward and stopped abruptly, facing the religious leader. “Let us not discuss honor here. I come to discuss victims. You must know why we’ve returned.”
The anger in Leto’s voice disoriented the religious leader. “Why, no, my Duke. We do not know.”
“Two members of my staff are dead from drugs that could only have come from your village. At least one noble son has also died from your ailar, and now I learn that many other Caladan people have been killed, because of your barra ferns! Did you think we would not find out?”
The Archvicar looked confused. He took a tentative step back, then paused, glancing nervously at the Atreides honor guard, the glowering face of Thufir Hawat. “What do you mean, my Duke? I do not understand.” Torono made strange gestures, tracing and pulling intangible strands as if plucking an unseen web of lines.
“We saw your ritual,” Leto said. “We know the source of ailar. You showed it to us yourself.”
“Yes, we shared it with you. We offered you the chance to partake as well.”
“It has killed many people, not just in Cala City, or in my own staff, but offworld as well.”
Hawat turned slowly among his soldiers, signaling to prepare them as if he expected the frightened villagers to turn into a mob.
Torono remained calm. “We did not kill anyone, my Duke. I swear by the All-Seeing, by everything the Muadh consider holy, by everything you hold dear. You have seen our ritual.”
Leto could not dispel the memory of Wellan in his death throes, writhing, hemorrhaging. “Yes, I have seen what it does.”
Despite his anger, though, Leto felt a twinge of uncertainty. The Archvicar was quite convincing. The Muadh villagers looked alarmed, but they did not act guilty. The Atreides soldiers remained at attention.
Hawat addressed the religious leader, rattling off the evidence again. “Our fishery minister died of an overdose of ailar. We found one of your dried ferns in his clenched hand. Our military officer Lieutenant Nupree, who visited here with us to witness your ceremony, likewise died of the drug.” He glanced at the Suk doctor standing next to Leto. “Dr. Yueh has further information.”
The Archvicar kept shaking his head. “No, that is not true. Ailar is gentle and enlightening. We have all gathered barra ferns, used them for generations.”
Yueh said, “The drug is exceedingly potent. I would not characterize it as either ‘gentle’ or ‘enlightening.’ At my Duke’s request, I ran a medical search through the records of Cala City.” The doctor’s brow furrowed in deep concentration. “There are many medical practitioners, small clinics, local doctors. I discovered numerous accounts of ailar use, a black market in barra ferns, but there has been a recent surge of deaths, ugly overdoses. Many local physicians did not know what they were dealing with.” He paused, looked at the Duke. “In the past several months, one hundred twenty-three reported fatalities have occurred, all overdoses from ailar. There could be many more, unrecorded.”
“My Duke, that is not possible!” the Archvicar cried. “The Muadh have partaken of the ferns for generations. It is not dangerous.”
“I saw the dried fern myself in Minister Wellan’s hand as he died,” Leto said. “I know what it was. The connection comes from you, your people, and this area.”
The Archvicar stroked his thick beard as if he thought that keeping it under control might keep this situation under control. “But I know nothing of this. Hundreds of my people partook before your very eyes. No one suffered ill effects.” The rice farmers muttered, and the Archvicar continued, “We comb the forests and marshes up north. We find where the wild ferns grow and harvest the nubs. It is a bonding activity for our community. We dry them here in the village for our own supply. But we do not sell the ferns, not to anyone.”
“Someone does, and I will get to the bottom of this.” Leto knew he could not be lenient. How many other anguished letters would he receive from grieving nobles who had lost children to the scourge? “Effective immediately, I forbid further usage. Burn it all.”
Now the Muadh cried out in dismay. Torono stiffened. “But it is a key component of our religion. You can’t take this away from us!”
“People have died! Caladanians have died. Nobles have died!” Leto said. “And I don’t want any of your people to die, either. Maybe you have been lucky? I don’t think so. Where is the supply? Who sold the ferns to Lieutenant Nupree, to Minister Wellan, to all those other victims? Who runs the black market in Cala City?”
“I do not know, my Duke. Honestly, I do not.”
Leto paused, seeing the sincerity and desperation in the Archvicar’s face. As Duke, he did not interfere with the religious practices of his people, but he knew the danger here, the innocents who had died. He had seen the agony Wellan suffered, and knew how many others had already succumbed. The first responsibility of a Duke is the safety of his people. “Burn all the remaining ferns so they do not end up in the hands of other victims.”
Trembling, the Archvicar looked at the Atreides guards, the Duke’s implacable expression now that he had made up his mind, and knew he couldn’t resist. Sullen, Torono clapped his hands, and deacons rushed into the temple to emerge carrying baskets. “Our remaining supply is minimal, my Duke,” the Archvicar said. “We used most of it in the recent ceremony. We need to gather more ferns.”
“From now on, you will no longer have your ceremony,” Leto said. “That is my decree. I outlaw the practice, due to the demonstrated danger the drug poses.”
The deacons dumped the shriveled curls onto the ground, and the rice farmers backed away, forming a wide ring.
Yueh approached the mound of ferns, fascinated. “We should keep some samples for testing, my Lord. We know very little about ailar, not just the effects of the drug but how the ferns grow naturally in the wild. I have seen a record that the special fern grows on no other planet. If we are going to stop this drug epidemic, we must learn everything we can about the source.”
Hawat agreed. “The Suk doctor is correct. Simply burning this supply will not end the problem. I advise we keep samples for research.”
Leto understood the need. “Yes, keep what you require, Yueh, and destroy the rest.”
The villagers beseeched him, and the Archvicar looked deeply hurt, but before he was tempted to be compassionate, Leto thought again of Wellan’s face flat against his desk, drool puddling from his slack mouth … remembered the grieving letter from Lord Atikk.
Dr. Yueh gathered a handful of dried specimens from the pile on the ground, but only a few. Leto looked at the Archvicar. “My Mentat will engage in a full-scale investigation. If the fern grows only in the wild north, how does it find its way into the streets of Cala City? How are your people distributing it?”
Torono shook his head. “My Duke, our followers do not go to Cala City. The Muadh are simple people. We stay here.” He stretched out his arms. “The rice fields and these cliffs are all we need.”
“And the drug,” Leto said.