Dune

Paul stared down at his own body: hard muscles, slender . . . a few more scars, but essentially the same despite twelve years as Emperor. Looking up, he glimpsed his face in a shelf mirror—blue-blue Fremen eyes, mark of spice addiction; a sharp Atreides nose. He looked the proper grandson for an Atreides who’d died in the bull ring creating a spectacle for his people.

Something the old man had said slipped then into Paul’s mind: “One who rules assumes irrevocable responsibility for the ruled. You are a husbandman. This demands, at times, a selfless act of love which may only be amusing to those you rule.”

People still remembered that old man with affection.

And what have I done for the Atreides name? Paul asked himself. I’ve loosed the wolf among the sheep.

For a moment, he contemplated all the death and violence going on in his name.

“Into bed now!” Chani said in a sharp tone of command that Paul knew would’ve shocked his Imperial subjects.

He obeyed, lay back with his hands behind his head, letting himself be lulled by the pleasant familiarity of Chani’s movements.

The room around them struck him suddenly with amusement. It was not at all what the populace must imagine as the Emperor’s bedchamber. The yellow light of restless glowglobes moved the shadows in an array of colored glass jars on a shelf behind Chani. Paul named their contents silently—the dry ingredients of the desert pharmacopoeia, unguents, incense, mementos . . . a pinch of sand from Sietch Tabr, a lock of hair from their firstborn . . . long dead . . . twelve years dead . . . an innocent bystander killed in the battle that had made Paul Emperor.

The rich odor of spice-coffee filled the room. Paul inhaled, his glance falling on a yellow bowl beside the tray where Chani was preparing the coffee. The bowl held ground nuts. The inevitable poison-snooper mounted beneath the table waved its insect arms over the food. The snooper angered him. They’d never needed snoopers in the desert days!

“Coffee’s ready,” Chani said. “Are you hungry?”

His angry denial was drowned in the whistling scream of a spice lighter hurling itself spaceward from the field outside Arrakeen.

Chani saw his anger, though, poured their coffee, put a cup near his hand. She sat down on the foot of the bed, exposed his legs, began rubbing them where the muscles were knotted from walking in the stillsuit. Softly, with a casual air which did not deceive him, she said: “Let us discuss Irulan’s desire for a child.”

Paul’s eyes snapped wide open. He studied Chani carefully. “Irulan’s been back from Wallach less than two days,” he said. “Has she been at you already?”

“We’ve not discussed her frustrations,” Chani said.

Paul forced his mind to mental alertness, examined Chani in the harsh light of observational minutiae, the Bene Gesserit Way his mother had taught him in violation of her vows. It was a thing he didn’t like doing with Chani. Part of her hold on him lay in the fact he so seldom needed his tension-building powers with her. Chani mostly avoided indiscreet questions. She maintained a Fremen sense of good manners. Hers were more often practical questions. What interested Chani were facts which bore on the position of her man—his strength in Council, the loyalty of his legions, the abilities and talents of his allies. Her memory held catalogs of names and cross-indexed details. She could rattle off the major weakness of every known enemy, the potential dispositions of opposing forces, battle plans of their military leaders, the tooling and production capacities of basic industries.

Why now, Paul wondered, did she ask about Irulan?

“I’ve troubled your mind,” Chani said. “That wasn’t my intention.”

“What was your intention?”

She smiled shyly, meeting his gaze. “If you’re angered, love, please don’t hide it.”

Paul sank back against the headboard. “Shall I put her away?” he asked. “Her use is limited now and I don’t like the things I sense about her trip home to the Sisterhood.”

“You’ll not put her away,” Chani said. She went on massaging his legs, spoke matter-of-factly: “You’ve said many times she’s your contact with our enemies, that you can read their plans through her actions.”

“Then why ask about her desire for a child?”

“I think it’d disconcert our enemies and put Irulan in a vulnerable position should you make her pregnant.”

He read by the movements of her hands on his legs what that statement had cost her. A lump rose in his throat. Softly, he said: “Chani, beloved, I swore an oath never to take her into my bed. A child would give her too much power. Would you have her displace you?”

“I have no place.”

“Not so, Sihaya, my desert springtime. What is this sudden concern for Irulan?”