'The making of obscenities?' Leto asked. 'What is the opposite of obscenity?'
Moneo's eyes went wide with a sudden questioning awareness. He had seen the action of many polarities-the thing made known by its opposite.
The thing stands out against a background which defines it, Leto thought. Surely Moneo will see this.
'It's too dangerous,' Moneo said.
The ultimate verdict of conservatism!
Moneo was not convinced. A deep sigh wracked him.
I must remember not to take away their doubts, Leto thought. That's how I failed my Fish Speakers in the plaza. The lxians are holding on to the ragged end of human doubts. Hwi is the evidence of that.
A disturbance sounded in the anteroom. Leto sealed the portal against impetuous intrusions.
'My Duncan has come,' he said.
'He's probably heard about your wedding plans-'
'Probably.'
Leto watched Moneo wrestle with doubts, his thoughts utterly transparent. In that moment, Moneo fit so precisely into his human niche that Leto wanted to hug him.
He has the full spectrum: doubt-to-trust, love-to-hate... everything! All of those dear qualities which come to fruition in the warmth of emotion, in the willingness to spend yourself on Life.
'Why is Hwi accepting this?' Moneo asked.
Leto smiled. Moneo cannot doubt me; he must doubt others.
'I admit it is not a conventional union. She is a primate and I no longer am fully primate.'
Again, Moneo wrestled with things he could only feel and not express.
Watching Moneo, Leto felt the flow of an observational awareness, a thought process which occurred so rarely but with such vivid amplication when it did occur, that Leto did not stir lest he cause a ripple in the flow.
The primate thinks and, by thinking, survives. Beneath his thinking is a thing which came with his cells. It is the current of human concerns for the species. Sometimes, they cover it up, wall it off and hide it behind thick barriers, but I have deliberately sensitized Moneo to these workings of his innermost self. He follows me because he believes I hold the best course for human survival. He knows there is a cellular awareness. It is what I find when I scan the Golden Path. This is humanity and both of us agree: it must endure!
'Where, when and how will the wedding ceremony be conducted?' Moneo asked.
Not why? Leto noted. Moneo no longer sought to understand the why. He had returned to safe ground. He was the majordomo, the director of the God Emperor's household, the First Minister.
He has names and verbs and modifiers with which he can perform. The words will work for him in their usual ways. Moneo may never glimpse the transcendental potential of his words, but he well understands their everyday, mundane uses.
'What of my question?' Moneo pressed.
Leto blinked at him, thinking:, on the other hand, feel that words are mostly useful if they open for me a glimpse of attractive and undiscovered places. But the use of words is so little understood by a civilization which still believes unquestioningly in a mechanical universe of absolute cause and effect-obviously reducible to one single root-cause and one primary seminal-effect.
'How like a limpet the Ixian-Tleilaxu fallacy clings to human affairs,' Leto said.
'Lord, it disturbs me deeply when you don't pay attention.'
'But I do pay attention, Moneo.'
'Not to me.'
'Even to you.'
'Your attention wanders, Lord. You do not have to conceal that from me. I would betray myself before I would betray you.'
'You think I'm woolgathering?'
'What gathering, Lord?' Moneo had never questioned this word earlier, but now...
Leto explained the allusion, thinking: How ancient! The looms and shuttles clicked in Leto's memory. Animal fur to human garments... huntsman to herdsman... the long steps up the ladder of awareness... and now they must make another long step, longer even than the ancient ones.
'You indulge in idle thoughts,' Moneo accused.
'I have time for idle thoughts. That's one of the most interesting things about my existence as a singular multitude.'
'But, Lord, there are matters which demand our...'
'You'd be surprised what comes of idle thinking, Moneo. I've never minded spending an entire day on things a human would not bother with for one minute. Why not? With my life expectancy of some four thousand years, what's one day more or less? How much time does one human life count? A million minutes? I've already experienced almost that many days.'
Moneo stood frozen in silence, diminished by this comparison. He felt his own lifetime reduced to a mote in Leto's eye. The source of the allusion did not escape him.
Words... words... words, Moneo thought.
'Words are often almost useless in sentient affairs,' Leto said.
Moneo held his breathing to a shallow minimum. The Lord can read thoughts!
'Throughout our history,' Leto said, 'the most potent use of words has been to round out some transcendental event, giving that event a place in the accepted chronicles, explaining the event in such a way that ever afterward we can use those words and say: 'This is what it meant.'
Moneo felt beaten down by these words, terrified by unspoken things they might make him think.
'That's how events get lost in history,' Leto said.
After a long silence, Moneo ventured: 'You have not answered my question, Lord. The wedding?'
How tired he sounds, Leto thought. How utterly defeated.
Leto spoke briskly: 'I have never needed your good offices more. The wedding must be managed with utmost care. It must have the precision of which only you are capable.'
'Where, Lord?'
A bit more life in his voice.
'At Tabur Village in the Sareer.'
'When?'
'I leave the date to you. Announce it when all things are arranged.'
'And the ceremony itself?'
'I will conduct it.'
'Will you need assistants, Lord? Artifacts of any kind?'
'The trappings of ritual?'
'Any particular thing which I may not...'
'We will not need much for our little charade.'
'Lord! I beg of you! Please...'
'You will stand beside the bride and give her in marriage,' Leto said. 'We will use the Old Fremen ritual.'
'We will need water rings then,' Moneo said.
'Yes! I will use Ghani's water rings.'
'And who will attend, Lord?'
'Only a Fish Speaker guard and the aristocracy.'
Moneo stared at Leto's face. 'What... what does my Lord mean by `aristocracy'?'
'You, your family, the household entourage, the courtiers of the Citadel.'
'My fam...' Moneo swallowed. 'Do you include Siona?'
'If she survives the test.'
'But...
'Is she not family?'
