“I am, aahh, aware of when I have told the truth and when I have not.”
“Perhaps you shade the truth now?”
Fenring didn’t answer, as Paul looked at him warily. Paul sensed something, but what?
Alia continued to eat, but watched the reactions around the table. For some reason, Marie giggled.
The chefs had chosen a main course of roasted butterfish, one of Paul’s favorites from Caladan. Gurney Halleck had recently sent a shipment of the delicately flavored fish, which was now served in a traditional peasant style. With her small, nimble fingers, Marie peeled away the scales and skin, exposing the pale flesh and vertebrae as if she were an excellent dissectionist.
Fenring held up one of the curved sharp ribs of the butterfish. “One could easily choke on a fish bone. I hope I am not to construe this as a threat? No one but Shaddam would have ever served such an intrinsically dangerous meal.”
It was poor joke, but nevertheless Lady Margot and Korba chuckled.
“My father had good reason to fear assassination attempts,” Irulan said sourly. “He should have spent more effort strengthening his Empire, instead of conspiring with you, Count Fenring.” Alia was surprised to hear the bitterness in the Princess’s voice. “Many of his most troublesome ideas came directly from you.”
“Hmmm? Your assessment is entirely unfair to me, Princess, as well as factually incorrect. If dear Shaddam had listened to my ideas more often, instead of acting on his own, he would have gotten into far less trouble.”
Marie continued to toy with her fish. With her round-handled spoon, she tried to cut a hard-glazed vegetable, a dwarf Ecazi turnip — a slightly sweet, tasty morsel. The vegetable rolled suddenly off her plate and dropped to the floor beneath the table. As if hoping no one would notice her faux pas, the girl ducked down from her chair to retrieve it. Alia hid her amusement.
“Shaddam has been disarmed in every possible way,” Paul said. “Most of his Sardaukar have transferred their allegiance to me. Only one legion, comprised mostly of older men ready for retirement, remains with him in exile as his police force.”
“Hmm, I think you are too trusting, Sire. Sardaukar are blood soldiers. They are sworn to defend their Emperor.”
Chani’s voice was dangerous. “You forget, Count Fenring, that
Lady Margot glanced under the table to see what her daughter was doing.
Paul continued, “The fact that my Fremen defeated them so resoundingly was a mortal blow to their confidence. It is the law of the vanquished: I have proven myself the leader of the human pack, and they must bare their throats in submission.”
When she thought no one was looking, Alia slipped beneath the table as well. “Marie, what are you doing?”
The girl darted a glance back at her like a snake. Marie had peeled something long and thin from the table leg, barely thicker than a thread but as long as her forearm. A flexible band was wrapped around her knuckles. It had been hidden among the cracks and ornate carvings beneath the banquet table’s trim. Seeing Alia, Marie activated a minute power source, causing the object to extend and became rigid.
Alia recognized it for what it was —
Alia’s thoughts tumbled into place, spelling out the details of a long-planned murder. The little girl had been planted like a cuckoo’s egg in the nest of the Arrakeen citadel. “Paul! Stilgar!”
She lunged toward Marie under the table, but the other girl slapped a hidden switch in one of the curlicue knobs on the table’s trim, activating another booby trap. From the stone block walls near the main door came a popping
Someone screamed, repeatedly. At first it sounded like a woman, but Alia realized quickly it was Korba.
The explosion of smoke, cleverly planted without energetic chemicals or any kind of detectable ignition device, sent the door guards running to the wrong place. The delay and diversion needed to last only a few seconds. Marie was already there under the table, and with her small but deadly body she rose up between the table and Paul, even as he pushed back to get into a defensive position.
Marie pressed forward, far stronger than she looked, and drove herself into Paul’s now-activated shield, inserting the deadly needlewhip through the barrier. She slowed, using the resistance to her advantage. The weapon’s fine tip slid through the barrier like the needle of a medic administering a euthanasia injection.
Moving smoothly at the first instant of turmoil, Lady Margot Fenring snapped the thread of her necklace and spilled her strand of lavender diamonds into the goblet in front of her. Immediately upon contact with the water, the Tleilaxu gems released their impregnated chemicals, a potent but short-term paralytic not detectable by the banquet room’s poison snoopers. She and Count Fenring had already consumed a prophylactic antidote. She hurled the goblet’s contents away from her, splashing it across the table at Korba and Stilgar even as the men lunged to their feet. Some of the fumes even reached Irulan.
Alia saw Paul grab Marie’s small wrist and hold her off, preventing the needlewhip from extending more and plunging its fine, sharp point through his forehead. By now, the power source would have built up a substantial electrostatic charge, and a single burst could quickly and effectively short-circuit her brother’s brain.
At the far side of the room, yellow smoke continued to spread out. People were choking. The guards nearly tripped over each other. Stilgar and Korba had collapsed, stunned by the paralytic; Irulan could barely move.
Count Fenring had already acted, moving through the blinding smoke to reach the thick stone wall of the banquet room, where blocks fitted together perfectly to form a corner that, to even the most detailed inspection, appeared to be perfectly aligned. He knew the precise crack to push, the slight sliding to the left and then upward to reveal another mechanism — all the components of which were made of exactly the same kind of stone. Then a release, and the passage opened: access to the ancient tunnels underneath the Residency.
Many years before the Atreides occupation, Count Fenring had discovered the network of incalculably old passages beneath the foundations, and he had installed several access points in key areas. Because the system was his own clever design, Fenring knew these hidden entrances would have remained undetected in all the subsequent time.
Now, it would provide a perfect way for them to get away after the murder of Muad’Dib, leaving Arrakeen in an uproar. According to the plan he and Lady Margot had developed so carefully, an armed escape craft was already waiting outside, and from there they would reach the Heighliner and fold space to freedom.
The right people had been bribed, the entire process made easier by the fact that the Emperor Muad’Dib was so widely hated, even by many of those closest to him. The assistance of the Spacing Guild didn’t hurt, either. In all likelihood, the Count, Margot, and Marie would fill the power vacuum after Paul’s death, or find someone compatible who could do so. Even if not, without such a charismatic, prescient leader, the Jihad and this fanatical government would consume itself from within.
But first, Muad’Dib had to die.
When Marie threw herself upon Paul, however, surprise and treachery had been her main advantages. As Paul stalled the initial attack for a moment, Alia burst out from beneath the table and sprang at the other girl like a mongoose.
Breaking free of Paul, Marie lashed out at Alia with the needle-whip, and Paul’s sister danced back. Alia was more than a match for the other girl’s fighting ability, but she had no weapon of her own. Marie jabbed, and the hair-fine rapier made a whistling sigh through the air. “Let’s play, Alia.”
Though her muscles could barely respond from her exposure to the paralytic, Irulan crawled to one side, out of the way. Stilgar lay sprawled with his head, shoulders, and arms on the table, where he had collapsed. He twitched and struggled, his eyes fully aware, as he tried to pull himself up. Chani held her drawn crysknife, looking as formidable a fighter as any Fedaykin.
Alia sprang onto the dining table, trying to get out of reach of the needlewhip. Marie lashed and spun as she followed her up there, knocking settings aside while Alia dodged. It was clear the little Fenring assassin meant to dispatch her quickly. So much had happened in only a few seconds. “Now who is the scorpion?” Marie laughed.
