thrust your worries aside and turn to practical matters. It must be a Bene Gesserit thing.”
“It’s a female thing,” she said.
He smiled. “Well, assignment of rooms: make certain I have large office space next to my sleeping quarters. There’ll be more paper work here than on Caladan. A guard room, of course. That should cover it. Don’t worry about security of the house. Hawat’s men have been over it in depth.”
“I’m sure they have.”
He glanced at his wristwatch. “And you might see that all our timepieces are adjusted for Arrakeen local. I’ve assigned a tech to take care of it. He’ll be along presently.” He brushed a strand of her hair back from her forehead. “I must return to the landing field now. The second shuttle’s due any minute with my staff reserves.”
“Couldn’t Hawat meet them, my Lord? You look so tired.”
“The good Thufir is even busier than I am. You know this planet’s infested with Harkonnen intrigues. Besides, I must try persuading some of the trained spice hunters against leaving. They have the option, you know, with the change of fief—and this planetologist the Emperor and the Landsraad installed as Judge of the Change cannot be bought. He’s allowing the opt. About eight hundred trained hands expect to go out on the spice shuttle and there’s a Guild cargo ship standing by.”
“My Lord….” She broke off, hesitating.
“Yes?”
He will not be persuaded against trying to make this planet secure for us, she thought. And I cannot use my tricks on him.
“At what time will you be expecting dinner?” she asked.
That’s not what she was going to say, he thought Ah-h-h-h, my Jessica, would that we were somewhere else, anywhere away from this terrible place—alone, the two of us, without a care.
“I’ll eat in the officers’ mess at the field,” he said. “Don’t expect me until very late. And … ah, I’ll be sending a guardcar for Paul. I want him to attend our strategy conference.”
He cleared his throat as though to say something else, then, without warning, turned and strode out, headed for the entry where she could hear more boxes being deposited. His voice sounded once from there, commanding and disdainful, the way he always spoke to servants when he was in a hurry: “The Lady Jessica’s in the Great Hall. Join her there immediately.”
The outer door slammed.
Jessica turned away, faced the painting of Leto’s father. It had been done by the famed artist, Albe, during the Old Duke’s middle years. He was portrayed in matador costume with a magenta cape flung over his left arm. The face looked young, hardly older than Leto’s now, and with the same hawk features, the same gray stare. She clenched her fists at her sides, glared at the painting.
“Damn you! Damn you! Damn you!” she whispered.
“What are your orders, Noble Born?”
It was a woman’s voice, thin and stringy.
Jessica whirled, stared down at a knobby, gray-haired woman in a shapeless sack dress of bondsman brown. The woman looked as wrinkled and desiccated as any member of the mob that had greeted them along the way from the landing field that morning. Every native she had seen on this planet, Jessica thought, looked prune dry and undernourished. Yet, Leto had said they were strong and vital. And there were the eyes, of course—that wash of deepest, darkest blue without any white—secretive, mysterious. Jessica forced herself not to stare.
The woman gave a stiff-necked nod, said: “I am called the Shadout Mapes, Noble Born. What are your orders?”
“You may refer to me as ‘my Lady,’ ” Jessica said. “I’m not noble born. I’m the bound concubine of the Duke Leto.”
Again that strange nod, and the woman peered upward at Jessica with a sly questioning. “There’s a wife, then?”
“There is not, nor has there ever been. I am the Duke’s only … companion, the mother of his heir-designate.”
Even as she spoke, Jessica laughed inwardly at the pride behind her words. What was it St. Augustine said? she asked herself. “The mind commands the body and it obeys. The mind orders itself and meets resistance. ” Yes—I am meeting more resistance lately. I could use a quiet retreat by myself.
A weird cry sounded from the road outside the house. It was repeated: “Soo-soo-Sook! Soo-soo-Sook!” Then: “Ikhut-eigh! Ikhut-eigh!” And again: “Soo-soo-Sook!”
“What is that?” Jessica asked. “I heard it several times as we drove through the streets this morning.”
“Only a water-seller, my Lady. But you’ve no need to interest yourself in such as they. The cistern here holds fifty thousand