Chapter Fourteen
Al-Fali thrust his way past Jessica, looked from the pistol to the Priest. The Fremen let out a cry of rage, came up from his belt with an achag blow, the fingers of his left hand rigid. They caught the Priest in the throat and he collapsed, strangling. Without a backward glance at the man he had killed, the old Naib turned an angry face toward the dais.
"Dalal-il 'an-nubuwwa!" al-Fali called, placing both palms against his forehead, then lowering them. "The Qadis as-Salaf will not let me be silenced! If I do not slay those who interfere, others will slay them!"
He thinks he was the target, Jessica realized. She looked down at her sleeve, put a finger in the neat hole left by the maula pellet. Poisoned, no doubt.
The supplicants had dropped the Priest. He lay writhing on the floor, dying with his larynx crushed. Jessica motioned to a pair of shocked courtiers standing at her left, said: "I want that man saved for questioning. If he dies, you die!" As they hesitated, peering toward the dais, she used Voice on them: "Move!"
The pair moved.
Jessica thrust herself to al-Fali's side, nudged him: "You are a fool, Naib! They were after me, not you."
Several people around them heard her. In the immediate shocked silence, al-Fali glanced at the dais with its one toppled throne and Alia still seated on the other. The look of realization which came over his face could've been read by a novice.
"Fedaykin," Jessica said, reminding him of his old service to her family, "we who have been scorched know how to stand back to back."
"Trust me, My Lady," he said, taking her meaning immediately.
A gasp behind Jessica brought her whirling, and she felt al-Fali move to stand with his back to her. A woman in the gaudy garb of a city Fremen was straightening from beside the Priest on the floor. The two courtiers were nowhere to be seen. The woman did not even glance at Jessica, but lifted her voice in the ancient keening of her people - the call for those who serviced the deathstills, the call for them to come and gather a body's water into the tribal cistern. It was a curiously incongruous noise coming from one dressed as this woman was. Jessica felt the persistence of the old ways even as she saw the falseness in this city woman. The creature in the gaudy dress obviously had killed the Priest to make sure he was silenced.
Why did she bother? Jessica wondered. She had only to wait for the man to die of asphyxiation. The act was a desperate one, a sign of deep fear.
Alia sat forward on the edge of her throne, her eyes aglitter with watchfulness. A slender woman wearing the braid knots of Alia's own guards strode past Jessica, bent over the Priest, straightened, and looked back at the dais. "He is dead."
"Have him removed," Alia called. She motioned to guards below the dais. "Straighten the Lady Jessica's chair."
So you'll try to brazen it out! Jessica thought. Did Alia think anyone had been fooled? Al-Fali had spoken of the Qadis as-Salaf, calling on the holy fathers of Fremen mythology as his protectors. But no supernatural agency had brought a maula pistol into this room where no weapons were permitted. A conspiracy involving Javid's people was the only answer, and Alia's unconcern about her own person told everyone she was a part of that conspiracy.
The old Naib spoke over his shoulder to Jessica: "Accept my apologies, My Lady. We of the desert come to you as our last desperate hope, and now we see that you still have need of us."
"Matricide does not sit well on my daughter," Jessica said.
"The tribes will hear of this," al-Fali promised.
"If you have such desperate need of me," Jessica asked, "why did you not approach me at the Convocation in Sietch Tabr?"
"Stilgar would not permit it."
Ahhh, Jessica thought, the rule of the Naibs! In Tabr, Stilgar's word was law.
The toppled throne had been straightened. Alia motioned for her mother to return, said: "All of you please note the death of that traitor-Priest. Those who threaten me die." She glanced at al-Fali. "My thanks to you, Naib."
"Thanks for a mistake," al-Fali muttered. He looked at Jessica. "You were right. My rage removed one who should've been questioned."
Jessica whispered: "Mark those two courtiers and the woman in the colorful dress, Fedaykin. I want them taken and questioned."
"It will be done," he said.
"If we get out of here alive," Jessica said. "Come, let us go back and play our parts."
"As you say, My Lady."
Together, they returned to the dais, Jessica mounting the steps and resuming her position beside Alia, al-Fali remaining in the supplicant's position below.
"Now," Alia said.
"One moment, daughter," Jessica said. She held up her sleeve, exposed the hole with a finger through it. "The attack was aimed at me. The pellet almost found me even as I was dodging. You will all note that the maula pistol is no longer down there." She pointed. "Who has it?"
There was no response.
"Perhaps it could be traced," Jessica said.
"What nonsense!" Alia said. "I was the -"
Jessica half turned toward her daughter, motioned with her left hand. "Someone down there has that pistol. Don't you have a fear that -"
"One of my guards has it!" Alia said.
"Then that guard will bring the weapon to me," Jessica said.
"She's already taken it away."
"How convenient," Jessica said.
"What are you saying?" Alia demanded.
Jessica allowed herself a grim smile. "I am saying that two of your people were charged with saving that traitor-Priest. I warned them that they would die if he died. They will die."