"It is said that the Lord Leto activates his cart and steers it just by thinking in a particular way."
"Don't you know?"
"Questions such as this do not please him."
Even to his intimates, Moneo thought, The God Emperor remains a mystery.
"Moneo!" Leto called.
"You had better return to your guards," Moneo said, gesturing for Idaho to fall back.
"I'd rather be out in front with them," Idaho said.
"The Lord Leto does not want that! Now go back."
Moneo hurried to place himself close beside Leto's face, noting that Idaho was falling back through the courtiers to the rear ring of guards.
Leto looked down at Moneo. "I thought you handled that very well, Moneo."
"Thank you, Lord."
"Do you know why the Duncan wants to be out in front?"
"Certainly, Lord. It's where your Guard should be."
"And this one senses danger."
"I don't understand you, Lord. I cannot understand why you do these things."
"That's true, Moneo." -= The female sense of sharing originated as familial sharing-care of the young, the gathering and preparation of food, sharing joys, love and sorrows. Funeral lamentation originated with women. Religion began as a female monopoly, wrested from them only after its social power became too dominant. Women were the first medical researchers and Practitioners. There has never been any clear balance between the sexes because power goes with certain roles as it certainly goes with knowledge.
- The Stolen Journals FOR THE Reverend Mother Tertius Eileen Anteac, this had been a disastrous morning. She had arrived on Arrakis with her fellow Truthsayer, Marcus Claire Luyseyal, both of them coming down with their official party less than three hours ago aboard the first shuttle from the Guild heighliner hanging in stationary orbit. First, they had been assigned rooms at the absolute edge of the Festival City's Embassy Quarter. The rooms were small and not quite clean.
"Any farther out and we'd be camping in the slums," Luyseyal had said.
Next they had been denied communications facilities. All of the screens remained blank no matter how many switches were toggled and palm-dials turned.
Anteac had addressed herself sharply to the heavyset officer commanding the Fish Speaker escort, a glowering woman with low brows and the muscles of a manual laborer.
"I wish to complain to your commander!"
"No complaints allowed at Festival Time," the amazon had rasped.
Anteac had glared at the officer, a look which in Anteac's old and seamed face had been known to make even her fellow Reverend Mothers hesitate.
The amazon had merely smiled and said: "I have a message. I am to tell you that your audience with the God Emperor has been moved to the last position."
Most of the Bene Gesserit party had heard this and even the lowliest attendant-postulate had recognized the significance. All of the spice allotments would be fixed or (The Gods protect us!) even gone by that time.
"We were to have been third," Anteac had said, her voice remarkably mild in the circumstances.
"It is the God Emperor's command!"
Anteac knew that tone in a Fish Speaker. To defy it risked violence.
A morning of disasters and now this!
Anteac occupied a low stool against one wall of a tiny, almost empty room near the center of their inadequate quarters. Beside her there was a low pallet, no more than you would assign to an acolyte! The walls were a pale, scabrous green and there was but one aging glowglobe so defective it could not be tuned out of the yellow. The room gave signs of having been a storage chamber. It smelled musty. Dents and scratches marred the black plastic of the floor.
Smoothing her black aba robe across her knees, Anteac leaned close to the postulate messenger who knelt, head bowed, directly in front of the Reverend Mother. The messenger was a doe-eyed blonde creature with the perspiration of fear and excitement on her face and neck. She wore a dusty tan robe with the dirt of the streets along its hem.
"You are certain, absolutely certain?" Anteac spoke softly to soothe the poor girl, who still trembled with the gravity of her message.
"Yes, Reverend Mother." She kept her gaze lowered.
"Go through it once more," Anteac said, and she thought:
I'm sparring for time. I heard her correctly.
The messenger lifted her gaze to Anteac and looked directly into the totally blue eyes as all the postulates and acolytes were taught to do.
"As I was commanded, I made contact with the lxians at their Embassy and presented your greetings. I then inquired if they had any messages for me to bring back."
"Yes, yes, girl! I know. Get to the heart of it."
The messenger gulped. "The spokesman identified himself as Othwi Yake, temporary superior in the Embassy and assistant to the former Ambassador."
"You're sure he was not a Face Dancer substitute?"
"None of the signs were there, Reverend Mother."
"Very well. We know this Yake. You may continue."
"Yake said they were awaiting the arrival of the new. _."
"Hwi Noree, the new Ambassador, yes. She's due here today."
The messenger wet her lips with her tongue.
Anteac made a mental note to return this poor creature to a more elementary training schedule. Messengers should have better self-control, although some allowance had to be made for the seriousness of this message.
Chapter Nine
"He then asked me to wait," the messenger said. "He left the room and returned shortly with a Tleilaxu, a Face Dancer, I'm sure of it. There were the certain signs of the..."