Dune: House Atreides (53 page)

Rhombur hunched forward on his plush but uncomfortable seat, smiling at Leto.

"I've never seen anything like this. I, uh, can't wait."

INSIDE THE STABLES, behind force-field bars, the chosen Salusan bull issued a muffled bellow and charged against the wall. Wood splintered. The reinforced iron supports screeched.

Duncan scrambled backward, terrified. The creature's multifaceted eyes burned a coppery red, as if embers inside the orbs had glowed to life. The bull seemed angry and evil, a child's nightmare come true.

For the paseo, the boy wore special white-and-green merh-silks the Duke had given all the stableboys for the day's performance. Duncan had never before worn or even touched such fancy clothes, and it made him uncomfortable to bring them into the dirty stables. But he had a greater sense of uneasiness now.

The fabric felt slick on his clean and lotioned skin. Attendants had scrubbed him, trimmed his hair, cleaned his fingernails. His body felt raw from the cleansing. White lace rode at the wrists above his callused hands. Working in the stables, his pristine condition would not last long.

Safe enough from the bull now, Duncan straightened the cap on his head. He watched the beast as it snorted, pawed the plank floor, and rammed the side of the cage again. Duncan shook his head in dismay and concern.

Turning, he spotted Yresk standing close beside him. The stablemaster nodded coolly at the ferocious Salusan bull, his puffy eyes haunted and tired. "Looks like he's eager to fight our Duke."

"Something's still wrong, sir," Duncan insisted. "I've never seen the animal this riled."

Yresk raised his bushy eyebrows and scratched his shock of white hair. "Oh, in all your years of experience? I told you not to trouble yourself."

Duncan bridled at the sarcasm. "Can't you see it yourself, sir?"

"Stable-rat, Salusan bulls are bred to be vicious. The Duke knows what he's doing." Yresk crossed his scarecrow arms over his chest, but he didn't move closer to the cage. "Besides, the more keyed-up this one is, the better he'll fight, and our Duke certainly likes to give a good performance. His people love it."

As if to emphasize Yresk's point, the bull battered itself against the force field, bellowing a deep roar from the vast engine of its chest. Its horned head and leathery hide were gashed in places where it had injured itself trying to trample anything in sight.

"I think we should pick a different bull, Master Yresk."

"Nonsense," the other replied, growing more impatient now. "The Atreides's own stable veterinarian has performed body tissue tests, and everything checked out.

You should be ready for the paseo, not in here causing trouble. Run along now, before you miss your chance."

"I'm trying to prevent trouble, sir," Duncan insisted. He looked defiantly at Yresk. "I'm going to go talk to the Duke myself. Maybe he'll listen."

"You'll do no such thing, stable-rat." Moving like an eel, Yresk grabbed him by the slippery fabric of the costume. "I've been patient enough with you, for the Duke's sake, but I can't let you ruin his bullfight. Don't you see all the people out there?"

Duncan struggled and cried for help. But the others had already lined up at the gates for the grand parade around the arena. The fanfare sounded a deafening note, and the crowd cheered in anticipation.

Without being unduly rough, Yresk tossed him into one of the empty stalls, turning on the containment field to keep him in it. Duncan stumbled onto piles of trampled feed smeared with green-brown manure.

"You can sit out the event here," Yresk said, looking sad. "I should have known to expect trouble from you, a Harkonnen sympathizer."

"But I hate the Harkonnens!" Duncan stood up, trembling with rage. His silk clothes were ruined. He hurled himself against the bars just as the bull had done, but he had no chance of escaping.

Brushing himself off to look presentable again, Yresk strode toward the arched openings for the paseo. The stablemaster flashed a glance over his shoulder.

"The only reason you're here, stable-rat, is because the Duke likes you. But I've run his stables for nigh on twenty years, and I know exactly what I'm doing. You just leave it be -- I've got work to do."

In the cage beside Duncan, the Salusan bull simmered like a boiler about to explode.

DUKE PAULUS ATREIDES stood in the center of the arena. He turned slowly, drawing energy from the enthusiasm of the crowd; residual heat rose from the packed stands. He flashed them all a sparkling, confident grin. They roared with approval. Oh, how his people loved to be entertained!

Paulus switched on his body-shield at partial setting. He would have to maneuver carefully for his protection. The element of danger kept him on his toes, and it made for greater suspense among the spectators. He held the muleta, a brightly colored cloth on a pole, which he would use to distract the attacking animal and divert its attention from his body core.

The long barbed staffs, poison-dipped banderillas, were wrapped close to the pole for Paulus to use when he needed them. He would get near to the creature and spike them into its neck muscles, injecting a neuropoison that would gradually weaken the Salusan bull so that he could deliver the coup de grace.

Paulus had been through these performances dozens of times before, often for major Caladan holidays. He was at the top of his form in front of crowds and enjoyed showing off his bravery and skills. It was his way of repaying his subjects for their devotion. Each time, it seemed, his physical abilities rose to their peak as he rode the narrow edge in the contest between living his own life to the hilt and risking it as he fought a raging beast. He hoped Rhombur and Kailea would enjoy the show and feel more at home.

Only once, back when he was younger, had Paulus actually felt threatened: A sluggish, plodding bull had lured him into switching off his shield during a practice session, and then had turned into a whirlwind of horns and hooves.

These mutated creatures were not just violent, but two-brain smart as well, and Paulus had made the mistake of forgetting that -- but only once. The bull had slashed him with its horns, laying his side open. Paulus had fallen onto the sand and would have been gored to death had he not been practicing at the same time as a much younger Thufir Hawat.

Seeing the danger, the warrior Mentat had instantly dropped all pretense of protocol in the bullring and leaped forth single-handedly to attack and dispatch the creature. During the ensuing fight, the ferocious bull had ripped a long wound in Hawat's leg, leaving him with a permanent, curling scar. The scar had become a reminder to all of the Mentat's intense devotion to his Duke.

Now, under the cloudy skies and surrounded by his subjects, Duke Paulus waved and took a long, deep breath. Fanfare signaled that the fight was to begin.

House Atreides was not the most powerful family in the Landsraad, nor the wealthiest. Still, Caladan provided many resources: the pundi rice fields, the bountiful fish in the seas, the kelp harvest, all the fruit and produce from the arable land, and handmade musical instruments and bone carvings done by the aboriginal people in the south. In recent years there had been an increased demand for tapestries woven by the Sisters in Isolation, a religious group sequestered in the terraced hills of the eastern continent. In all, Caladan provided everything its people could possibly want, and Duke Paulus knew his family's fortunes were secure. He was immensely pleased that one day he could pass it all on to his son Leto.

The mutated Salusan bull charged.

"Ho, ho!" The Duke laughed and flailed his multihued muleta, skittering backward as the bull thundered past. Its head tossed from side to side, thrashing with its spiny shovel of a skull. One of the horns moved slowly enough to ripple through the pulsing Holtzman shield, and the Duke slid sideways, just enough so that the bone spike barely scratched his outer armor.

Seeing how close the horn had come to their beloved leader, the audience let out a collective gasp. The Duke sidestepped the bull as it charged past, kicking up powdered sand. The beast skidded to a stop. Paulus held his muleta with one hand, jiggling the cloth, and snatched out one of his barbed banderillas.

He glanced up at the ducal box, touching the hooked tip of the banderilla to his forehead in a salute. Leto and Prince Rhombur had leaped to their feet in excitement, but Helena remained frozen in her chair, her expression clouded, hands clasped in her lap.

The bull wheeled about and reoriented itself. Normally, Salusan bulls became dizzy after missing their target, but this one did not slow a bit. Duke Paulus realized that his monstrous opponent had a greater energy than he had ever seen, keener eyesight, hotter fury. Still, he smiled. Defeating this worthy opponent would be his finest hour, and a fitting tribute to the exiled Ixians in his care.

The Duke played with the bull for a few more passes, dancing beyond the reach of its horns, completing his expected performance for the excited spectators.

Around him the partial shield shimmered.

Seeing that the bull did not tire after the better part of an hour, though, and that it remained focused on killing him, Duke Paulus grew concerned enough that he made up his mind to end the contest as swiftly as possible. He would use his shield, a trick he had learned from one of the finest matadors in the Imperium.

The next time the creature shot past, hooves hammering the packed sand, its horns ricocheted off the Duke's personal shield, a collision that finally disoriented the beast.

The Duke grasped the banderilla and plunged it into the bull's back like a stake, setting the barbed hook into cable-thick neck muscles. Oily blood spilled out from the slash in its hide. Paulus released the handle of the poisoned spear as he twirled out of the way. The drug on the barbed tip should begin to act immediately, burning out the neurotransmitters in the beast's double brain.

The crowd cheered, and the bull roared with pain. It spun about and stumbled as its legs seemed to give way. The Duke thought this was caused by the poison, but to his surprise the Salusan bull floundered to its feet once more and rocketed toward him. Paulus again sidestepped, but the bull managed to snag the muleta on its multiple horns, thrashing its head and tearing the bright ceremonial cloth to shreds.

The Duke narrowed his eyes and released his hold. This was going to be a greater challenge than he had expected. The audience cried out in dismay, and he couldn't stop himself from offering them a brave smile. Yes, the difficult fights are the best, and the people of Caladan will remember this one for a long, long time.

Paulus held up his second banderilla, slashing it in the air like a thin fencing sword, and turned to face the heavily muscled oncoming bull. He had no cape to distract the animal now, so it would see his body core as its main target. He had only one short, barbed spear as his weapon, and a partial shield for protection.

He saw Atreides guards, even Thufir Hawat, standing at the ringside, ready to race out and assist him. But the Duke raised his hand, forcing them back. He must do this himself. It simply would not do to have a mob of other fighters rushing to his rescue the moment things got a little sticky.

The Salusan bull pawed the ground, glaring at him with its multifaceted eyes, and the Duke thought he saw a flash of understanding there. This creature knew exactly who he was -- and it intended to kill him. But the Duke had similar thoughts in his own mind.

The bull charged directly toward him and picked up speed. Paulus wondered why the neurotoxin hadn't yet slowed it down. Deadly questions occurred to him: How can this be? I dipped the banderillas in poison myself. But was it really poison?

Wondering if there had been sabotage, the Duke held out the banderilla, its sharp barb glinting in the cloudy sunlight. The bull approached, steaming, frothing. Foam from its nostrils and mouth flew up to fleck its black scaly face.

As they closed to within meters of each other, the bull feinted to the right.

Duke Paulus jabbed with his short spear, but the beast instantly swerved and attacked from a different direction. This time the barb caught on a knob of the bull's horny skin, but did not sink in. The small weapon tore out of the Duke's grasp and dropped to the sand as the bull dashed past.

For a moment Paulus was weaponless. He scrambled backward and snatched for the banderilla on the ground. Turning his back on the bull, he listened for it to grind to a stop, spin around, and come back -- but as he bent over to retrieve his weapon, the huge bull was suddenly there with impossible speed, horns lowered.

The Duke scrambled to one side, trying to get out of the way, but the bull was already within his safety zone, ducking under the partial shield and ramming home. Its long, curved horns gouged deep into the Duke's back, breaking through his ribs and into his lungs and heart.

The bull roared with triumph. To the horror of the crowd, it lifted Paulus up, thrashing him from side to side. Blood sprayed on the sand, red droplets slowed by the concave surface of the small shield. The doomed Duke flailed and twitched, impaled on the forest of horns.

The audience fell deathly silent.

Within seconds, Thufir Hawat and the Atreides guards surged out onto the field, their lasguns cutting the rampaging Salusan bull into piles of smoking meat.

The creature's own momentum caused pieces of the carcass to fly apart in different directions. The decapitated but otherwise intact head thumped onto the ground.

The Duke's body pirouetted in the air and landed on its back in the trampled sand.

Up in the ducal box, Rhombur cried out in disbelief. Kailea sobbed. The Lady Helena let her chin sink against her chest and wept.

Leto rose to his feet, all color draining from his skin. His mouth opened and closed, but he could find no words to express his utter shock. He wanted to run down into the arena, but saw from the mangled condition of his father that he would never reach him in time. There would be no gasping and whispering of last words.