With good humor, Rhombur’s new concubine Tessia accompanied him around the grounds of Castle Caladan. It amused her that the exiled Prince seemed more like an excited, clumsy child than the heir to a renegade House. It was a sunny morning, with lacy clouds drifting high overhead.

“It is hard to get to know you, when you fawn upon me so, my Prince.” They walked together along a terraced hillside path.

He clearly felt out of his league. “Uh, first you’ve got to call me Rhombur.”

She raised her eyebrows, and her sepia eyes sparkled. “I suppose that is a start.”

He flushed deeply as they continued to walk. “You must have smitten me, Tessia.” He plucked a field daisy from a spray of flowers on a grassy embankment and extended it to her. “Since I’m the son of a great Earl, I suppose I shouldn’t allow that, should I?”

Tessia accepted the offering and spun the flower coyly in front of her plain but intelligent-looking face. She peeked around the petals at him; her expression grew warm and understanding. “There are some advantages to living in exile, I suppose. Nobody notices who you’re smitten with.”

Then she pointed a stern finger at him. “Though I would respect you more if you did something to counteract the dishonor that’s fallen on your family. Simply being an optimist hasn’t achieved anything for years, has it? Trusting that everything will turn out right, thinking that you can do nothing more than sit here and complain? Talking is no substitute for doing.”

Surprised by the remark, Rhombur spluttered his response. “But I’ve, uh, requested that Ambassador Pilru file petition after petition. Won’t my oppressed people try to overthrow the invaders, waiting for me to return? I expect to march back and reclaim my family name . . . anytime now.”

“If you sit safely here and wait for your people to do your work for you, then you do not deserve to rule such a populace. Have you learned nothing from Leto Atreides?” Tessia put her hands on her slender hips. “If you ever intend to be an Earl, Rhombur, you must follow your passions. And get better intelligence reports.”

He felt decidedly uncomfortable, stung by the truth in her words, but at a loss. “How, Tessia? I have no army. Emperor Shaddam refuses to intervene . . . and the Landsraad, too. I was only granted limited amnesty when my family went renegade. Uh, what else can I do?”

Determined, she grasped his elbow as they continued their brisk walk. “If you permit me, perhaps I might make suggestions. They teach us many subjects on Wallach IX, including politics, psychology, strategy facilitation. . . . Never forget that I am a Bene Gesserit, not a serving wench. I am intelligent and well educated, and I see many things that you do not.”

Rhombur stumbled along with her, trying to regain his mental balance. Suspicious, he said, “Is this something the Sisterhood put you up to? Were you assigned as my concubine just to help me get Ix back?”

“No, my Prince. I won’t pretend, though, that the Bene Gesserit wouldn’t prefer to have a stable House Vernius back in power. Dealing with the Bene Tleilax is far more difficult . . . and confusing.” Tessia ran her fingers through her close-cropped brown hair, making it look as mussed as the Prince’s perpetual tangles. “For myself, I would rather be the concubine of a Great Earl within the fabled Grand Palais on Ix, than of an exiled Prince who lives off the good graces of a generous Duke.”

He swallowed hard, then plucked another field daisy and sniffed it himself. “I would rather be that person, too, Tessia.”

Looking down from a Castle balcony, Leto watched Rhombur and Tessia stroll hand in hand across a field of wildflowers swaying in the ocean breeze. Leto felt a heavy ache in his heart, a warm envy toward his friend; the Ixian Prince seemed to be walking on air, as if he had forgotten all about the troubles on his overthrown homeworld.

He smelled Kailea’s perfume behind him, a sweet, flowery scent reminiscent of hyacinth and lily of the valley, but he hadn’t heard her approach. He looked back at her, and wondered how long she had been standing there, watching him stare down at the inseparable lovers.

“She’s good for him,” Kailea said. “I never had much fondness for the Bene Gesserit before this, but Tessia is an exception.”

Leto chuckled. “He does seem quite taken with her. A testament to Sisterhood seduction training.”

Kailea cocked her head; she wore a jewel-studded comb in her hair, and had taken particular care to apply the most flattering touch of makeup. He had always found her beautiful, but at this moment she seemed . . . aglow.

“It takes more than dueling practice, parades, and fishing trips to make my brother happy . . . or any man.” Kailea stepped out onto the sunlit balcony with Leto, and he became uncomfortably aware of how alone they were.

Back before the fall of Ix, when she had been the daughter of a powerful Great House, Kailea Vernius had seemed a perfect match for Leto. Given time, in the normal course of events, Old Duke Paulus and Earl Dominic Vernius probably would have arranged a marriage.

But things were much different now. . . .

He could not afford to become entangled with a young woman from a renegade House, a person who— in theory— carried a death sentence if she ever tried to become involved in Imperial politics. As a noble daughter, Kailea could never become just a casual lover, like a girl from the village below Castle Caladan.

But he couldn’t deny his feelings.

And wasn’t a Duke entitled to take a concubine if he wished? There was no shame in it for Kailea, either, especially with her lack of prospects.

“Well, Leto— what are you waiting for?” She stepped close to him, so that one of her breasts grazed his arm. Her perfume made him dizzy with pheromones. “You are the Duke. You can have anything you desire.” Kailea drew out the last word.

“And what makes you think there’s anything I . . . desire?” To his own ears, his voice sounded strangely hollow.

Raising her eyebrows, she gave him a coy smile. “Surely you are accustomed to making difficult decisions by now?”

He hesitated, frozen. Indeed, he thought, what am I waiting for?

They both moved at the same time, and he took her warmly into his arms with a long-held sigh of relief and growing passion.

From the time Leto was young, he remembered watching his father spend sunny days in the courtyard of Castle Caladan, where he would listen to the petitions, concerns, and well-wishes of the people. Old Paulus’s bearish, bearded father had called it “going about the business of being a Duke.” Leto carried on the tradition.

A line of people trudged up the steep path to the open gates, to participate in an archaic system in which the Duke settled disputes. Though efficient legal systems existed in all the large cities, Leto did this for the opportunity to maintain contact with his people. He liked to respond personally to their complaints and suggestions. He found it better than any number of surveys, opinion polls, and reports from supposed experts.

As he sat under the warm morning sun, he listened to one person after another as the line shuffled forward. An old woman, whose husband had gone to sea in a storm and never returned, asked that he be declared dead, and went on to request Leto’s blessing and dispensation to marry her husband’s brother. The young Duke told her to wait a month on both accounts, after which he would approve her petition.

A ten-year-old boy wanted to show Leto a sea hawk he had raised from the time it was a chick. The large red-crested bird clutched the boy’s leather-cuffed wrist, then flew up into the open air of the courtyard, circled (much to the terror of the sparrows nesting in the eaves), and came back to the boy when he whistled. . . .

Leto loved to focus his attentions on personal details here at home, where he could actually see how his decisions mattered to the lives of his people. The immense Imperium, supposedly spanning “a million worlds,” seemed too abstract, too vast to matter much here. Still, the bloody conflicts on other worlds— such as between Ecaz and Grumman, or the ages-old animosity between House Atreides and House Harkonnen— affected their own populations in as personal a way as anything he saw here.

Leto had long been eligible for marriage— very eligible, in fact— and other Landsraad members wanted to enter into an alliance with House Atreides and mingle bloodlines. Would it be one of the daughters of Armand Ecaz, or would some other family make him a better offer? He had to play the dynastic game his father had taught him.

For years now he’d longed for Kailea Vernius, but her family had fallen, her House gone renegade. A Duke of House Atreides could never marry such a woman. It would be political suicide. Still, that did not make Kailea any less beautiful, or desirable.

Rhombur, happy with Tessia, had suggested that Leto take Kailea as his ducal concubine. For Kailea there would certainly be no shame in becoming the chosen lover of a Duke. In fact, it would secure her precarious position here on Caladan, where she lived under a provisional amnesty, with no guarantees. . . .

Next, a balding man with squinting eyes opened a smelly basket. A pair of House Guards closed in on him, but moved back when he lifted out a warm, reeking fish that must have been dead for days. Flies buzzed around it. When Leto frowned, wondering what insult this could be, the fisherman blanched, suddenly realizing the impression he had made. “Oh no, no, m’Lord Duke! This ain’t an offerin’. No— look, ye. This fish has sores. All my catch in the southern sea had sores.” Indeed, the belly of the fish was rough and leprous. “The seakelp rafts out there are dyin’ and they stink to the heavens. Somethin’s wrong, and I thought ye should know ’bout it.”

Leto looked over at Thufir Hawat, calling on the old warrior to use his Mentat skills. “A plankton bloom, Thufir?”

Hawat scowled, his mind racing, and then he nodded. “Likely killed off the seaweed, which is now rotting. Spreading disease among the fish.”

Leto looked at the fisherman, who hurriedly covered his basket and held it behind his back to keep the smell far away from the Duke’s chair. “Thank you, sir, for bringing this to our attention. We’ll have to burn the dead kelp islands, maybe add some nutrients to the water to restore a proper plankton-and-algae balance.”

“Sorry about the stink, m’Lord Duke.” The fisherman fidgeted. One of Leto’s guards took the basket and, holding it at arm’s length, carried it outside the gates, where the sea breezes would absorb the odor.

“Without you, I might not have learned about the problem for weeks. You have our gratitude.” Despite Caladan’s excellent satellites and weather stations, Leto often learned information— more accurately and swiftly— through the people rather than these mechanisms.

The next woman wanted to give him her prize chicken. Then two men were disputing the boundaries of pundi rice fields and dickering over the value of an orchard lost by flood when a crumbling dike spilled water into the lowlands. An old lady presented Leto with a thick sweater she had knitted herself. Next, a proud father wanted Leto to touch the forehead of his newborn daughter. . . .

The business of being a Duke.

Tessia eavesdropped outside the sitting area of the Castle apartment she shared with Rhombur, while Leto and the Prince discussed Imperial politics: the embarrassing vandalism of Corrino monuments, the declining health of Baron Harkonnen, the escalating and unpleasant conflict between Moritani and Ecaz (even with Sardaukar peacekeeping troops in place on Grumman), and the continued efforts of Leto’s diplomatic corps to interject a note of reason to the situation.

The conversation eventually turned to the tragedies that had befallen House Vernius, how long it had been since the overthrow of Ix. Expressing resentment for this had become routine for Rhombur, though he never found the courage to take the next step toward reclaiming his birthright. Safe and content on Caladan, he had given up hoping for revenge . . . or at least had put it off for another, undetermined day.

By now, Tessia had had enough.

While still at the Mother School, she’d read thick files on House Vernius. Her knowledge of the history and politics of technology was a common interest with Rhombur. Even knowing all the Sisterhood’s plans within plans, she felt as if she’d been made for him— and therefore obligated to nudge him into action. She hated to see him . . . stuck.

Wearing a floor-length black-and-yellow caliccee dress, Tessia placed a silver tray with flagons of dark beer on the table between the men. She spoke up, surprising them with her interruption. “I’ve already promised you my help, Rhombur. Unless you intend to do something about the injustice to your House, don’t complain about it for another decade.” Raising her chin arrogantly, Tessia spun about. “I, for one, don’t want to hear it.”

Leto saw the flash in her intense, wide-set eyes. In astonishment, he watched her leave the room with only a faint rustle of her dress. “Well, Rhombur, I expected a Bene Gesserit to be more . . . circumspect. Is she always so blunt?”

Rhombur looked stunned. He picked up his beer and swallowed a gulp. “How, in only a few weeks, did Tessia figure out exactly what I needed to hear?” A fire burned in his eyes, as if the concubine had merely provided the spark for the tinder that had been piling up inside him for so long. “Maybe you’ve been too kind all these years, Leto. Making me overly comfortable while my father stays in hiding, while my people remain enslaved.” He blinked. “It’s not going to turn out for the best all by itself, is it?”

Leto stared at him for a long moment. “No, my friend. No, it isn’t.”

Rhombur could not ask Leto to send massive forces on his behalf, because that would invite open warfare between House Atreides and the Bene Tleilax. Leto had already risked everything to prevent that from happening. Right now, he was just a piece of flotsam, without a purpose.

The Prince’s face darkened with determination. “Maybe I ought to make a grand gesture, return to my homeworld, take a formal diplomatic frigate with a full escort— uh, I could rent one, I suppose— and land in the port-of-entry canyon on Ix. I’d publicly reclaim my name, demand that the Tleilaxu renounce their illegal seizure of our planet.” He huffed. “What do you think they’d say to that?”

“Don’t be foolish, Rhombur.” Leto shook his head, wondering if his friend was serious or not. “They’d take you prisoner and perform medical experiments on your body. You’d end up in a dozen pieces and a dozen different axlotl tanks.”

“Vermilion hells, Leto— what else am I going to do?” Distracted and disturbed, the Prince stood up. “If you will excuse me? I need to think.” He trudged up a low riser to his private bedchamber and shut the door. Leto stared after his friend for a long moment, sipping his drink, before returning to his private study and the piled inventory documents awaiting his inspection and signature. . . .

Watching from an upstairs balcony, Tessia flitted down the winding stairs and slid open the bedroom door. Inside, she found Rhombur on the bed, staring at a picture of his parents on the wall. Kailea had painted it herself, longing for the days in the Grand Palais. In the picture, Dominic and Shando Vernius were dressed in full regalia, the bald Earl in a white uniform with purple-and-copper Ixian helixes adorning the collar, and she in a billowing lavender merh-silk gown.

Tessia massaged his shoulders. “It was wrong of me to embarrass you in front of the Duke. I’m sorry.”

He saw the tenderness and compassion in her sepia gaze. “Why apologize? You’re right, Tessia, though it’s difficult for me to admit it. Maybe I’m ashamed. I should have done something to avenge my parents.”

“To avenge all of your people— and to free them.” She heaved an exasperated sigh. “Rhombur, my true Prince, do you want to be passive, defeated, and complacent . . . or triumphant? I’m trying to help you.”

Rhombur felt her surprisingly strong hands working expertly at his knotted muscles, loosening them, warming them. Her touch was like a soothing drug, and he was tempted to sleep so that he could forget his troubles.

He shook his head. “I gave up without a fight, didn’t I?”

The concubine’s fingers worked down his spine to the small of his back, arousing him. “That doesn’t mean you can’t fight again.”

With a deeply puzzled expression, Kailea Vernius brought a shiny black packet to her brother. “It has our family crest on it, Rhombur. Just came from a Courier in Cala City.”

His sister had green eyes and copper-dark hair held back by glazed-shell combs. Her face had grown into the lush beauty of womanhood with the soft edges of youth; she reminded Rhombur of their mother Shando, who had once been a concubine of Emperor Elrood’s.

Perplexed, the Prince gazed at the helix on the package, but saw no other markings. Dressed in common, comfortable clothes, Tessia came up behind Rhombur while he used a small fishing knife to cut open the parcel. His brow wrinkled as he brought out a sheet of ridulian paper with lines, triangles, and dots on it. Then he caught his breath.

“It looks like a sub rosa message, an Ixian battle code written in a geometrical cipher.”

Kailea pursed her lips. “Father taught me the complexities of business, but little of military matters. I didn’t think I needed them.”

“Can you decode it, my Prince?” Tessia asked in a voice that made Rhombur wonder if his Bene Gesserit concubine also had special translation skills.

He scratched his tousled blond hair, then reached for a notepad. “Uh, let me see. My tutor used to beat the codes into my head, but it’s been years since I’ve thought about them.” Rhombur sat cross-legged on the floor, then began scribbling the Galach alphabet in a scrambled order he’d memorized. He scratched out lines and recopied the pattern more carefully. With old memories coming back to him, he stared at the paper and his pulse quickened. Someone with inside knowledge had undoubtedly prepared this. But who?

Next Rhombur took a ruler and, measuring carefully, made a new sheet into a grid. Across the top, he wrote the scrambled alphabet, one letter inside each square, then added a pattern of coding dots. Placing the mysterious message next to his decryption sheet, he lined up dots with letters, then transcribed one word at a time. “Vermilion hells!”

The note was signed by C’tair Pilru of the Freedom Fighters of Ix.

Rhombur leaped to his feet and hugged his sister. “It’s the Ambassador’s son— Kailea, do you remember?”

Eyes lit with half-forgotten happiness, she remembered how the dark-haired twins had flirted with her. “Nice-looking young man. His brother became a Guild Navigator, didn’t he?”

Rhombur grew silent. For years he’d known such things were happening on his world, but he’d avoided thinking about it, hoping the problems would go away. How could he contact the rebels on Ix? As an exiled Prince without a House, how could he address the tragedy? He hadn’t been willing to consider all the possibilities.

“Mark my words,” Rhombur vowed. “I’m going to do something about this. My people have waited too long.”

He pulled back from his sister, and his gaze moved around to Tessia, who stood watching him. “I’d like to help,” she said. “You know that.”

Rhombur drew his concubine and his sister to him in a great bear hug. Finally, he had a sense of purpose.