The waves played a slow lullaby beneath the wicker-wood coracle, fostering a false sense of peace over troubled thoughts.

Duke Leto reached over the side and grabbed a floating sphere in the thick mesh of leaves drifting along with them. He drew out a jeweled knife from its golden sheath at his side and cut the ripe paradan melon from its underwater plant structure. “Here, Rhombur, have a melon.”

He blinked in surprise. “Uh, isn’t that the Emperor’s knife? The one Shaddam gave to you after the Trial by Forfeiture?”

Leto shrugged. “I prefer practicality over showiness. I’m sure my cousin won’t mind.”

Rhombur took the dripping melon and turned it in his hands, inspecting the rough husk in the hazy sunshine. “Kailea would be horrified, you know. She’d rather you placed the Emperor’s knife on a suspensor plaque inside an ornamental shield.”

“Well, she doesn’t go out fishing with me much.”

When Rhombur made no move to shuck the melon, Leto took it back, used the tip of Shaddam’s jeweled blade to peel off the tough covering, then cracked the rind. “At least this won’t burst into flames if you let it sit out in the sun,” Leto chided, remembering the coral-gem debacle that had destroyed one of his favorite boats and stranded the two young men on a distant reef.

“Not funny,” Rhombur said, for he had been to blame.

Leto held up the knife, watching how the light glinted on the edge. “You know, I wore this as part of my formal uniform when I went to meet with Viscount Moritani. I think it got his attention.”

“He’s a hard man to impress,” Rhombur said. “The Emperor has finally withdrawn his Sardaukar, and everything’s quiet. Uh, do you think the Moritani-Ecazi feud is over now?”

“No, I don’t think it is. The entire time I was on Grumman, I felt my nerves tingling. I think the Viscount is just biding his time.”

“And you’ve put yourself in the middle of it.” With his own knife, Rhombur cut away a section of the melon and took a bite. He winced, spat it over the side. “Still a little sour.”

Leto laughed at his facial expression, then grabbed a small towel from a cubby. Wiping his hands and the ceremonial knife, he stepped inside the cabin, out of the bright sun, and started the engines. “At least all my duties aren’t so unpleasant. We’d better get moving down to the delta. I promised I’d be at the barge port by noon to greet the first loads of this season’s pundi rice harvest.”

“Ah, the perils and demands of leadership,” Rhombur said, following him down into the cabin. “Look in the coolpack— I brought along a surprise for you. You know that dark beer you like so much?”

“You don’t mean the Harkonnen ale?”

“You’ll have to drink it out here, where no one can see us. Got it from a smuggler. Without using your name, of course.”

“Rhombur Vernius of Ix, I am shocked to find you consorting with smugglers and black marketeers.”

“How else do you think I manage to infiltrate supplies to the rebels on Ix? I haven’t been terribly effective so far, but I have indeed contacted some highly unsavory folk.” He unsealed the coolpack and rummaged around for the unlabeled bottles. “And a few of them have proven, uh, quite resourceful.”

The Duke guided the coracle into the current, following the lush shoreline. Thufir Hawat would probably lecture him for going so far without an Atreides honor guard. “I guess I could drink a bottle or two, then. As long as there’s no Harkonnen profit in it.”

Rhombur removed two containers from the coolpack and squeezed the tops to extrude spice-straws. “None whatsoever. Apparently, it was stolen during a raid on the brewery. A power outage caused a stir in the bottling plant, and, uh, somehow a pair of small Giedi cattle got loose inside the factory. There was substantial confusion, and a great deal of lost beer. A tragic waste. So many smashed bottles it would have been impossible to account for them all.”

Standing at the coracle’s engine controls, Leto sniffed at the dark liquid, stopped himself from taking a gulp. “How do we know it isn’t tainted? I’m not in the habit of carrying a poison snooper onboard my own boat.”

“This batch was bottled for the Baron himself. One look at his fat body, and you can well imagine how much of the stuff he must consume.”

“Well, if it’s good enough for Baron Harkonnen—salud.” Leto took a sip of the bitter porter, filtered through melange crystals to enhance its flavor.

Slipping onto the bench behind Leto, Rhombur watched the Duke take them around a rocky point and then head toward a broad delta where barges laden with pundi rice converged. The Ixian Prince didn’t sip from his beer yet. “This is a bribe,” he admitted. “I need a favor. In fact, how about two favors?”

The Duke chuckled. “For one bottle of beer?”

“Uh, there’s more in the coolpack. Look, I just want to be up-front with you. Leto, I consider you my closest friend. Even if you say no, I’ll understand.”

“You’ll still be my friend if I say no to both favors?” Leto continued drinking through the straw.

Rhombur slid his bottle around on the table in front of him, from hand to hand. “I want to do something more significant for Ix, something more serious.”

“You need more money? How else can I help?”

“Not money, well not exactly. I’ve been sending C’tair Pilru funding and encouragement ever since he contacted me four years ago.” He looked up, his forehead furrowed. “Word has reached me that the freedom fighters have been decimated, with only a few survivors. I think it’s worse than even he lets on. It’s time for me to stop playing around.” Rhombur’s eyes hardened, taking on a look Leto had last seen on Dominic Vernius during the revolt. “Let’s give them some serious firepower so they can make a difference.”

Leto took another long sip of beer. “I’ll do anything within reason to help you regain your birthright, and I’ve always made that clear to you. What exactly do you have in mind?”

“I’d like to send explosives, some of the plaz-wafers in your armory. They’re small and lightweight, so they’re easily concealed and shipped.”

“How many wafers?”

Rhombur didn’t hesitate. “A thousand.”

Leto whistled. “That’ll cause a lot of destruction.”

“Uh, that’s the point, Leto.”

He continued to steer the boat over a choppy intersection of currents toward the mouth of the river. Up ahead they could see the pilot boats and colorful seakites flown over the barge docks. “And how do you propose to get supplies onto Ix? Can your smuggler friends get the shipment to where C’tair can intercept it?”

“The Tleilaxu took control sixteen years ago. They’re making regular shipments again, using their own transports and special Guild dispensations. They’ve had to loosen restrictions because they depend on outside suppliers for raw materials and special items. All the ships land on the rock shelves along the port-of-entry canyon. The hollowed-out grottoes there are big enough to accommodate warehouse frigates, and the tunnels intersect with the underground cities. Some of the frigate captains served under my father a long time ago, and they have, uh, offered to help.”

Leto thought of the Earl of Ix, bald and boisterous, who had fought beside Paulus Atreides in the Ecazi Revolt. Based on his father’s reputation as a war hero, Rhombur probably had more secret allies than even he realized.

“We can make special marked containers and get the word to C’tair. I think . . . I think we can pass all of the appropriate checkpoints.” Suddenly angry, he pounded his fist on the wooden bench beside him. “Vermilion hells, Leto, I’ve got to do something! I haven’t been able to set foot on my own home planet for nearly half my life!”

“If it were anyone else asking me this . . .” Leto caught himself, and said, “Possibly— so long as you conceal the involvement of House Atreides.” He sighed. “Before I decide, what’s the second favor?”

Now the Prince seemed truly nervous. “I’ve pondered how I should ask this, yet I couldn’t come up with the right words. Everything seemed, uh, false and manipulative . . . but I need to tell you.” He took a deep breath. “It’s about my sister.”

Leto, about to open a second beer, stopped short. His face darkened. “Some things are private matters, even from you, Rhombur.”

The Prince gave him a commiserating smile. Since he had taken a Bene Gesserit as his concubine and fast friend, he had grown wiser. “The two of you have gotten off track, through no one’s fault. It just happened. I know you still care deeply for Kailea— and don’t try to deny it. She’s done a lot for House Atreides, helping with the accounts and commercial matters. My father always said she had the best instinct for business in our family.”

With a sad shake of his head, Leto said, “She used to be full of good advice. But since Chiara came, she’s demanded more and more trappings and fineries. Even when I give them to her, Kailea seems dissatisfied. She’s . . . she’s not the same woman I fell in love with.”

Rhombur drank from his own beer, smacked his lips at the bitterness. “Maybe that’s because you’ve stopped giving her a chance, stopped letting her use her business skills. Put her in charge of one of your industries— paradan melons, pundi rice, coral gems— and watch the production increase. I can’t imagine how far she might have gone if, uh, the revolt hadn’t happened on Ix.”

Leto pushed his bottle aside. “Did she put you up to this?”

“Leto, my sister is a rare woman. I’m asking this as your friend, and as her brother.” Rhombur passed a hand through his tousled blond hair. “Give Kailea the opportunity to be more than a concubine.”

Gazing at the exiled Prince, Leto became as cold and stiff as a statue. “So you want me to marry her?” Rhombur had never used their friendship to force an issue, and Leto had never dreamed he could deny his friend anything. But this . . .

Biting his lower lip, Rhombur nodded. “Yes, uh, I suppose that’s what I’m asking.”

They both remained silent for a long, long moment as the coracle swayed. A huge barge lumbered across the delta toward the docks.

Leto’s thoughts churned, and he finally reached a difficult decision. He drew a deep breath, flaring his nostrils. “I’ll say yes to one of your favors— but you must choose which one.”

Rhombur swallowed hard, noted the anguished expression on Leto’s face. After a long moment he looked away. When he squared his shoulders, Leto was uneasy about what he would say. He had put everything on the line.

Finally, the exiled Prince of Ix answered in a wavering voice, “Then I choose the future of my people. You have taught me the importance of this. I need those explosives. I just hope C’tair Pilru can put them to good use.”

He leaned forward and took a long drink of the smuggled Harkonnen beer, then reached out to clasp Leto’s forearm. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned from the Atreides, it’s to put the people foremost, and personal wishes second. Kailea will just have to understand that.”

The Duke took their coracle around sandbars into the river channel, toward the mounded barges bedecked with green ribbons fluttering in the breezes. People were gathered at the docks, loading sack after sack of Caladan’s primary grain export. Wagons rolled up along the riverbank, while low-riding boats drifted in from flooded fields. Someone shot homemade fireworks into the air, which banged and sizzled with color in the cloudy skies.

Leto brought their boat up against the main docks near a fully loaded barge preparing to launch. A large ornamental podium, surrounded by green-and-white streamers, waited for him.

Pushing his difficult discussion with Rhombur to the back of his mind, Leto put on a noble face and enjoyed the festivities. It was one of his traditional duties as Duke Atreides.