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The training dummy had long since fallen still and silent, the current of energy surrounding it turned off together with the controls. Having been defeated by the construct as part of a new lesson well learned, Paul had taken his place in front of the fencing mirror without the need to be prompted.
The defensive field of his shield made his skin tingle, a sensation that warred with the sweat-soaked hair stuck to his temples, the burning of his muscles, and the rush of blood that was loud in his ears. He could feel Idaho's critical eyes on him and corrected the angle of his shoulders and distribution of his weight, that grounded his stance, before a word was said, eager to please and impress.
Paul moved through the forms, quick on the defense, slow on the offense, pushing his seven-year-old body through the exhaustion with single-minded determination, all the while knowing that it in itself impeded even his best effort.
I'm tired, he thought, acknowledging this truth, allowing it to sweep through his mind, lest it gathered momentum through useless denial that then led to sloppiness. I must not relent. A foe would give me no quarter, would press the advantage.
"Enough," Idaho said after a few more minutes had passed. "You did well, young master. This calls for a reward."
Paul switched off his shield, laid down his rapier after a last salute that flashed silver, and caught the soft towel that Idaho tossed his way. "The lake?" he asked, making no effort to conceal his delight at the prospect.
"Yes," Idaho confirmed with the easy grin few were allowed to see. "We leave as soon as you're ready, young master."
A short ride by groundcar later, after Hawat's men had secured the perimeter and taken up guard position at a discreet distance, Paul was racing across the meadow, all decorum forgotten, and jumped headfirst into the placid lake. He drifted with the blue-and-silver fish beneath the surface, allowing the water to carry his body where the ocean would instead have crushed him with its force, enjoying its warmth that soothed his sore muscles.
He came up for air that carried the sweet scents of flowers in full bloom and the ripe fruits of the orchards, that stretched towards the looming shadow of Mount Syubi, pondering how he could manage to pull Idaho in, with his quick reflexes and feline grace, as he had done with Gurney years ago.
Traditions are important, after all, and should thus be upheld, Paul thought and set himself to work his mischief.
xxx
Sitting with his back to the door, a fact that would have aggravated Thufir a great deal, Paul awaited the clipped cadence and swishing of fabric that would precede his mother's arrival. He knew she would come to question and lecture him, perhaps even to rebuke him. Three days. He had managed to conceal his secret from her for 72 hours, standard. In truth, it had taken her longer than he had anticipated.
Paul smiled, ruing not what had led him here, to this moment, but rather the feeling of unease that no breathing exercise or litany provided by his training could rid him of. It had been no different when he had set out to approach Duncan, to make his interest and proposal plain, as customs in such matters demanded.
What will be her opening gambit? he wondered. The need for discretion? The signing of a contract to make it official and legal? The fact that Idaho is father's sworn man? The rules and laws tied to the faufreluches class system? - There.
He inhaled deeply, held the air in his lungs, then released it. As prepared for the confrontation as he would ever be, Paul stood and turned, didn't insult his mother by pretending not to know her purpose here.
She studied him with a quick glance, and he noticed her own apprehension, the duty to her Duke warring with a mother's wish for her only child's happiness. That she had allowed him to see this inner conflict spoke for itself.
"Paul," his mother said as she closed the door behind her, "we need to talk."
xxx
Hidden within the deeper shades of a supporting column, Paul stood and watched the proceedings of the formal reception that filled Castle Caladan with music and hundreds of voices, while rain and wind battered the ancient stones and windows.
He sensed his own tension and resented it, even though he recognized it as part of human nature, the baser foundation, the animal hunkering at the dark core of everyone. The emotion was jealousy, both petty and foreign to him, and all the harder to master because of it. Its cause, none other than Duncan Idaho, stood but a few meters away, surrounded by a group of young women in expensive garments and rich colors, that combined perceived innocence with salacious flirtations.
'They're always calling on Idaho for special surveillance of the ladies,' Paul remembered hearing spoken more than once, and knew it to be true.
Duncan's own preferences played no part where the duty to his Duke took precedence. He knew that as well, but in the face of his heightened emotional state, that was now laced with threads of possessiveness, cool-headed logic fared ill.
The absence of a thing makes it all the more desirable, he thought, with a sudden biting humor.
The peal of silverbell laughter rose into the air from the group he watched, but it was Duncan's eye that caught his and held him, the slight softening at its corner, that replaced a mask of deception and empty pleasantries with the truth between them.
Paul looked away before the warmth spreading through him could become visible by reaching his face. He braced himself with a calming breath and went to attend his own duties for the evening.
xxx
The lake became a place of fond memories for both of them, though Paul's earliest were filled with innocent play. Only years later would they transform into the open secret of their intimate meetings, that started out fumbling and shy on his part, Duncan his teacher in this as well, before experience lent him confidence.
The knowledge that the tips of his fingers, his tongue and lips, his whole body had cataloged in the taking and giving of the animal pleasures the Bene Gesserit teachings warned of, - despite also expecting each student to excel at them for the sake of preserving the bloodlines in their quest for the Kwisatz Haderach.
Paul had learned much through his meeting with the Reverend Mother Mohiam, more than the Emperor's Truthsayer had ever intended, his truthsense whispered. His thoughts then shied away from the memory of the gom jabbar that had tested him three years ago, on his fifteenth birthday, as well as the unease that seemed inseparable from their imminent departure for Arrakis.
xxx
Kynes indicated an arched opening that led to another chamber. "If you please?"
Paul hesitated where he stood, a brief twitch of indecision only his mother would be able to discern as his weight shifted from foot to foot. My terrible purpose will be a heavy burden for one alone to bear, he thought.
His eyes sought Duncan then while his mind remembered his dream in the vivid red of blood and a heroic struggle that ended in brief agony and death. Another bond severed, another loss suffered.
I can stand alone... But I do not want to.
It was a selfish thought, fraught with risks that would ripple along the timeline, the possible futures. Unpredictable, and thus wisdom dictated that such an act should be avoided. His own desires sacrificed, like the life of one Paul loved, for the sake and gain of others.
It was a selfish thought, because Kynes' allegiance was still uncertain, not yet secured. A coin in mid-air, spinning, that might topple either way, compelled by laws and past decisions that neither Bene Gesserit nor Mentat would ever call by the name lesser men and women might have used: chance.
The moment passed, stretched almost too thin, beyond breaking point, when Paul gave Idaho a sign, to follow them into the adjacent chamber instead of mounting guard before it.
By the time the tea failed to arrive, when the three of them followed the arrows through the tunnel, Paul had buried his doubts, replaced them with regrets and the bitter knowledge that the teachings he had learned were valid, for he had never even considered warning Kynes and his Fremen of the danger looming one step behind them, too focused on saving one life dear to him above all others.
xxx
Retired after a long day, the sietch outside their yali near quiet, Paul felt the minute hesitation of indecision being replaced by determination a few seconds before Duncan dropped to his knees before him and offered his crysknife.
"This is not necessary," Paul said, "not between us."
"It is overdue."
"Then it has become a mere technicality."
Duncan's eyes narrowed, the lines of his face hard, no longer defined by any softness of water-rich flesh, hair cut too short to curl. "You know why."
I do, though I do not agree, Paul thought. We have given each other much more already. What I foresee the future to hold, Chani, our sons and daughter, Irulan, nothing will change that, only our titles and roles. He accepted the blade regardless, knowing this to be also a matter of pride, wherein lay an affirmation of their promises, secrets, and bond. Stilgar will swear the same, one day soon, albeit for very different reasons - among them my desire to avoid shedding the blood of one I consider a close friend.
"Then repeat after me," Paul said, and he recalled the words of investiture as his own father had used them. "I, Duncan Idaho, take this knife from the hands of my Duke..."
xxx
Paul moved through the cavern with the shadows between busy groups of Fremen, seeking the depths near the water-holding basin. There, he knew, he would find a small shai-hulud of no more than nine meters, kept to be drowned for its Water of Life.
Gurney's arrival had shaken him, the danger to his mother and Duncan, who had moved to aid her, which had nearly led to all their deaths. In no vision of the future, nor dream or computation, had he foreseen that moment in time. The entire universe seemed to converge on the ink-dark void he could not see, all paths leading there, the narrow and the convoluted, heavy with the dread of foreboding and potential chaos.
I must see it, he thought, with the certainty of a foregone conclusion.
It was the only solution, as his body had built up a tolerance for the spice he consumed with every breath and meal eaten. Its dependence on it dimmed his prescient visions, had culled their number.
I will drown the maker... But first, I need to tell Duncan of my decision. No one else, but he must know. Truth, even when unpleasant, shall always be between us. It is what we promised each other.
He turned his back on his goal, if only for the moment. It took not long for him to find Idaho, bent together with Stilgar over a map that kept track of recent Harkonnen activities.
"Muad'Dib -"
Paul raised his hand. "Duncan, I need to speak with you."
xxx
He could sense the storeroom, its rock walls beneath the fabric of heavy draperies, the field pad a cushion underneath his back, the light on his face from a single glowglobe, the robe that covered him up to his chest.
He felt the presence that guarded him, still and silent yet alert, sitting by his side, counting the seconds for the agreed upon time to arrive, a tiny part within it twisting with sorrow and grief and doubt, reined in by an iron fist of mental discipline.
He felt the shift in the atmosphere and the jolting charge of the raw Water of Life as a wet fingertip traced his lips, calling him back. - Paul had to change the amounts left of it in his mouth quickly, because then, Duncan was hugging him close and kissing him, like a primal thing turned loose.
Without this... What I will become without this... He closed his eyes in the mnemonic blink to immortalize this very moment.
Everything else, the last revelation, the storm it would unleash on Arrakis and the great purge to follow, that would sweep across the whole universe, because of him, because of humanity itself - all of it could wait.