Chapter Text
Come, you spirits
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,
And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full
Of direst cruelty. Make thick my blood,
Stop up th’access and passage to remorse,
That no compunctious vistings of nature
Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between
Th’effect and it. Come to my woman’s breasts,
And take my milk for gall, you murd’ring ministers,
Whatever in your sightless substances
You wait on nature’s mischief. Come, thick night,
And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell,
That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,
Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark,
To cry, ‘Hold, hold!’
— SHAKESPEARE’S MACBETH
I did give him an out, of course. It's the honorable thing for a wife to do when it comes to her husband, to whom she has sworn all including her own life. Her health, his sickness, her wealth, his poorness. I asked an heir of him, again and again, every humiliation a new layer to my resolute heart, a new cut to scar, but Paul was provincial enough to be stubborn, enough of a politician to know I was stuck by my set of circumstances and enough of a messiah to know the limitations of my heart. In love with another enough to be unyielding to my allure. A dreadful combination all-together.
Of course, he forgets my duty.
Assumes my writing is all there is to it, even indulges if he feels inclined to a bit of flattery, feeding his own growing hubris. Still, he forgets that while I am a princess first (not an empress only by his own interruption), I am entirely Bene Gesserit. Unlike his mother, I will carry out my task. If he is unwilling to concede me a kwisatz heir, a Corrino-Atreides emperor, then the empire will be full-blooded Corrino again.
He forgets his own history, that guerrilha house from where he hails so mighty, but ten thousand years of empire are not built on luck. Blood does play its own essential part.
I write only because that is my modus operandi, if history is not written by my hand it is not my family's, a murmur is just a story, it's just blabber, moving air. I tell the story as if it has already happened to still my hand where it grips the blade, thus my spirit will remain strong and unlike the protagonist of that Scottish play, I will not be ruined by trepidation.
*
There's a story here, Irulan knows, in her heart of hearts— which has always been a writer's heart and thus capable of finding a story in a haystack. It isn't anything like searching for a needle: a story is a string, if you pull on the nearest end, it will come to you unraveled.
*
The old emperor watches her petulantly over his tea, best served in china a million years old, so precious no wealth exists that could buy it, one of the few concessions made, but only because it slipped unnoticed— fremen know little of history not their own, busy as they are retelling stories to keep them alive.
It doesn’t escape her notice that she could’ve been a good emperor to them, if allowed. Might be, still.
Salusa Secundus is not a land fit for kings, but the land of exile and struggle is brimming with a different kind of energy, a latent wish to survive and overcome, to leave by whatever means necessary. The gray foggy light drifts into the less than sumptuous room through small octagons broken into the wall to fashion an image, two struggling men, one's teeth crashing into the other's exposed neck. Quite the feat of artistry; a vision of hell, indeed.
Her fingertips press against the paint ridges on the porcelain, soft strokes of blue, lavender and gold. How Paul or Jessica would’ve known, probably, if they deigned to pillage properly. Inside the cup, a flower opens, drifting against the currentless water, expelling its fragrant air; Irulan breathes in, considering the naiveté of her new family, who think themselves honorable: It's steal or inherit, baby, the law of empire is not far from beasts own.
She knows better than to ask for help, but her father isn't so blind or as stupid as Fenring would have anyone believe, in those days of empire before the barbarians struck, this husband of hers. Which is to say he is well versed in trickery and fell purpose. He considers her for a while, his slow blinking blue eyes not quite grasping the quick machinations behind; his gentle, amicable tone not quite capturing the suggestion beneath: "Sometimes, all it takes is a strong enough brew to get the day back on its tracks, wouldn't you agree, dear?"
She laughs, adult and immodest for it. "Or wine."
No water for the messiah, she means. No poison for the male revered mother, he whose body would fight against the natural call to sepulcher.
"Whatever works, darling." The old emperor tilts the mug her way, cheers ; he's satisfied enough.
Just the promise of blood on the water revives his spirit, color threatening to return to his newly sunken cheeks; he darts his now faintly melange stained tongue across his bottom lip, wanting.
Oh, blood would be a feast alright.
*
You can’t outplan future-seeing omnipotence, is the thing. You can only outsmart. Torrid, golden-sanded Arrakis, where he rooted his empire, was the only place where his advantage could be a dagger turned against his own chest. Only she cannot plan it, set a course. Chance has to offer itself to her, thus she learns something of patience she hadn’t yet known.
In her dreams, however, she does it differently every time.
Starting from the day only a month after their marriage, a time in which Irulan still believed she may be capable to sway him with some charm or another, while lifting her cup of coffee to her lips… Irulan smelled it. Her hand stilled in motion, cold as ice.
The water of life, and not too little of it. In theory, her training might save her, but most reverend mother inductees get some warning before consumption, don’t they? To them, the water was nothing perilous, or better yet, nothing lethal but only short of it. As a bene gesserit, she could recognize it before impact— but only reverend mothers could undo the damage if consumed.
Quite the feat of prana-bindu for the early hours , she thought, lowering the teacup into its saucer, the tea wobbling against the edge despite her self control.
Alia sat no farther than three seats down the line, second to her brother’s right side, chewing dutifully on deeply purple dried-out grapes of Arrakis (deceptively dried, that is, as they were prone to bursting into color at the contact with saliva) and Paul sat at the farther end, with Chani first on his right side and Stilgar to his left.
They each seemed preoccupied, scarce for words, even as the princess folded her hands on her lap, turning her face towards the window where the sun bore down on the endless sand fiercely, as lethal as any other poison, with worms as a last resort.
Not that running away was a true option, only the most mundane. Rather, the issue at hand was most logical, political even. To take the bait and come out greater for it, or risk death. In a house of saints, reverend mothers, sayyadinas and the kwisatz haderach himself, this was quite the rite.
Its arrival in her cup, however, was a conniving choice. A clean desert death. She did not match her peers, died as most would: at the clean cut of the desert's own knife.
Chani did not quite turn her head, but Irulan noticed her blue-eyed awareness taking it all in before she inquired: “Are you feeling ill?”
Paul’s own awareness flickered her way at that, only for a moment, before returning to the document he was reading. Irulan herself was torn between curiosity and despair at how much she remained strictly out of.
Then again, what’s the use in bringing her into the fold if death is imminent?
Irulan smiled softly, only a crease at the corner of her lips and a rise to her cheeks, the picture of gentleness and trust: “Not ill, no.”
“Breakfast will help you regain your strength,” Chani said by way of advice and Irulan sensed her usual unease at wasted resources creeping into her tone, a trained bitterness that stood directly against everything the princess had ever grown accustomed to.
“At least have your tea,” Alia suggested, way too saccharine for her usual self, smiling big with purple teeth baring out, delighted at the show. The historian didn’t have to cast her mind far to remember Alia toddling over to that beast, Harkonnen, and doing the universe the kindness of killing him not long after Paul had bested Feyd-Rautha in kanly. Her grandfather, his cousin, his wife.
“Maybe a walk will help.” Irulan announced, rising with a flair that lifted her gown around her ankles into a cloud, upon which she slipped away, a stealthy fedaykin in tow.
*
That night she has the first dream where she kills him.
*
Their mythos could be well matched, she knows, if he weren't such a bumpkin, or resolutely in love. So ill fated a messiah. Yet, he would deign to irony much sooner than he'd fall for metaphor, always so literal, so Atreides.
It was a shame that she wanted him, too… had wanted— it's a prickle pushed under her nail that hurts the more attention you give to its presence; they're princess and conquistador, with so much history laid as path to follow— it writes itself. Yet he would sooner pave new ground— any new ground, she gathered, so long as it went far from where she stood.
*
They put Feyd-Rautha in a tower, far up a steep circular stairwell like a lighthouse, with the wind drafts coming from expert cuts into the wall to avoid sandstorms but allow natural light in, in the railings, odd wind chimes sang at the wind's behest.
Above, beyond a series of bars, the last Harkonnen paces, like a tiger.
“Ah,” Feyd-Rautha exclaimed, elongating the sound past his cracked lips. “You’re free to roam, I see.”
Irulan sighed, motioning the Fedaykin into opening the cage, which he did with caution, stepping between them with a vicious stare. The hiss of iron slipping out was harsh to the ears even mangled by the wind-chime chant, and Irulan stepped in uneasily, looking around the scant furniture to where best place her basket.
Gifts for him, to make a tower seem less like a dungeon he was thrown and locked into to be forgotten of. Only a place between political solutions, as so many before himself.
Or so few, considering the new fremen practices of war, the skin drums and the sword attitude. It ends here, they say, slicing a man in a clean half. She gave up, placed the colorful basket in the middle of the floor under his oddly amused gaze. “Of course,” she agreed, not quite following his reasoning. “I am Muad’dib’s wife. I may do as I wish.”
“An awful lot of princesses end up locked up in towers, historically speaking.”
“Are you the princess in this case?” She raised a quizzical eyebrow at him.
He cackled, all irony, “See, they never did give you your flowers for how funny you can be, your royal majesty.”
Beyond him, the large window welcomed the view of Arrakeen, a sand ocean folding in on itself an infinite amount of times, dune upon dune under which worms sailed on.
Very few flowers indeed, the princess thought, maintaining her gentle appearance. “History is more my domain than yours, I suppose. In this realm, they often become queens.”
He tilts his head, sitting back on his bed without offering her a seat and Irulan notices, under the slant column of light where it hits him, how deep his eyes look— she looks away. “Oh, do they?”
The chimes keep on giggling like cherubs at his cleverness.
“Quite often, yes.” she folds her hands together in front of herself, imperious chin jutted out only a little, “It only takes time.”
It would, of course, take no time at all if he had been more usual, more ordinary a man would’ve leapt at the chance of making her an empress. An ordinary fighter would also have slayed Feyd entirely at Kanly, wore his death like a badge of honor, but at the last second, Paul had strayed his cut and betrayed his new fremen ways. Under the stillsuit and the tan, there lays the Atreidesian code of honor.
“Does the Lisan Al Gaib seem to be time-worn in any way ?” Feyd starts blithely, petulant even at his lowest, teasing her for her supposed naiveté.
“I—” the princess begins, only to be cut by the Harkonnen survivor in his angry tirade. “Does Usul feel inclined into giving any of us the benefit of time?”
Behind herself, Irulan knows the soldier is growing restless by the second, every moment of heresy a new reason to exact the code of the desert. She does not bite, settling only for staring at him. “From what else do you benefit?”
“I don’t mean to offend, your highness, I know brides don’t take kindly to offense upon their husbands on the honeymoon phase. All I mean is that there seems to be no way to return to our original paths.” She hums impatiently, waiting for his meandering thoughts to reveal themselves. “I do have to say, however, that I did think he was marrying you for the dowry. Perhaps once that is secured, you and I both will be short for time.”
The wind hails its way up from the stairwell in a wolf call, a chorus of children’s laugh, cacophony. At once, she understands the nature of the na-baron’s torture, the slow cut of it, his deep eyes as evidence of its success. He does not know, however, that all has been secured, that she does fear her time is short, too. “Clearly not enough if you’ve time for such a fantasy.”
“A-a-a-ah, history, rather. Teraph III, wasn’t it?” The Corrino bride who almost lost them the empire, she knew the story well. He shook his head, overlong honey-brown locks falling over his forehead and eyes before he pushed them back as he leaned over to the basket, picking at its contents despondently. “I did have a tutor, I’ll have you know.”
“I hope he’s proud.”
He grins, "He's dead.”
*
It’s past her sleep time when a knock on the door and the hushed voice of a servant alerts her to the fact that Paul wants to talk to her privately at his room. The castle is a quiet expanse, neither her nor the servant’s gait leaving a trace, only the shimmering murmur of her nightgown against the floors heralding her approach.
She did not change into her usual gowns for this meeting with double intent, be it to seduce him or to shame him, whatever reaction would do a good considering his most common weapon: indifference.
Blue on blue eyes who see all but her.
He was her husband, after all, in theory they should be used to seeing each other in their undergarments. Intimacy should have taken some shape or form in their dynamic, even at the coldest of political marriages something of the sort did. Yet, entering his office, it was not her husband she found, but Chani.
“Irulan,” she greeted, not cheerfully but serious, as she often was, without a defined character that Irulan could perceive. If Irulan was trained to make people at ease, enchant with her grace, Chani was a thin, unsheathed knife. The blue glimmer told a mind that left little to chaos. Straightforward.
“Chani,” the wife relented, crossing her arms in front of herself.
The concubine looked her over, noted the pink where it crawled up towards her neck under the constant desert heat; settled for offering the wife a seat instead of saying anything.
Irulan took the offer, curious about this secret truce, sat in the small green settee the brown woman indicated. Paul’s office was large and tall, with ceilings looming overhead like those of cathedrals, painted into with afrescos she could not gleam the images of in the scant candlelight.
“Usul doesn’t know how to do this,” Chani began, her voice soft like a chant, as if the words were rising from the deep of her mind.
“What?”
Chani circled the room, picking a glass of the liqueur often served at the emperor’s most important functions, handed it over to Irulan. “Have two women.” she gestured between them as she sat on the farther end, “In the sietch, it was common for families to have many women, but he tells me it’s not common in his home planet, is that right?”
“Indeed,” Irulan agreed at once. Caladan was a planet of one minded adoration, his parents being no exception to this rule. She tries to picture Paul sharing them, the affection he doles out on his concubine applied onto her, but it only makes her bitter with wasted want. Envious to a fault.
Besides Chani, who had her hand rested against her stomach hopefully, subconsciously, even, Irulan grew aware of the danger at hand. The many ways from which a silent hand could emerge, a crysknife plunged into her heart. Poison in the drink twice in a row, even. She could not smell it in the oaky odor, but decided against testing her luck either way.
Chani shrugged with a twist to her lips, “We must find a way, then.”
The suggestion is so practical, so certain that it almost makes Irulan laugh. “To coexist?”
The Princess sounds sarcastic, even a little caustic, and she knows this to be one of her ugliest traits but it comes unabashed at such late hours; mostly because she knows Chani cares little for her beauty. The sayyadina watches her curiously, blue gaze tightening around the edges when her voice demands, “what is the other option?”
“One of us could die.” Irulan raised, a joyless smile lifting the corner of her lips.
“You would not dare,” the fremen woman hissed, steeling against whatever move the bene gesserit might have pulled.
“No, I wouldn’t.” Irulan agrees, knowingly. “Would you?”
It comes in a beat, “If necessary.”
Irulan rolls her eyes, half-amused by the honesty, “So yes.”
Chani seems to have wandered on to different questions, “are you suspicious of anyone?”
The princess swishes the drink around the cup, honey and gold cresting like waves under her watchful gaze, close to the rim without a spill. “No.”
“You lie.”
Irulan doesn’t bother going further. Placing the full cup on the settee when she rises, eyeing the lithe woman beneath her with a gaze she knows looks condescending but is truly detached, “He must not know of our conversation. It’s for the best.”
Chani nods, “Agreed.”
The cup remains untouched when the princess exits the room.
*
The proctor hugs her tightly the first time they meet after the wedding, cryptic correspondence having already relayed what the Corrino eldest knew of Paul’s intentions to her (no heir) and their future (none).
With a low murmur, the old woman urged her: fix this.
Leaned back, held the princess by the shoulders with obvious appraisal. Mohiam’s eyes gave away no glee at reuniting with her, only anger at best laid plans ran over by Atreidesian will. These men .
There is only one way out of this, Irulan pledged with her eyes.
Do it, the old woman ordered with no words.
It’s do or die, the princess guessed, feeling the slide of the gom jabbar needle under her bodice, the gentle scrap radiating pain.
*
The future isn't nearly as reliable as a story, the line it relies on breaks, stops, converges and shifts on itself.
Now, the past is tapestry woven and worn— you can come back to its path again and again.