"You're up to something," Idaho said, striding beside her. "What is it?"
"I've always heard that gholas were full of questions," Siona said. ", too, have questions." `Oh'?' "What was he like in your day, the man Leto?"
"Which one?"
"Yes, I forget there were two-the grandfather and our Leto. I mean our Leto, of course."
"He was just a child, that's all I know."
"The Oral History says one of his early brides carne from this village."
"Brides? I thought..."
"When he still had a manly shape. It was after the death of his sister but before he began to change into the Worm. The Oral History says the brides of Leto vanished into the maze of the Imperial Citadel, never to be seen again except as faces and voices transmitted by holo. He has not had a bride for thousands of years."
They had arrived at a small square at the center of the village, a space about fifty meters on a side and with a low walled pool of clear water in its center. Siona crossed to the pool's wall and sat on the rock ledge, patting beside her for Idaho to join her there. Idaho looked around at the village first, noting how people peered out at him from behind curtained windows, how the children pointed and whispered. He turned and stood looking down at Siona.
"What is this place'?"
"I've told you. Tell me what Muad'Dib was like."
"He was the best friend a man could ever have."
"So the Oral History is true, but it calls the caliphate of his heirs The Desposyni, and that has an evil sound."
She's baiting me. Idaho thought.
He allowed himself a tight smile, wondering at Siona's motives. She appeared to be waiting for sonic important event, anxious... even dreading... but with an undertone of some thing like elation. It was all there. Nothing she said now could be accounted as more than small talk, a way of occupying the moments until... until what'?
The light sound of running feet intruded on his reverie. Idaho turned and saw a child of perhaps eight years racing toward him out of a side street. The child's bare feet kicked up little dust geysers as he ran and there was the sound of a woman shouting, a despairing sound somewhere up the street The runner stopped about ten paces away and stared up at Idaho with a hungering look, an intensity which Idaho found disturbing. The child appeared vaguely familiar-a boy, a stalwart figure with dark curly hair, an unfinished face but with hints of the man to be-rather high cheekbones, a flat line across the brows. He wore a faded blue singlesuit which betrayed the effects of much laundering but obviously had begun as a garment of excellent material. It had the look of punji cotton woven in a cordlock that did not permit even the frayed edges to unravel.
"You're not my father," the child said. Whirling away. he raced back up the street and vanished around a corner.
Idaho turned and scowled at Siona, almost afraid to ask the question: Was that a child of my predecessor? He knew the answer without asking that familiar face, the genotype carried true. Myself as a child. Realization left him with an empty feeling, a sense of frustration. What is my responsibility?
Siona put both hands over her face and hunched her shoulders. It had not happened at all the way she had imagined it might. She felt betrayed by her own desires for revenge. Idaho was not simply a ghola, something alien and unworthy of consideration. She had felt him thrown against her in the 'thopter, had seen the obvious emotions on his face. And that child...
"What happened to my predecessor?" Idaho asked. His voice came out flat and accusatory.
She lowered her hands. There was suppressed rage in his face.
"We are not certain," she said, "but he entered the Citadel one day and never emerged."
"That was his child?"
She nodded.
"You're sure you did not kill my predecessor?"
"I..." She shook her head, shocked by the doubts, the latent accusation in him.
"That child, that is the reason we came here?"
She swallowed. "Yes."
"What am I supposed to do about him?"
She shrugged, feeling soiled and guilty because of her own actions.
"What about his mother?" Idaho asked.
"She and the others live up that street." Siona nodded in the direction the boy had gone.
"Others?"
"There is an older son... a daughter. Will you... I mean, I could arrange..."
"No! The boy was right. I'm not his father."
"I'm sorry," Siona whispered. "I should not have done this."
"Why did he choose this place?" Idaho asked.
"The father... your..."
"My predecessor!"
"Because this was Irti's home and she would not leave. That is what people said."
"Irti... the mother?"
"Wife, by the old rite, the one from the Oral History."
Idaho looked around at the stone fronts of the buildings which enclosed the square, the curtained windows, the narrow doors. "So he lived here?"
"When he could."
"How did he die, Siona?"
"Truly, I do not know... but the Worm has killed others. We know that for sure!"
"How do you know it?" He centered a probing stare on her face. The intensity of it forced her to look away.
"I do not doubt the stories of my ancestors," she said. "They are told in bits and pieces, a note here, a whispered account there, but I believe them. My father believes them, too!"
"Moneo has said nothing to me of this."
"One thing you can say about the Atreides," she said. "We're loyal and that's a fact. We keep our word."