Alia reviewed the letter as she walked down the ramp to the antechamber where her guard amazons waited.
"You produce a deadly paradox," Jessica had written. "Government cannot be religious and self-assertive at the same time. Religious experience needs a spontaneity which laws inevitably suppress. And you cannot govern without laws. Your laws eventually must replace morality, replace conscience, replace even the religion by which you think to govern. Sacred ritual must spring from praise and holy yearnings which hammer out a significant morality. Government, on the other hand, is a cultural organism particularly attractive to doubts, questions and contentions. I see the day coming when ceremony must take the place of faith and symbolism replaces morality."
The smell of spice-coffee greeted Alia in the antechamber. Four guard amazons in green watchrobes came to attention as she entered. They fell into step behind her, striding firmly in the bravado of their youth, eyes alert for trouble. They had zealot faces untouched by awe. They radiated that special Fremen quality of violence: they could kill casually with no sense of guilt.
In this, I am different, Alia thought. The Atreides name has enough dirt on it without that.
Word preceded her. A waiting page darted off as she entered the lower hall, running to summon the full guard detail. The hall stretched out windowless and gloomy, illuminated only by a few subdued glowglobes. Abruptly, the doors to the parade yard opened wide at the far end to admit a glaring shaft of daylight. The guard with Korba in their midst wavered into view from the outside with the light behind them.
"Where is Stilgar?" Alia demanded.
"Already inside," one of her amazons said.
Alia led the way into the chamber. It was one of the Keep's more pretentious meeting places. A high balcony with rows of soft seats occupied one side. Across from the balcony, orange draperies had been pulled back from tall windows. Bright sunlight poured through from an open space with a garden and a fountain. At the near end of the chamber on her right stood a dais with a single massive chair.
Moving to the chair, Alia glanced back and up, saw the gallery filled with Naibs.
Household guardsmen packed the open space beneath the gallery, Stilgar moving among them with a quiet word here, a command there. He gave no sign that he'd seen Alia enter,
Korba was brought in, seated at a low table with cushions beside it on the chamber floor below the dais. Despite his finery, the Panegyrist gave the appearance now of a surly, sleepy old man huddled up in his robes as against the outer cold. Two guardsmen took up positions behind him.
Stilgar approached the dais as Alia seated herself.
"Where is Muad'dib?" he asked.
"My brother has delegated me to preside as Reverend Mother," Alia said.
Hearing this, the Naibs in the gallery began raising their voices in protest.
"Silence!" Alia commanded. In the abrupt quiet, she said: "Is it not Fremen law that a Reverend Mother presides when life and death are at issue?"
As the gravity of her statement penetrated, stillness came over the Naibs, but Alia marked angry stares across the rows of faces. She named them in her mind for discussion in Council - Hobars, Rajifiri, Tasmin, Saajid, Umbu, Legg... The names carried pieces of Dune in them: Umbu Sietch, Tasmin Sink, Hobars Gap...
She turned her attention to Korba.
Observing her attention, Korba lifted his chin, said: "I protest my innocence."
"Stilgar, read the charges," Alia said.
Stilgar produced a brown spicepaper scroll, stepped forward. He began reading, a solemn flourish in his voice as though to hidden rhythms. He gave the words an incisive quality, clear and full of probity:
"... that you did conspire with traitors to accomplish the destruction of our Lord and Emperor; that you did meet in vile secrecy with diverse enemies of the realm; that you... "
Korba kept shaking his head with a look of pained anger.
Alia listened broodingly, chin planted on her left fist, head cocked to that side, the other arm extended along the chair arm. Bits of the formal procedure began dropping out of her awareness, screened by her own feelings of disquiet.
"... venerable tradition... support of the legions and all Fremen everywhere... violence met with violence according to the Law... majesty of the Imperial Person... forfeit all rights to..."
It was nonsense, she thought. Nonsense! All of it - nonsense... nonsense... nonsense...
Stilgar finished: "Thus the issue is brought to judgment."
In the immediate silence, Korba rocked forward, hands gripping his knees, veined neck stretched as though he were preparing to leap. His tongue flicked between his teeth as he spoke.
"Not by word or deed have I been traitor to my Fremen vows! I demand to confront my accuser!"
A simple enough protest, Alia thought.
And she saw that it had produced a considerable effect on the Naibs. They knew Korba. He was one of them. To become a Naib, he'd proved his Fremen courage and caution. Not brilliant, Korba, but reliable. Not one to lead a Jihad, perhaps, but a good choice as supply officer. Not a crusader, but one who cherished the old Fremen virtues: The Tribe is paramount.
Otheym's bitter words as Paul had recited them swept through Alia's mind. She scanned the gallery. Any of those men might see himself in Korba's place - some for good reason. But an innocent Naib was as dangerous as a guilty one here.
Korba felt it, too. "Who accuses me?" he demanded. "I have a Fremen right to confront my accuser."
"Perhaps you accuse yourself," Alia said.
Before he could mask it, mystical terror lay briefly on Korba's face. It was there for anyone to read: With her powers, Alia had but to accuse him herself, saying she brought the evidence from the shadow region, the alam al-mythal.