He might almost have received a message, she thought. He acted the part of a man who'd heard friends shout: "Hold fast! Help is on its way!"
For an instant, they'd held this thing in their hands - the information out of the dwarf, the clues that others were in the plot, the names of informants. But the critical moment had flown. Stilgar? Surely not Stilgar. She turned, stared at the old Fremen.
Stilgar met her gaze without flinching.
"Thank you, Stil," Paul said, "for reminding us of the Law."
Stilgar inclined his head. He moved close, shaped silent words in a way he knew both Paul and Alia could read. I'll wring him dry and then take care of the matter.
Paul nodded, signaled the guardsmen behind Korba.
"Remove Korba to a maximum security cell," Paul said. "No visitors except counsel. As counsel, I appoint Stilgar."
"Let me choose my own counsel!" Korba shouted.
Paul whirled. "You deny the fairness and judgment of Stilgar?"
"Oh, no, m'Lord, but... "
"Take him away!" Paul barked.
The guardsmen lifted Korba off the cushions, herded him out.
With new mutterings, the Naibs began quitting their gallery. Attendants came from beneath the gallery, crossed to the windows and drew the orange draperies. Orange gloom took over the chamber.
"Paul," Alia said.
"When we precipitate violence," Paul said, "it'll be when we have full control of it. Thank you, Stil; you played your part well. Alia, I'm certain, has identified the Naibs who were with him. They couldn't help giving themselves away."
"You cooked this up between you?" Alia demanded.
"Had I ordered Korba slain out of hand, the Naibs would have understood," Paul said. "But this formal procedure without strict adherence to Fremen Law - they felt their own rights threatened. Which Naibs were with him, Alia?"
"Rajifiri for certain," she said, voice low. "And Saajid, but... "
"Give Stilgar the complete list," Paul said.
Alia swallowed in a dry throat, sharing the general fear of Paul in this moment. She knew how he moved among them without eyes, but the delicacy of it daunted her. To see their forms in the air of his vision! She sensed her person shimmering for him in a sidereal time whose accord with reality depended entirely on his words and actions. He held them all in the palm of his vision!
"It's past time for your morning audience, Sire," Stilgar said. "Many people - curious... afraid..."
"Are you afraid, Stil?"
It was barely a whisper: "Yes."
"You're my friend and have nothing to fear from me," Paul said.
Stilgar swallowed. "Yes, m'Lord."
"Alia, take the morning audience," Paul said. "Stilgar, give the signal."
Stilgar obeyed.
A flurry of movement erupted at the great doors. A crowd was pressed back from the shadowy room to permit entrance of officials. Many things began happening all at once: the household guard elbowing and shoving back the press of Supplicants, garishly robed Pleaders trying to break through, shouts, curses. Pleaders waved the papers of their calling. The Clerk of the Assemblage strode ahead of them through the opening cleared by the guard. He carried the List of Preferences, those who'd be permitted to approach the Throne. The Clerk, a wiry Fremen named Tecrube, carried himself with weary cynicism, flaunting his shaven head, clumped whiskers.
Alia moved to intercept him, giving Paul time to slip away with Chani through the private passage behind the dais. She experienced a momentary distrust of Tecrube at the prying curiosity in the stare he sent after Paul.
"I speak for my brother today," she said. "Have the Supplicants approach one at a time."
"Yes, m'Lady." He turned to arrange his throng.
"I can remember a time when you wouldn't have mistaken your brother's purpose here," Stilgar said.
"I was distracted," she said. "There's been a dramatic change in you, Stil. What is it?"
Stilgar drew himself up, shocked. One changed, of course. But dramatically? This was a particular view of himself that he'd never encountered. Drama was a questionable thing. Imported entertainers of dubious loyalty and more dubious virtue were dramatic. Enemies of the Empire employed drama in their attempts to sway the fickle populace. Korba had slipped away from Fremen virtues to employ drama for the Qizarate. And he'd die for that.
"You're being perverse," Stilgar said. "Do you distrust me?"
The distress in his voice softened her expression, but not her tone. "You know I don't distrust you. I've always agreed with my brother that once matters were in Stilgar's hands we could safely forget them."
"Then why do you say I've... changed?"
"You're preparing to disobey my brother," she said. "I can read it in you. I only hope it doesn't destroy you both."
The first of the Pleaders and Supplicants were approaching now. She turned away before Stilgar could respond. His face, though, was filled with the things she'd sensed in her mother's letter - the replacement of morality and conscience with law.
"You produce a deadly paradox."
= = = = = =
Tibana was an apologist for Socratic Christianity, probably a native of IV Anbus who lived between the eight and ninth centuries before Corrino, likely in the second reign of Dalamak. Of his writings, only a portion survives from which this fragment is taken: "The hearts of all men dwell in the same wilderness." -from The Dunebuk of Irulan
"You are Bijaz," the ghola said, entering the small chamber where the dwarf was held under guard. "I am called Hayt."