He spoke coldly: "That seems a goodly custom. We shall let it stand for now."
The illusion that I suspect her of treachery must be maintained, he thought.
He glanced at the guests filing past them. Who among you believes this lie?
Jessica, sensing his remoteness, wondered at it as she had done frequently the past week. He acts like a man struggling with himself, she thought. Is it because I moved so swiftly setting up this dinner party? Yet, he knows how important it is that we begin to mix our officers and men with the locals on a social plane. We are father and mother surrogate to them all. Nothing impresses that fact more firmly than this sort of social sharing.
Leto, watching the guests file past, recalled what Thufir Hawat had said when informed of the affair: "Sire! I forbid it!"
A grim smile touched the Duke's mouth. What a scene that had been. And when the Duke had remained adamant about attending the dinner. Hawat had shaken his head. "I have bad feelings about this, my Lord," he'd said. "Things move too swiftly on Arrakis. That's not like the Harkonnens. Not like them at all."
Paul passed his father escorting a young woman half a head taller than himself. He shot a sour glance at his father, nodded at something the young woman said.
"Her father manufactures stillsuits," Jessica said. "I'm told that only a fool would be caught in the deep desert wearing one of the man's suits."
"Who's the man with the scarred face ahead of Paul?" the Duke asked. "I don't place him."
"A late addition to the list," she whispered. "Gurney arranged the invitation. Smuggler."
"Gurney arranged?"
"At my request. It was cleared with Hawat, although I thought Hawat was a little stiff about it. The smuggler's called Tuek, Esmar Tuek. He's a power among his kind. They all know him here. He's dined at many of the houses."
"Why is he here?"
"Everyone here will ask that question," she said. "Tuek will sow doubt and suspicion just by his presence. He'll also serve notice that you're prepared to back up your orders against graft--by enforcement from the smugglers' end as well. This was the point Hawat appeared to like."
"I'm not sure I like it." He nodded to a passing couple, saw only a few of their guests remained to precede them. "Why didn't you invite some Fremen?"
"There's Kynes," she said.
"Yes, there's Kynes," he said. "Have you arranged any other little surprises for me?" He led her into step behind the procession.
"All else is most conventional," she said.
And she thought: My darling, can't you see that this smuggler controls fast ships, that he can be bribed? We must have a way out, a door of escape from Arrakis if all else fails us here.
As they emerged into the dining hall, she disengaged her arm, allowed Leto to seat her. He strode to his end of the table. A footman held his chair for him. The others settled with a swishing of fabrics, a scraping of chairs, but the Duke remained standing. He gave a hand signal, and the house troopers in footman uniform around the table stepped back, standing at attention.
Uneasy silence settled over the room.
Jessica, looking down the length of the table, saw a faint trembling at the corners of Leto's mouth, noted the dark flush of anger on his cheeks. What has angered him? she asked herself. Surely not my invitation to the smuggler.
"Some question my changing of the laving basin custom," Leto said. "This is my way of telling you that many things will change."
Embarrassed silence settled over the table.
They think him drunk, Jessica thought.
Leto lifted his water flagon, held it aloft where the suspensor, lights shot beams of reflection off it. "As a Chevalier of the Imperium, then," he said, "I give you a toast."
The others grasped their flagons, all eyes focused on the Duke. In the sudden stillness, a suspensor light drifted slightly in an errant breeze from the serving kitchen hallway. Shadows played across the Duke's hawk features.
"Here I am and here I remain!" he barked.
There was an abortive movement of flagons toward mouths--stopped as the Duke remained with arm upraised. "My toast is one of those maxims so dear to our hearts: 'Business makes progress! Fortune passes everywhere!' "
He sipped his water.
The others joined him. Questioning glances passed among them.
"Gurney!" the Duke called.
From an alcove at Leto's end of the room came Halleck's voice. "Here, my Lord."
"Give us a tune, Gurney."
A minor chord from the baliset floated out of the alcove. Servants began putting plates of food on the table at the Duke's gesture releasing them--roast desert hare in sauce cepeda, aplomage sirian, chukka under glass, coffee with melange (a rich cinnamon odor from the spice wafted across the table), a true pot-a-oie served with sparkling Caladan wine.
Still, the Duke remained standing.
As the guests waited, their attention torn between the dishes placed before them and the standing Duke, Leto said: "In olden times, it was the duty of the host to entertain his guests with his own talents." His knuckles turned white, so fiercely did he grip his water flagon. "I cannot sing, but I give you the words of Gurney's song. Consider it another toast--a toast to all who've died bringing us to this station."
An uncomfortable stirring sounded around the table.
Jessica lowered her gaze, glanced at the people seated nearest her--there was the round-faced water-shipper and his woman, the pale and austere Guild Bank representative (he seemed a whistle-faced scarecrow with his eyes fixed on Leto), the rugged and scar-faced Tuck, his blue-within-blue eyes downcast.
"Review, friends--troops long past review," the Duke intoned. "All to fate a weight of pains and dollars. Their spirits wear our silver collars. Review, friends--troops long past review: Each a dot of time without pretense or guile.
