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And he knew also about evil men who sat at table, gorging themselves on rare delicacies while they watched the torture of fellow humans.
Until the Fish Speakers came, and gore erased such scenes.
"I enjoyed the way your daughter watched me," Leto said. "She was so unaware that I knew."
"Lord, I fear for her! She is my blood, my...
"Mine, too, Moneo. Am I not Atreides? You would be better employed fearing for yourself."
Moneo cast a fearful glance along the God Emperor's body. The signs of the Worm remained too near. Moneo glanced at the cortege following, then along the road ahead. They now were into the steep descent, the switchbacks short and cut into high walls in the man-piled rocks of the cliff barrier which girdled the Sareer.
"Siona does not offend me, Moneo."
"But she...
"Moneo! Here, in its mysterious capsule is one of life's great secrets. To be surprised, to have a new thing occur, that is what I desire most."
"Lord, I..."
"New! Isn't that a radiant, a wonderful word?"
"If you say it, Lord."
Leto was forced to remind himself then: Moneo is my creature. I created him.
"Your child is worth almost any price to me. Moneo. You decry her companions, but there may be one among them that she will love."
Moneo cast an involuntary glance back at Duncan Idaho marching with the guards. Idaho was glaring ahead as though trying to probe each turn in the road before they reached it. He did not like this place with its high walls all around from which attack might come. Idaho had sent scouts up there in the night and Moneo knew that some of them still lurked on the heights, but there also were ravines ahead before the marchers reached the river. And there had not been enough guards to station them everywhere.
"We will depend upon the Fremen," Moneo had reassured him.
"Fremen?" Idaho did not like what he heard about the Museum Fremen.
"At least they can sound an alarm against intruders," Moneo had said.
"You saw them and asked them to do that?"
"Of course."
Moneo had not dared to broach the subject of Siona to Idaho. Time enough for that later, but now the God Emperor had said a disturbing thing. Had there been a change in plans?
Moneo returned his attention to the God Emperor and lowered his voice.
"Love a companion, Lord'? But you said the Duncan..."
"I said love, not breed with!"
Moneo trembled, thinking of how his own mating had been arranged, the wrenching away from...
No! Best not follow those memories!
There had been affection, even a real love... later, but in the first days...
"You are woolgathering again, Moneo."
"Forgive me, Lord, but when you speak of love..."
"You think I have no tender thoughts'!"
"It's not that, Lord, but..."
"You think I have no memories of love and breeding, then?" The cart swerved toward Moneo, forcing him to dodge away, frightened by the glowering look on the Lord Leto's face.
"Lord, I beg your..."
"This body may never have known such tenderness, but all of the memories are mine!"
Moneo could see the signs of the Worm growing more dominant in the God Emperor's body and there was no escaping recognition of this mood.
I am in grave danger. We all are.
Moneo grew aware of every sound around him, the creaking of the Royal Cart, the coughs and low conversation from the entourage, the feet on the roadway. There was an exhalation of ci
Was it the moisture bringing out the Worm?
"Listen to me, Moneo, as though your life depended on it."
"Yes, Lord," Moneo whispered, and he knew his life did depend on the care he took now, not only in listening but in observing.
"Part of me dwells forever underground without thought," Leto said. "That part reacts. It does things without a care for knowing or logic."
Moneo nodded. his attention glued on the God Emperor's face. Were the eyes about to glaze?
"I am forced to stand off and watch such things, nothing more," Leto said. "Such a reaction could cause your death. The choice is not mine. Do you hear?"
" I hear you, Lord," Moneo whispered.
"There is no such thing as choice in such an event! You accept it. merely accept it. You will never understand it or know it. What do you say to that'?"
"I fear the unknown, Lord."
"But I don't fear it. Tell me why!"
Moneo had been expecting a crisis such as this and, now that it had come, he almost welcomed it. He knew that his life depended on his answer. He stared at his God Emperor, mind racing.
"It is because of all your memories, Lord." ..Yes?"
An incomplete answer, then. Moneo grasped at words. "You see everything that we know... all of it as it once was-unknown! A surprise to you... a surprise must be merely something new for you to know?" As he spoke, Moneo realized he had put a defensive question mark on something that should have been a bold statement, but the God Emperor only smiled.
"For such wisdom I grant you a boon, Moneo. What is your wish',"Sudden relief only opened a path for other fears to emerge "Could I bring Siona back to the Citadel?"
"That will cause me to test her sooner."
"She must be separated from her companions, Lord."
"Very well."
"My Lord is gracious."
" I am selfish."
The God Emperor turned away from Moneo then and fell silent.
Looking along the segmented body, Moneo observed that the Worm signs had subsided somewhat. This had turned out well after all. He thought then of the Fremen with their petition and fear returned.
That was a mistake. They will only arouse Him again. Why did l say they could present their petition?
The Fremen would be waiting up ahead, marshaled on this side of the river with their foolish papers waving in their hands.
Moneo marched in silence, his apprehension increasing with each step.
***
Over here sand blows; over there sand blows.
Over there a rich man waits; over here I wait.
SISTER CHENOEH'S account, found among her papers after her death:
I obey both my tenets as a Bene Gesserit and the commands of the God Emperor by withholding these words from my report while secreting them that they may be found when I am gone. For the Lord Leto said to me: "You will return to your Superiors with my message, but these words keep secret for now. I will visit my rage upon your Sisterhood if you fail."
As the Reverend Mother Syaksa warned me before I left: "You must do nothing which will bring down his wrath upon us.'.
While I ran beside the Lord Leto on that short peregrination of which I had spoken, I thought to ask him about his likeness to a Reverend Mother. I said:
"Lord, I know how it is that a Reverend Mother acquires the memories of her ancestors and of others. How was it with you?"
"It was a design of our genetic history and the working of the spice. My twin sister, Ghanima, and I were awakened in the womb, aroused before birth into the presence of our ancestral memories."
"Lord... my Sisterhood calls that Abomination."
"And rightly so," the Lord Leto said. "The ancestral numbers can be overwhelming. And who knows before the event which force will command such a horde-good or evil?"
"Lord, how did you overcome such a force?'
I did not overcome it," the Lord Leto said. "But the persistence of the pharaonic model saved both Ghani and me. Do you know that model, Sister Chenoeh?"
"We of the Sisterhood are well coached in history, Lord."
"Yes, but you do not think of this as I do," the Lord Leto said. "I speak of a disease of government which was caught by the Greeks who spread it to the Romans who distributed it so far and wide that it never has completely died out."