Dune

The two continued to babble and she shouted them down: “Compared to me with what I acquired from them, the lot of you are miserable weaklings! Do any of you challenge that?”

No one challenged but orange flecks were there.

“You are children with no knowledge of what you might become,” she said. “Would you return defenseless to face the ones of many faces? Would you become vegetables?”

That caught their interest. They were accustomed to this tone from older commanders. The content held them now. It was difficult to accept from one so young . . . still . . . the things she had done. And to Logno and her aides!

Murbella saw them admire the bait.

Fertilization. This group will carry it away with them. Hybrid vigor. We are fertilized to grow stronger. And flower. And go to seed? Best not dwell on that. Honored Matres will not see it until they are almost Reverend Mothers. Then they will look back angrily as I did. How could we have been that stupid?

She saw submission take shape in councillors’ eyes. There would be a honeymoon. Honored Matres would be children in a candy store. Only gradually would the inevitable grow plain to them. Then they would be trapped.

As I was trapped. Don’t ask the oracle what you can gain. That’s the trap. Beware the real fortune teller! Would you like thirty-five hundred years of boredom?

Odrade Within objected.

Give the Tyrant some credit. It couldn’t all have been boredom. More like a Guild Navigator picking his passage through foldspace. Golden Path. An Atreides paid for your survival, Murbella.

Murbella felt burdened. The Tyrant’s payment dumped on her shoulders. I didn’t ask him to do it for me.

Odrade could not let that pass. He did it nonetheless.

Sorry, Dar. He paid. Now, I must pay.

So you are a Reverend Mother at last!

The councillors had grown restive under her stare.

Angelika elected to speak for them. After all, I am first chosen.

Watch that one! A blaze of ambition in her eyes.

“What response are you asking us to take with these witches?” Alarmed by her own boldness. Was not Great Honored Matre also a witch now?

Murbella spoke softly. “You will tolerate them and offer them no violence whatsoever.”

Angelika was emboldened by Murbella’s mild tone. “Is that Great Honored Matre’s decision or the—”

“Enough! I could bloody the floor of this room with the lot of you! Do you wish to test it?”

They did not wish to test it.

“And what if I say to you that it is Mother Superior speaking? You will ask do I have a policy to meet our problem? I will say: Policy? Ahh, yes. I have a policy for unimportant things such as insect infestations. Unimportant things call for policies. For such of you as do not see the wisdom in my decision, I need no policy. Your kind I dispose of quickly. Dead before you know you’ve been injured! That is my response to the presence of filth. Is there any filth in this room?”

It was language they recognized: the lash of the Great Honored Matre backed by ability to kill.

“You are my Council,” Murbella said. “I expect wisdom from you. The least you can do is pretend you are wise.”

Humorous sympathy from Odrade: If that’s the way Honored Matres give and take orders, it won’t require much deep analysis by Bell.

Murbella’s thoughts went elsewhere. I am no longer Honored Matre.

The step from one to another was so recent she found her Honored Matre performance uncomfortable. Her adjustments were a metaphor of what would happen to her former Sisters. A new role and she did not wear it well. Other Memory simulated long association with herself as this new person. This was no mystical transubstantiation, merely new abilities.

Merely?

The change was profound. Did Duncan realize this? It pained her that he might never see through to this new person.

Is that the residue of my love for him?

Murbella drew back from her questions, not wanting an answer. She felt repelled by something that went deeper than she cared to burrow.