"Frank Herbert - Dune 2 - Dune Messiah (2)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Herbert Brian & Frank)

passed him then with eyes downcast. They left the wild ones strictly alone out of prudence. If the
desert had a face for city folk, it was a Fremen face concealed by a stillsuit's mouth-nose
filters.
In truth, there existed now only the small danger that someone from the old sietch days might
mark him by his walk, by his odor or by his eyes. Even then, the chances of meeting an enemy
remained small.
A swish of door hangings and a wash of light broke his reverie. Chani entered bearing his
coffee service on a platinum tray. Two slaved glowglobes followed her, darting to their positions:
one at the head of their bed, one hovering beside her to light her work.
Chani moved with an ageless air of fragile power -- so self-contained, so vulnerable.
Something about the way she bent over the coffee service reminded him then of their first days.
Her features remained darkly elfin, seemingly unmarked by their years -- unless one examined the
outer corners of her whiteless eyes, noting the lines there: "sandtracks," the Fremen of the
desert called them.
Steam wafted from the pot as she lifted the lid by its Hagar emerald knob. He could tell the
coffee wasn't yet ready by the way she replaced the lid. The pot -- fluting silver female shape,
pregnant -- had come to him as a ghanima, a spoil of battle won when he'd slain the former owner
in single combat. Jamis, that'd been the man's name . . . Jamis. What an odd immortality death had
earned for Jamis. Knowing death to be inevitable, had Jamis carried that particular one in his
hand?
Chani put out cups: blue pottery squatting like attendants beneath the immense pot. There were
three cups: one for each drinker and one for all the former owners.
"It'll only be a moment," she said.
She looked at him then, and Paul wondered how he appeared in her eyes. Was he yet the exotic
offworlder, slim and wiry but water-fat when compared to Fremen? Had he remained the Usul of his
tribal name who'd taken her in "Fremen tau" while they'd been fugitives in the desert?
Paul stared down at his own body: hard muscles, slender . . . a few more scars, but
essentially the same despite twelve years as Emperor. Looking up, he glimpsed his face in a shelf
mirror -- blue-blue Fremen eyes, mark of spice addiction; a sharp Atreides nose. He looked the
proper grandson for an Atreides who'd died in the bullring creating a spectacle for his people.
Something the old man had said slipped then into Paul's mind: "One who rules assumes
irrevocable responsibility for the ruled. You are a husbandman. This demands, at times, a selfless
act of love which may only be amusing to those you rule."
People still remembered that old man with affection.
And what have I done for the Atreides name? Paul asked himself. I've loosed the wolf among the
sheep.
For a moment, he contemplated all the death and violence going on in his mind.
"Into bed now!" Chani said in a sharp tone of command that Paul knew would've shocked his
Imperial subjects.
He obeyed, lay back with his hands behind his head, letting himself be lulled by the pleasant
familiarity of Chani's movements.
The room around them struck him suddenly with amusement. It was not at all what the populace
must imagine as the Emperor's bedchamber. The yellow light of restless glowglobes moved the
shadows in an array of colored glass jars on a shelf behind Chani. Paul named their contents
silently -- the dry ingredients of the desert pharmacopoeia, unguents, incense, mementos . . . a
pinch of sand from Sietch Tabr, a lock of hair from their firstborn . . . long dead . . . twelve
years dead . . . an innocent bystander killed in the battle that had made Paul Emperor.
The rich odor of spice-coffee filled the room. Paul inhaled, his glance falling on a yellow
bowl beside the tray where Chani was preparing the coffee. The bowl held ground nuts. The
inevitable poison-snooper mounted beneath the table waved its insect arms over the food. The