Paul of Dune – Entry #3

“But a normal child she was not. And neither was her new playmate.” (Paul of Dune, p. 544)

This was a comment about Alia and the playmate was Marie, the daughter of Bene Gesserit trained Margot and the ex-emperor’s friend Count Fenring who was also a master assassin.  Marie’s natural father was Feyd Rautha Harkonnen and she was conceived as part of a Bene Gesserit breeding program.  What a pair … Alia and Marie.  Their interplay is downright eerie and quote I just gave, which ended a chapter, sets the appropriately suspenseful stage.

It certainly became clear how important Marie was, at least to the Bene Gesserits, when they sent a delegation of three sisters to Arrakis to speak with Irulan about Alia and Marie’s education and training.  The Bene Gesserits wanted to be in control of their development.  Considering how much Paul loathed the Bene Gesserits, Irulan knew that he would not like this idea and based on what Lady Margot had said, she didn’t think that the Fenrings would want the Bene Gesserit teachers either.  When Paul came and interrupted this conversation, the sisters tried to say they were just there to visit Irulan but Irulan laid out the truth.  I think that this was one of the first times that Paul really saw Irulan’s usefulness as an ally.  When the sisters tried to recover from being exposed, well, here is the way the conversation went … and ended:

“We make no attempt to interfere, Sire,” Genino said.  “We are merely here to offer ---“

Paul cut her off, his expression dangerous.  “You would be wise to consider your words before you speak further.  With my truthsense, I hear your lies as if they are shouts.”

(Paul of Dune, p. 567)

The book wraps up with the very suspenseful telling of the intimate banquet that included Paul, Chani, Alia, Irulan, Marie, Count and Lady Fenring, Korba, and Stilgar.  The Fenring’s Plan A was for Marie to kill Paul with a “needlewhip dagger” hidden in the dining table then the three of them would escape through passages and gain control of the empire in the supposed power vacuum.  Plan B included the use of the jewel-hilted knife that Shaddam had given to Fenring which was the same knife that Shaddam had given to Feyd-Rautha in the duel between Feyd and Paul after the Battle on the Plains of Arrakeen. Fenring got the knife in the room under the pretense that it was a gift to Paul.  But Plan A failed as Alia reacted quickly to Marie’s attack and killed Marie with the jeweled knife.

 Alia stood up, leaving the Emperor’s blade firmly planted within the twitching body of the treacherous girl.  “You were never my friend.”

Korba looked on in awe, still seated where he had slumped helplessly back into his chair and just starting to recover from the paralytic gas.  As far as Alia could tell, the Fremen had not lifted a finger during the brief but intense battle.  “The knife,” he said in a slurred voice, his lips moving slightly, “St. Alia of the Knife.”

 

Caught in the swirl of events around her, Alia realized that she stood at the threshold of her own legend.

(Paul of Dune, p. 592)

So that is where she got the name.  I had figured it was from when she killed Baron Harkonnen when she was only three years old but apparently not.

I also wanted to talk about this story because of its importance later on in the history of the epic Dune story.  In Plan B, Fenring kills Paul with the jeweled knife.  Hasimer and Margot get the instant to distract Paul when Paul he was already taken aback by the willingness of these parents to sacrifice their daughter for an assassination attempt and then told him that Feyd was her natural father.  In that instant of shock, the Count attacked and plunged the dagger into Paul.  Paul very nearly died from this attack but not for the quick thinking of his beloved Chani to use the Water of Life to induce a coma that would allow the doctors to make repairs and for Paul to save his strength to do the rest.

Before the book ends, we learn that Korba takes this precious knife and preserves it for the archives.  It is important to the rest of history that this occurs as we will learn MUCH later.  Also, we learn that Paul spares the lives of the Fenrings and considers it to be a harsher punishment to banish them to Salusa Secundus to live with the deposed ex-emperor.

 
In the last chapter of the book, Irulan realizes that she feels bound to Paul Muad-Dib.  Not because she was a prize won in battle and not because she was his wife.  She felt bound to record his story … for history.  This role is clearly important in the original Dune books by Frank Herbert and Paul of Dune helps us see how she gets to fill that role.