"I presume there was a reward offered for us," she said.
Stilgar remained silent, and she could almost see the thoughts turning over in his head, sensing the shifts of his muscles beneath her hands.
Presently, he said: "I will say it once more: I've given the tribe's word-bond. My people know your worth to us now. What could the Harkonnens give us? Our freedom? Hah! no, you are the taqwa, that which buys us more than all the spice in the Harkonnen coffers."
"Then I shall teach you my way of battle," Jessica said, and she sensed the unconscious ritual-intensity of her own words.
"Now, will you release me?"
"So be it," Jessica said. She released her hold on him, stepped aside in full view of the bank in the basin. This is the test-mashed , she thought. But Paul must know about them even if I die for his knowledge .
In the waiting silence, Paul inched forward to get a better view of where his mother stood. As he moved, he heard heavy breathing, suddenly stilled, above him in the vertical crack of the rock, and sensed a faint shadow there outlined against the stars.
Stilgar's voice came up from the basin: "You, up there! Stop hunting the boy. He'll come down presently."
The voice of a young boy or a girl sounded from the darkness above Paul: "But, Stil, he can't be far from - "
"I said leave him be, Chani! You spawn of a lizard!"
There came a whispered imprecation from above Paul and a low voice: "Call me spawn of a lizard!" But the shadow pulled back out of view.
Paul returned his attention to the basin, picking out the gray-shadowed movement of Stilgar beside his mother.
"Come in, all of you," Stilgar called. He turned to Jessica. "And now I'll ask you how we may be certain you'll fulfill your half of our bargain? You're the one's lived with papers and empty contracts and such as - "
"We of the Bene Gesserit don't break our vows any more than you do," Jessica said.
There was a protracted silence, then a multiple hissing of voices: "A Bene Gesserit witch!"
Paul brought his captured weapon from his sash, trained it on the dark figure of Stilgar, but the man and his companions remained immobile, staring at Jessica.
"It is the legend," someone said.
"It was said that the Shadout Mapes gave this report on you," Stilgar said. "But a thing so important must be tested. If you are the Bene Gesserit of the legend whose son will lead us to paradise . . ." He shrugged.
Jessica sighed, thinking: So our Missionaria Protectiva even planted religious safety valves all through this hell hole. Ah, well . . . it'll help, and that's what it was meant to do .
She said: "The seeress who brought you the legend, she gave it under the binding of karama and ijaz, the miracle and the inimitability of the prophecy - this I know. Do you wish a sign?"
His nostrils flared in the moonlight. "We cannot tarry for the rites," he whispered.
Jessica recalled a chart Kynes had shown her while arranging emergency escape routes. How long ago it seemed. There had been a place called "Sietch Tabr" on the chart and beside it the notation: "Stilgar."
"Perhaps when we get to Sietch Tabr," she said.
The revelation shook him, and Jessica thought: If only he knew the tricks we use! She must've been good, that Bene Gesserit of the Missionaria Protectiva. These Fremen are beautifully prepared to believe in us .
Stilgar shifted uneasily. "We must go now."
She nodded, letting him know that they left with her permission.
He looked up at the cliff almost directly at the rock ledge where Paul crouched. "You there, lad: you may come down now." He returned his attention to Jessica, spoke with an apologetic tone: "Your son made an incredible amount of noise climbing. He has much to learn lest he endanger us all, but he's young."
"No doubt we have much to teach each other," Jessica said. "Meanwhile, you'd best see to your companion out there. My noisy son was a bit rough in disarming him."
Stilgar whirled, his hood flapping. "Where?"
"Beyond those bushes." She pointed.
Stilgar touched two of his men. "See to it." He glanced at his companions, identifying them. "Jamis is missing." He turned to Jessica. "Even your cub knows the weirding way."
"And you'll notice that my son hasn't stirred from up there as you ordered," Jessica said.
The two men Stilgar had sent returned supporting a third who stumbled and gasped between them. Stilgar gave them a flicking glance, returned his attention to Jessica. "The son will take only your orders, eh? Good. He knows discipline."
"Paul, you may come down now," Jessica said.
Paul stood up, emerging into moonlight above his concealing cleft, slipped the Fremen weapon back into his sash. As he turned, another figure arose from the rocks to face him.
In the moonlight and reflection off gray stone, Paul saw a small figure in Fremen robes, a shadowed face peering out at him from the hood, and the muzzle of one of the projectile weapons aimed at him from a fold of robe.
"I am Chani, daughter of Liet."
The voice was lilting, half filled with laughter.
"I would not have permitted you to harm my companions," she said.
Paul swallowed. The figure in front of him turned into the moon's path and he saw an elfin face, black pits of eyes. The familiarity of that face, the features out of numberless visions in his earliest prescience, shocked Paul to stillness. He remembered the angry bravado with which he had once described this face-from-a-dream, telling the Reverend Mother Gains Helen Mohiam: "I will meet her."