Secret Gardens [Evening 1]

[Cuyler Gray]

"We trade." she shrugged. "But, both Houses have significant agricultural resources. So, our relationship with the Atreides is a bit more complex. That is the nature of the Mutelli. Plans within plans and all that. Beyond me for the most part."

"Anything you care to share about the Zensunni would be welcome." she added. "There's far more that I don't know than I do."

[Nirilli]

"The best way to see the Zensunni would be to join the haj. All the barges follow the water-veins to the deepest point. The pool without bottom. It is a sacred pilgrimage." There was just a hint of longing in her voice.

"Wanderers can be hard to find otherwise. But that is the known coming together. There are feasts and songs. Prayers. Mourning for the losses of the year. Praise for the gains."

"Always you must find at least one more praise than sorrow. We cannot add to the bakka's grief. She carries too much already."

"I imagine the year I was taken and my family only knew that I went to dive and did not come back... My mother. My sister. My brother. They would have said maybe it was a blessing I had the courage to dive deeper than I ought. That it is a blessing to sleep on a bed of pearls."

[Sister Shinah]

"Had you been able to secure a sample of his DNA we would have a fair chance of determining his source stock. The Tleilaxu play these mind games with us, you see. They compound layers of discoverable so that we don't know how deep we must dig. Did he say anything?"

Shinah pressed her lips together tightly at the rebuke at the missed opportunity to sample the ghola. Alas.

"He said nothing to me, Reverend Mother. He showed affinity - perhaps care - for the slaves, afterwards." Shinah noted, giving a recounting of Pankratos' actions and words toward Emcas and Nirilli.

[Cuyler Gray]

She listened attentively, offering a sympathetic smile.

"I cannot imagine what you have been through. You clearly carry the traditions and strength of your family. Even separated as you have been, you carry them with you."

[Nirilli]

Nirilli smiled. "Nothing happens that the all-good cannot redeem. I am where I need to be. My mihna."

"Did you know that the original home of the Zensunni was Nilotic al-Ourouba? River-home. And it was a place something like this place! That''s not to say that this is our sihaya, the paradise to come. But it is interesting to think House Hagal has elevated art and architecture that is reminiscent of our once-home."

[Kannon]

Shinah pressed her lips together tightly at the rebuke at the missed opportunity to sample the ghola. Alas.

"He said nothing to me, Reverend Mother. He showed affinity - perhaps care - for the slaves, afterwards." Shinah noted, giving a recounting of Pankratos' actions and words toward Emcas and Nirilli.

Cordana needed a moment of introspection, perhaps a consultation with her Other Memories.

"Quoting Sophocles, and 'King Oedipus' at that. Let us for a moment assume this was actually genuine, a blurt of his identity as is and not just a way to throw you off. What would you make of it, Sister?"

[Cuyler Gray]

Nirilli smiled. "Nothing happens that the all-good cannot redeem. I am where I need to be. My mihna."

"Did you know that the original home of the Zensunni was Nilotic al-Ourouba? River-home. And it was a place something like this place! That''s not to say that this is our sihaya, the paradise to come. But it is interesting to think House Hagal has elevated art and architecture that is reminiscent of our once-home."

She closed her eyes and spoke softly. "The sound of water. The fragrance of flowers. The cool shade of a tree...."

"I remember." Her eyes opened suddenly. "I'm sorry, Nirilli. I heard your story, but I wasn't listening to the right parts. Tell me more about the hajj, please."

[Kannon]

Salomea returned to them with a jar of freshly mashed greenish paste, but she stopped short of intruding on their conversation about the hajj. Looking to the side, she demonstrated some curiosity about Xard's explorations. Of all people, she could tell what he was looking at, and likely also why.

[Nirilli]

She closed her eyes and spoke softly. "The sound of water. The fragrance of flowers. The cool shade of a tree...."

"I remember." Her eyes opened suddenly. "I'm sorry, Nirilli. I heard your story, but I wasn't listening to the right parts. Tell me more about the hajj, please."

Nirilli looked at her curiously.

"You remember? Oh! Do you live part of your life in another time? You might recall more of the hajj-that-was than what we recreate here. The hajj is always a pilgrimage to the most sacred place on a planet. It is one of the losses of being a slave, and we have been slaves in our wandering long before here. If you are not free, you are not free to make the journey."

"Our teachers have songs about our past. We remember all the good works of Al-mutakallim towards our ancestors. And the kiswa there and there and there and there and here. The weeper is here. The bakka."

"There is water, yes, at the hajj here. The deepest water. What kind of flowers do you smell? There are flowering trees near the pool without bottom. The first-comers planted them. Mish mish trees. The fruit is very sweet. Apricot. Do you know any apricot recipes?"

[Cuyler Gray]

She nodded. "I have peered through the eyes of an ancestor. One who I believe lived here and loved a Zensunni boy who sung to her. The experience was fleeting and I have been through some extreme situations since. I had let the details fall away, until you brought them back to the surface. Like a pearl. "

[Nirilli]

Nirilli smiled.

"How lovely. I wish I could remember my ancestors' stories. Their loves, their songs. Do you remember the song? The words or the melody? Even a couple words or a couple notes?"

"I am hoping to learn more songs from our past to perform! Songs as old as Nilotic al-Ourouba."

[Cuyler Gray]

"My mother was slicing the portyguls when the slavers came!
They brought stunners, batons and chains!
I saw my young sister flee, but they caught her and tied!
The children were sent to get pearls with small knives and rocks on their ankles!
They denied us the hajj!"

"It was like on Bela Tegeuse when the faithful had grown soft,
Oh how many died in the jungles of Rossak!
Taskmasters whipped the restless with inkvine every day.
And the red rivers turned redder from the blood of my people!
They denied us the hajj!"

Cuyler didn't sing often and she stumbled a bit, trying to remember the words, but she let the song carry as she grew more comfortable and confident.

[Nirilli]

Nirilli listened carefully, memorizing the words and tune. This was a sad song. Oh, the burden to the bakka to sing it! She would have to sing two joyful songs later today, to balance. Maybe three.

But the detail! Bela Tegeuse must be another planet in the chain of wandering! Rossak... where was that? The same planet? Another planet?

When Lady Gray was finished, she was quiet a moment, processing it all.

"The small knife is to open the clamshell. The rocks help you dive deeper and teach your legs to be stronger." She said that without emotion. Just a fact. For her, a memory.

She wanted to sing it. To anchor it in her mind and heart and ear.

"Do ... do you mind if I try it? To help me learn it?"

[Cuyler Gray]

"Please." She nodded. "I would like to hear it from your voice."

[Kannon]

Before she would, Salomea quietly chimed in.

"Twice our people rose on Poritrin against their grip of blood!
They martyred warriors and children alike!
I saw my daughter last when they took her to the counting pens!
They cast her as bait to the angry machine gods!
They denied us the hajj!"

[Nirilli]

Nirilli listened to Lady Salomea also.

And then she centered her body. Shoulders back. A deep breath to fill her lungs. Her life had taught her breath control and lung capacity as a matter of life and death. But it leant itself to singing. A gift from hardship. As many gifts were.

She could feel the tightness in her chest from lion claw cuts not yet healed. Moving her chest hurt. But that would not stop her.

Her voice was almost hypnotically melodic. Sweet and lyrical.

A little solemn at first, given the lyrics. But never breaking. But then she remembered the singer was the boy, who loved the girl, the girl who loved him back, and so her tone turned more tender. A gift. The unspoken lyrics. See me. See that I love you enough to share something very precious and heavy and personal and true with you, though it weigh on the bakka to do so.

She sang quietly, as befit a garden where others were speaking. The kind of singer who could make the whole world disappear. Nothing but those notes, flowing like honey.


"My mother was slicing the portyguls when the slavers came!
They brought stunners, batons and chains!
I saw my young sister flee, but they caught her and tied!
The children were sent to get pearls with small knives and rocks on their ankles!
They denied us the hajj!"

"It was like on Bela Tegeuse when the faithful had grown soft,
Oh how many died in the jungles of Rossak!
Taskmasters whipped the restless with inkvine every day.
And the red rivers turned redder from the blood of my people!
They denied us the hajj!"

"Twice our people rose on Poritrin against their grip of blood!
They martyred warriors and children alike!
I saw my daughter last when they took her to the counting pens!
They cast her as bait to the angry machine gods!
They denied us the hajj!"

[Cuyler Gray]

Cuyler closed her eyes and listened. She could imagine the Zensunni boy joining in. She could hear his voice again.

[Sister Shinah]

Cordana needed a moment of introspection, perhaps a consultation with her Other Memories.

"Quoting Sophocles, and 'King Oedipus' at that. Let us for a moment assume this was actually genuine, a blurt of his identity as is and not just a way to throw you off. What would you make of it, Sister?"

Shinah had no access to the Other Memories - yet, anyway. But a pale imitation of it was achievable through the rote memorization she had been carefully taught to perform. A voluminous internal library of data that was nothing but a speck of a drop against the ocean of the memories of lives long past.

Still, Shinah pulled together what she knew, stitching together scraps into provide an answer.

"That is an old title from a name already long ancient even before the time of the Jihad. I would surmise, obscure almost to the point of extinction now. Either Pankratos is particularly fond of, or was taught, truly esoteric plays that scarcely anyone would recognize at the whim of those who commissioned him." Shinah restated the 'false' premise and then paused. "Or the ghola has access to their genetic memory. From a particularly old source, at that."

[Cuyler Gray]

When Cuyler opened her eyes again, they focused on Salomea. "You are familiar with this song?"

[Kannon]

When Cuyler opened her eyes again, they focused on Salomea. "You are familiar with this song?"

"This lament has many versions on worlds the Zensunni have pilgrimaged through. It also acquires different meanings in different environments. On Harmothep, it is mostly nostalgic. On Arrakis, it serves as a vengeful memento, and a canto to a revealing respondu: 'Never to forgive! Never to forget!'." Salomea approached them with her balm and a small spatula for application. "You have been to Arrakis, haven't you."