Dune [Frank Herbert's Dune Saga Collection: Books 1 - 6]

The priests were noisy in their possession of Muad’Dib’s mother. Some only touched her arms, but most bowed low and spoke greetings. At last the leaders of the delegation took their turn with the Most Holy Reverend Mother, accepting the ordained role—“The first shall be last”—with practiced smiles, telling her that the official Lustration ceremony awaited her at the Keep, Paul’s old fortress-stronghold.

Jessica studied the pair, finding them repellent. One was called Javid, a young man of surly features and round cheeks, shadowed eyes which could not hide the suspicions lurking in their depths. The other was Zebataleph, second son of a Naib she’d known in her Fremen days, as he was quick to remind her. He was easily classified: jollity linked with ruthlessness, a thin face with blond beard, an air about him of secret excitements and powerful knowledge. Javid she judged far more dangerous of the two, a man of private counsel, simultaneously magnetic and—she could find no other word—repellent. She found his accents strange, full of old Fremen pronunciations, as though he’d come from some isolated pocket of his people.

“Tell me, Javid,” she said, “whence come you?”

“I am but a simple Fremen of the desert,” he said, every syllable giving the lie to the statement.

Zebataleph intruded with an offensive deference, almost mocking: “We have much to discuss of the old days, My Lady. I was one of the first, you know, to recognize the holy nature of your son’s mission.”

“But you weren’t one of his Fedaykin,” she said.

“No, My Lady. I possessed a more philosophic bent; I studied for the priesthood.”

And insured the preservation of your skin, she thought.

Javid said: “They await us at the Keep, My Lady.”

Again she found the strangeness of his accent an open question demanding an answer. “Who awaits us?” she asked.

“The Convocation of the Faith, all those who keep bright the name and the deeds of your holy son,” Javid said.

Jessica glanced around her, saw Alia smiling at Javid, asked: “Is this man one of your appointees, daughter?”

Alia nodded. “A man destined for great deeds.”

But Jessica saw that Javid had no pleasure in this attention, marked him for Gurney’s special study. And there came Gurney with five trusted men, signaling that they had the suspicious laggards under interrogation. He walked with the rolling stride of a powerful man, glance flicking left, right, all around, every muscle flowing through the relaxed alertness she had taught him out of the Bene Gesserit prana-bindu manual. He was an ugly lump of trained reflexes, a killer, and altogether terrifying to some, but Jessica loved him and prized him above all other living men. The scar of an inkvine whip rippled along his jaw, giving him a sinister appearance, but a smile softened his face as he saw Stilgar.