The Mistress of Caladan

Part 5

Days passed. Weeks. Months. In the beginning, each hour seemed a lifetime as Leto lay in bed, the empty space beside him an everpresent reminder of his failure to keep them safe. He would fall asleep holding a pillow, often dreaming they were there beside him, only to wake and find the opposite was true and succumb to his sobs of grief all over again. When necessary, he went through the motions, supervising the troops, being present at ceremonies, but his visits were short and his attention impossible to keep focused. Everywhere he turned was another memory, the hall where Demetri took his first steps, the balcony they would take their breakfasts on, the paths they had walked as a family. There was nowhere that he did not have some tie to with them, and thus every second felt like a windstorm battering him, drowning him in memories he could not relinquish or escape from.

His hair grew long, all personal care foregone. His beard grew out further than ever before and once he saw himself in the mirror, remembering Genna's words that fateful night he agreed to let her go to Arrakis about growing it out and he ripped the mirror from the wall, smashing it into a thousand pieces, ignoring the cuts he sustained as he dripped blood everywhere.

Yueh tried to speak with him but Leto only rebuffed him, ignoring most questions as the Suk stitched his deeper cuts and dismissing him abruptly after he was done. How could he understand when his wife was alive and well? Yueh had no children, nor Gurney, nor Duncan. How could any of them know what it was to lose your child? To lose a wife? A pregnant wife at that?

Leto found himself wondering if he might have survived his grief better to only lose one. Could life have been bearable if only Genna was lost to him? No, how could Demetri ever recover from losing his mother, how could a child go on with such loss at that age? Might he have felt less lost if Genna and the baby survived but Demetri was gone? Never, he knew she would have died with the grief of it, as he wished that he could now do. What purpose was there in living or dying if the people he loved most in the world were no longer here with him? How much was a legacy worth without his wife by his side and his son to inherit it?

Each day he would lie in bed for hours, exhausted but not needing more sleep. Sleep seemed to be all he did. That and plot unrealistic scenarios for how to destroy the Harkonnens for their unquestionable hand in this. There was no way to prove it had been done maliciously and the Baron had no one he loved that Leto could take from him in a similar fashion. The Harkonnens valued people for what they could do for them, not for any emotional attachment. They were animals and had acted as such.

When months afterward the time came to resume welcoming periodic ambassadors and the emperor's lackeys he did so without complaint, but his conversations were brief and perfunctory. He saw the way they watched him, either with pity or disdain to see a mighty man so thoroughly undone. Once, he overheard someone speaking to his servant, "Don't know why the man doesn't just wed and bed a new girl. Pretty young women are a dime a dozen in his circles, shouldn't be too hard to find."

He had locked himself in his room after that, refusing to see the man further lest he gouge out his eyes at the dinner table.

A year passed before the pressure to remarry became more regular. On the anniversary of their deaths, a missive came from the Emperor himself, reminding Leto that he had 5 daughters, the oldest of which was 10 and would soon begin her courses. She could bear him more sons and solve the emperor's dilemma over who would inherit his throne after he was gone. Disgusted, Leto simply scoffed and ignored the overture. He did not want to be emperor. He wanted to be Genna's husband. Demetri's father. The ruler of Caladan and nothing else. He had been all three once, now he was left with only his homeworld and his duties therein. He too, would need an heir but decided he would leave that to his distant cousin on the Western Continent. He had no wish to marry again. No hope for another child as if any could replace the one he lost.

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