Prologue

My name is Crimson, in these times, and to those who know me. In the greater universe, and in the past, my name in full was Kavan Baramillio Ledonne, ducal heir to House Ledonne's possessions.

The following text presents my situation in the fourteenth year of the reign of Empress Regent Darlana, and in what would have been the 74th year of the reign of the Padishah Emperor, Seannachmedh VIII

My mother, Lady Antyre Ledonne, is the current Ducal Regent. My father, Priam, died when I was three years old, little more than an infant. My mother's husband, Captain Absalom Shaw, is not eligible to become Duke, and thus he will retain the honorary title of Consort until my eighteenth birthday, which is a mere eight months away. On that auspicious date, I will assume command of the Ducal throne, and become solely responsible for government and administration of nine planets, each with billions of inhabitants, and their own distinct cultures and history.

The fief of House Ledonne, while not as rich as those of House Harkonnen or House Atreides, is still generous in its own right. Our fief was granted to us by the Padishah Emperor Shaddam II over 350 years ago, for military services rendered by my ancestors during the Sardaukar Uprising. The nine planets we control lie on the outer edge of the Corrino Imperium, and are currently free of Landsraad influence. Our family has often in the past been referred to as a renegade House because we refuse to ally ourselves with the Landsraad Council of Great Houses. It is a long-cherished belief of House Ledonne that democracy is a disease that cripples the authoritative establishments, and weakens the state as a whole, wherever it may spring up. The Great Houses of the Landsraad have chosen to place themselves opposite the Emperor in the balance of power, while my own family is one of only a few who will stand beside House Corrino against the upstarts, such as House Atreides. Our near cousins the Harkonnens may be ambitious, but they are not stupid, and nor are they brave. They are content to cause mass sufferings in their own realms without causing spillover elsewhere. Perhaps it is our secrecy that causes such clouds of suspicion to attach themselves to our name. Doubtless, many wonder what we do here in our fief at the very edge of the Padishah Emperor's realm. Allow me to enlighten you: We spy. The Line of Imperial succession (beyond the heir designate or the heir apparent,) is a closely guarded secret, and we have been, for more than two centuries, the guardians of that secret. Only the reigning Emperor and the head of House Ledonne are privy to that vital information. Over the years, the necessity of absolute secrecy has facilitated the growth of an immense Imperial Spy Corps, operating outside the conventional bounds of government intelligence. Our family is the heart and nerve center of that vast spiderweb, and no report ever reaches the emperor's ears but that we have already known of its contents. The Corps is composed of carefully selected male and female candidates chosen from birth and taken from all classes and backgrounds. Bene Gesserit, Tleilaxu, and Guild affiliates are all excluded for the obvious issue of conflicting allegiance. Although the Bene Gesserit witches are not allowed within the corps, their training methods are one of the chief pillars of our own training school. Our spies are loyal to the Emperor, of course, but their chief loyalty is to House Ledonne. The sanctity of our position is ingrained into their minds from the very earliest days of their life. The name Ledonne, and the symbols of our House, the Phoenix and the Eye, are tantamount with holy ikons to them. They also understand that the genetic line preserved in the males of our House is the guardian bloodline of House Corrino. Many centuries ago, before ever our family rose to greatness, we were selected by House Corrino and the Bene Gesserit to be the genetic mirror of House Corrino. An ancient contract has assured that the agreement be kept throughout the reign of the Padishah Emperors, unto the end of House Corrino. The obvious predilection of this agreement being, of course, that all marriages for the males of my House have been and will continue to be arranged by the Bene Gesserit Truthsayer in the employ of the Emperor. My mother's marriage to Captain Shaw is the only known exception to this ancient agreement, and was only allowed to occur due to the fact that I had already been designated the Ducal Heir upon my mother's ascendancy as Regent, and my genetic purity had been verified long before they met. My two half sisters, Tatiana and Zandrine, will never pose a significant threat to the royal bloodline, Because Shaw's own Genetic makeup is far too impure to have allowed any of the Imperial Genes to survive. Nonetheless, they will never be allowed to produce heirs of their own, due to the legal complications which could arise if the Landsraad ever discovered the existence of the Contract of Descent.

Amid this swirl of political intrigue, less adept and cunning minds than my own would never have survived under the intense strain of constant diplomatic subterfuge. It is amazing that I was ever able to develop into the functioning, able person I have become. Nevertheless, my own destiny has been known to me several years. I am to serve as Grand Vizier in the Imperial Household, to counteract the influence that the Bene Gesserit have gained upon the mind of the Empress Darlana, who is the current Imperial Regent. Her nephew, Shaddam IV, will assume the throne after an additional ten years of waiting, thanks to the Bene Gesserit, who pushed back the age of consent for the throne. Shaddam and I share a birthday, and as I am a mere 3 hours older than he, we should have taken our respective thrones together, in a joint ceremony before the entire Council assembled. However, it has now become imperative that I complete the mission that has been assigned to me before it will be safe for him to even utter the word "coronation." The obvious and ever-present danger of assassination has recently been aggravated by an open, brazenly insolent alliance between the Bene Gesserit and the Tleilaxu. Tleilaxu face-dancers are time-honored method of assassination used by the Bene Gesserit against those more powerful than they. It is my responsibility, and my duty to eliminate this growing threat, and to prevent the Bene Gesserit from attaining their goal of replacing House Corrino as the ruling House of the Imperium. The Empress Darlana too, is a threat, and will be eliminated if the need for such action arises. –

You now know the state of affairs in the Corrino Imperium on the eve of my ascendancy as Duke, and at the beginning of the Saga of the second salvation of House Corrino. You have caught a glimpse of my future, now, be witness to my past.