Margot Fenring/XD

Lady Margot Fenring, born Margot Rashino-Zea, was the Bene Gesserit wife of the Mentat Count Hasimir Fenring. Despite superficially falling under the influence of House Corrino, Margot fully served the Sisterhood to many ends. After the vast reduction of Bene Gesserit influence after the Ascension of House Atreides, Margot and her husband dedicated themselves to serving their own ends.

Early Life and Missions
Margot was the product of the Bene Gesserit breeding program, and the subject of their extensive training. She was renowned for her extreme beauty, cunning, and resourcefulness. She had honey-blond hair and grey-green eyes. Fenring was a highly trained spy and assassin, and knew 63 ways to kill an individual with her fingers alone.

She was also extensively trained to connect mismatched data, so that it could be interpreted in the "big picture" in which it was concealed. As someone who was trained with this ability, Margot was selected by Anirul Sadow Tonkin to present herself as a new domestic servant in the household of Abulurd Rabban on Lankiveil. She stayed 2 days in his mansion cleaning and dusting and looking for any records. Eventually she found them etched on ridulian crystals, and using flash-memorization techniques absorbed columns of all information. The next night she fell into a deep trance, and reviewed all the information she absorbed.

Margot was unable to uncover a few Harkonnen family mistakes, and the Baron Vladimir Harkonnen's financial indiscretions, which included serious underreporting of spice production to CHOAM and the Emperor. This information suggested that the Harkonnens were accumulating secret stockpiles of their own.

She booked passage on the next Heighliner in a cargo hauler filled with processed whale-fur, and returned to Wallach IX. Thus, the Bene Gesserit were able to acquire the blackmail weapon they needed, to advance their Kwisatz Haderach breeding program.

After Gaius Helen Mohiam did not borne well her offspring with the Baron, Margot was sent to Harkonnen Keep on Giedi Prime, and try to persuade him to have a second intercourse with the Sister.

She also performed an investigation of an errant Missionaria Protectiva on Arrakis.

Marriage to Hasimir Fenring
The Sisterhood allowed her to be married to Count Hasimir Fenring, the ruler of House Fenring, a House Minor long aligned to House Corrino. While present in the Padishah Emperor's court she persuaded Shaddam to marry Reverend Mother Anirul Sadow-Tonkin, whom the Sisterhood knew would not yield House Corrino any sons.

Warning to Jessica Atreides
As the wife of Hasimir Fenring, Margot was resident on Arrakis during his temporary governorship. Prior to their departure, and the arrival of House Atreides, she left an encoded message for the Lady Jessica Atreides, warning her of House Harkonnen's planned treachery.

"TO THE LADY JESSICA — May this place give you as much pleasure as it has given me. Please permit the room to convey a lesson we learned from the same teachers: the proximity of a desirable thing tempts one to overindulgence. On that path lies danger. My kindest wishes"

- MARGOT LADY FENRING

The visible note contained the code phrase every Bene Gesserit not bound by a School Injunction was required to give another Bene Gesserit when conditions demanded it. Jessica's fingers detected the subtle coded dots, scanned them in a single passage:

"Your son and Duke are in immediate danger. A bedroom has been designed to attract your son. The H loaded it with death traps to be discovered, leaving one that may escape detection. I do not know the exact nature of the menace, but it has something to do with a bed. The threat to your Duke involves defection of a trusted companion or lieutenant. The H plan to give you as gift to a minion. To the best of my knowledge, this conservatory is safe. Forgive that I cannot tell more. My sources are few as my Count is not in the pay of the H"

- In haste, MF.

Unfortunately, Margot's warning was not enough to stop the Harkonnen plot against the Atreides. Duke Leto Atreides I was killed, and Jessica and her son Paul were forced to flee into the desert of Arrakis.

Mission with Feyd
Later, Margot was sent by the Bene Gesserit to seduce Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen and to preserve the bloodline by retrieving his genetic material (through conception) for their breeding program. She also intended to plant deep in his deepest self the necessary prana-bindu phrases to bend him, (a Hypno-ligation of his psyche). As she and her husband discussed what a shame it was that Paul Atreides is dead (as everyone thinks he is at that time), Margot prophetically recounts a Bene Gesserit saying: Do not count a human dead until you've seen his body. And even then you can make a mistake.

Margot shared some of her training with her husband, since the Count was focused on Paul, he saw with eyes his Lady Margot had trained in the Bene Gesserit way, aware of the mystery and hidden grandeur about this Atreides youth. Hasimir subsequently refused Emperor Shaddam IV's command that he kill Paul.

Soon after, as Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam watched Paul and Feyd-Rautha duel to the death, she commented on the existence of Margot's child by Feyd: If both died that would leave only Feyd-Rautha's bastard daughter, Marie Fenring, still a baby, an unknown, an unmeasured factor; and Alia Atreides.

Salusa Secundus and Tleilax
Margot accompanied her husband into exile with House Corrino to the desolate world of Salusa Secundus. The Fenrings were not sentenced with Shaddam into exile, and soon departed for Tleilax with daughter Marie in tow. As the Bene Gesserit leadership was aware of little Marie's potential, they arranged for her nanny to be the Gesserit sister, Tonia Obregah-Xo. Obregah-Xo and Hasimir trained the growing Marie in different fighting styles and defense techniques, as her Margot taught her poison differentials of the Sisterhood.

Concept of Twisting
It was in Thalidei on Tleilax, that Hasimir and Margot put their secret plan into motion to eventually place Marie on the Imperial Throne. The Fenring parents were interested in the Tleilaxu concept of Twisted mentats, and how they created the efficient and productive human computers. With Hasimir and Marie, Margot observed the strange conditioning that the experimental subjects went through—utterly rejecting the practice for their own daughter, as they believed their training of her to be enough.

Marie and Thallo
With their Tleilaxu Master guide, Dr Ereboam, Margot and her family were introduced to the Tleilaxu Kwisatz Haderach candidate, Thallo. Thallo was a cloned being of almost perfect genetic enhancement, but suffered from loneliness, and the desire to "cut" himself, as a way of rebelling against his Tleilaxu creators. Thallo befriended Marie, and much to Margot's dismay and horror, Marie found herself alone in Thalidei's environmental control room; as Thallo decided to commit mass genocide on its' citizens. Margot watched as her daughter killed Thallo, and as Marie turned off the nerve gas toxin that the failed clone had planned to spread throughout the Tleilaxu secondary city.

Marie Goes to Live in Arrakeen
In 10,198 AG, immediately after the death of Thallo, the Fenrings sent Marie to live in the Royal Court with Emperor Paul on Arrakis. Once there, over the next few months, Marie became friendly with Paul's sister, Alia, and learned some of the workings of the Palace in Arrakeen. The next year, when Margot and Hasimir visited their daughter, the Fenrings began their long laid out plans to kill the leader of House Atreides.

The Banquet
As Hasimir Fenring was a failed Kwisatz candidate himself, the prescience abilities of Paul were unclear as to the Fenring's intentions. As such, during a celebratory banquet held in honor of the Fenrings, their trap sprang. First Marie pretended top drop an eating utensil on the floor, but was actually procuring a needle-whip that had been placed their earlier incognito on a table leg. Then Margot dropped her faux pearl necklace into water to activate special Tleilaxu toxins that had been discreetly stored in the jewelry. While Hasimir opened passages into old busunni tunnels using hidden controls in the table.

Appearances

 * Dune: House Atreides
 * Dune: House Harkonnen
 * Dune: House Corrino
 * Dune (novel)
 * Paul of Dune
 * The Winds of Dune