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This article or section refers to elements from Expanded Dune There are separate pages for this subject as it appears in the other canons, the reasons for this are explained here |
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.
History
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 alligned 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.
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
- This article is a stub: It may require more information.
Appearances
- Dune:House Atreides
- Dune:House Harkonnen
- Dune:House Corrino
- Dune (novel)
- Paul of Dune
- The Winds of Dune