Poritrini Prodigal Sighted in Canidar Fiefdom
Turn:
126 What occupies the young man's time while waiting for his bride? It seems that he is searching high and low for some place to hide—and searching successfully! While many suggest that the lordlings [reportedly] increasingly agitated father might send his brute squad to turn over beds in Gamont's flop houses; or perhaps that he might better quietly look in the boy's drawers for a ticket stub to Caladan; the most promising - and mentats suggest most likely - reported sightings seem to be coming from the Negara Sysselraad, indeed within the Canidar fiefdom itself.
Mentats point to several key pieces of data which they believe point to the validity of such sightings as being at least 64% probable:
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(1) First, Poritrini pride has been wounded in its recent Canidarian adventure. The na-Doge is famously impetuous and many conclude it entirely in character for him to set off to the scene in order to ‘take matters into his own hands.’
(2) Secondly, mentats point out how a second datum has come to their attention and whose tattle-tale (a term describing the meta-data associated with actual data, in this case referring specifically to the vector of travel of the datum) points to an origin on the Poritrini home world, entirely separate and independent of the rumored sightings. It seems that a rumor has arrived from within the Poritrini household indicating that the na-Doge was boasting of his plans to intervene in the Canidarian debacle, even on the eve of his wedding. To that end a grainy recording of what some mentats estimate to be the na-Doge’s voice (89% likely) has surfaced:
"I intend to travel to Canidar Prime, with Fey’d in toe. If my Status as nobility doesn’t keep the vipers away perhaps the feared Fey’d will. I will do my best to delay my father in his own overt efforts. I have already sent a letter to the Emperor asking him to make the Professor a legal Agent of the Imperium and thus a member of house Corrino. If any harm comes to him under those conditions the perpetrators would be considered traitors. I am a tool however; and unfortunately I’m learning more and more often that the Emperor believes me to be a species of statue; pleasant to look at, good enough for his daughter to marry, and most likely manipulate, but with no voice. Regardless if I can get this edict or not, me and a small team of trusted men will attempt to find, secure, and protect the professor.”
House Corrino has not responded to requests to see the letter mentioned by the na-Doge.
House Corrino has not responded to requests to see the letter mentioned by the na-Doge.
(3) Finally, there is the nature of Canidarian supremacy within their fief—a fact which could not have escaped the notice of the na-Doge as well. As a House Minor, House Canidar’s rule is not absolute. It has not been granted the totalitarian authorities granted to the titular heads of the Great Houses. Instead, it rules as the de facto head of what is actually a coalition of minor houses over whom it has gained ascendancy. Mentats reason that the na-Doge could have easily worked out a plan to contact dissident or resentful houses minor within the fief—either directly or through some third party—and arranged to meet with those houses for the purpose of plotting a coup. As House Canidar is only a Minor House and thus does not enjoy the same protections as a Great House, such a stratagem could not be condemned by the Emperor despite the increasingly pacifistic rhetoric spewing from House Kaitain in recent years (gone are the days when the duels and back-stabbing of the houses was considered the highest form of entertainment before the Golden Lion Throne!).