Keiran Atreides: the Swordmaster who turned against the throne

Keiran Atreides was a Swordmaster of House Atreides who served at the imperial court of House Corrino in the generations after the defeat of the thinking machines. Outwardly the royal swordsman of Emperor Javicco Corrino, he was in truth an agent of the rebellion against the throne, driven by the ruin of his family and by his contempt for the way the great powers hoarded spice. His double life was undone by the thing he had not planned for, his love for the princess Ynez Corrino, which held his hand at the decisive moment and cost him his place in the conspiracy.

An Atreides in the shadow of a ruined house#

Keiran was born into House Atreides and counted the war hero Vorian Atreides among his ancestors. The house he inherited was a diminished one. His father, Albert Atreides, taught him never to trust a Harkonnen, for the whole of their family had been killed by one, and Keiran carried that lesson into adulthood as both a wound and a warning. Among his kin, though he never knew it, was the Bashar Desmond Hart, the hidden son of Orry Atreides, whose own life had been shaped by the same slaughter that haunted Keiran's line.

Despite the fall of his family's fortunes, Keiran earned the title of Swordmaster in the tradition of Ginaz and rose to serve as royal swordsman at the court of Emperor Javicco Corrino. The position placed the last ambitions of his name in the heart of the Imperium, and it placed him within reach of the throne he had come to despise.

The princess and the Swordmaster#

At court Keiran trained the princess Ynez Corrino in the sword. He insisted that she was improving, though she saw through the flattery, and he told her that he knew she would do well on Wallach IX, where she was to train with the Sisterhood. When Ynez was instead betrothed to the boy Pruwet of House Richese, she resolved to enjoy one last night of freedom before her wedding. She found Keiran at a bar in the city, and the two became lovers in a back room.

Their closeness endured after the betrothal collapsed. Sparring together in the palace, Ynez told Keiran that she had learned a few things from Kasha in preparation for the Sisterhood's school, and she spoke of a night in her childhood when she and her brother had been taken from their beds during a rebellion, an abduction her family had concealed so that the throne would not look weak. Keiran had never heard of it. They kissed, but Ynez drew back and said they could not continue; it had been different when she believed she was about to leave. Later, when she came to him in the club where the rebels gathered, he pulled her away from the others and refused her advances, telling her that in defeating the thinking machines the Imperium had only traded one kind of overlord for another.

The rebellion's man in the palace#

Keiran's true allegiance lay with the rebellion. After Pruwet Richese died in the palace, Javicco ordered Desmond Hart detained and set Keiran to make certain he did not get out. Keiran did as he was ordered, then used the distraction of the death to scan the palace, including the throne room itself, and handed the scans over to his fellow conspirators. The Fremen woman Mikaela doubted where he truly stood, but he assured her that he abhorred the way the elites hoarded spice, forcing ordinary people to resort to violence simply to obtain what they needed to stay alive.

The conspiracy soon turned from spying to killing. Keiran went with the rebel Horace to meet Duri, who sold them a drone promising a large explosion, and the device was carried back to Mikaela while Horace programmed in the palace schematics. The plan was simple: Horace would release the drone into the vents, and Keiran, inside the council chamber, would open the grate on the far side before slipping out of the palace. Mikaela asked whether he was truly up for it, sensing that even Keiran doubted himself.

The plot that failed#

At the High Council the next day, Keiran began to work the grate loose, and stopped when Ynez entered the chamber and publicly accused her own parents of covering up Pruwet's murder. He could only watch with the rest of the court as Desmond Hart admitted to killing the boy, calling it an execution because Pruwet had harboured a thinking machine, and declared that the Imperium needed to be stronger against such devices. Hart then had Horace and Duri brought out and executed them before the assembly, revealing their plot to kill Javicco and everyone in the room. Keiran's part in the conspiracy remained hidden.

It did not remain hidden long. When Hart invited Keiran to join him in hunting insurgents, Keiran went instead to Mikaela and warned her to flee for her own protection. She showed him the chain detonators she had purchased, and he helped her set them. When Hart arrived and discovered her secret room, Keiran triggered the charges, destroying the market and cutting down several soldiers as he fought Mikaela clear of the wreckage. Outside, he told her that he had recognized her knife and understood at last that she belonged to the Sisterhood. He left her, saying he did not want to see her again.

Arrest and interrogation#

Keiran returned to the palace, where Constantine thanked him for helping him remember his purpose, and then the guards took him, for Constantine had given them evidence of his betrayal. When Ynez learned of his arrest she came to him and used Truthsense to test his answers, asking whether everything between them had been a lie. He told her that he cared for her, and that this was why he could not go through with killing her family; he had chosen her over his principles. He also told her, truthfully, that he believed the rebellion could bring forward a better Imperium.

Under torture, Desmond Hart interrogated him. Keiran denied any knowledge of the Sisterhood's involvement in the rebellion, and said only that his father had taught him never to trust a Harkonnen after their entire family was killed by one. Hart offered him a bargain, the chance to avenge his family's name by testifying before the Landsraad, but Keiran answered that he hated Hart and Javicco both, and refused.

Flight to Arrakis#

Ynez tried to break Keiran out of his cell and was arrested herself. When he woke to find her imprisoned beside him, he told her she should not be there. Mother Superior Valya Harkonnen had also been taken, and the two watched as she used the Voice to command her own release. Valya freed Ynez and announced that she would take the princess away until matters could be arranged for her to claim the throne, but Ynez refused to leave without Keiran, and so Valya freed him as well.

The three fled in a suspensor car. When they landed, Valya told them she could get them off the planet aboard a courier ship, and sent Keiran and Ynez ahead while she stayed behind to delay the guards. Stopped by soldiers on the way, the Swordmaster and his princess cut their way through with the blade skills he had taught her, and reached the ship together. It carried them to Arrakis, where Valya declared that the path to their enemy began.