Paulus Atreides' 10156 bullfight

The final bullfight of Duke Paulus Atreides, the Old Duke of House Atreides, was staged in the Plaza de Toros on Caladan in 10156 AG, around the same time that Padishah Emperor Elrood Corrino IX died on Kaitain. It ended in the Duke's death, the result of sabotage by his own wife, Helena Atreides, in concert with House Harkonnen, and it was the last bullfight ever held on Caladan.

The contest#

At first Duke Paulus played with the Salusan bull, dancing beyond the reach of its horns and completing the performance expected of him by the excited Caladanian spectators. When the bull did not tire after the better part of an hour and remained fixed on killing him, he grew concerned enough to resolve to end the contest quickly. He planned to use his personal shield, a trick he had learned from one of the finest matadors in the Imperium.

The next time the bull charged, its horns ricocheted off the shield, a collision that finally disoriented the animal. The Duke stabbed its head with his banderilla and set the barbed hook into its muscles. Unknown to Paulus, the barbed tip had not been drugged, the result of the treachery of his wife, Helena Atreides, who had conspired with the Harkonnens to kill him.

The Duke's death#

Because the barb carried no drug, the bull floundered back to its feet and rushed him again. The Duke side-stepped, but the bull caught his ceremonial cloth on its horns and tore it to shreds. Left without a cape, he held up his second banderilla and used it like a fencing sword, with only a short barbed spear as his weapon and a partial shield for protection. As the bull bore down and feinted, his jab caught on a knob of its hide without sinking in, and the spear was torn from his grasp and fell to the floor.

For a moment Paulus stood weaponless. He scrambled back, snatched for the fallen banderilla, and turned his back on the bull, listening for it to grind to a stop and return. As he bent to retrieve the weapon, the bull reached him with extraordinary speed, ducked under the partial shield, and rammed home. Its horns gouged deep into the Duke's back, breaking through his ribs into his lungs and heart, and it thrashed him from side to side before the horrified crowd.

Aftermath#

Within seconds of Paulus' death the Mentat Thufir Hawat and the Atreides guards entered the field and cut the Salusan bull into pieces with their lasguns, its momentum scattering the carcass in different directions. The animal's head was later mounted on a wall in Castle Caladan, set facing a painting of the Old Duke. No further bullfights were held on Caladan.