f Houses Fortunately, few emperors made injudicious use of this right Indeed, the last emperor to indulge m a processional circuit throughout his Empire Comn XXII, 9235-9294 occasioned no fewer than 143 food riots on seventeen planets, dozens of Bills of Particulars laid before the Landsraad, and four successful revolutions (quickly overturned by his successor, Ezhar X) before succumbing to chaumas while still on procession on Bolchef (see The Last Banquet by Lors Karden [Yorba Rose]) Imperial feudalism differed from historical feudal systems in one very important respect the Padishah Emperor did not rely on his feudal vassaL for his soldiery True, he did require supporting levies These troops served two functions as a sham to cover the real source of the Sardaukar (Salusa Secundus), and as cannon fodder m the training of the Imperial legions They were nol used in actual battle The emperor relied instead, on the Sardaukar, who at their prime, were each rated a match for any ten ordinary Landsraad conscripts This fact, combined with the knowledge that House Cornno s weaponry and atomics could be matched only by the combined forces of all the Houses IMPER1UM FEUDAL PATTERNS 345 IMPERIUM FEUDAL PATTERNS Major, and that House Comno had, by virtue of its melange stockpiles, almost unhmit ed wealth, gave the Padishah Emperor the power to enforce his decisions if necessary and, more importantly, the authority to expect his decisions to be earned out without enforcement Such authority and wealth also gave rise to an Impend Court (and bureaucracy) that grew every year in splendor and in splaris spent The Imperial Palace on Kaitan housed not only the emperor and his immediate relatives of House Comno, then- servants, bodyguards, and slaves, but also the emperor's slave-harem with its adjacent nursery for the offspring of the slave-concubines, and, on a higher level, quarters for the generally-ignored-but-tolerated string of anstoerattc visitors with suits, petitions, diplomatic rarands, and the like Lesser beggars waited out of doors All, however, craved permission to enter the Imperial selamlik, to pass beyond the plasteel and marble doors, under the sculptured arches with the Imperial legend, "Law is the ulti mate science," past the captive banners of defeated Great Houses, to stand within ten feet of the GoWea Lion Throne, m the presence, finally, of Power itself The great audience hall would be crowded with Imperial bodyguards, courtiers, noukkers, pages, slaves, hangers-on, but still with only a fraction of those who clamored to get in, the audiences would seem endless, but would accommodate only a few petitioners out of the many who waited The emperor, dressed in a gray Sardaukar uniform with only the Impend crest on the helm to indicate his position-to indicate, if such a blatant reminder were necessary, exactly where the Imperial power lay-would listen as each petitioner stated his name and case ia almost identical words, the fo