CAROL MARINELLI - Protecting the Desert Princess

Such sad, sad times.

‘Let us get you dressed,’ Jamila said, quickly finishing Layla’s hair. ‘Your father wishes to speak with you before you leave.’

Layla had chosen a simple burnt orange cotton tunic for the journey, but Jamila prepared a silver robe and silver jewelled slippers for her to wear on her arrival as there would be some dignitaries to greet them. Her fingers, toes and ears were dressed in pretty jewels, and her long black hair was tied in a low bun which was worn at the side of her head.

‘Dismissed,’ Layla said to Jamila, and then frowned when still she stood there.

‘You will listen to what your father has to say, won’t you?’ Jamila asked, for she too was worried at the thought of Layla beyond the palace walls.

‘Dismissed, Jamila,’ Layla said.

Alone, Layla stepped out onto the balcony. The sun was starting to set and the sky was a fiery orange. The desert was like molten gold and it was a sight to behold, a view that she loved, and yet she knew there was more. She looked up to the sky, through which she would soon be being carried to her long-awaited adventure.

She knew she was being bad, and yet she had tried so hard to be good.

Once this was over she would be good for ever, Layla vowed.

This was her last chance.

Four years ago, when she was twenty, Layla had been dressed in white and gold and led down the stairs to walk into a room and select her husband from the men who knelt there.

Hussain had been and still was considered the right choice. They had played as children, and her father had told her that marrying Hussain would bring many benefits to the people of Ishla. Yet as Layla had walked down the stairs she had remembered what a mean little boy Hussain had been, and she had collapsed and started to shout and scream.

The kind palace doctor had smoothed out the offence caused by explaining that anxiety had caused the young princess to have a seizure.

Layla smiled to the sky. She had not selected her husband that day.

It had not been a seizure, just her temper exploding as she had looked at her wrist and recalled one time with Hussain.

‘How do you make a match burn twice?’ he had asked when Layla was nine.

‘Show me?’

Wide-eyed, Layla had watched as he had lit the match and blown it out and then dug the burning sulphur into her wrist.

Immediately Layla had slapped him.

Now she looked down to the small scar on her otherwise unblemished skin and wondered about Hussain’s reaction if his wife were to slap him.

He had no doubt moved on from matches now!

Layla headed back inside and opened the drawer in her dresser. Feeling far into the back, she removed the wrapped parcel she had been hiding.

Opening it, she held in her palm the black ruby named Opium. It had been gifted to her at birth by the King of Bishram and must surely be worth quite a lot.

Layla hoped that it was.

She had read that Mikael was expensive, and perhaps he would want to be paid.

Layla slipped the ruby into her tunic, worrying about something she had read on the internet about Australian Customs. She tried to tell herself that it would all be okay.

She made her way through the palace to her father’s study, where Abdul, the King’s chief aide, let her in. But Fahid dismissed Abdul so that he could speak to his daughter alone.

‘Are you looking forward to your trip?’ Fahid asked her.

‘Very much, Father.’

‘When you are in the hotel you will have your own room, with Jamila adjoining. Jamila is to take care of you there, but at all other times you are to be with either Trinity or Zahid.’

‘I know that.’

‘If you are in a restaurant then Trinity is to come with you if you need to go to—’

‘Father!’ Layla interrupted. ‘I do know the rules.’

‘They are there for your protection,’ the King said. He looked at his daughter, whom he loved so very much. She was so contrary—floaty and vague, and yet arrogant too, just as her mother Annan had been. Layla was fiercely independent, and yet naïve from living her life within the palace grounds.

‘Layla, I have not asked to speak with you to deliver meaningless words and a lecture. I really want you to listen to all that I have to say. Things are very different overseas—the people are different too. There is traffic…’ The King winced as he thought of his daughter in a foreign city with fast-moving cars when she had never so much as crossed a road.

Layla saw his grimace and her heart went out to her father. ‘I know you are worried for me, Father,’ she said. ‘I know that you have loved me from the moment that I was born…’

Again the King closed his eyes as Layla hit a still raw nerve.

He hadn’t loved her from the moment she was born.

In fact the King had rejected Layla for more than a year. Sometimes Fahid wondered if that was why Layla was so rebellious and constantly challenged him, even if she couldn’t logically know about that time.

He worried so much about her—especially knowing that soon he would be gone from his world. Surely Layla needed a stern husband like Hussain, who would keep her in line?

He would just miss the wild Layla so…

‘Do you have any questions you wish to ask?’ Fahid offered.

‘I do.’ Layla nodded. ‘Father, I was looking up the customs in Australia—I thought I would find out who curtsies to me, who bows, and what gifts we should exchange, but instead I read that at the airport your property can be searched—even your body…’ She paused when she saw her father’s reaction. ‘Why are you laughing?’

‘Oh, Layla!’ The King wiped his eyes as he tried to halt his laughter. ‘That does not apply to you . Your retinue will take care of all the paperwork and luggage and our gifts are in the diplomatic pouch. You do not have to concern yourself with such things.’

‘Thank you, Father.’

He rose from his seat and came over and took her in his arms. ‘I love you, Layla.’

‘I love you too,’ Layla said, and hugged him back, but there were tears filling her eyes as she did so. ‘I am sorry if I make you cross at times—please know that it doesn’t mean I don’t love you.’

‘I know that,’ Fahid said.

What the King didn’t know, though, was that Layla was not apologising for her past.

Instead she was saying sorry for all that was to come.

CHAPTER TWO

‘GREAT!’

Mikael had no choice but to pull to a stop as a policeman put up his hand and halted the morning traffic.

Even though he had more than enough on his mind, with closing arguments starting this morning, he flicked on the news to listen to the traffic report and hopefully find out the reason for the hold-up. He knew that he should have stayed at his city apartment, or even a hotel, instead of driving to his waterfront home last night, but he had just needed to get away from the case.

Mikael’s remote beachside home was his haven, and last night he had needed to escape from the more pungent details of the case he was consumed by and breathe in fresh air and simply switch off.

It would be over soon, Mikael told himself.

‘ Pizdet .’ He cursed in Russian when he found out that the reason for the delay was some visiting royal family, grinding everyone else to a halt.

Then he heard a little about himself as the news continued.

Mikael Romanov, SC, was surely going to lose this time…there was no way he could get his client off…

Then the calls in from listeners started and a character assassination ensued. Not of his client but himself.

‘What sort of a person is Romanov?’ an enraged caller asked. ‘How can he possibly sleep at night?’