Danielle Steel - H.R.H.

The door opened and a tall, disheveled-looking, dark-haired man stepped out. He looked at the three of them sitting on their bags, smiled, and rushed over to help them, with apologies for his tardiness. Looking at the ancient yellow bus, one could easily see why he'd been late.

“I'm so sorry, I'm Geoffrey McDonald. I had a flat tire on the way, it took forever to change. Not too tired, Your Highness?” he asked optimistically. He had recognized her from a copy of Majesty magazine someone had lying around, although she looked younger than he'd expected, and still fresh and beautiful after the long trip.

“Please don't call me that,” Christianna said instantly. “I hope the director in Geneva warned you. Just Christianna will be fine.”

“Of course,” he said apologetically, taking her backpack from her, as he and the bodyguards shook hands. In theory, he wasn't supposed to extend a hand to her, unless she did so first, and as he was British he was apparently aware of the etiquette involved, but she was quick to extend her hand. He shook it cautiously with a shy smile. He looked like an absentminded professor, and she liked him instantly, as did the two guards.

“I hope no one is aware of all that here,” she said, looking worried.

“No, not at all,” he assured her. “In fact, I'd been warned. I just forgot. It's rather exciting to have a princess coming to stay with us, even if no one knows. My mother would be very impressed,” he confessed, “though I won't tell her till after you leave.” There was an awkward boyishness about him that would have been hard not to love. Christianna felt instantly at ease with him. He was friendly and warm.

“I don't want the others to know,” Christianna explained again as they walked toward the bus, with both bodyguards just behind her, carrying their bags.

“I understand. We're very excited to have you here. We need all the help we can get. Two of our people got typhoid and had to go home. We've been short-handed for eight months.” He had a slightly distracted, rumpled quality to him, and looked as though he was in his early forties. He said he had been born in England, but had lived in Africa all his life, and had grown up in South Africa, in Capetown, but he'd run the camp in Senafe for the past four years. He said the facility had grown by leaps and bounds since he'd started. “They've gotten used to us by now. The locals were a little leery of us at first, although they're very friendly people here. In addition to the AIDS facility, we basically run a medical aid station for them. A doctor flies in twice a month to give me a hand.” He added that the AIDS facility they ran had been a considerable success. Their goal was to prevent the spread of the disease, as much as to treat those who already had it now. “The center has been overflowing. You'll see when we arrive. And of course we treat all the local diseases and ailments as well.” He got off the bus again before they left, and bought a soda himself. He looked dusty, and tired, and slightly haggard, as though he worked too hard, and Christianna was touched that the director had come himself.

It was exciting just being there, trying to absorb the unfamiliar sights and sounds, although they were all feeling somewhat dazed by the long trip. Samuel and Max were quiet, studying their surroundings, ever on the alert, and constantly aware that their mission was to protect her. So far so good.

When Geoff got back, he started the bus, as it made a series of horrible coughs and groans, backfired, and then shook alarmingly as it came to life. He turned to Samuel and Max with a broad grin. “I hope one of you is a mechanic. We need one desperately at the camp. We have medical personnel, but no one knows how to fix our cars. They're overeducated, the lot of them. We need plumbers, electricians, and mechanics.” The bus took off rattling down the road, stopped and then started again, as though to illustrate his point.

“We'll do our best.” Max smiled. He was much more capable with weapons, but he didn't say that. He was willing to give it a try. The bus nearly stopped again while going up a hill at a snail's pace, as Geoff chatted with all three of them. He looked as though Christianna made him slightly nervous, as he cast shy glances at her and smiled. It was impossible for him to forget who she was.

She asked him questions about the AIDS facility, the crisis of AIDS in Africa, and the rest of the medical care they provided. He explained that he was a doctor himself. His specialty was tropical medicine, which was what had led him here. As they talked, she watched the scenery drift by. There were people walking on either side of the road in brightly colored clothes, with swaths of white cloth. A herd of goats walked right across their path. The bus stopped for it, and then wouldn't start again, as a man in a turban leading a camel tried to help a young boy herd the goats. Geoff flooded the engine trying to bring it back to life, and then had to let it sit for a while as the goats finally left the road. It gave them a further chance to talk.

He was extremely informative in his data and assessments. He said they were not only treating young women, but children as well in the AIDS facility, many of whom had been raped, and then shunned by their tribes once they were no longer virgins, worse yet if they got pregnant. Their families could no longer marry them off, so they were useless in trade for livestock, land, or currency. And once they got sick, they were almost always abandoned. The number of AIDSaffected men and women was shocking, and the fact that it continued to rise was even more alarming. He said their patients were also suffering from tuberculosis, malaria, kala azar (a form of black fever), and sleeping sickness.

“We're emptying the ocean with a thimble,” he said, outlining the situation for them in words that left no doubt as to how desperate the situation of their patients was, many of them refugees from border disputes with Ethiopia in the years before the truce. He also said the truce was somewhat uneasy as Ethiopia continued to lust after Massawa, Eritrea's port on the Red Sea. “All we can do is care for them, make them comfortable, and help some of them until they die. And try to educate others about the prevention of disease.” It was a daunting prospect, as Christianna listened to him, and Samuel and Max also asked him a number of questions. Theirs wasn't a dangerous mission, but it was a depressing one. Their mortality rate was high, a hundred percent among those with AIDS. Most of the women and children who came to them were too far advanced in the disease for it to be arrested, controlled, or forced into some form of remission. One of their main goals, he said, was to prevent new mothers from passing on AIDS to their newborns, by giving both mother and infant medication and convincing them not to breast-feed. Culturally and practically difficult since many of them were so poor, they sold the formula given to them and continued to breast-feed because it was cheaper, and then the babies got AIDS too. It was a constant uphill battle, according to him, to educate and treat them, when they could. “We do what we can for them, but we can't always do a lot, depending on the situation. Sometimes we have to accept that too.” He also mentioned that Doctors Without Borders came through the area frequently and gave them a hand. They were grateful for help from other organizations as well, not just the Red Cross, although a hundred percent of their funding came from them. The local government was too poor to be of any help. He said they were planning to ask some foundations to contribute, but they hadn't had time to write the grant requests yet. Christianna thought she'd like to help eventually, thinking of their own foundation, which contributed generously to situations similar to this. She would learn more about their needs in the coming weeks and months, and talk to the foundation about it when she went back.