She had to forget about Gaz and find a way to see this prince! Once she’d kept her part of the bargain, Pop would have to have the operation. He wasn’t one to renege on a deal.
And at least sorting out how you’re going to approach him should get your mind off Gaz, she told herself.
And it did, the whole matter seeming impossible until she read in the English-language newspaper that the new prince had reintroduced his father’s custom of meeting with the people once a week. Each Thursday he held court in a courtyard—was that where courtyards got their name?—at the palace, hearing grievances or problems, any subject allowed to approach and speak to him privately for a few minutes.
Reading further, Marni discovered the custom had stopped while his uncle had been the ruler but had been reinstated some weeks previously and was a great success.
She wasn’t actually a subject, but that couldn’t be helped. If she tied a black headscarf tightly over her hair and borrowed an all-concealing black abaya from Jawa and kept her head down—maybe with part of the scarf tied across the lower part of her face—she could slip in with the locals, have a minute to introduce herself and show the photo, perhaps even have a laugh with the man who’d been kind to her as a child.
The planets must have been aligned in her favour—though they’d definitely been against her last week—for the next meeting was the following day.
She emailed Nelson to tell him she was keeping her part of the bargain and to warn Pop she expected him to keep his, then went to collect the clothing she’d need.
Which was all very well in theory!
In practice, once dressed and sitting in the back of a cab on her way to the palace, a building she’d glimpsed from afar in her explorations, she realised just how stupid this was, how ridiculous the whole thing—making a deal with Pop so he’d have a lifesaving operation—fronting up to the prince of a foreign land to show him a photo of himself as a child.
The enormity of it made her shake her head in disbelief.
Yet here she was!
Huge arched gates in a high, sand-coloured wall opened into a courtyard big enough to hold a thousand people. It was an oasis of green—she remembered Gaz telling her how important green was—with beds of flowering roses, tinkling fountains, fruit trees and date palms. The garden had been designed and planted to provide shade but also to form little spaces like outdoor rooms where one could sit and read, or think, or just do nothing.
In the centre, facing the immense, low-set building, was an open grassed area and here the supplicants were gathering, seating themselves cross-legged on the ground in neat rows. Thankfully, there were not as many as Marni had expected, although, contrarily, part of her had hoped there would be too many and she could put off her ridiculous venture for another day.
She seated herself beside the last man in the back row, pleased it was a man as she knew he wouldn’t attempt to make conversation with a woman he did not know.
An exchange of salaams was enough, Marni with her head bent, not wanting to reveal pale eyes surrounded by even paler skin.
Intent on remaining unseen, she barely heard the words from the wide veranda that ran along the front of the palace. Not that hearing them more clearly would have helped.
Really smart idea, this, she thought despairingly. Just pop along to a meet and greet without a word of the language to tell you when it’s your turn to front up to His Maj!
A long line was already forming and as it snaked towards the veranda the man beside her said something then stood and joined the line. Checking that it already held some women, Marni slid into place behind him, her heart beating such a crazy rhythm she was surprised she could stay upright.
The line inched forward until she could see, on a low couch on the veranda, a white-robed figure, bowing his head as a supplicant approached him, apparently listening to the request or complaint before assigning the person to one of the men who stood behind the couch.
Some people were led to the edge of the veranda and returned to the courtyard, while others were taken in through a door behind the couch, perhaps to sort out business matters or to leave more details. Whatever reason people had to be here, the line moved without a hitch, the meet and greet, as Marni thought of it, a smoothly organised process.
The man in front of her reached the steps, and although instinct told her to flee, the memory of the greyness in Pop’s face held her steadfast in the grassy courtyard.
He had to have the operation!
The man moved on and one of the flunkeys supporting the main act waved Marni forward. Following the actions of those she’d seen, she approached swiftly, knelt on the pillow set before the robed figure and bowed her head, then lifted it to look at the face she’d seen in the newspaper back home and on billboards around the city.