by C. L. Donley
“Very well. It would please the king to make this matter entirely your problem.”
“Thank you my king.”
“The moment it becomes my problem again, the law will be reinstated.”
“A wise decision, my king.”
“Anything else?” Bel unexpectedly asked her.
Hmm…
“Nothing except… you’re very handsome.”
The energy of the entire room struggled to remain neutral.
“You address the king too informally, but the king is… pleased to receive the queen’s approval.”
“May I go?” she politely asked.
Bel sat back somewhat in wonder. Not only had his mother apparently taught Kim everything to do, but she’d executed it with precision.
“You may,” he smiled.
Kim bowed low, and her attendants moved in front of her, her cue to turn around and make an equally fierce exit. She found her inner Tyra Banks as she made her way down the purple runway, past the king’s attendants and out of the throne room doors.
After the queen’s visit, Bel started to understand why a king would refuse an audience with his queen.
He’d always assumed it was because whatever a queen requested an audience for was probably frivolous, and a king could only handle so many frivolous issues in a day. Or perhaps the queen was simply obnoxious. In the past, there had been kings that never granted their queens an audience and ones who always granted every request. Unfortunately, the habit itself gave no major indication of what kind of king the country had on its hands. When the former king would refuse Bel’s mother, he had to assume it was a matter of his father being too busy, or perhaps it was distracting. Now being directly in the same boat, he suspected the answer was something far simpler.
For one thing, the throne was useless for hiding boners.
When the queen made her entrance he was infused with all manner of feelings, pride chiefly among them. Everyone expects the king to marry a dime, but in a country where the common people believe that every American lives like royalty, Kim was feeding that assumption. He’d recognized her well enough when she entered, registered that the queen had requested an audience with the king, but it took his mind a minute to realize that he was the king, and that the gorgeous woman in front of him was his wife.
She was covered from head to toe in a gorgeous gown, save for her midriff, which sent the blood rushing directly to his groin and he had to grip the arms of his throne. Kim was never a particularly provocative dresser, but she was an American, and women still dressed conservatively in Ghassan. He hadn’t expected Kim to embrace the fashion, but she loved the colors and fabric and loved seeing as much of it on herself as possible. It had the unfortunate effect of turning something as simple as a shoulder blade into a spiraling temptation. Seeing the top half of Kim’s belly button in the middle of the day was just about all he could stand.
Then she opened her mouth. He’d never heard her conduct herself that way. He himself was nervous for her to see him have to act so formally, and for the possibility that he might have to admonish her if she didn’t know the protocol. But his fears were unfounded. She made the king’s aide look positively petty. And she made him look like a genius. Now they all knew what he knew: she was no ordinary woman.
To call it a distraction would have to do since there was no better word. When they told him the queen was requesting an audience, he was a bit taken aback.
“The queen mother?”
“No, your highness.”
At once his pulse quickened. He felt hot and cold. He thought back to the night before and suddenly realized that when his mother said she would handle the situation, they obviously had two very different interpretations of that.
But once she was there, he hadn’t wanted her to leave. He’d wished, somewhat dangerously, she would’ve teased him a bit more. If she had, he probably would’ve dismissed every last one of them so she could grab both sides of the throne, free those tits with a single unbuttoning and bounce on his royal lap. Yes, he was useless that day, sitting at the head of the conference table holding his chin, hiding goofy grins behind his hand. Suddenly, one of his attendants had returned.
“Your Highness, the French ambassador is here, requesting an audience.”
The king bristled. He’d seen him only a week ago at the wedding, a slimy motherfucker. He was definitely guilty, but of what he wasn’t quite sure, and since he’d had the good sense to accept the wedding invitation, he’d held off on losing his temper and having him tortured for what he knew.
“Let him in.”
When the king again returned to the throne room, the ambassador looked peaked, disheveled. Like a man without a country; that is, like a man without any useful allegiances. Bel decided against rubbing whatever the result of his dealings was in his face but still lowered his previous level of diplomacy.
“What do you want,” the king bellowed harshly.
The ambassador was equally frank.
“Asylum.”
“In exchange for what?”
“Everything.”
Fifty One
Chapter 51
Prince Semih al Malwali of Ghassan awoke yet again in the middle of the day. His mouth was dangerously parched, his lips cracked, his head pounding. He’d fallen asleep in the back of a Range Rover, the driver of whom had agreed to drive them across the border of Ghassan to the neighboring country of Manaf, where they could be granted asylum and there try to salvage any remaining pieces of their campaign for the throne against Belkacem. Semih knew they had no chance, but his mother’s words were so powerful and compelling.
“The king has enemies all over, not just in Ghassan.”
“The king is dead!”
Adela grabbed her son by both sides of his head.
“Any Malwali is our enemy!”
“But my brothers!”
Adela smacked her son across the face.
“Enough!”
It took everything in her power not to tell Semih the truth, not to tell them both the truth. Though she never understood how the king’s royal guard could be foolish enough to not even suspect. How could he be her lover all these years and not realize they had a son? Unless of course, he was smarter than she gave him credit for. She doubted it. Farouk was cursed with a deep sense of honor, and Semih obviously didn’t have the spine to tell a simple lie, even with the very throne of Ghassan in his grasp. If he knew he’d hadn’t had an ounce of royal blood, he would’ve died of fright, right after he shat himself. A level of weakness he’d obviously inherited from his father.
Semih was tired. This week had been his first ever he’d ventured so far beyond the palace. He missed the pampering of servants and maids and masseuses. After he’d finished his education, he wanted to become a computer engineer and go to America to work for his brother. But his mother was disappointed at every turn, at every talk of doing anything other than becoming king. When the king’s oldest son had died during a combat exercise, Semih’s mother became particularly obsessed with the notion.
“But Belkacem is the rightful king now.”
“Belkacem abdicated years ago; he doesn’t want it!”
“Father would never agree to give it to someone like me, and besides I don’t want it either.”
When the king began instead grooming Fahid to be his successor, his mother’s nagging became relentless. Until one day, she’d become quiet. As silent as the grave. It unnerved him.
“Mother,” he’d said, “what are you hiding from me?”
“Nothing, my dear,” she’d answered. “I’m just so proud of you, my Semih.”
It was the first time he’d ever heard the words, and she suddenly began saying it often. So much, in fact, that it started to affect his confidence. He began to look around and see himself as the prince among men that he was. He was technically second in line for the kingdom after all. Why couldn’t there be a thinking man on the throne? What use was there for so many guns in
times such as these?
The Range Rover screeched to a halt.
“Get out. We’re here,” Farouk, Semih’s real father, bellowed from the front seat.
As much as Farouk had loved Adela all these years, he would never forgive her for the miscalculation that stripped him of his dignity and tore him away from his wife and children. Who were now in mortal danger because of her actions if not dead already, dead as they would be.
Not only were they treasonous, but when her European ally jumped ship, Adela had actually attempted to trap Fahid and kill him. Luckily Belkacem was smarter than she’d anticipated. Not that they’d had any idea what to anticipate. As far as any of them knew, he was spoiled and selfish and far more interested in being American than being Ghassani after the death of his first wife. But apparently, he’d been faking them all out this entire time. Farouk didn’t know what kind of king Belkacem would be, but if he were any king worth his salt, they would never make it past this border. If he was anything like his father, he might let them get as far as the embassy, perhaps even let them have a meal before they were made an example of.
Farouk moved to the back of the truck with little haste, like an apparition. Adela jumped out, still with fire in her eyes and an air of survival and hope. If only he could understand what was fueling her. He would kill her himself if he thought it would save his life. But he knew it wouldn’t. The only thing that was left for him to do was to try and protect the late king’s son, the one job he’d had in life and one that he took seriously. It wasn’t Semih’s fault that he’d been cursed with such a devious mother.
They got to the border of Manaf and Adela began her theatrics. She explained that they were fleeing Ghassan’s now evil regime, where King Belkacem was holding all the king’s former concubines hostage and/or killing them. That he’d offered an olive branch to the rightful king, her son, only to retract it and that his public persona was only a front for his private sins. As Farouk wondered where she’d learned to do all this, and if it were possible that she’d actually bought them some time, the officers told them to wait there.
At that moment, he knew.
They’d gone as far as they could go.
Semih looked unusually serene. He was usually frantic and anxious, unsure and a bit resentful. For the last few days, he’d looked simply tired. But now, he didn’t even look tired. He looked resigned.
“Semih,” Farouk addressed him, rather than “your highness.”
Semih slowly returned his gaze and looked him directly in the eyes.
He’d never done it before, out of fear most likely rather than royal deference.
Then he saw it. The visage behind his mother’s eyes that was familiar, hauntingly so.
Farouk was frozen.
That bitch, he thought.
As Farouk drew his weapon in a sudden act of protection for what he had left, a single round of M16 fire ended the struggle before it began.
* * *
“So you’re a drug-running weapons dealer,” said Bel to the former French ambassador.
“Was, my king. And not directly,” he corrected.
“And Adela was helping you.”
“We helped each other, my king.”
“And all this buggery has nothing to do with the pipeline.”
“The pipeline was inconvenient to our operations, my king. Our… connections would rather remain anonymous, which the pipeline would’ve made impossible.”
“And the leader of the king’s guard is Semih’s real father.”
“Apparently,” the ambassador said. “I didn’t make a habit of believing everything that came out of Adela’s mouth, but that seemed pretty real, my king.”
Bel and Fahid looked at each other in disbelief as the ambassador laid out an entire lifetime of events that unlocked Adela’s plot and motivations.
It turned out Adela’s parents had been loyalists of the usurper who staged a coup over sixty years ago, the coup that’d caused Bel’s grandmother to go into labor prematurely and lose his father’s twin brother. Six years later the coup was over, Bel’s family was back in the palace, and the usurper and everyone who’d followed him was hunted down and killed.
Adela’s parents were merchants who had simply done whatever they could to survive— but so were the rest, once they were looking down the barrel of a gun. Who knows if they’d been telling the truth, but Adela seemed to be of the opinion that they were. It was a grudge that she and a fringe, silent minority like her had held in certain parts of the country. How she’d caught the attention of the king years later was still a mystery, but not a stretch to imagine.
“Why on Earth would you join forces with a loose cannon like Adela.”
“With all due respect, my king, it would’ve worked if you hadn’t come home when you had. The longer you stayed, the longer she was convinced that she would have to kill you too. I warned her that France would pull their support if she deviated from the plan. Obviously, I couldn’t tell her that the French embassy didn’t have the foggiest idea of who she was. She threatened to go above me, to say she needed more manpower. And then…suddenly you left.”
“You should’ve put a bullet in her head.”
“I should’ve.”
“And now, you want me to reward you for telling me of all the treachery you planned for me and my family.”
“It was never personal, my king. Your father was… in the way. We thought we’d found a feasible way to remove him without it being traced back to us.”
“I find it interesting that you keep using the word ‘we’ and ‘our’ and ‘us.’”
The former French ambassador hesitated, fearful to utter another word, his expression like that of a deer in headlights.
Was it a reaction of guilt, or merely one of fear of being presumed guilty?
Bel rolled his eyes. Enough of this, he thought.
“Kill him,” he said.
Fahid let his disapproval show, but he said nothing as his guards dragged the former French ambassador begging from the room until it was silent again.
“I’m afraid I don’t have the stomach for keeping my enemies close,” Bel answered Fahid’s unsaid question in Farsi.
“This will spark a national incident.”
“You assume he told anyone where he was going.”
“Your Highness—”
“Meanwhile my father is killed in secret. And France suffers no embarrassment when they appoint a drug-runner as its face.”
“We still don’t know where Adela and Semih are. We don’t know how far-reaching this network of—”
“I don’t give a shit!” Bel suddenly blurted out. He was suddenly willing to have the shortest reign in Ghassani history. His father was dead. Semih, an innocent child, was used as the pawn in a murderous vindictive lunatic’s quest for revenge. Semih was a calf Adela had spent her entire life fattening. He’d never had a chance. Bel was mad at the world.
“What!” the king exploded. In the corner of his eye, he’d caught an attendant apprehensively approaching at the door, presumably with news that probably wasn’t good.
“The king of Manaf is on the phone for you, your Highness. He says it’s urgent.”
* * *
Kim had begun a routine of wading in the pool in the evenings since it took forever for the sun to go down in Ghassan. On this particular evening, she was reclining in a lounge chair on a video conference call with Mya and Amara, watching the orange sun sink clear past the desert ground from her backyard. She’d caught them up on virtually everything that happened in the past week or so, which was an hours-long ordeal. They were all in New York, having been on location for a music video that Mya was choreographing for Lizben, the hottest female rapper in the States right now. Kim knew her life had changed when she hadn’t felt a tinge of jealousy. Yet somehow it still just felt like they were girls at a wedding, trying to get some hot-ass billionaires to look twice at them. Not that they’d each found the men that would completely change thei
r lives, and live in their respective realities.
“Okay so first of all, Bel is like…Batman here,” Kim began.
“Mya called me like, ‘Uh, Kim is on the TV right now here. And she looks fierce,’” Amara said.
“Bitch, the head scarf…” Mya marveled.
Kim laughed. “It’s actually a royal headdress, but please continue.”
“Serving us Audrey Hepburn realness!!”
“Werrrrrrrrk!”
“Did you see the video he posted?”
“Um, it’s got like, a half billion views, girl everyone has seen it.”
“That threat at the end tho!”
“Right?”
“I was like, ‘oh shit; he’s like Black Panther,’” Amara said.
“More like Brownish Beige Panther, but yes you are entirely correct,” Kim said. The girls laughed.
“So is he like…for real a badass?”
“For real. I went to go see him today? Bitch, I had to request an audience, I had to put my best shit on. His mama was like, ‘do not approach unless you ask them, because they will straight body slam you, crown be damned.’”
“Whaaaaat…”
“I was like, ‘request permission to approach the bench, your honor.’”
Mya cackled.
“What did he say?”
“He had to be all formal, but I could tell he was just lookin’ at me like, ‘what you want, girl. The answer is yes.’”
“What did you want?”
Kim didn’t want to go that far into it, but she explained the predicament between her attendant and her bodyguard.
“Your bodyguard is named Nas?”
“He won’t let me call him that, but yes.”
“I know you tried it,” Amara laughed.
“He let you change a law??”
“Provisionally, yes.”
“…How did everyone take that??”
“He’s got this one, hatin’ ass old advisor that was like, ‘this is the way it’s always been!’ But whatever. He can stay mad.”
“Girl, don’t be havin’ them people do all kinds of crazy stuff. Hip Hop Wednesday and shit.”
