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Mocca led off through the corridors of the palace. As they approached a courtyard that opened out to one of the gardens, Amanda’s nose was assaulted by a revolting smell. She refrained from comment but she privately decided the sewerage system urgently needed updating.
Mocca threw open the door to a room that overlooked the courtyard and stood back for Amanda to see the occupant. The stench was dreadful.
‘We painted him with asafoetida,’ Mocca proudly announced. ‘He can’t stand the smell of himself and no-one else can, either. It is the vilest-smelling naturally occurring substance on the planet. Wasn’t that a great punishment?’
Charles Arnold was a pitiable sight. He fell to his knees in a grovelling plea for mercy. ‘Mandy, for God’s sake! Please do something! Help me!’
She fought for breath. ‘Mocca...’ she gasped, unable to share his boyish delight in the retribution taken, even though it certainly was a powerful deterrent to any human intercourse at all. Charles Arnold did deserve to know what it was like to have nastiness heaped upon him. Nevertheless, enough was enough! ‘Take him away...and let him wash it off,’ she choked out.
‘Oh, thank you, Mandy. Thank you, thank you, thank you,’ Charles Arnold raved, clearly at the end of his tether.
Amanda was sharply reminded of the abuse she had suffered from him. ‘In future, Charles, please remember that my name is Amanda, not Mandy.’
‘Princess Amanda,’ Mocca corrected, ‘and very soon to be Her Majesty,’ he added for good measure. Then he clapped his hands and the bodyguards started streaming in from the courtyard. ‘Okay, boys,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Take him away and throw him into the well from which no-one ever returns.’
‘No, no, no!’ Amanda cried. ‘I meant take him away and give him a scrubbing brush and strong soaps and deodorants...’ She gasped for breath again. The smell was suffocating. ‘I’m sorry, Charles. You are the most offensive person it’s ever been my displeasure to meet. Please learn from this experience and treat people decently in the future. I must go now.’
Xa Shiraq took her arm and gave a stern, finishing touch to her command. ‘When he is deodorised, Mocca, he is to leave Xabia and never return.’
‘Perhaps he need not wash until we see him over the border, Your Excellency,’ Mocca suggested eagerly.
Xa Shiraq curbed his enthusiasm. ‘Do as your princess commands, Mocca.’
‘Yes, yes! Her will is my will. Your will is my will, oh, most gracious and generous...’
‘How much did you pay him?’ Amanda muttered as Xa Shiraq swept her away from the putrid area.
He chuckled. ‘Such an enterprising young man deserves a reward. He turned a problem into a triumph for you, my love. The populace of Alcabab have taken you into their hearts. There is no greater joy than pelting camel dung at someone who richly deserves it. Perhaps Mocca has even given birth to a future legend. The filthy-tongued foreigner who denigrated the beauty of the Queen...’
* * *
Much later that evening Amanda was with Xa Shiraq in his private apartment. She was comfortably curled up on one of the blue velvet sofas as she questioned him about the guests who would be attending their wedding.
‘Did you realise that Jebel Haffa is not on the list?’ she asked, puzzled by the omission.
Xa Shiraq gave her a bemused little smile. ‘I as good as told you, that night in the tent outside the village of Tirham, that Jebel Haffa does not exist.’
Amanda shook her head in astonishment. ‘The second most important man in Xabia does not exist?’ she repeated incredulously.
‘It goes a long way back to the time of troubles. I needed someone who was absolutely loyal to me, whom I could always trust. There was no such person I could find. I invented Jebel Haffa.’
‘You said he was part of you,’ Amanda mused, more to herself than to him. She realised now how truly he had expressed himself.
‘It is why I have had to live a rather reclusive life,’ he explained. ‘So I could play both roles as necessary. It made a legend live. It made Xabians feel doubly secure.’
The man who was never seen, Amanda thought, except in a black cloak and hood that kept his face in shadow. ‘And no-one knows of this?’ she asked.
‘Not even Kozim.’
‘So how will you explain his absence from the wedding?’
‘It will be Jebel Haffa’s duty to look after the realm during the period of our marriage and honeymoon. When we return, Jebel Haffa will have to die. He has served his functi
on, the role he had to play.’
‘I don’t want Jebel Haffa to die,’ Amanda said. ‘He was a wonderful person. He was part of you. Can’t he be retired to his country estates?’
Xa Shiraq gave her a rueful smile. ‘Enough,’ he said. ‘You shall have your way. When we return, we will mutually decide Jebel Haffa’s fate.’
