Chapter 35: March

As babies will, Nicola’s arrived in his own good time, about four days later than the doctor’s estimate. Those four days seemed like an eternity to Nicola, but she was thankful that the birth was relatively quick and easy, only an hour from her waters breaking to the young Prince’s first cries.

The Emir visited the two of them in the ward above the harem, accompanied by a gaggle of advisors. He then made a short speech in extremely swift Arabic of which Nicola understood only parts; she did gather that the child was to be called Prince Ghasaan, but she didn’t quite understand who Princess Aludra was.

When the visitors had been ejected summarily by the senior nurse, a female every bit as formidable as any ward sister that Nicola had ever seen, one of the less severe nurses asked her if she had understood all that was said.

“No,” admitted Nicola, “My Arabic is improving, but I couldn’t keep up with that speech.”

“My Master spoke quickly because he is afraid of the head nurse,” came the surprising explanation, “He was afraid she would order them all out before the ceremonies were complete.”

“And he would have gone?” asked Nicola, never having seen anyone order the Emir about.

“Oh yes. But he managed to finish before she sent him on his way.”

“If I may ask, what ceremonies were they?”

“Oh, Princess, did nobody explain? He named Prince Ghasaan, and confirmed that he is an acknowledged son of the Emir. That means he is somewhere official in the line of succession, which is a good or bad thing, depending what happens,” shushing Nicola’s questions at this point she continued, “He announced that you are now Princess Aludra.”

“Oh,” was all Nicola/Aludra could say for the moment as the nurse left the room.

Then she remembered the “good or bad thing” comment, and wished she had asked about it.

Some days later in the harem a bemused Nicola was discussing this with the Emir’s mother.

“Of course you are a Princess, and your name means ‘virgin’,” said Zub, “Your son, Prince Ghasaan, has a very old Arab name of which I do not know the meaning.”

“Does he have a British name?”

“I expect you can call him what you like, but remember he may become Emir one day.”

“Emir? Is that possible?”

“He is seventh in line for the Throne,” came the reply, “so it seems unlikely, but that’s still quite high in the list.”

“But I am not a Kobekistani, nor a wife?”

“Neither was I, but you are now of dual nationality, as I am and he is. Also my son did become the Emir from further down the pecking order; he was only the son of the fourth in line.”

Nicola was intrigued, “What did that make him? What number?”

“Nobody can really say where a grandchild fits; it depends on so many factors,” was the surprising reply, “My son tells me that mathematically you could say that the position of any particular grandchild of the Emir in the succession is only probabilistic.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Do you really want to know?” asked Zub.

“Yes please. I am trying to understand this country.”

“Bonne chance with that! Well when an Emir dies his eldest living acknowledged son inherits – that is simple.”

“Yes, I knew that,” said Nicola, now the Princess Aludra.

“Then if the Emir has no living acknowledged sons when he dies, the eldest of all the living acknowledged sons of the Emir’s acknowledged sons inherits, no matter who his father, or mother was. That is to avoid as far as possible an infant Emir. So because the Emir Ibrahim’s last living acknowledged son, the Crown Prince, died a matter of hours before his father, suddenly my David as the eldest grandson became first in line to inherit. If they had died the other way round someone else would have inherited, in particular the eldest acknowledged son of the Crown Prince who would himself have been the Emir Gamel for only a matter of hours, or even minutes.”