Chapter 6: Boots And A Burkah

Two days later we returned to the palace to discuss the arrangements for Helena's departure. She was sprawled beside the pool, wearing the same white swimming costume, soaking up the last remnants of the afternoon sun. I had the copies of Helena's consent form, signed in her child-like script, and I planned a discreet departure, a closed carriage to the flight field and a comfortable journey back to England on Mr Brainstorm's dirigible.

"No," Helena said bluntly when presented with the thought. "I'm not bleeding sloping off like that. I'm a fucking princess, right? I'll get me uncle to organise an open carriage. Bit of a parade. Wave good bye to my people, that sort of thing. I'm going off to marry into the British Royal Family for fuck's sake. That's worth a bit of a show, isn't it?"

"I think we were feeling that there shouldn't be too much song and dance about it," Amelia said. "Not too much fuss."

"Your problem, innit?" Helena responded defiantly, rummaging in her bag for her mirror, lipstick and powder compact. She turned to her favourite activity of minutely adjusting her hair and make-up.

Amelia turned towards me. "Could we have a word? Over there." She nodded towards a shady corner near a ruined arch.

We walked across. Helena, scowling, sat back down on her lounger.

"We can't let her carry on like that!" Amelia seemed very insistent, suddenly. She appeared quite unlike the mousey, quiet woman I had come to know over the last few days. "This all needs to be done quietly."

"Well, I'm not sure how we can persuade her," I began, but then noticed Amelia seemed distracted, peering behind me at something over my shoulder. "What's she up to now?" I said, assuming that Helena was the cause of Amelia's concern.

"Shut up and keep still," Amelia snapped and bent down to rummage in her carpet bag. She pulled out a long-barrelled revolver and, in one movement, crooked her arm to steady the barrel, sighted, cocked, and fired. There was a thunk as the silenced shot spat by me. "What on earth!" I exclaimed and turned to see a figure dressed in a Burkah, not far from the Princess, drop to the floor.

"Come on!" Amelia exclaimed, pushing the gun back into the bag and making off towards Helena as fast as she could. By the time Amelia reached her, Helena was on her feet holding her hands to her mouth and staring, wide-eyed, at the body stretched out on the floor. Amelia crouched down beside the body and wrenched open the Burkah. The veiled robe concealed a man. Hidden beneath the robes was a large scimitar with a blade that looked terrifyingly sharp. "I saw his boots," Amelia said by way of explanation, though why a representative of the British Council should be looking out for such a thing and carrying a silenced, long-barrelled pistol as well, I wasn't clear. "Ottoman assassin."

"Ass ... ass..." Helena at first seemed dumbstruck but her words gave way to screams almost at once.

"Oh, for heaven's sake," Amelia said, reaching into her bag once more. Her hand came out clutching a white cloth. She quickly wadded it up into a pad, un-stoppered a small brown bottle, poured the contents onto the cloth and then stepped behind the screaming Helena and clamped the pad over her mouth and nose. Amelia's action startled Helena out of her screaming fit and into a struggling, kicking attempt to break free from Amelia's grasp. Pulled back against Amelia's long gown it might have been thought that the almost naked Helena would soon gain the upper hand but with all her struggles she only served to breathe more deeply on the suffocating chemical that impregnated the cloth. After a few moments her struggles ceased and Amelia allowed the unconscious Helena to slide slowly to the ground.

Amelia reached into her bag once more and took out a mirror. She moved it in the sunshine, pointing it towards the plain below us. An answering flash seemed to give her the response she expected.

"Don't just stand there," she snapped at me and then pointed at the assassin's body. "Put him out of sight."