learned she was pregnant.”
Mona looked surprised that I knew that story, but then recovered quickly and sighed before replying, “I guess Princess Janna was the one to tell you that story.” I didn’t say anything. “It’s a good thing she thought that: it was the point, to know that what she’d done was a really bad thing to do, a line that should’ve never been crossed.”
“What do you mean by ‘Good thing she thought that’? You mean it wasn’t actually the case?” I asked.
“Of course not, Princess,” she replied, “but Prince Fahd had to do it.”
“How?”
“It’s really not my place to tell, Princess.”
“Please, Mona, you can tell me. You’ve already told me a lot, so what’s one other thing?” I tried to be convincing.
Mona took a deep breath. “Prince Mazen was the first to learn about Princess Janna’s pregnancy, and Prince Fahd was the only one he told after that,” she started. “Only I know of what really happened after that.
“Both of them were really mad and angry, at your brother more than anything, but they were raised well: they knew that acting with anger wouldn’t cause anything but more damage. That’s a thing you need to learn well in order to rule a country, and they did so, they made a plan.”
“A plan?” I frowned.
“Yes, Princess,” she answered. “They made it look as if Prince Fahd learned about it at the same time as the queen, when Prince Mazen asked for both to come to Princess Janna’s wing. They knew the queen would be furious and even madder if Princess Janna wasn’t punished. She would’ve raised the issue with the king–and not in a good way–and done whatever it took to get Princess Janna her punishment, to be killed,” she sighed. “The queen has one rule that she respects most of all: respect all of the rules. Their plan was that one of them had to slap their sister in the presence of the queen, and make it look like he was going to kill her. Prince Mazen couldn’t do it, so Prince Fahd took care of it even if his heart was breaking inside–and trust me, it was. When it happened, Prince Mazen acted as if he was angry with his brother and pushed him away from Princess Janna. They threw fists at each other and made it look ugly, believable enough for the queen to believe that one of them was going to die if she didn’t stop them. Prince Mazen made it clear he wouldn’t see his sister killed, no matter what, even if he had to die for it. They made the queen come up with finding another solution herself, as that had been their plan from the start: for it to be her own idea–and it worked. Because the queen definitely wouldn’t want to see her son getting killed for something he didn’t even do,” Mona smiled.
“Wow!” I breathed.
“Sadly, the king still didn’t take it well, even though he learned about it with the solution of the trade tailing the news of her pregnancy.”
“Yeah, may God cure him,” I prayed: he seemed like a kind person.
“There are lots of things we wouldn’t know if we only heard the story from one side, Princess. And when it comes to the royal family, you can never tell what hidden intentions there are in the story, even if you heard it from both sides. Trust me, I know.”
I studied her a little longer, my eyes narrowing. “You’re really not only a servant, are you?” I asked.
“What would make you say that, Princess?” she asked with a hint of a smile on her lips.
“Aside from the fact that Prince Fahd was really surprised that you were my servant, and the fact that you knew of Janna’s pregnancy like I expected, you sure know lots of things that no servant could know without one of those persons you just talked about telling you those things themselves,” I told her.
She smiled. “No, Princess, I’m not a servant anymore, for over ten years now. Prince Mazen ordered it once he was old enough to give orders,” she told me.
“Then why are you serving me, and why did you introduce yourself as my servant?”
“Prince Mazen asked me to do it for the first seven days, until you choose one yourself. I’m the only one whom he trusted to serve you well.”
“Why?”
“Islam makes me his mother, something the queen doesn’t really like for me, or him, to address by that title,” she said.
“How