Princess: Stepping Out of the Shadows, стр. 10

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My wandering mind abruptly diverges from my personal memories to return to the electrifying past of Arabia. I am floating above vistas of the central region of the peninsula, where I pass over a mud-walled village situated on a plateau in the middle of the desert in the region known as Najd. The population is larger than most, with nearly 10,000 residents. Instinctively, I know this is Riyadh in the late 1800s, a time when the power of my family, the al-Sa’ud, had declined.

For more than a hundred years, from the mid-1700s, we had been a main power in the region, but in 1890 all was lost when our key regional rivals, the al-Rashid tribe, conquered and occupied Riyadh and the surrounding area.

My wandering eye does not linger in Riyadh, for in a blink my ancestors fell from the high perch of sovereignty to the level of powerless and homeless paupers. Their only possessions were what they could carry. After fleeing Riyadh, they temporarily found refuge with the al-Murrah, a Bedouin tribe located in the southern desert of Arabia.

The al-Murrah had accompanied the al-Sa’ud on tribal raids, so they were an approachable tribe in times of trouble.

From overhead I can see a lonely figure pacing amid the thorn trees in the flat desert sands on the peripheries of the al-Murrah’s black-haired tents. This man is of a towering stature and I automatically know that I am looking at my grandfather, Abdul Aziz, when he was only a teenager. He looks just as I have so often heard him described by my own father, who was one of the younger sons born to my grandfather – born too late to fight beside his father during the momentous period of making a nation, but old enough to accompany his father on camel rides in the desert after Saudi Arabia was formally named a nation.

I am open-mouthed in wonder, gazing at a man who appears physically to be perfectly formed. My grandfather is massive, with a broad chest and shoulders. His back is ramrod straight. His head is large, befitting his body size. He has a broad face, dark brown eyes and a large nose, with a thick moustache and light beard. He was famous for saying, ‘I am nothing but a simple Bedouin,’ but truthfully he looks like the king he became.

My grandfather is obviously deep in thought, for he appears to be quivering with suppressed excitement. Perhaps he is already plotting revenge against the al-Rashid tribe, for I know that his troubles were many after his family was routed from their home in Riyadh to live in shameful exile.

He remains alone and thoughtful until the sun fades and disappears into a moonless dark night, pausing only for times of prayer. I am not surprised at this scene, for my father once told me that his father had never missed a prayer. Even when he was fighting a battle he would make certain to cease momentarily to place his prayer rug on the sands and face Mecca.

The desert night is cool and he lights a fire from the palm ribs, then sits staring into the fire without eating or drinking. Finally he rises from the sand, brushing off his clothes with his huge hands before making the dawn prayer and returning to a black-haired tent where his father is sleeping. But my grandfather does not sleep. He stares into nothing until the sun rises full and yellow on a new day. I know in my own heart that his thoughts rest on the Najd, the only home he had ever known, and the home he cannot forget.

My family’s exile kept them for nearly two years with the al-Murrah. That time of banishment was not wasted. Grandfather told his sons many stories of how he trailed the men of the al-Murrah and absorbed their desert skills, abilities that would help him when he fought to form a nation, for Arabia was a land of tribes. My grandfather acquired crucial familiarity with the Bedouin life, knowledge that he could have never known without the al-Murrah. The village Arab became an expert in tracking and raiding, and his heightened skills enhanced future negotiations with the numerous tribes of Arabia when he fought and bargained to bring them all together.

After two years of Bedouin life the al-Sa’ud sought and gained refuge in Kuwait. Once again the young Abdul Aziz prudently observed and developed skills he could never have attained had he remained in the Najd, a region of Arabia too harsh to invite intruders. However, a few world powers such as England, Germany and the Ottoman Empire had a great interest in Kuwait, for it was a coastal land with much promise. Due to their pearl diving and shipping of merchandise all over the region, Kuwaiti rulers were accustomed to travelling the world, thus becoming familiar with lands and peoples outside the desert region.

My grandfather’s father was often at the Kuwaiti Emir’s court and took his son, my grandfather, with him. The Kuwaitis, led by their Emir, who was so cunning that he was called Mubarak the Great, were expert dealers, trading wares with the English, the Turks, and other regional and European powers. It was there, in Kuwait, that my grandfather acquired a host of invaluable skills in negotiating with foreign powers.

Thus, in his young manhood, Grandfather acquired multiple talents of how to successfully negotiate with Bedouin tribes and with Western statesmen. None could obstruct him at the bargaining table, whether the talks were inside a black-haired tent with uneducated but clever Bedouin or in an opulent structure encountering the most educated men of Europe and America.

My grandfather confronted defeat with determination and defiance, and when he heard that the al-Rashid were plotting to attack our family’s Kuwaiti hosts, Grandfather convinced his father and the Emir of Kuwait that he should return to Riyadh to displace the al-Rashid.

His verbal skills did not fail him. Although he was provided with