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“They’ve been dealt with,” said Kadar. “Their local sheikh has taken it in hand.”
“Please,” continued the vizier, “allow me to take over the matter of your passport. I will speak directly with the consul himself to expedite it as quickly as possible for you.”
Despite her discomfort at being with Kadar and his vizier, Sarah felt a sense of relief that someone with authority would by-pass the usual consular bureaucracy and organize this for her.
“Really? Do you think you’ll be able to get it sorted quickly?”
The vizier pulled a face. “Unlikely, I’m afraid. These things do not work quickly and I know that the consul himself is out of the country at the moment. I believe he is the only one with authority to sanction such a thing.”
“But surely he has a deputy who can organize a replacement passport?”
“You would think so. But we do not receive so many international visitors to this country as you’d imagine.”
She shook her head. “But the tour bus I was on. It was full of international visitors.”
The vizier shrugged. “An anomaly.”
She looked at him doubtfully, wondering for the first time if she could trust him.
“But I will certainly do my best to expedite things swiftly for you,” the vizier said.
“And,” said Kadar, “in the meantime, please, make yourself at home in the palace.”
She chewed her lip as she considered her options. “I won’t be locked up again?”
“No, indeed. That was an oversight for which we apologize.”
She didn’t believe it, but was too grateful that she wasn’t being returned to a locked room and that the vizier was going to organize a replacement passport for her.
“Please,” said Kadar, stepping forward, “allow me to show you around the palace as a way of making amends.”
“No, it’s fine, thanks.” The last thing she wanted to do was to be in the company of the treacherous king.
“But I insist.”
“I’m sure you must have important work to do.”
“Indeed, His Majesty, does Miss Albright. But I’m here to support him and we are most anxious to make some kind of reparation for the treatment you’ve suffered since you’ve arrived here.”
She shot a knowing look at Kadar, but he didn’t have the decency to look abashed. Instead, he stepped forward and opened the door to the gardens. “Let me first show you around the gardens, Sarah. They are world famous, but few visitors get to see them.”
She hesitated, not wanting to be alone with him, but the alternative was to be lost in the maze of buildings. Then she looked into his eyes, which were softer than before, and saw in them a tenderness which touched her like nothing else could have. And she remembered the same tenderness he’d shown when they’d made love all night long. He might be the son of theman who’d ordered the murder of her parents, but she couldn’t imagine Kadar being able to do something like that in a million years. But still she hesitated.
“Please,” he added. “Apart from anything else, I feel I owe you an explanation.”
He certainly did. She gave a brief nod, exited the room through the open doors, and stepped out into another world.
“Wow,” she said involuntarily, as she took in the series of fountains of decreasing size, splitting the filtered sunlight from the trees overhead in layer upon layer of rainbows. Beneath the green canopy of leaves were exotic fruit trees and flowers from which divine fragrances wafted.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” said Kadar. “It was first created centuries ago for a favorite wife of one of my ancestors.”
“Favorite? How many did he have?” she murmured, still feasting on the sight before her. The gardens seemed to go on forever.
“There were many wives in the harem.”
She turned to see he wasn’t joking. “Well, I guess it gave the women a bit of free time if they were on a roster.”
His lips tweaked into that smile. “You do not approve.”
