“Call yourself a desert sheikh?” she said, as she coaxed the horse into the box.
“I don’t. I’m sheikh and ruler of my people and I live, very happily, in the city.”
He closed the door after she’d made her horse comfortable with food and a drink.
“I don’t think we could be more different, you and I,” said Elaheh, getting into the Land Rover while he held open the door.
“Maybe,” he said, leaning in to pass her the seatbelt. “But fundamentally, Ela, I’m beginning to believe we have the same values. You do trust me, don’t you?”
She nodded. She’d been trying to keep brave, trying to respond to his light-hearted conversation, but she couldn’t keep it up. “I do,” she said in a hoarse whisper. “Now, let’s get out of here.” She glanced fearfully behind her where she visualized unknown assailants hunting for her, intent on returning her to a man to do whatever he wanted with her.
Xander must have caught her mood because he slammed the door shut, jumped into the Land Rover and turned it around carefully, before driving straight toward the mountains from where he’d come.
She couldn’t resist one last look at the haze of lights which indicated her land, her palace, her home. She stifled a sob before it could emerge but not before Xander’s quick glance caught it.
“What is it?” he asked, pressing his foot still harder on the accelerator.
She blinked, knowing that it was time for the truth. “When I looked back, I wondered…” She trailed off.
“What?” he pressed.
“I wondered if I’d ever see my country again.”
He reached over to her and squeezed her hand. “You will. I promise you, you will. I’ll make sure of it.”
Unlike before when he’d taken her hand, this time she didn’t pull hers away. She needed all his strength and reassurance now.
It was halfan hour to the mountains and another hour to cover the short route through them. The pass was circuitous, rough and almost impassable. If Xander hadn’t been such an expert driver, he thought, he wouldn’t have managed to get the horse box through.
“And this, Ela,” he said, as they took another horse-shoe bend, below which was a precipitous drop to a deep ravine, “is why we need to get our project started as soon as we can.”
Xander didn’t know whether it was the moonlight or fear which made Ela’s face white. Whatever the reason, the effect on him was to make him protective and angry. Whoever had threatened to rape her was no man. He’d make sure he was found and punished accordingly.
Ela looked down at the steep drop which plunged into an invisible black abyss and then back at him. “I’m certainly not driving back over this pass until the road is improved. By horse, yes. But by car? It’s terrifying.”
Xander didn’t take his eyes off the road. “We’re nearly there. And then you’ll be safe.”
Out of the corner of his eye he saw her sigh, and rest her head against the seat. When he’d first seen her at the oasis, he’d been struck by the fact her hijab had slipped and she was wearing her beautiful dark hair loose, just as she had when she’d spoken to him via video link. She’d lost that rigid, queenly look which was so off-putting and had, instead, simply looked like a beautiful, lost, scared girl, and it pushed all his buttons.
He cleared his throat. He looped around a bend and looked down to the valley below—his land, at last. The border crossing lay immediately around the next bend. He pulled the Land Rover carefully onto the side of the road. “You’d better get into the back with the horse while we cross the border. It’s best to leave no trace of your entrance into my country.”
She nodded and he helped her into the horsebox. Then he proceeded carefully along the road once more. He pulled up at the first border control which was operated by Elaheh’s officials. He lowered his window, and spoke a few words. It only needed to be a few words, given the bribe they’d received on his way here. Obviously supremely grateful for the bribe which easily matched their annual salary, the Tawazun border guards, grinning from ear to ear, indicated he should drive through. He waved and continued on to the next border control—his own this time.
He waved at the guards who saluted and lifted the barrier. They might well be wondering what their king was doing driving into the night with a horse box, but they made no query and wouldn’t spread a word of it. He was their king and they’d happily accepted the same bribe he’d given the Tawazun guards. Nothing earned silence like money, he thought. His mind drifted to Elaheh. She’d have been far too principled to offer money for something she considered should have been done through loyalty. Trouble with Ela, he thought, she was naive. And that was the missing link in her armor; that was what made her vulnerable.
He continued without stopping through his city suburbs, winding his way up to the ridge upon which the palace lay, through quiet city streets along which only a few late party-goers walked. He looked at it through Elaheh’s eyes. It would look very different to her traditional country of Tawazun. In that country the only partying going on would be around a campfire, listening to traditional music and stories. He sighed as a dim, distant memory nudged into his mind. One single image—his family. He could see it like a snapshot in his mind—his brother, Roshan, standing hands on hips with the glow of the fire flickering on his face as he made up some story or other for the delight of his parents. His father, slapping his hand on his thigh as he laughed at something Roshan had said. He never saw his mother in his imagination, but he felt her presence all around him because she was holding him. He was seated on her lap looking out, her arms around him, enveloping him in a sense of security and ease for which he’d been searching ever since.
Those memories gave way to later ones, in the same desert oasis with his family, but joined by their most treasured friends. Roshan had several; he had only one. He’d only ever needed one—Selya had been everything to him from the moment he’d met her until the moment his world had come to an end.
He closed down his thoughts immediately. Guillotined them off. He had no place in his life, in his mind, in his heart, for those savage memories. They would break him, and he refused to be broken.
Instead, he frowned with a steely focus, drove into the garage, and pulled on the handbrake with a sense of finality. But the memories, which he’d managed to suppress for so long, lingered. And he knew it had been Ela who had made them surface. For some reason she short-circuited his brain, reached in and tugged at things he tried to forget. He turned off the engine and sighed heavily. And it didn’t look like he could avoid her, or how she made him feel. At least, not for the foreseeable future.
He jumped out and looked around. There was no one to witness their arrival. Only his personal guards, and again, they’d been paid to keep their silence. He opened the rear doors and Elaheh, wearing her hijab once more, led her horse down the short ramp and into the stables.
“Go inside. I’ll take care of your horse from here,” he said.
“Really?” she replied with a smile. He didn’t think he’d ever seen her look so natural, despite the tensions of the night.