And, yes, you may go to the oasis if you like. Watch out for snakes.’
She nodded, her heart thumping with both victory and relief. She had a plan. She could finally do something.
‘Are you going somewhere?’ she asked, her gaze sliding to the horses that were being saddled nearby. If Khalil was gone, all the better.
‘Yes.’
‘Where?’
‘To meet with some of the Bedouin tribes in this area of the desert.’
‘Rallying support?’ she queried, an edge to her voice, and he lifted his eyebrows.
‘Remember what I said about arguing?’
‘How was that arguing? I’m not going to just give up, if that’s what you want. “Attack is the secret of defence”,’ she quoted recklessly. ‘“Defence is the planning of an attack”.’
Khalil nodded, a slight smile on his lips. ‘The Art of War by Sun Tzu,’ he said. ‘Impressive.’ She simply stared at him, chin jutted out, and he quoted back at her, ‘“He who knows when he can fight and when he cannot will be victorious”.’
‘Exactly.’
He laughed softly, shaking his head. ‘So you think you can win in this situation, Your Highness, despite all I’ve said?’
‘“The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting”.’
He cocked his head, his gaze sweeping over her almost lazily. ‘And how do you intend to subdue me?’
Surely he hadn’t meant those words to have a sensual intent, a sexual innuendo, yet somehow they had. Elena felt it in the warmth that stole through her body, turning her bones liquid and her mind to mush.
Khalil held her gaze, his eyes glowing gold and she simply stared back, unable to reply or even think. Finally her brain sputtered back into gear and she forced out, ‘“Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night”.’
‘Clearly you’ve studied him well. It makes me curious, since your country has been at peace for nearly a thousand years.’
‘There are different kinds of wars.’ And the war she fought was scarily subtle: a murmured word, a whispered rumour. She was constantly on the alert for an attack.
‘So there are. And I pray, Your Highness, that this war for the throne of Kadar might be fought without a single drop of blood being spilled.’
‘You don’t think Aziz will fight you?’
‘I hope he knows better. Now, enough. I must ride. I hope you enjoy your day.’
With that he strode towards the horses, his body dark and powerful against the brilliant blue sky, the blazing sun. When he had gone Elena felt, absurdly, as if something was missing that she’d both wanted and enjoyed.
* * *
After Khalil had left, riding off into the desert with several of his men, great clouds of dust and sand billowing behind them, Elena went back to her tent. To her surprise, she saw a book—The Making of Modern Kadar—had been placed on her bedside table. Was Khalil being thoughtful, she wondered, or mocking?
Curious, she flipped through the book. She already knew the basics of Kadar’s history: its many years of peace, isolated as it was on a remote peninsula, jutting out into the Arabian Sea. While war had passed it by, so had technology, and for centuries it had remained as it had always been, a cluster of tribal communities with little interest beyond their nomadic life of shepherding. Then, in the early 1800s, Sheikh Ahmad al Bakir, the great-great-grandfather of Hashem, had united the tribes and created a monarchy. He’d ruled Kadar for nearly fifty years, and since then there had only been peace and prosperity.
None of it told her why Khalil believed he was the rightful ruler and not Aziz, Hashem’s only son. The book didn’t even hint at any insurgency or civil unrest; if it was to be believed, nothing had caused so much as a flicker of unease in the peaceful, prosperous rule of the House of al Bakir.
She tossed the book aside, determined not to wonder any more about Khalil. She didn’t need to know whether his claim had any merit. She wasn’t going to care.
She just wanted to get out of here, however she could. Resolutely, she went in search of Leila. The guards outside her tent summoned her, and Leila was happy to show her the way to the oasis. She even brought Elena a swimming costume and a packed lunch. It was all so civilised, Elena almost felt guilty at her deception.
Almost.
Alone in her tent, she searched for what she needed. The legs of the table were too thick, but the chairs might do.
Kneeling on the floor of the tent, the sound muffled by a pillow, she managed to snap several slats from the back of a chair. She stuffed the slats in the bag with the picnic and with her head held high walked out of the tent.
The guards let her pass and Leila directed her down a worn path that wound between two towering boulders.
‘“Threading the needle”, it’s called,’ Leila said, for the path between the rocks was incredibly narrow. ‘It is a beautiful spot. See for yourself.’
‘And you’re not worried I’ll make a run for it?’ Elena asked, trying to keep her voice light. Leila’s face softened in sympathy, causing another flash of guilt that she ruthlessly pushed away. These people were her captors, no matter how kind Leila was being. And she had to escape somehow.
‘I know this is difficult for you, Your Highness, but the Sheikh is a good man. He is protecting you from an unhappy marriage, whether you realise it or not.’
Now that was putting quite a spin on things. ‘I wasn’t aware that Khalil was concerned with the happiness of my marriage,’ Elena answered. ‘Only with being Sheikh.’
‘He is Sheikh already, of one of the desert tribes,’ Leila answered. ‘And he is the rightful heir to the throne of Kadar. A great injustice was done to him, and it is finally time to make it right.’
Again Elena felt that uncomfortable flicker of uncertainty. Leila sounded so sure...as sure as Khalil. ‘What injustice?’ she asked before she could think better of it. Leila shook her head.
‘It is not for me to say. But if you had married Aziz, Your Highness, you would have been marrying an impostor. Very few people outside of Siyad believe Aziz should be Sheikh.’
It was what Khalil had said, yet Elena could not accept it. ‘But why?’
Leila’s forehead creased in a troubled frown. ‘You must ask Sheikh Khalil—’
‘He’s not really Sheikh,’ Elena interjected, unable to keep herself from it. ‘Not of Kadar. Not yet.’
‘But he should be,’ Leila said quietly, and to Elena she sounded utterly certain. ‘Ask him,’ the older woman advised. ‘He will tell you the truth.’
But did she want to know the truth? Elena wondered as she walked between the towering rocks towards the oasis. If Khalil had a legitimate claim to the throne,
