Chapter 17
CHAPTER 17
I t was early. The sweet smell of night blossoms still lingered in the air, and only a few people were out and about. So when Kadar swiped the security lock onto the private garden door which led to Sarah’s suite, he was full of anticipation. He’d thought about nothing else all night long. He was determined to make her see things from his point of view. After all, they’d shared enough for her to know that his feelings for her were real. It would be fine, he reassured himself. He’d even spoken about it to his vizier, who agreed that it wouldn’t be hard to bring a woman around who’d openly declared her love for him. Women were driven by emotions, his vizier had said. And with all of his heart, Kadar wanted to believe him.
As he moved through the silent garden, the smell of the night flowers and sound of the fountain soothed him, and stirred his senses. He was looking forward to making it up to Sarah, showing her exactly how much he wanted her. He remembered the sultry afternoons and cool nights they’d spent in bed together. He’d soon make her forget her doubts, her lack of trust, and how he’d withheld the very information from him which she’d wanted more than anything. How, in her words, he’d used her. He’d make these things of the past. He just needed her to understand that they both wanted the same things.
Once he was outside her suite of rooms, he looked up and was puzzled to see the place in darkness and the windows closed. He knew she liked to sleep with them open. Maybe she’d decided she wanted the air conditioning on. He shrugged and slipped the key in the lock and went inside. He walked through the sitting room and stopped at the bedroom door. He knocked gently.
“Sarah,” he said, unwilling to enter without her permission after everything that had happened. He wanted to show her how much he respected her. He pressed his ear to the door, but there was no sound. “Sarah,” he repeated, a little louder. Still nothing, so he knocked at the door. To his surprise, it wasn’t latched properly and opened a little way. He pushed it open further and stepped inside. At first it took him a while to see anything as it was dark inside with the curtains pulled across the early gray light of dawn.
“Sarah,” he repeated one last time. But there was no sound, and with an increasing sense of dread, he approached the bed. The bed was still made. The pillows undented, and the sheets unrumpled. The bed hadn’t been slept in. He turned around and shouted at the top of his lungs, his voice full of desperation, “Sarah!”
As Sarah watched the desert landscape slide by, the anger which had fueled her actions slowly dissipated, leaving a stone where her heart should be, and an emptiness in her soul.
How she could have loved a man who had tricked her out of everything she’d ever wanted was beyond her. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t been warned. Her grandfather had told her about Kadar’s father. And she’d chosen to believe Kadar was different. Stupid, stupid, stupid. The chant repeated in her mind in time to the rhythm of the vehicle as it drove over the lines at the side of the road.
That Kadar had known about her family all along and hadn’t told her seemed the worst betrayal. He’d known how important they were to her. They were her only living relatives, for goodness’ sake. And yet he’d withheld that information for his own purposes. She didn’t think she could ever forgive him for that.
He, and his powerful vizier, would be informed of her departure soon, and then she knew they’d come looking for her. By that time, she hoped she’d have found her family. At least she knew their name, and where they lived now. She just hoped they would believe her story and that they would welcome her.
At some point in the journey, exhausted from the emotions of the previous days, she must have fallen asleep. Because she awoke with a start as they drove through a large open gate set in thick walls and into the center of a town, its marketplace.
“Where do you wish to be dropped off?” asked the driver in heavily accented English.
She lowered her head to look out the window, scanning the streets for ideas. Her aim had always been to arrive in this town, and her plans had never gone beyond that. Then she caught sight of what appeared to be an official building. If there was anything she’d learned from her time being shown around his country with Kadar, it was that the regions were very independent. She just hoped that here, far from Kadar’s influence, the regional officers would be sympathetic to her, and that her name would mean something to them.
She paid the driver, who immediately turned away for the eight-hour trip back to the city. She watched the plume of dust rise after him as he disappeared through the open gates of the town into the desert before crossing the mountain range, and felt anxious for the first time since she’d left, not about Kadar only, but about what would happen next. She’d been so full of grief at his betrayal that she’d not planned further than getting here.
She looked around. Dressed in a modest abaya and scarf, and with the same colored skin and eyes as these people, she fitted in and didn’t receive a second glance. She picked up the small bag of belongings she’d bought the day before. Most things which had been bought for her, or which she’d borrowed, she’d left behind. She had no intention of profiting from her association with Kadar. She’d only brought the essentials—enough to see her through the next few days before she returned to England.
She drew in a deep breath, walked purposefully up the wide steps and entered the building. It bore little resemblance to the buildings in the city. This was much, much older and people were everywhere, enjoying the cooler temperatures inside the stone building. She suspected that few of the people had any connection to what she reckoned was the equivalent of the town hall. But it seemed that all were welcome, anyway. She looked around and walked to what looked like the reception and began speaking in halting Arabic.
The woman waited until she’d finished. “It might be easier for us to speak in English,” she said with a smile.
Relief flooded Sarah. “Thank goodness,” she said. “I doubt I’d have made myself understood with my limited Arabic!”
“And yet”—the woman looked around Sarah—“you appear to be traveling alone, far from where tourists usually come.”
“Ah, yes. There’s a reason for that.”
“And that is?”
“I’m looking for my family.”
She woman’s eyes opened wide. “And they are?”
Sarah’s palms were sweaty with nerves as she slid her newly created passport across the table towards the woman. “They share my surname,” she said, watching as the woman’s polite smile turned into something like astonishment.
Her mouth fell open and then she looked up at Sarah and then back down at the passport again. She closed the passport with a snap and pushed it back to her, shaking her head. “No, there’s been some mistake. This is not possible.”
Sarah’s hand closed over her precious passport. One of only two items in the world which stated her real Arabic name and which proved she belonged to a family.
“What’s not possible?”
The woman had visibly paled, and she rose, her frown lowering. “Who are you really?”
“I am Sarah Al-Barraq. In England, my grandfather changed our name to Albright. But here I’ve been able to locate my original birth certificate, which has my real Arabic name. I assure you I am Sarah Al-Barraq and my grandfather was Ibrahim Al-Barraq. I was born here but had to leave because of the fate of my parents. Have you heard my name before?”
The woman didn’t answer. She was muttering to herself in Arabic and began closing up her desk.
“Please, you must help me. I’ve come so far. I need to find them.” Tears pricked her eyes.
The woman continued closing her computer, collecting her things, and then looked up, muttered a prayer, took a deep breath and turned to face her.
“Of course I know your name. Of course, I will help you. Do you think I wouldn’t help my own cousin?”
It was Sarah’s turn for her mouth to fall open. “Cousin?” she repeated faintly.
The woman walked around the desk to the public side and stood in front of her. “Yes. I am your cousin Amena.” The woman pursed her lips as if she, too, were about to cry, and then with a smothered sound embraced Sarah in a big hug. She stepped away again, her hands on Sarah’s arms, and inspected her face. “I’ve heard so much about your grandfather, and your brave parents, and we always assumed he and you had both died. My parents looked but found no trace of either of you.”
“My grandfather said we had to change our name. He was scared.”
“He was right to be. But, come, let’s go to my— our —family and reunite them with you.” She shook her head. “They will not believe it.”
And they didn’t at first. The shock was too much. But Sarah’s features were definitely shared by the family. From her hazel eyes, delicate bone structure and dark skin, she was identifiably an Al-Barraq. And her passport verified that. And when she began speaking about her grandfather and the little he’d told her of her parents and their fate, any lingering doubts were swept away. The tears began, and an old lady who’d been sitting behind the others, walked forward and embraced her. The tears ran down the folds of her weathered face.
“Your great aunt,” explained her cousin over the loud sobs. “Your grandfather’s sister.”
The old lady felt frail in Sarah’s arms as she held her close, her cheek against the her white hair, as she allowed the fact to sink in that she was embracing her grandfather’s sister. A woman who’d thought her brother had died many years earlier.
The emotional outburst of tears and joy soon gave way to a celebration which saw the women preparing a celebratory feast in her honor. And, around the enormous mahogany table in the main reception room of the large mansion, Sarah got to know who everybody was.
She was surrounded by an extended family—her grandfather’s sisters and their families. She was the only surviving member of her grandfather’s direct line—a line which was royal and which he’d sacrificed for her survival. And yet here she was, sitting amongst her family and welcomed back not only as the granddaughter of a much-beloved leader of their family, but as someone much more—someone with a duty and role to play within the tribe and this filled Sarah with apprehension.
Dinner was accompanied by the recounting of tales about her family—memories which had been hidden for too long. There were tears, hugs, and promises made that Sarah knew would never be broken. She had found her family at last, and she knew nothing would be the same again. It was only much later, as the flames from the fire dwindled away, the children had gone to bed, and dinner had been eaten, that the conversation turned from family stories to politics.
Slowly, with the help of her cousin and others who spoke English well, she learned of the historic tensions between the royal family and their own. And how it had erupted into conflict all those years before when Sarah had been a baby, leading to the death of her parents by Kadar’s father, the king. After her great uncle recounted the sad tale, he concluded by reciting the family’s bloodline from ancient times, ending with her.
She wondered if she’d heard right. She looked at her cousin for confirmation, but the woman simply nodded.
Sarah sat up on her cushions and looked around. “I’m sorry. I think I’ve misunderstood. Are you saying that I am the one remaining person of the true bloodline? That I am a potential leader to unite the tribes east of the mountains?”
There was a murmur of affirmation.
“Yes. That’s exactly right,” her cousin confirmed. “You are not only a much loved member of our family who we’d thought was lost to us, but you are also the hope of not only our family, but of our tribe, and all those east of the mountains.”
“But what can I do? I’m just a school counsellor. I’m no leader.” She looked around, trying to appeal to her newly found family. Surely they couldn’t expect her to take on such a role?
She felt her cousin’s hand on her arm and she turned to her. “Sarah, by virtue of your birth, you are a leader whether you want to be or not, whether you know it or not. There is nothing you can say which will change that. You have your parents and grandparents’ blood flowing through your veins.”
She sat back and swallowed.
“And King Kadar knew this also, which is why he wanted to marry you to nullify the threat we pose his government.”
Not the only reason , Sarah wanted to say. But she kept quiet. There was little point in confiding this to Amena because Sarah had no idea which was most important to Kadar—his love for her, or his love for his country. And she’d never have any way of knowing.