difference, the Chief Eunuch will say, and he is the one who makes the arrangement. He will come to see me. You will be here in this room … ready waiting. He will walk out with you and if anyone sees you … a few might dare to but they will be warned to stay in and not pry on Fatima’s shame … they will think you are Fatima. The Chief Eunuch will unlock the gates and you will walk through with him. He will then lock the gates and you will get into the carriage which is waiting outside. It will all go according to plan, except that you will be the one who leaves instead of Fatima.”
“Where would he take me?”
“To the British Embassy. You will tell your story. They will send you home. You cannot give the name of the Pasha because you do not know it. Besides, a foreign country cannot interfere in the affairs of another. The duty of the Embassy would be solely to get you home.”
“I can’t believe it. It sounds too easy.”
“It is not easy. It is clever and well planned. The Chief Eunuch is a very clever man.”
“And when it is found out what he has done … what will happen then?”
“It was a natural mistake. Everyone knew of your reluctance. You managed to pose as Fatima. He came to get a woman from the harem. The only one who could make trouble would be Rani and she will not be so foolish as to quarrel with the Chief Eunuch. She may suspect what she will, but she can do nothing. It is not as though the Pasha knows of your existence. You were to be a surprise for him. So there is no difficulty on that score. He will probably be told that there was trouble in the harem, and that Fatima attacked me with a knife. In the circumstances it seemed wise in the eyes of the Chief Eunuch and Rani to send her to her home. Depend upon it, very soon after you have gone, Fatima will be sent off.”
“Oh, Nicole, I can’t believe this. For so long I have hoped and tried to think of possibilities. And now … you and the Chief Eunuch are planning to do this for me. I’m not dreaming, am I?”
“As far as I know you are wide awake.”
“The Chief Eunuch is risking such a lot for me.”
“No,” she said softly.
“For me.”
“Nicole, what can I say to you? That you should do this for me …”
“I like to pay my debts. This has to work … or I shall not have done so.”
“You owe me nothing. Anything I did …”
“I know what you mean. But you have done so much for me and it is my joy to give you what you most want.”
“Your escape could have been arranged.”
“There are times in life when it is too late and that time for me is now. It is too late for … us … but not for you. Now… be prepared. Betray nothing. If it is going to work, the utmost caution is necessary.
“I know. I just want to think of what I have to do. You have surprised me. Just now I feel bemused.”
“Think about it,” she said.
“You will have to go very carefully. It is very important that this should work.”
I could not sleep. I could not eat. I went over and over the plan in my mind. To be free once more! Not to have this terrible fear hanging over me . it was a relief too great to be realized at first. To be mistress of my own destiny once more, an individual who made her own decisions, no longer a minion depending on the whim of a master who could command my presence and submission at any time he thought fit.
I thought of Simon. How was he faring? When I was free I must let it be known what had happened to him. He must be rescued. People could not be sold into slavery. That had been abolished. There should be no slaves in the civilized world. Oh . but I had forgotten. Simon did not want to be found. He was in hiding. He might be working as a slave in the Pasha’s garden, but at least he was not on trial for a crime he had not committed.
And what of Lucas? What had happened to him?
But I must not think beyond escape. I must remember that this was for what I had longed and prayed and that it was now about to happen.
Miraculously, I had acquired powerful friends and they were in a position to help me and would do so.
It would be hazardous, I knew, but I must not allow my mind to be sidetracked. I must hold myself in complete readiness for when the moment came.
A few days passed. Then Nicole said to me: “Tomorrow is the day.
Fatima is now in a room alone, waiting to be taken away. She will be angry and very frightened. She will be sent home in disgrace. She will lose Feisal. Rani says she is lucky. She might have been punished by death. If Samir had died . if I had died . then it would have been murder. You saved her from that. She has been in the harem for several years. It is a terrible disgrace. She would kill herself if she could, I know. But enough of her. The Chief Eunuch will come as if to take her but he will take you instead. “
“But she will be left here.”
“Naturally. He cannot take you both. But the trick will not be detected until you are well away. It is the Chief Eunuch’s job to find the women and Rani’s to look after them and prepare them for him. What the Pasha does not know he cannot miss.”
“But what of Rani? She has taken such pains.”
“Oh, she will be angry, but she knows she must not make trouble with the Chief Eunuch. It may be that Fatima will stay after all. On the other hand they might decide to send her away. So, who knows? You may be doing her another good turn. I do not know how it will work out, but that is not your affair. There will be a lot of chatter … much gossip … but these women are too interested in themselves to think long of others.
It will pass. “
“And if Fatima stays after all, what of you and Samir?”
“Even Fatima learns lessons sometimes. If she stays, she will be meek, never fear.
She has come too near to disaster to court it again. “
“I hope she stays. I hope for Feisal’s sake.”
“You forget she would have murdered my son … me too, if she had had the chance.”
“I know. But she did it for love of her son.”
“And for herself. She so much wants to be First Lady.”
“You will be that, Nicole.”
“I intend to be. My Samir will one day be Pasha of that I am determined. But the important thing now is to make our plan work. It will, of course. The Chief Eunuch will see to that.”
“Oh, Nicole, I wish you could come with me.” She shook her head.
“I would not. if I could. My life is now here. Years ago, before Samir came, it would have been different. I have felt all you feel now .
but fate was too much for me. There was nothing I could do and now
this is my life. Samir is to be the Pasha. That is what I want now more than anything. That is what I pray for. “
“And I pray that you will succeed.”
She nodded fiercely.
“I intend to,” she said.
“You may think I have impossible ambitions. But it did happen once .. some time ago.
There was a girl like myself. Her name was Aimee Dubucq de Rivery. She came from Martinique, as I did, and was on her way home from her school in France. She was shipwrecked and sold into a Sultan’s harem.
I read of her long ago and it has often seemed to me that I am reliving her story. I knew how she felt . how desperate at first until she became reconciled, how she sublimated everything to her son’s future. She succeeded and he became Sultan. You see, her fate is so like mine. She succeeded and so will I. “
“You will, Nicole,” I said.
“I know you will.”
The day had come.
Ever since her injury, Nicole had had a small room to herself, apart from the dormitory. The clothes I was to wear had been smuggled into this room on those occasions when the Chief Eunuch had come to see how she was progressing.
I dressed in them and then I looked like any other woman who might be encountered in the streets. I was a
