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She closed her eyes, silently and bitterly cursing Xa Shiraq. He must have found out she was no longer with Mocca and the convoy. He must realise he had been betrayed by the man now entombed inside the Gemini Peak. Xa Shiraq had entrusted that man with the task of seeing she never confirmed her father’s discovery. Now her impossible task was to convince Xa Shiraq to go to the help of his betrayer.
The helicopter had probably been searching for them when she had seen it pass overhead. It was certainly no coincidence that
it had been sent to this area. Xa Shiraq had been checking out the worst scenario he could think of and he’d come up trumps.
‘Where is the helicopter going to take me?’ she asked, hoping for some enlightenment.
‘To the sheikh’s palace at Alcabab.’
The vision of Mocca’s invoices to the palace rose in Amanda’s mind.
‘Will I see Xa Shiraq himself?’ she asked, keeping her tone light to hide the despair she felt.
The Berber shrugged. ‘It will be as he wills.’
It was hardly a conclusive reply. Nevertheless, it did make sense that Xa Shiraq would want to question her. She wondered if he would order a public trial for her crimes. Unlikely, she decided. He wouldn’t want her blabbing about the crystal caves to all and sundry in an open court. Amanda was only too well aware of how much trouble he had taken to hide their existence. She would be spirited away, never to be seen again.
Yet she would surely get the chance to talk to him face-to-face. She would tell him all, plead with him, appeal to his finer senses of humanity. She would convince him to rescue the man who had served him loyally and faithfully for so many years.
Or would Xa Shiraq leave the man to die miserably of thirst and starvation in the deep black vaults of the crystal caves?
‘Help me off this horse,’ she demanded when the troup of cavalry halted at the helicopter. Bravado seemed to be her best recourse in this situation.
‘No.’ It was the Berber captain who spoke.
‘How am I to get off it then?’ she asked.
‘Fall off it,’ he prompted unsympathetically.
‘Why won’t you help?’
‘It is forbidden to all men to touch you,’ he said.
Amanda swore again in the most unladylike manner. In her present condition there was no way she could maintain any dignity without assistance. If this was a deliberate act of humiliation...
‘Let me get this straight,’ she said in biting anger. ‘You are not to listen to any words I speak, you are to say as little as possible to me, and you’re not to touch me.’
‘That is correct,’ came the unemotional reply. ‘That is the order of Jebel Haffa to the will of Xa Shiraq.’
Amanda gritted her teeth. Words were useless weapons. She was faced with brick wall adherence to orders. If she was to get to Xa Shiraq, she had to make it to the helicopter by herself.
Somehow she managed to slide herself around the neck of the horse. It galled her that she presented anything but a dainty picture. The Berber men looked on expressionlessly as she eventually staggered onto her feet at ground level.
Amanda was more riled than she had ever been in her whole life. She was being treated as an outcast. A pariah. Purdah in its cruellest form! She felt the steam level of her boiler rising.
‘Take me to Xa Shiraq,’ she demanded. ‘I’m going to give him a fair whopping piece of my mind!’
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
KOZIM found it very stressful when Xa Shiraq maintained silence for longer than five minutes. Kozim found it so stressful that he timed Xa Shiraq’s silences so he could be quite sure whether to feel stressed or not stressed.
What was even more stressful was when Xa Shiraq accompanied the lack of speech with the tapping of his fingers. It meant the sheikh’s mind was working in mysterious ways that would inevitably confuse him. Kozim could then lose respect by giving the wrong answers.
Xa Shiraq’s respect meant a great deal to Kozim. Indeed, it was imperative he keep it. To Kozim, it was the most important thing in his life.
He decided a safe comment was in order to prompt the sheikh into talking again. This would almost certainly diminish the build-up of stress.
‘I had all the trash cans in the sheikhdom intimately examined and scrutinised,’ he said.
