Shackled to the Sheikh(5)

The vizier shook his head. ‘I almost wish I could tell you she was, but sadly no, your mother died while you were in infancy, as you are no doubt aware. I am sorry,’ he said. ‘I know this must be difficult for you, but there is more. Much more.’

Rashid waved the threat in those words away. ‘I already know about this so-called sister, if that’s what you’re referring to.’

‘Atiyah? Yes, she is on her way here now, I believe. But I was not referring to her.’

He frowned. ‘Then what? In fact, why are you here? What do you have to do with my father’s affairs anyway?’

The older man regarded him levelly, his eyes solemn. ‘I know you were brought up,’ he said, slowly and purposefully, as if sensing Rashid’s discomfiture, ‘believing your father to have been a humble tailor, killed in an industrial accident...’ He paused, as if to check Rashid was still listening.

He was listening all right, although it was hard to hear with the thumping of his heart. Today he’d expected answers. Instead all he was getting was more of the madness.

‘In actual case, your father was neither. Your father was a member of the Royal House of Qajar.’ He paused again. ‘Do you know much of Qajaran?’

Rashid closed his eyes. He knew the small desert country well enough—his work as a petroleum engineer had taken him there several times. It had a problematic economy, he was aware, like so many countries that he visited, not that he had paid this one much more attention than he paid any of them. He had learned early on in his career that it was better not to get involved in the affairs of state when one was a visiting businessman.

But for Rashid’s father to have been a member of the House of Qajar—the father he’d believed to be nothing more than a tailor—then he must have been a member of the royal family...

The wheels of his mind started turning. ‘So who was my father?’

‘The Emir’s nephew...’ the vizier paused again ‘...and his chosen successor over his own son who he judged as being too self-centred and weak.’

His nephew? His chosen successor? ‘But if what you say is true...’ Rashid ground out the words, still not convinced by the story he was hearing ‘...why was he living here in Australia? What happened?’

The older man took a sip of his milk and returned it to its coaster, every move measured and calm and at odds with the turmoil Rashid was feeling inside.

‘Your father was an accomplished polo player,’ the vizier said, ‘and while he was overseas competing in one of his polo competitions, the old Emir died suddenly.’ He paused on a breath, the silence stretching out to breaking point. ‘Some would say too suddenly, and, of course, there was some suggestion at the time that the timing was “convenient”, but nothing could ever be proved. By the time your father had arrived home, the Emir’s son had announced his ascension to the throne and moved the palace forces squarely behind himself. Your father knew nothing of this and was placed under house arrest the moment he returned to the palace. But your father was popular with the people and questions were inevitably asked about his disappearance—uncomfortable questions when all of Qajaran knew he was the favoured choice for Emir—and so Malik announced he was to be appointed special adviser to the Emir while deciding privately that it would be better to have him out of the way completely.’

‘So they exiled him?’

‘No. Malik was nowhere near that merciful. The plan was to kill him but make it look like an accident. A helicopter accident en route from the mountain palace to where the ceremony would take place.’

Air hissed through Rashid’s teeth.

‘Fortunately your father had a supporter in the palace. My predecessor could not stand back and let such a crime happen. They secreted bodies from the hospital morgue and when the time came, they parachuted to safety and the helicopter duly crashed, its cargo of dead burned beyond recognition, assumed to be the pilot and the true heir to the throne. Clothing from a small child was found in the wreckage, jackals assumed to have made off with the remains.’

Rashid felt chills down his spine. ‘A small child,’ he repeated. ‘Me.’

The vizier nodded. ‘You. The new Emir was leaving nothing to chance. But your father’s life came at a cost. To protect the lives of those who had saved him and his son, he had to swear he would never return to Qajaran, and he would live his life as an exile with a false identity. Your names were both changed, your histories altered, but, even so, as a father and son you would have been too recognisable together, and so, in order to keep you safe, he had to cut you free.’

Rashid’s hands curled into fists. ‘I grew up alone. I grew up thinking my father was dead.’’

The vizier was unapologetic. ‘You grew up in safety. Had Malik suspected even one hint of your existence, he would have sent out his dogs and had you hunted down.’

Rashid battled to make sense of it all. ‘But Malik died, what? Surely it’s a year ago by now. Why did my father keep silent then? Why did he not move to claim the throne then if he was still alive?’

The older man shrugged and turned the palms of his hands up to the ceiling. ‘Because he had made a solemn promise never to return and he was a man of honour, a man of his word.’

‘No, that doesn’t cut it. He still could have told me! He could have sought me out. Why should I have been denied knowing my father was alive because of a promise he’d made to somebody else years ago?’

‘I know.’ The vizier exhaled on a sigh. ‘Rashid, I am sorry to be the one to tell you this, but your father decided it was better that you never knew of your heritage. I sought him out after Malik died. I begged him to reach out to you—I begged him to let me reach out to you—but he refused. He said it was better that way, that you never knew the truth, that it couldn’t hurt you any more than it already had. He made me promise not to contact you while he lived.’

Rashid shook his head, his jaw so tightly set he had to fight to squeeze the words out. ‘So he decided to keep me in the dark—about everything. Even the fact my own father was still alive.’

‘Don’t you think it cost your father—to be cursed with only seeing his son from afar and searching the papers for any hint of where you were and what you were doing? But he was proud of you and all that you achieved.’

‘He had a funny way of showing it.’

‘He saw all that you achieved by yourself and, wrongly or rightly, he chose to let you remain on that path, unfettered by the responsibility he knew would come if you knew the truth.’

The sensation of scuttling insects started at the base of his neck and worked its way down his spine. He peered at the vizier through suspicious eyes and asked the questions he feared he already knew the answers to. ‘What do you mean? What responsibility?’

‘Don’t you see? You are Qajaran’s true and rightful ruler, Rashid. I am asking you to come back to Qajaran with me and claim the throne.’





CHAPTER FIVE

RASHID LAUGHED. He couldn’t help but laugh, even though he’d half suspected something similar, but the old man was so fervent and the idea so preposterous. ‘You can’t be serious!’

‘Please forgive me, but I am not in the habit of joking about such matters.’

Rashid got the impression the man was not in the habit of making jokes at all, the complete lack of humour in the vizier’s response stopping Rashid’s mirth dead. ‘But I haven’t lived in Qajaran since I was a boy, if what you say is true, because I certainly can’t even remember a time when I did. I have visited it briefly two or three times since at the most. There must be someone better, someone more qualified?’

‘There has been a power vacuum since Malik’s death. A Council of Elders has taken over the basics of governing, but there is no clear direction and no one person to take responsibility. Qajaran needs a strong leader, and there can be no one more fitting than the son of the true successor. In the beginning, I know it is what your father wanted for you, to reclaim your birthright, even though with time he changed his mind and wished for you the freedom that he had found. He had made a life here, after all, and I think the longer he was away from Qajaran, the less connection he felt and the less your father felt he owed his homeland.’

‘The father I never knew,’ he said, not even trying to prevent the bitterness infusing his voice. ‘If indeed he was my father. Why should I take your word that he was?’

The old man nodded. ‘I would be concerned if you accepted too quickly the challenge that lies before you. I would think you are attracted to the concept of power, other than the benefit of our peoples.’ He slipped a hand into the folds of his robes and pulled something from a pocket. ‘Malik sought to destroy all likenesses of your father. This one survived.’ He handed it to Rashid.

It was one of those old photo folders that opened like a card, the cardboard crinkled and dog-eared around the border but the picture inside still preserved. A photo of a man dressed dashingly in the Qajarese colours of orange, white and red, sitting proudly astride an Arab polo pony, a mallet casually slung over his shoulder as he posed for the camera.