Running Late

Aisha - one of the girls - at once says: "Where the hell have you two been? We were worried sick."

"I am giving up my job and risking my life to rescue you and the others," Munaf says with uncharacteristic tartness. "So you might at least keep a civil tongue in your head. When it was just Hari - I mean Ranya - escaping, no one needed to find out that she was ever in the harem, so I could have carried on working here. But when the empty harem is discovered, it will be obvious that I was complicit in your escape, so I have no choice but to go with you." Then his tone softens. "Though to tell the truth I would have left anyway. I have no wish to serve under Arif."

"As for the delay," Usman says, "I am sorry about that, but it was unavoidable. We found almost at the last minute that we needed to obtain five people's clothes - for you can hardly wear your harem outfits - and supplies instead of one person's. Also we had to get a much larger coach than we had originally planned, which needs two horses to pull it instead of one. (We won't be able to take the coach all the way - the country will get too rough - but we might as well at least start in some comfort.) Such things are hard to arrange when it's so late in the evening."

Arif and Usman have brought five outfits with them like those that the local peasant women wear. We each get a roughspun woollen shirt and knee-length skirt, a pair of leather shoes and a cloak with a hood.

Once we are all suitably attired, we leave the harem. There is no sign of the guards who should be on duty. "I've drugged their beer," Usman explains in reply to our questions. "I had thought of having guards on duty tonight who I knew were loyal to me. But then they would have been in hot water with Arif when the harem was found to be empty, so this seemed a better way."

1. We manage to leave the palace without incident.
2. We soon encounter a problem.

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