And then it struck her. There wasn’t going to be any rescuer, no knight in shining armor. There was no one to wait for and never had been. The only person who could save her was herself. The thought was like a bolt of lightning, galvanizing her into action.

She sprang to her feet in the center of the dark cell, her teeth clenched, her fingernails digging into her palms. The pain in her palms felt good, shocking her mind to clarity. I’m going to get out of this, she vowed, her eyes gleaming defiantly in the darkness. No matter what it takes. Now we’ll see what a woman can do. And she would use a woman’s only real weapon, her wits, she thought craftily. And patience. Somewhere along the line, her chance would come.

She raced to the cell door and pounded on it, screaming for Abdul Sa’ad. When the eunuch finally opened the door she kept screaming and gesturing until he brought his Master to her. As soon as she saw the prince, she dropped to her knees, bowed to the ground and kissed his shoes, again and again. She swore that she would be his slave forever and begged him to allow her to become a Moslem. When she said that, he raised her up and embraced her with an odd look on his face, as though he knew she was acting, but that he didn’t care. Taking her hand, he led her to the luxurious apartment in the women’s quarters which would henceforth be her home.

Prince Abdul Sa’ad’s “country house,” as he called it, was built around a central atrium green with flowers and date palms, where the women were allowed for two hours every afternoon. The garden was exquisite. A crystal clear stream fed a waterfall which tumbled over rocks into a lovely pond surrounded by trees and grassy banks bordered by beautiful wildflowers. Goldfish darted like flecks of sunlight in the cool water. It was as if a tiny piece of Hawaii had been somehow dropped into the middle of the desert.

The house itself, or at least the harim, or women’s quarters was extraordinary, an incredible mixture of opulence and bad taste. The walls and floors and ceilings were covered with intricate mosaic arabesques. Some of the designs were exquisite, while others were outlandish. Semi-precious stones were inlaid in every room. There were rooms filled with expensive TVs and stereos that rarely worked. Many of the furnishings were made of pure gold. Even her own bathroom had gold accessories including a solid gold toilet bowl. It was an incomprehensible place, where money was truly no object. Once she asked Abdul Sa’ad how much money he had and he had replied with an eloquent shrug: “If we all did nothing but spent it lavishly every single minute, we could never spend it all.”