In the six weeks since Mitaine had made her departure in search of Charlemagne, the rest of the sultan’s captives had had ample opportunity to explore their accommodations. The sultan, not being native to the local community and as a result, unfamiliar with its culture and customs, had sequestered himself in one of the most remote and isolated sections of the great Tuscan forest. Here, completely hidden away, he’d built himself a palace of alabaster and marble from nearby quarries, long abandoned by the Romans, which far surpassed anything one could see in Sentra, Zaragossa, Toledo or even Cordoba.
The massive complex covered twenty-five hectares of a fifty hectare dell in the densest part of the forest, which Al Hadi had stumbled onto quite by accident while lost. An unassuming, weed-overgrown, cart path leading away from the main road gave no hint as to what was to be found at its opposite end. One had to know its location or know of it and be searching hard for it in order to find it.
But oh, what a wondrous image it presented as one passed out from the dense, darkly shaded, forest canopy into the expansive clearing and the full light of day! Any traveler coming upon it, first crossed over a carefully maintained equestrian track that circled the entire periphery of the dell. One complete revolution covered a distance of a mile and a half. Al Hadi loved horses and operated his own breeding program with Arabian stock he’d brought with him from al Andalusia, (Moorish Spain).
Two massive, square, white-marble pilasters capped with giant, carved, alabaster acorns, representing the sultan’s love of knowledge, supported massive, wrought-iron gates gilded in gold leaf that were just for show and opened permanently. This gateway framed a shining, white approach-road paved with white, granite flagstones that lead all the way to the main gate, over a quarter-mile distant. Any visitor of the Christian faith, on witnessing the venue for the first time, would undoubtedly have assumed that St. Peter most surely must be there waiting to greet new arrivals.
The approach-road was lined on either side with majestic, date-palms. Further out from them, off to both sides of the road, was a grass-covered park that was dotted with Orange, Apple, Apricot, Cherry, Peach and Fig trees; all imported from the sultan’s native Spain. Among them wandered grazing sheep, which kept the dense, green grass short as well as fertilized.
The sultan had redirected several small streams flowing out from the Alps into the palace for its water and heated baths. From the palace, he’d routed the egress so that it flowed into a grand reflecting-pool, two hundred yards in length and twenty-five in width near the end of the main entry road. The road split and ran on either side of it and then joined back together at its opposite end.