Left alone, Dimity hugged her arms tight around herself, and fought against a wave of nerves. Transfixed by uncertainty, she didn’t know whether to stay in her room or leave it. She didn’t know what was right, what the rules were. She tiptoed to the top of the stairs and looked down at the courtyard, where the fountain was splashing gently and the curly-haired boy was sweeping the floor with a stiff-bristled broom. Muted voices echoed up to her, their meanings lost in a blur of fluid, incomprehensible sound. She walked all the way around the terrace onto which their bedroom door opened, staring at the ornate tiles and the carvings on the wooden doors, peering down at the courtyard from every available angle, and up at the sky, which was clear and blue overhead. She had never seen such a fine building, let alone been inside one, or stayed in one. Eventually she plucked up the courage to go downstairs, but when she got to the bottom she saw that the front door was shut. Making sure the coast was clear, she went over to it and tried the handle, tried to pull it open, but it wouldn’t budge. Suddenly, the servant boy appeared beside her and spoke, his teeth very white in his dark face. Dimity stepped back, her shoulders hitting the door. The boy smiled and spoke again, this time with words that had the more regular, almost familiar sound of the French she sometimes heard Charles and Celeste speak. But even though she could pick out distinct words, she was none the wiser as to their meaning. She edged away from him, then turned and fled back up the stairs.
Hours later she dozed on her low mattress, gazing up at the ceiling and drifting in and out of a dream in which she was lost in the middle of the vast dry landscape they had crossed the day before, and could feel the wind turning her to sand and blowing her away, one grain at a time. Footsteps outside and a sudden knock roused her, and Charles appeared around the door before she had a chance to answer. He had caught the sun across the bridge of his nose and along his cheekbones, and his hair was sweaty and windswept. Dimity scrambled to her feet, brushing back her hair and fighting to focus her mind. She couldn’t tell if her dizziness was from standing up too fast, or from the devastating sight of him.
“Mitzy! Why are you here alone?”
“They went to Celeste’s family, only I couldn’t go since I’m not family,” she said, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.
Charles frowned. “Well, she shouldn’t have left you here by yourself like that; hardly seems fair. Come on. Are you hungry? I was going to eat, then take a mule up to the Merenid Tombs above the city. Would you like to come with me?”
“Yes,” she said at once, and then began to wonder how she would ride a mule with any modesty while wearing a felt skirt.
She followed Charles, almost trotting to keep up, as he strode down the dusty streets deeper into the heart of Old Fez. She dodged between thronging people, moving like slow-shifting snakes in either direction, all dressed in robes of chalky gray or fawn and brown; desert colors, as though the sand and rock and crumbling plaster all around had seeped into them. Small shops lined the street, their wares more often than not hanging on hooks outside, making the way even narrower. Vast metal plates and jars; bolts of fabric; huge bunches of dried herbs; leather goods of every description; lanterns, baskets, machine parts, and unidentifiable hardware.
“We won’t go too far in. There’s a little place not far from here where we can eat, and a man next door who will loan us some mules for the rest of the day,” Charles called back over his shoulder. A sudden flurry of wings made Dimity look up, and a scattering of bright white pigeons rose up from a rooftop. Also watching them were two tall women on a balcony overhanging the street, their skins as black as pitch, the jewelry hanging from their necks and ears as bright as flames against their dark colors. Dimity goggled at them until she bumped into a woman walking the other way, swathed head to foot and veiled in gray, with her children hanging from her hem. The children wore silk caftans in shades of indigo, lime green, and dusky red, as fine and pretty as butterfly wings. The veiled woman muttered something angrily, and her children giggled and smiled as they passed.
They turned a corner into a steep, cobbled street, and Charles turned his head to speak. “Watch your step, we’re close to the butchers here.” Puzzled, Dimity looked down instead of up, and saw a river of bright red blood running along the middle of the alleyway, bubbling and rippling over the cobblestones. Hurriedly, she stepped to one side of it, and watched as a single white feather traveled by like a tiny boat on a grim and visceral river.
“How many animals could contain that much blood?” she said.
“Many, many. But it’s bloody water, not all blood. The butchers sluice it out of their shops by the bucketful,” Charles told her. He looked at her briefly. “I can’t imagine a hunter like you is squeamish?”
“No, Mr. Aubrey,” she said, shaking her head, even though her knees were aching in an odd, sickly way. She liked him calling her a hunter. The smell of the blood was clinging and rich. She took another cautious step back from the flow and her heel caught on something, tripping her. She looked down into the slotted eye of a goat, and recoiled. There were hundreds of eyes, all staring and still. A pile of severed goat heads, trailing red from their necks; straight little teeth behind pulled-back lips. The old man behind this gruesome heap laughed at her, and Dimity hurried away after Charles, her stomach churning.
The place where they had lunch was not a restaurant as such, just a niche in the wall bordered by wooden shutters, where an old woman was stretching flatbreads and cooking them rapidly on an iron plate that smoked with heat. She filled them with handfuls of scrambled eggs and olives, and folded each one deftly before handing them to Charles. They sat on an ancient doorstep opposite the shop to eat, burning their lips on the hot bread and waving away a crowd of fat-bodied flies, metallic and blue, which buzzed around them. Without them even asking, a boy arrived with two glasses of tea, and Charles wiped his fingers on his trousers before taking them and handing the boy a coin in return. He seemed entirely at his ease, entirely used to the way of life that Dimity was finding so alien. She struggled not to show her amazement and to ignore the flat, curious stares she got from the Arab men as they passed. As if also suddenly noticing their attention, Charles gave her a quick smile.
“Don’t wander off on your own, will you, Mitzy? It’s probably quite safe, but it’s so easy to get lost in the old town. I did, on my first visit here. It took me four hours to find my way out! In the end I chose one pack mule and just followed it. Luckily, it led me to one of the gates, and I found my way from there. Best if you stick close to me, I think.”
“I will, I promise,” she said. Charles took another bite and chewed meditatively for a moment.
“There’s a piece coming to me. I can’t quite see it yet, and I think it might be desert, not city… we shall see. While you’re here you must see the tanning vats. They’re truly amazing. Not too soon after lunch, though, I think. They have a powerful aroma,” he said with a smile. Dimity nodded. She wanted to do all of it, everything Charles suggested she do.