Their mules had raw, pinkish leather saddles which gave off a meaty smell to blend with the reek of the animals themselves. Charles negotiated at length in French with the muleteer, eventually handing over some coins with the air of a man who knows he’s been robbed. Only once they were on and riding away did he wink at Dimity and whisper that he’d gotten them at a bargain. Dimity, who’d had no choice but to ruck her skirt up around her hips in order to sit astride her mule, was sweating under a blanket that had been provided for her to drape around her lower body for modesty’s sake. She tied it behind her waist, wearing it like a giant apron, and the coarse fabric made her knees itch. Within a few hundred yards, the press of the saddle into her seat bones was giving her a numbing pain, but her mule followed Charles’s with quiet obedience, and she would do just the same.
They rode for an hour or more, through the powerful heat of the afternoon, ever upwards onto a rocky hill north of the city. Ahead, Dimity could see the boxy, crenellated remains of buildings that she guessed to be their destination. Sweat trickled down her spine, and she wilted in the saddle, feeling the sun singe her face. Charles was wearing a broad-brimmed hat, and she wished she had something similar. Her hair clung to her scalp and the back of her neck, and she daydreamed about diving off the quay at Tangier and feeling the cool turquoise water close over her head. For a long time the only sound was the clatter of the mules’ hooves over rocks and pebbles on the ground, the creak of the saddles and the moaning of the breeze. Then, near the summit, they began to walk through a field of goat skins, stretched and pegged out to dry beneath the roasting sun. They had been dyed bright red, bright blue, bright green, and lay around on the rocky ground like petals dropped from some vast flower. Dimity stared at each one, astonished by the colors, as her mule picked its way around them.
When at last they arrived at the foot of a tall, tumbledown stone tomb, Charles dismounted and took a long pull from a bottle of water before handing it to Dimity.
“Oh, blast it-you’ve burned your face! Haven’t you got a hat?” he said. Dimity shook her head, which was aching, and did not care about her sunburn, because, as she drank from his bottle, her mouth was touching his. “Never mind, you can wear mine on the way back. Come and sit in the shade for a while.” It was only once Dimity had slithered stiffly from her mule to sit with her back to the crumbling stones that she understood why Charles had undertaken the hot and uncomfortable trek. The whole of Fez was laid out below them, and beyond it the plain and the rocky hills circled all around. The sun was dipping in the west, and everything was alight with an orange glow; the city walls seemed to flame. She gasped at the spectacle of it, and Charles smiled, also turning to look.
“You can understand why these ancient kings wanted this to be their final and everlasting view, can’t you?” he said softly. Dimity nodded. Below them, lights were starting to come on down in the medina, where the shade was deepest. They sparkled like fallen stars.
“I never imagined a place like this, in all the time I was in Blacknowle. It doesn’t seem fair that this should have existed all the while, yet I never knew of it.”
“There are a million more places besides, Mitzy. The more you travel, the more you will understand how vast the world truly is.”
“Will you take me to other places, then, Mr. Aubrey? Will you take me with you, when you go?” In the instant after she spoke these words, she could hardly believe she’d let them sound out loud. Charles said nothing for a long time, and Dimity’s heart curled in on itself, braced for a blow.
“I’ll do my best for you, Mitzy. Who knows which way life will take us?” he said at last. Dimity glanced at him as he gazed out over the city with the light of it shining in his eyes. Such an intent, faraway look; as though he was trying to stare into a future that neither of them could see. She blinked, and her heart uncurled itself. I’ll do my best for you, Mitzy. Suddenly all the vast promise of the world resounded in those words. For you, Mitzy. They sat for a long time while the sky overhead grew dimmer, blushing pink against the turquoise; a few wisps of high cloud glowed silver and gold. A heavenly scent surrounded them, and Dimity looked over her shoulder to see a jasmine plant scrambling along the broken wall of the tomb, arching over them like a wedding bower, to release its perfume.
Celeste and the girls were already at the riad when Charles and Dimity returned, parched and dusty, as true darkness began to fall. The three of them were in the courtyard; Celeste and Élodie curled together on a low couch while Delphine sat on the edge of the fountain, leaning over to watch the constant play of the water. Celeste looked up when Charles greeted her, and with a shock Dimity noticed how red and puffy her eyes were, how streaked and salty her face.
“My darling! Are you all right? What happened?” asked Charles, crossing to crouch down in front of her. His words, his posture, gave Dimity a nasty feeling. She hung back, skirted them, and went to sit near Delphine, who did not look up. As she passed, she felt Celeste’s eyes flicker up at her. She didn’t need to see her face to know what expression would be on it. That same hard look as when they had found her sitting in the kitchen at Littlecombe, with Charles’s picture of Dimity in her hand.
“I will tell you later. Where have you been? We were worried.” Celeste’s voice was hoarse.
“Just up to the tombs. I told you I wanted to go and see the view…”
“And you took Mitzy with you? I thought we decided we would all go up to the tombs tomorrow? Delphine wanted to…”
“Well, we can go again. You can take the girls, any time you want to. And of course I took Mitzy-she’d been here on her own all morning.”
“I am sure Mitzy can cope with being by herself for a little while,” said Celeste, her voice taking on a dangerous edge. Dimity didn’t dare look up, and, beside her, Delphine’s fingers, which had been stirring slow whirlpools, went still.
“It hardly seemed fair,” Charles said carefully.
“Our daughters might like to spend a little time with you too, Charles.”
“You took our daughters to see your family. Must the whole world wait and hold its breath until you return?” Charles said coldly. There was a loaded pause. Dimity looked up cautiously and saw the way the two of them glared at each other. Still nestled into her mother’s side, Élodie looked tense and unhappy.
“Girls. Go upstairs to your room,” said Celeste. Without hesitation, all three of them obeyed.
Their voices echoed up from the courtyard, and Dimity tried not to make it obvious that she wanted to listen. As if she could tell, Élodie sang a tuneless song about a frog, over and over again, so that her parents’ exact words were impossible to distinguish. From quiet to loud, from a whisper to an angry crescendo from Celeste, the argument churned on like a stormy sea. Delphine leaned out over the balcony, as if to put herself as far from it all as she could. Since she couldn’t hear what the fight was about, Dimity went over to join her. Delphine gave her a small, worried smile.
“They do this sometimes. But they always love each other again afterwards,” she said.
“Why are they arguing? It looked like your ma had been crying before.”
“She got upset at grandmère et grandpère’s house.”
“What about?”
“Well… her mother was so happy to see her. We had a lovely lunch there with her. She is Berber, but of course you know that. But when her father came home, he-”