Behind a ruined section of the town, where gardens had been established over the years in the Moorish tradition of creating tranquillity with the gentle sound of moving water, three or four tents stood under shady clumps of date palms. Max took it all in. This was an oasis. Not your average backpacker’s tent, either. More like a Bedouin tent. Like a small circus tent, like a … well, it wasn’t exactly luxury, but the layers of material, the pitched roof, the carpets on the floor, all made it look a bit Lawrence of Arabia-ish. All that was needed now was a camel and a-
The braying gasp of a camel stopped the thought there and then. He turned. Not ten meters away behind a thorn tree, a camel stuck its spit-slicked tongue out at him. He was about to return the compliment when Sophie pulled back the tent’s flap.
“This is yours, Max.”
He stepped inside. The Berber tent was made of camel hair, goat’s wool and canvas, and, as in the others, hand-woven rugs, cotton pillows and cushions were scattered across the floor. The coolness was immediately apparent. Max dropped his backpack on the bed.
“It is basic, but I hope you will be comfortable. Your toilet and shower are through there. My father doesn’t have many staff, they’re here mostly to feed and care for the animals, so you will have to ask for your washing to be done.”
“This is luxury compared to the tents I usually sleep in,” he said.
She was fairly close to him and reached out a hand to brush the hair from his face. He instinctively pulled his head back. What was she doing?
She sighed. “For heaven’s sake, Max. Don’t be childish.” And she put the palm of her hand on his forehead. “You’re still running a temperature. I’ll tell Papa.”
“Don’t make a fuss. I’ll be OK.”
He turned away, feeling the heat creeping up his neck and the increase in his heartbeat. He really was feeling sick, but what he felt now had nothing to do with running a temperature. He unpacked his change of clothing. Everything had been pressed and cleaned by the riad’s staff. Wear one, wash one was Max’s policy. Time to get back into shorts and shirt. Time for small talk.
“Do you have a tent as well?” He regretted saying it the moment the words slipped past his lips. It sounded as though he was inviting himself.
She raised an eyebrow, then smiled. “I have a room in one of the old houses. I need a greater sense of permanence than a tent.”
Now she was closer again. He tried to put a serious look of concentration on his face. These shorts definitely needed to be laid out on the bed a certain way. She touched his shoulder.
Smile bravely, Max. Look cool. Don’t get flustered here. She’s just a girl.
“What is that?” she asked, touching the pendant.
Like a feral cat enticed out of danger by a plate of food from a kindly person, he was still on his guard. And if the wildcat ate, it did so with one eye on the person feeding it, alert to anyone making a sudden move to trap it. One false step and the cat would bolt.
Max felt the bristle of danger tickle the back of his neck.
“It’s something I picked up along the way. A friend gave it to me,” he said as casually as he could.
“But it’s unusual,” she said, her eyes studying the pendant.
She had tried to look at it when Max was asleep in the Land Cruiser, but the way his body had been lying meant the pendant itself was caught beneath his clothes and the fold of his shoulder.
“Oh, I don’t think it’s anything special,” Max bluffed.
“Can I see it?”
“Sure.” He fumbled with the cord, but sweat had tightened the leather thong. He couldn’t undo it and he couldn’t get it over his head. “Well, maybe not.”
“That’s OK. I was just being nosy.” She gave him a smile that could have charmed a monkey out of a tree. But not this monkey, Max thought. “See you outside when you’re ready. Papa will look at your arm and then we’ll eat,” she said.
The tent’s flap dropped back, and Max was alone. Flexing his arm, he felt the pain creep up into his shoulder. The nausea persisted, but he was sure he could shake it off. He had to. This place of safety suddenly felt like a cage.
“The wound must not be closed up. So no stitches for you,” Fauvre said as he swabbed the monkey bite on Max’s arm. The wound was looking bad, with veinlike tendrils creeping upwards beneath the skin.
Fauvre now wore a cool, loose-fitting white shirt, and his withered legs were covered by white trousers. Max thought the clothes made him look a bit like a doctor, but that didn’t offer much comfort.
“It hurts?” Fauvre asked as he eased the wound open.
“A little,” Max replied, wishing the probing fingers and stinging antiseptic would stop their pulling and squeezing.
“The infection is still there, and you have some blood poisoning. It might be advanced. I cannot say, but that’s what those red lines are going up your arm. When was the last time you had a tetanus shot?”
“Couple of years ago, I think.”
“Right. Tetanus and penicillin for you. I will also give you a multivitamin shot. Help boost your system. Those injections hurt more than the others; they feel like soup being injected. I hate them, but I give myself one once in a while.”
“Then I’d rather take a pill.”
They were in a small examination room, which Max reckoned Fauvre used for looking after animals. Fauvre turned the wheelchair and reached for a small fridge. Max noticed all the cupboards were at the same height, designed to allow the disabled man to live his life as easily as possible.
“Of course you would rather take a pill. That’s the easy option, and about as useful as sucking a sweet in these circumstances. Besides, handing out pills is not as much fun.” Fauvre smiled. “For me, that is.”
He took the small glass bottles of medicine from the fridge and drew the liquid into the hypodermics. “Animal bites and wounds can be hell,” he said as he unceremoniously jabbed the needles into Max’s arm.
Max winced. He hated injections, and this had been done with less finesse than a vet jabbing a cow.
Fauvre seemed to read his mind. “No nice nurses here, only me. And I don’t have much of a bedside manner.” He cleared the used bits and pieces away.
“That’s all right. You weren’t too bad. Thanks.”
Fauvre seemed amused. “You lie very well, Max. It hurt like hell, the injections felt like snakebites and I have as much compassion as a charging bull elephant.”
“You save endangered species. You can’t be that bad, Monsieur Fauvre.”
“That’s not what my daughter thinks. And call me Laurent. You’ve earned it. Can you drive?” Fauvre asked.
“Yes,” Max replied.
“Then you are my chauffeur this morning, young man,” Fauvre said as he held one more hypodermic.
“What’s that?” Max asked.
“You thought we were finished? No, no. This is the soup. And multivitamin shots go …”
He pointed at Max’s backside. “Drop your shorts and think of England.”
Max eased himself gently into the driver’s seat of the golf buggy. That last jab had felt as though Fauvre were using a screwdriver on him.
“We are feeding some of the animals. So let us go,” Fauvre said, pointing out the direction.
Obviously, Max realized, the “we” meant the staff were feeding the animals. Perhaps it was this autocratic manner of her father’s that Sophie disliked so much.
The golf buggy’s canopy shielded Max from what was fast becoming a very hot day. Fauvre indicated the direction and Max pressed the accelerator down. Nice and easy, take your time, look around, get your bearings. Was there anything obvious that told him why Zabala had led him here? As his eyes scanned the jumbled ruins, he knew he was looking for more than just clues-if things go bad here, how to escape?
The old town looked as though it held plenty of caves, cut deep into the walls. Most of the big cats would be sleeping, but there were obviously many smaller creatures that had both shelter and plenty of room to roam once they ventured out and went down into one of the huge pits that had been torn from the ground. At the far edge of the town, unnoticed at first because of the backdrop of the mountain, was a vast aviary, almost obscured by the irregular shape of the netting. It dipped and stretched, pulled this way and that by jutting support poles. The birds could fly almost as if they were free.