They purchased the lamp, as well as a few more items, and meandered through the rest of the souk. By then, it was well past noon. The sun sat high, and the heat grew unbearable. Linley knew they needed to find somewhere to rest and wait out the hottest part of the day.
“Are you hungry?” she asked. “I know somewhere we could eat.”
Patrick looked around, wiping sweat from the back of his neck with a handkerchief. The filthy souk was the last place in the world he wanted to sit down and eat, but he was willing to give anywhere a try if it kept him out of the heat and the sun.
“Alright,” he said, tucking the limp handkerchief back up his sleeve.
They pushed their way through the marketplace, weaving between vendor stands and donkey carts. Beyond the stench of manure, cumin, tobacco smoke, and thousands of scents Patrick could not even identify, another aroma grew more pronounced—that of roasting meat.
On the far side of the marketplace, food stands lined the narrow streets. Linley ducked beneath a carpeted awning, pulling Patrick in behind her. The space beneath it could hardly be called a restaurant, yet that was exactly what it seemed to be. They took a table in the corner, amid the stares of the local men dining in the shade.
“I like to try the food wherever I am,” Linley explained. “I don’t think one can say they’ve been anywhere if they haven’t experienced that place’s cuisine. What do you think?”
Patrick gulped. “I think I’m going to be sick.”
“What is it, the smell?” Linley leaned over the table and lowered her voice. “I have to agree that meat left in the sun, no matter how fresh, tends to develop a certain…aroma…but at least try everything they bring us.”
He swatted away a fly buzzing around his face. By the time the food arrived, one fly turned into two flies, and two flies became a dozen. Patrick could hardly see what was on his plate between them all.
“Should I even ask what this is?” He pointed to a mass of what appeared to be meat and vegetables atop a bowl of yellow, rounded pellets.
“Well…” Linley grabbed a handful of the dish and popped it into her mouth. “The meat is lamb—or maybe goat—and the little yellow things are called couscous,” she explained as she chewed.
“Goat?” Patrick asked. “You want me to eat goat with my hands?”
“I’d be very disappointed if you didn’t.”
With a groan, he relented and dug in. Even as a boy, Patrick never ate with his fingers. It just was not done—unless a chap found himself having luncheon under a carpet in the company of one little English girl and ten angry Arabs. Then, apparently, it was acceptable.
“Do you like it?” Linley asked, rolling another handful of couscous. “You don’t look like you like it.”
“It takes some getting used to, I’d imagine.”
She pushed the rolled ball into her mouth and shrugged.
Patrick tried to emulate her but ended up a sticky, sloppy mess. “Tell me something about yourself, if you don’t mind. I understand your father is an explorer of sorts, but what is a girl like you doing all the way out here?”
“All the way out here? To me this is civilization,” she said. “And my father is not an explorer. He is an archaeologist.”
“What is the difference?”
Between bites of food, Linley explained, “My father studies human history through the things they’ve left behind—mostly artifacts, but not always. For instance, we’ve been here in Morocco searching for a lost kasbah, which is sort of like a fortress and a palace all in one.”
“Did you find it?”
Linley grinned. “The French government would rather I not say.”
“That sounds very dangerous.”
“It can be,” she said. “But mostly it’s just a lot of hard work with little payoff. Most of the time, we’re up to our elbows in dirt and decay and never find a thing. Sometimes, though, we make a discovery. Even the smallest one can make it all worthwhile.”
“Surely you must find something,” Patrick said, “Even I’ve heard of Bedford Talbot-Martin.”
Linley beamed with pride at that remark. “Papa is a genius. He got his start studying Buddhist temples in India. That is his passion but, unfortunately, no one else seems to care. At least not the people with the money,” she said. “We receive funding from both the British Museum and from private investors, so mostly we have to do what they tell us.”
“Like looking for lost palaces.”
“Exactly,” she said. “But not that I’m complaining, because an expedition anywhere would be better than my father taking a teaching position at a university.”
“Is that a possibility?”
Linley sighed. “There isn’t much work for an archaeologist once he’s too old to actually get out and dig. My father is in good health now, but in a few years, who knows? And besides, money has been very tight lately, and it only seems to be getting tighter.”
CHAPTER FIVE