Chapter 13: Season 3 - Morocco

My third season as the Chevalier’s gentleman’s gentleman started in a similar manner as had the previous year with a flight from Perpignan Airport. However this time the aircraft was flying south rather than north as then; it was early March rather than the start of April as then, and I was not accompanied by the Chevalier. Like Webster’s dictionary I was Morocco bound, via Gibraltar and then a ferry across the Straits to Tangier, where I would be met by the Chevalier. I assumed he had already set up my itinerary for ‘escorting’ mature females at venues in the main cities of the country but had no idea why the Chevalier wished to start the season a month earlier than usual.

“I hope you ate during your journey, Rafael. We have a lot of kilometres to go before reaching our destination.” The Chevalier said, shaking my hand when meeting me at Tangier ferry terminal.

“i had a good breakfast on the ferry, and as long as I have a drink now and then I will be OK until this evening.”

He smiled. “We have plenty of water on board, and there might even be a croissant or two en route.” As we walked out of the ferry terminal onto the concourse a large Honda SUV drew up alongside us. “Hop in quick, Rafael, this is a no waiting area.”

I did as urged and threw my suitcase in the rear of the vehicle and climbed in after it. The Chevalier got in and as soon as the passenger door slammed shut we were off. The driver glanced in the rear view mirror at me and smiled.

“Bon jour, Monsieur Planchette,” he said in a harsh undefinable accent.

“Our driver is Tariq, and he has probably exhausted what little French he knows, although he is fluent in Spanish so you can natter away to him in that language. Tariq is from Ceuta, one of the Spanish enclaves in Morocco,” the Chevalier explained.

We were soon out of Tangier and heading south along a four lane highway. I don’t know what the speed limit is in Morocco but by the way we zoomed past the other traffic on the road I think Tariq was exceeding it.

“How many assignations do we have in Morocco? “ I asked the Chevalier about two hours into our journey.

“There are none in Morocco but we have at least three in Italy, where we go after visiting Tiznet.”

“Tiznet, why are we going there, wherever Tiznet is, if there are no females to meet?”

“Tiznet is about one hundred kilometres south east of Agadir, and Agadir is,” he glanced at the speedometer and the mileage shown since leaving Tangier ferry port, “about another six hundred kilometres and is where we will spend the night!”

Obviously the Chevalier was keeping me in the dark as to what we, or rather I, was to be doing in Morocco. I shrugged my shoulders and settled in for another five or six hours of driving and dozed off.

“Wake up Rafael, we are nearly there.” The Chevalier’s voice awoke me from a dream where I was being ridden almost to extinction by Grafin Irma von Eylau. I hoped this was not some sort of glimpse into the future and shook myself fully awake as the SUV pulled up outside a three story building. Evening was well advanced and lights shone from practically every window of the building.

“Welcome to mon repos,” the Chevalier said.

I took this to be where the Chevalier stayed during his three months in Morocco and was correct in my assumption but the hotel was actually named Mon Repos. The hotel was family run by two sisters, Leilah and Dihya, and it was the elder sister, Leilah Eddine, who met us at reception. She was a slender, middle aged Berber – or Amazigh as they refer to themselves – female with raven black hair and dark brown eyes, wearing a multi coloured knee length tunic over a pair of lemon coloured trousers. Leilah was a comely woman, and I would have been extremely pleased if I was to have been her ‘escort’. She hugged the Chevalier.

“You have made good time, Maurice. I have a meal ready for you in the dining room, and have put Monsieur Planchette in the room next to yours. If you want to have a shower before dinner there is hot water a plenty. Fayid has got the boiler working and we no longer have to boil water for bathing or cooking.”

I needed a shower after all the travel and came downstairs to the dining room half an hour later refreshed and ready to eat a horse. Fortunately, the meal was lamb and rice in a spicy sauce, although it could have been horse or even camel. Whatever it was tasted delicious and I cleaned my plate, although I was wise enough in the ways of Berbers and Arabs to leave some of the batbout flatbread on the plate else I would have been thought to be greedy and gluttonous. I also took pains not to use my left hand to either eat food or pass food to my neighbour at the table. The Chevalier was to my right and Tariq on my left, the other diners were guests and family of the hotel owners – it was difficult to tell one from the other – and it was one large, well fed party by the end of the evening. I noticed several young girls flitting about, most of them gowned in a haik, the outer garment that most Berber females wear when going out of the house. The girls seemed to be watching the Chevalier, and when he rose from the table declaring he was for his bed I saw one of the girls scampering up the stairs in front of him. When in my comfortable bed later that night I heard what could only be the sounds of copulation coming from the Chevalier’s room and realised he was enjoying room service.

Leilah saw us off early next morning after coffee and a croissant and fruit breakfast. The Chevalier yawned and gave me an apologetic look. “I was going to brief you on what will are be doing for the next four weeks but I got – err – distracted.”

“Yes, Chevalier,” I smirked. “I heard you being distracted all night long.” He had the good grace to blush but covered his embarrassment by informing me I had several weeks of manual labour to look forward to.

“There is an archaeological dig that I help out near Tiznet. They are short of some muscle, so you and Tariq will be, under instruction, diggers, hewers, and carriers.”

We arrived at Tiznet after an hour or so drive, but it took nearly another hour to get to the dig site that was only ten kilometres from Tiznet, off the main road and along what was less a road and more a goat track for extremely agile goats. We were in the foot hills of the Anti-Atlas Mountains and the terrain was arid, rocky and rough.

“Why would a Roman legion be posted in such a forlorn and forgotten place? “ I asked the Chevalier.

“The dig site isn’t large enough to house a full Roman legion, not even a cohort. It would have been occupied by an Auxilia – regiments recruited from men living in the Roman Empire who did not hold Roman citizenship. These Auxiliary regiments were used extensively on the frontiers of the Roman Empire. The memorials so far discovered at this site name the III Thracum, the IV Tungrorum, and the II Cantaborum. That last regiment hailed from near your neck of the woods in Northern Spain.” He pulled out a sheet of paper from his jacket pocket. “These are the translations of those memorials I have made. This one is from II Cantaborium and the inscription in Latin reads ‘Corbus. Optimum et militem metuentem Dominum amico bonum, et honestam hominis.’ When translated into French it reads ‘Corbus. An excellent soldier, a good friend, and a decent man.’ That is as good an epitaph as any man could hope for.” We spent moment thinking on the long gone but for ever known Corbus.

“Did the Romans have much trouble on this frontier?” I said to break the silence.

“Not going by the small numbers of troops here, who were probably just to show the flag, or rather the eagles, to the locals and remind them who called the shots.” The Chevalier paused as the SUV hit a rough patch of track and bounced and swayed before he continued speaking. “They also kept the area free of brigands and a wary eye on the locals in the surrounding mountains. The Moroccan Government tend to leave the local mountain dwelling Berbers, the Shilhahs, to govern themselves, much the same as the Romans did, and the Carthaginians did before them.”

“Carthaginians were also at this Roman fort?”

“Yes, the Roman military post was built on top of a Carthaginian site, and Doctor Puissant has discovered traces of Phoenician occupation beneath the Carthaginian layer.”

“Doctor Puissant?”

“The archaeologist in charge of the dig. She has six students from the Sorbonne and two or three from the University of Morocco with her. Most of the heavy digging had been completed and she had dismissed the local workers but then found evidence of a Phoenician presence and another trench has to be opened up, or rather dugout. She only needs a couple of brawny workmen and I told her I knew just the fellows and volunteered you and Tariq. Free of charge of course.”

We had been slowly ascending as we bumped along the track and now I could see an eminence, probably five hundred metres high, projecting out from a mass of craggy, much higher, mountains behind it. After another ten minutes of low gear driving we reached the summit of the spur. The Chevalier pointed and said, “that’s the site.” The top was more or less level and housed a trio of what I thought were shipping containers, plus several tented structures. I estimated the area to be about 200 metres north to south and some 100 metres west to east. At the eastern end was a monstrous pile of rocks that must have tumbled down from the towering mountain that rose thousands of metres into the sky behind the spur of flat land on which sat the dig site.

The vehicle stopped and Tariq, the Chevalier, and I debussed to be met by what seemed to be scores of nubile females but on closer inspection there were less than half a dozen. A tall female who looked to be nearer forty than thirty pushed her way through the gaggle. She wore an unflattering pair of baggy jeans, although the tee shirt she wore showed she was definitely un-baggy beneath. She had a wide brimmed hat on her head, and what hair I could see looked to be sun bleached brown. Her hazel eyes sparkled, fringed by kohl dark lashes, and she spoke in a pleasant, educated, Parisian accented voice. “OK ladies, give them some room.”

The girls had gathered around the back of the SUV and when Tariq opened the hatch they leaned in, grabbing the boxes I hadn’t noticed when I got in the vehicle in Agadir.

“Sunscreen and lipsticks, and jars of skin conditioner and hair shampoo,” the, woman explained to me as I gawped at the free for all that was taking place. Girls snatched at packets and bottles and the recipient then dashed away to one of the shipping containers, which I realised were accommodation units with windows and doors, and pipes that I guessed would be water, electric, and sanitation inlets and outlets. The female held out her hand “I am Doctor Amélie Puissant,” she said.

I reciprocated. “I’m Rafael Planchette. Pleased to make your acquaintance, Doctor.”

She grinned. “Not half as pleased as I am to make yours, Rafael. The Professor has told me all about you, and I look forward to having a firm and friendly working relationship with you.” I was puzzling over her remark when the Chevalier joined us.

“I’ve brought the rice and flour you wanted, Amélie, and the cosmetics of course. I don’t know which was received with the most gratitude.” He smiled at Doctor Puissant. “I see you have met your willing helper, or at least the better looking one. Tariq you already know.”

Tariq appeared at the Chevalier’s shoulder wearing a wide grin, and then rattled off something in a language I didn’t recognise, it certainly wasn’t Spanish. I was surprised when Doctor Puissant replied in a similar tongue, which I later learned was Tamazight, one of the several Berber languages spoken in Morocco, along with French and Moroccan Arabic. Tariq laughed and waved his hand at the Doctor before sauntering off towards a tented structure that I took to be the kitchen, given the sights and sounds and smells emitting from it.

“I’ve put the three of you in with the two French male students and the two Moroccan males in the second accommodation cabin. You will know which is which; red for girls, blue for boys, and the green one is the site office, and also my quarters,” Doctor Puissant said. She gave me a cheeky grin “I hope you are not colour blind, Rafael!”

I had a feeling I was not seeing the full picture, and something other than just my labour had been agreed between the Doctor and the Chevalier, or rather between the Doctor and the Professor, as all the people on site referred to the Chevalier.

The dining room was another tented structure alongside the kitchen, and it was here I met the rest of the team. They were just faces at first, some pretty, some plain, most of them female and all young, although the two French males, Patrice and Yves, were both graduates. The two Moroccan males, Idil and Ziri were surprisingly friendly and spoke excellent French. Both were graduates from the University of Morocco and worked as researchers in the Archaeology Department of the university.

Days stared early on a dig site. Breakfast was ready at first light and by sun up the two newly arrived excavators were hard at work. Tariq knew what was required and Doctor Puissant had him working unsupervised in a trench that she said needed extending thirty metres to the east that would hopefully uncover the ‘anomaly’ discovered by ‘geophysics’, the ground radar that could detect buried structures. Doctor Puissant took me, armed with a pickaxe and shovel, to a wall, about five metres high, comprised of several courses of bricks or stones. She pointed to the top three courses of bricks. “Roman, circa First/Second Century CE. This is what first brought us to the site. The Professor discovered a fragment of a Roman army memorial here and...”

“It was an Amazigh goat herder who found the fragment and brought it to me,” the Chevalier interrupted.

“Yes, but you transcribed the Latin text, and when you found out where it had been unearthed realised the significance of the find. You contacted the archaeology department of the University of Morocco who got in touch with my department at the University of Paris.” She shrugged, her tee shirt emphasising the movement in a most illuminating way. “At the time I was not too interested since my major area of study is the Phoenicians, but as the find was outside the known area of Roman military occupation the faculty decided to send out a team and investigate and excavate. That was five years ago and we have had many surprising discoveries to add to that first one.” She pointed to the wall. “The top three courses are Roman but the courses beneath are Carthaginian, circa Second Century BCE. The Romans built on top of what was left of the original Carthaginian wall, the lazy buggers. “Here --” she pointed with a marker pole at a rectangular excavation about five metres away from the wall, “we found evidence of bronze making circa 1000 BCE, Late Bronze Age. I want you to dig a trench about five metres away from the left of this excavation. Drive the trench eastwards; about two metres wide and two spade depths deep, so we can have a good look at what you may uncover.” She pointed to the various marker poles and lines of tape crossing the entire area. “It is of the utmost importance that levels are maintained, and everything discovered is photographed in situ before attempting to remove same.” She noted my bafflement at the term ‘levels’ and explained. “We can give a fairly accurate age to any object discovered depending on the depth it was found. Every Roman artefact, mostly pottery but the occasional memorial plaque, is plotted on the site map with corresponding depth measurements. Lower levels have unearthed traces of Carthaginian occupation and lower still we have evidence of Late Bronze Age activity. It is essential we maintain the integrity of the levels with the artefacts discovered. We do not want to inadvertently ‘discover’ Late Bronze Age at the Roman level, or vice versa, through undisciplined, inaccurate digging and measurements. All the various levels are indicated by tape and marker poles”

She then took me across to where three female students were troweling in an excavation. “You see how they are taking out soil in small amounts? We have reached a level that has been giving up some pottery and even the smallest piece is valuable, in the academic and historic sense rather than in the monetary sense. The girls are digging in about the Second Century CE but where you start excavating you will be going back at least five hundred years earlier.” She grinned at the look on my face. “Don’t panic Rafael. You won’t have to use a trowel, but use your pickaxe gently. Don’t swing at the soil with great force, just allow the pick head to drop under its own weight. When the ground is broken up you can start to shovel out the earth, looking for any discoloration in the soil.” We walked back to the wall and Doctor Puissant showed me where to start digging the new trench. “Shout out if you find anything, or even if you only think you have found something. I will fly to your side like a homing pigeon.” She grinned and left me staring after her.