title: A House in Fez: Building a Life in the Ancient Heart of Morocco
author:  Suzanna Clarke 
description: Beware of falling in love while on vacation. You might end up buying a riad. Less of a tourist center than Marrakesh or Tangier, Fez is the largest car-free urban area and the best-preserved medieval walled city in the world. While on vacation, Australian photojournalist Clarke and her husband were bewitched by the exotic city, deciding to return and begin a search for a riad (a large home with an inner courtyard) to renovate. This enjoyable narrative chronicles the couple's navigation through a puzzling new world. Readers get to tag along while Clarke deals with Kafkaesque bureaucracy, maneuvers delicately through relationships with neighbors, contractors and construction workers, and goes back to school to improve her French. She weaves this personal narrative together with snippets of the fascinating history and culture of her adopted country. This is an all too brief but enjoyable excursion into one woman's experience with a place she clearly loves. Readers will surely fall under its spell as well. <br />Copyright  Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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  * * *
  
  # The King's Jackal
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### Richard Harding Davis
  
  
  This page copyright © 2001 Blackmask Online.
  
  
  http://www.blackmask.com
  
  * [Chapter 1](kingsjackal_split_2.html#1_0_2)
  
  
  * [Chapter 2](kingsjackal_split_3.html#1_0_3)
  
  
  * [Chapter 3](kingsjackal_split_4.html#1_0_4)
  
  
  * [Chapter 4](kingsjackal_split_5.html#1_0_5)
  
  
  
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### Chapter 1
  
  
  
  
  
    
  The private terrace of the Hotel Grand Bretagne, at Tangier, was
  
  
  shaded by a great awning of red and green and yellow, and strewn with
  
  
  colored mats, and plants in pots, and wicker chairs. It reached out
  
  
  from the Kings apartments into the Garden of Palms, and was hidden by
  
  
  them on two sides, and showed from the third the blue waters of the
  
  
  Mediterranean and the great shadow of Gibraltar in the distance.
  
  
    
  The Sultan of Morocco had given orders from Fez that the King of
  
  
  Messina, in spite of his incognito, should be treated during his stay
  
  
  in Tangier with the cons