Read Online Jester Leaps In: A Medieval Mystery by Alan Gordon - Free Book Online Page B

Theotakos at Blachernae, supposedly excavated by Helen, Constantine’s mother. She was sainted basically for being conned by some Palestinian tricksters. They also sold her the crosses of the two thieves, the crown of thorns, Mary Magdalene’s jar, the baskets that held the miraculous loaves, the slab on which the dead Christ lay, and that’s just the Jesus stuff. They have all sorts of relics of the saints as well.”
    “I hear they have the head of John the Baptist.”
    “They do. In fact, they have two. We’ll see them both.”
    She looked at me quizzically.
    “I thought you were a believer,” she said.
    “I am. I just don’t believe in worshiping pieces of dead people.”
    We walked on toward the Forum Bovis. Demetrios had lived in an inn near it. As the Mese opened into the great rectangle, we came up against the great Brazen Bull, in which the tyrant Emperor Phocas had, according to legend, been roasted to death. The area was now, appropriately, the main meat market for the city. The beast glowered at us, but did not charge. Claudius looked happily around at the throngs of people streaming through the forum, swirling around one bronze masterpiece after another.
    “I do want to see this city,” she said.
    “We will,” I promised. “If we live long enough.”

F IVE
    Behold: I have played the fool, and have erred exceedingly
.
    I SAMUEL 26:21
    D emetrios lived in a small hostel south of the Forum Bovis. Lived, past tense. His landlady, a large, slovenly woman with wine-stained clothing, snored on a bench in front. When we roused her from her nap, she took one look at my makeup and shouted, “Go away! We’ll have no more of you people.”
    “My apologies for disturbing you, Madame,” I said, sweeping my cap and bells off my head and bowing low. “I was merely seeking an old friend who lived here. I had hopes that he might find me some employment. His name is Demetrios.”
    “I know who your friend is,” she snapped.
    “Then perhaps you could tell me where he is.”
    “Perhaps I can’t,” she said, and sat in her chair. I waited for her to speak again. “Vanished,” she said finally.
    I waited for her to elaborate. After some minutes of looking at each other, I decided to prompt her.
    “Vanished, you said?”
    “Yes.”
    “When was this?”
    “What’s it to you?”
    “As I said, I was hoping he could find me some employment. We used to work together.”
    “Then you can pay me what he owes me,” she said hopefully.
    “We weren’t that close. When did he vanish?”
    “Beginning of November. One day he’s here, the next he isn’t, without so much as a by-your-leave. Ten years he’d been living here, and didn’t even say good-bye. Leaving me to sort out his things.”
    I had a brief moment of hope. “Do you still have them here?”
    She laughed. “Sold them after a month. That’s what we do around here. Got pitifully little for the lot, mostly some hideous costumes of his.”
    “You have nothing left?” I said. “What about in his room?”
    “Let it in December. Can’t have it going to waste. Now, get on with you.”
    I turned to leave.
    “Wait,” she called after me. She got up from her chair for the first time and scurried into the building. She returned with a long, thin parcel, wrapped in rags, bulging at one end.
    “He left this,” she said. “I couldn’t sell it. It has a cursed look to it. Do you want it?”
    “Yes,” I said, my heart sinking as I recognized the shape. I took it from her, and we left as the sun started setting.
     
    We reached the Rooster before dark and went straight to our room. I unwrapped the cloth and held up a scepter with a small figure of a skull at the end of it, decked out in cap and bells.
    “Demetrios’s
marotte
,” I said. “Look at the makeup. That was his style, with the red triangles ringing the eyes. He never would have left this behind.”
    “Does it shoot poisoned needles like yours?” Viola asked, edging away from it.
    I