Jester Leaps In: A Medieval Mystery by Alan Gordon Page A

sin. The stone does not discriminate.”
    “Well, my friend, I’ll pass for now, but if you’ll tell me your name, I may seek you out when the occasion demands.”
    He backed away from me hurriedly, wrapping his cloak around his spindly, body.
    “No name, no name,” he muttered. “My enemies would pay highly to learn my whereabouts, and would gladly murder me for these treasures. When you need luck, I will find you.”
    He hobbled away, glancing over his shoulder several times. I signaled to Claudius. She ambled by, not looking at me.
    “That relic seller who approached me?” I said under my breath. “Follow him.”
    She nodded slightly, and walked in the direction he had taken.
    I quickly packed my gear and waited until she was just at the edge of the forum. Then I threw my cloak over my motley and began trailing her.
    It’s an old test in the Guild: direct the apprentice to follow a designated fool through a crowded city. The first part of the test is to successfully follow the target without being spotted. Thesecond part is for the apprentice to figure out that he or she is also being followed.
    I walked quickly to the south end of the forum in time to catch sight of Viola as she disappeared into a warren of covered stalls. I skirted the local Scyllae and Charybdises, stopped my ears to the Sirens of the oaken casks, and otherwise avoided or rejected every invitation to purchase, haggle, fondle, gamble, or imbibe, never losing track of that short, bearded, beloved wife of mine.
    Then, on a particularly narrow, winding street, shielded completely from any memory of sunlight, she disappeared. I poked my head cautiously around the corner, slipping my dagger surreptitiously into my hand, waiting to see if an ambush had been laid. No one accosted me, so I made so bold as to enter the street itself.
    The noise of the sellers from the stalls faded. The gloom increased the further I ventured. The passage finally opened between two buildings onto a view of the Kontoskalion Harbor, where the Imperial Navy had its dockyard.
    I heard a throat clear behind me. I whirled, dagger ready to be thrown, to see Claudius, hands on her hips, glaring fiercely.
    “There I was, thinking that you actually trusted me to accomplish something on my own,” she said. “Then I noticed a cloaked fool following me. I suppose this was some kind of test.”
    “Indeed, Apprentice,” I replied, wondering, not for the first time, whether a teacher/apprentice relationship was practical for a marriage. “And if you can tell me where that walking pustule went, you pass.”
    “He’s in that shack by the dock,” she said.
    “Good. Let’s go pay him a visit.”
    “You mean he actually matters to us? I thought you just wanted me to practice following someone.”
    “He matters. I recognized a ring that he had among his collection. It’s a Guild ring. I think it belonged to Demetrios.”
    I took a step. She grabbed my arm and pulled me into a doorway.
    “Since you’re such an expert,” she whispered, “then you know, of course, that someone has been following you.”

S IX
    [T]ime, the transformer and perpetual engenderer of dissimilarities . . .

O CITY OF BYZANTIUM, ANNALS OF NIKETAS CHONIATES
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    P. 291
    I gaped at her stupidly, then looked back into the passage from which I had emerged.
    “He’s gone,” she said. “Whoever he was, he elected not to follow you into a dark alley. He must have thought you were cleverer than you are. Or maybe someone was following him. I’m beginning to think that everyone in this city is following someone else. No wonder it’s so crowded.”
    “Full marks and extra credit, Apprentice,” I said. “What manner of man was he?”
    “I don’t know,” she said. “I saw a cowl and no face.”
    “Interesting. Father Esaias, perhaps?”
    “The cowl was different,” she said. “That doesn’t mean it wasn’t him. Do you think someone from the Church was on your tail?”
    “If it was a cowl, then it