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

engineering. It will outlast the empire. Here we are.”
    What I took for a jumble of stones was actually a stairway, leading to a hole in the side of the tunnel some six feet up. The old man scampered up the stones and disappeared. We followed before we lost sight of the candle.
    What we found was a good-sized room with stone walls on three sides and a newer wall of concrete opposite the entrance. There was a proper bed in a corner, a bookcase with six shelves, completely filled with ancient tomes, scrolls, piles of scrap paper, and some empty bottles used for paperweights. There was a bureau at the foot of the bed, and a pile of carpenter’s tools, which explained how the furniture had gotten there in the first place. There was a small table and a single chair by the entrance. The wall to our right had only a plain, wooden cross to adorn it.
    Zintziphitzes bustled about, setting food on the table, lighting some sputtering torches set in sconces on the concrete wall.
    “I apologize for not having enough chairs,” he said. “Give me some time and a few scraps of lumber, and I’ll build a few. I’ve become quite the carpenter, you know. I’ll have to ask you to keep your voices low, however. The stables are just on the other side of the wall here, and we don’t want to frighten the horses.”
    “Where exactly are we?” I asked.
    “Under the Hippodrome, of course. This room was sealed off during renovation some thirty years ago. I figured out where it was, and broke through from the drainage tunnel. Thought it would be a useful little hidey-hole in emergencies. Then I made a very useful discovery. So useful that this became my home for most of the last three decades. Cheese?”
    “No, thank you,” I said. “The dead fools? Did they know about this place?”
    “Tiberius knew I had a place, but didn’t know exactly where or how to get here. It wasn’t important to him. He respected my privacy, and I liked him for that. Probably my only real friend in this city. He’s the one I went to.”
    “With what?” I prompted, trying not to be impatient.
    He led us to the exit and pointed into the darkness.
    “This stadium is very ingeniously constructed,” he said. “There are drains in all the tiers. Makes it easier to get the place ready after a rainstorm. There are tunnels under every tier to carry the water off, large enough for a man to crawl through if he had a mind to. And then, all he has to do is sit and listen, and remarkable things will come down through the drains.”
    “You’ve been overhearing conversations,” I marveled. “You’ve been crawling through drains and spying on people!”
    “Oh, the things that people say when they think they’re alonein a stadium box. I’ve exposed a hundred scandals to the delight of rich and less rich, embarrassed not a few high dignitaries and bureaucrats, and have aimed barbed couplets at more than one emperor. It’s a sin, of course, and a terrible addiction. Even when I began preaching, I still would come here seeking the choicest tidbits, for the preacher may use them as well as the fool. But then I learned something that was too big for me, so I brought it to Tiberius. I assume that he told the others, and that whatever actions they took led to their deaths.”
    He looked at me, the rapture of the storyteller gradually subsumed by the horror of what he had to say. Suddenly, he was an old man, sagging in body and spirit.
    “Go on,” I said.
    He shook his head abruptly.
    “I told them, and now they’re dead,” he said. “That’s on me. If I tell you, it’s because you wanted to know, and that will be on you. I’m warning you, this may get you and your little friend killed.”
    “I came here to find out,” I said. “I’ll accept the responsibility for my death if that’s what you want me to do. I’ll be better armed knowing.”
    He nodded, then sat on his bed, cross-legged, and resumed speaking.
    “The voices came through one day. Two of them,