The acolyte staggered up, approached the high table at a stumbling run, threw himself down on his knees and kissed Isabella's perfect toes. There was a roar of approval. He came back to his seat, tripping on his hem, on the verge of fainting.

The parcel moved on.

The next victim had to stand up and sing a song. Fortunately this was a known singer and they obliged with a round of 'Sumer is y-cumin' in'. The next person got a bag of toffee.

And so it went on, the parcel getting smaller all the time, Sylvanus capering and insisting on telling more riddles, and the forfeits becoming more biological. Finally the possessor of the tiny little gold wrapped parcel, Amelia, undid the gold ribbon and found a slender belt made of links shaped like leaves. It was a beautiful thing. The Templars did not play any games by halves. There they sat, like priest and priestess, shining in their white robes, beautiful and awe-inspiring.

To the tune of several tootlers, the next game was announced.

As Sylvanus explained the rules, it seemed to Phryne that no new amusements had been invented since the twelfth century.

For if this wasn't a medieval version of musical chairs, she was Wynkyn de Worde. She slipped out into the gathering darkness. The tent was close, though the great heat had not returned. The horsemen and hearties were gathered in an 244 *245 impromptu camp down by the lake, where the occasional splash showed that the 'throw a Chink in the river' boys were still at their nefarious trade. They had lit a bonfire and Phryne could smell roasting meat.

Phryne ignited an entirely unmedieval cigarette. She had a few useful objects in the pouch which was part of the costume.

She sat down on an iron bench, smoking luxuriously, puffing the fragrant fumes at the mosquitoes who were gathered in a cloud, muttering and waiting for her citronella to wear off.

The gasper tasted so good that she had another and by the time she sauntered back into the tent, the musical chairs had concluded and the second remove was being brought in. More meat-of course, meat was such a luxury in the Middle Ages- more fruits of all sorts. And some entertainment, in the form of a very solemn boy who escorted a very solemn other boy and were accompanied by the singers.

'The Boar's head in hand bear I 'bedecked with bays and rosemarie 'And I pray you my masters be merry 'Quot estis in convivio!

'Caput apri defero 'Reddens laudes Domino.'

Isabella had probably considered the nauseating impact on a modern diner of being presented with the head of a real boar, and had ordered one made of marzipan. It was magnificent, likelife in colour, the tips of its marzipan tusks gilded. It was surrounded by a cornucopia of marzipan fruits and vegetables. The company hopped into these as though there was no next Wednesday but Phryne refrained because she did not like marzipan's texture or taste. No matter what it was shaped 245 *246 like it still tasted very much like marzipan. And because she had marked down a dish of apple snow as her own. Also, she had to serve the Lord and Lady, as did her fellow pages, who were recalled to their duty by the Lord of Misrule, who made great play with his bladder and threatened to tell them more riddles. That got everyone moving.

Wine was poured, marzipan was nibbled. Phryne secured the dish of apple snow, which was a marvellous concoction of apple puree and beaten egg white. No one else seemed to fancy it so she ate it all.

'Any messages, Miss?' asked Minnie, disguised for the event in a sober gown and wimple.

'Nothing yet,' said Phryne. 'Tell Mrs T that the food was magnificent. Particularly the apple snow.'

'I never thought anyone would eat that,' said Minnie.

'Uncooked meringue! I'll tell her,' she said, and withdrew with the rest of the servers as the singers formed up again.

'Never weather beaten sail more willing bent to shore 'Never tired pilgrim's limbs affected slumber more 'Than my weary sprite now longs 'To fly out of my troubled breast 'Oh come quickly oh come quickly oh come quickly sweetest lord 'and take my soul to rest.'

'We don't seem to be able to get away from death, do we?'

remarked Gilbert, wiping at a wine spill on his sleeve.

'It was always very close in the old days,' murmured Phryne.

The wine servers went around again and the next game was called. About half the company, she noticed, were either 246 *247 actually asleep or half asleep, their heads pillowed on their arms. Several had just curled up on the tent floor and gone bye-byes with the complete innocence of children. The wine cup wasn't that strong, Phryne thought. It could only have been about eight o'clock, quite dark. This sleepiness must have been the product of alcohol and exercise. Phryne herself had never been more wide awake in her life.

'Blind Man's Bluff!' announced Sylvanus. 'Hoodman's Blind! Who found the bean in their bowl?'

'I did,' said the druid.

Gerald was led forward, his eyes swathed in a white cloth.

The candles were put out and darkness flowed into the tent. Phryne had the same thought as Nicholas and a fraction of a second sooner. Fool, she told herself as she ran, idiot, it isn't during karez that he is perfect, it's when he is blinded and in the midst of his acolytes, perfectly trusting, perfectly vulnerable.

She shoved Sabine aside and dived towards the lone figure turning his mistletoe crowned head from side to side, trying to understand the flurry. And again in one of those instanta-neous flashes, Phryne thought of the sacrificial human under the white robes, waiting meekly for his holy death that would bring back the sun for his tribe.

Phryne was behind Gerald as he stood blindfolded in the middle of the floor. Nicholas was in front, which was why the thin knife aimed at Gerald's heart went instead through Nicholas's shoulder. There it stuck. The assailant wrenched at it unavailingly for a moment and then took to his heels and ran, and Phryne ran after him. Nicholas sank slowly to the floor.

247.

*248 The Joker was examining Miss Fisher very carefully. In the riddle game going on, in connection with the missing boy, she appeared to be winning. She was beginning to look dangerous. And she would be so very beautiful, dead.

248.

*249

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

Here life has death for neighbour, and far from eye or ear Wan waves and wet winds labour, Weak ships and spirits steer; They drive adrift, and whither They wot not who make thither; But no such winds blow hither, And no such things grow here.

AC Swinburne 'The Garden of Proserpine'

The killer was dressed in a page's costume. He was fast. So was Phryne. She was almost near enough to tackle and grab when he threw a bench down-she had to jump over it-and then he was racing for the back of the house.

Behind her Phryne heard screams. People and light spilled out of the Templar tent. That ought to act as a signal, she thought, but all her elaborate preparations had been predicated on the attack happening in the dark, at the love-feast. This half-light was confusing but would not hide some of the means she had hoped to use to catch the Joker.

Phryne excluded from her mind her concern for the stabbed Nicholas and her burning desire to find out who 249 *250 the Joker actually was. He was rounding the house, now; she heard his soft shoes scuff on gravel. Her own made an identical noise.

No one seemed to have noticed the two runners. Out of the corner of her eye Phryne saw Gabriel and some footmen issue forth from the front door, armed with various weapons.

If she so much as paused to scream at them she would lose the Joker. Where was he heading? The area behind the house was a maze of washhouses, drying yards, back kitchens, sculleries and sheds for tools, coal, and miscellaneous gardening requisites.

There he would hope to lose Phryne, and she did not mean to be lost.

Her breath was shortening. Her heart was pounding. Joker and avenger slid a little as they came into the cobbled space behind the laundries, where a hundred years' continual leakage of water had given rise to a fine fresh green growth of moss.

The red page's jerkin vanished round a corner and Phryne hared off in pursuit. She had a gun in her pouch, she realised, and a fat lot of use it was. She couldn't free the thongs while she was running. At least, she thought, the murderer had left his knife in Nicholas. Must have stuck between bone and bone.

The red jerkin darted into a space between two huts and Phryne dived after it. He had not spoken a word, and she had made no challenge. Now she didn't have the breath to do so. If he can't lose me in this collection, she thought, he'll have to- She stumbled and fell full length across someone's foot.

All the remaining breath was knocked out of her.

'Ambush me,' she concluded the thought. There was a thin knife poised over her breast. The Joker had pulled his hood down so low that she could not see his face.

'Why?' she asked.

250.

*251 'Wrong question,' the Joker informed her. His voice was light and strangely characterless, with almost no accent.

'So it is,' said Phryne, allowing her breathing to become slow and deep, a technique taught to her by Lin Chung. 'The only answer is, why not? I don't suppose you'd like to tell me who hired you?'

'I might,' he returned. 'I do need something from you, as it happens, which is why I let you chase me all this way.'

'And what can I do for the Joker?' asked Phryne, matching tone for tone. 'Are you comfortable in English, or would you prefer to speak French?'

'English is my native tongue,' he protested.

'Is it, indeed? Tell me, do you like killing people?'

'It is one of the only realities,' he said. The knife had not deviated by a sixteenth of an inch from its place over her heart.

But he wanted something and while he was talking he was not stabbing Phryne to death. This would not be a salubrious place to die, bleeding her life away on the slimy cobbles between two ruined buildings. Phryne resolved not to die there. Somehow.

'There are other realities. Birth, perhaps? Love?'

'I never loved anyone,' he said, as though it was a matter of no importance. 'I don't know how. It got left out of me, I suppose. My mother always said I was an unnatural child, and my father favoured his other sons. I killed them all, one night, in a fire. As the house burned, I felt pleasure. I never had before. I was fifteen.'

'How very interesting,' said Phryne. 'Did you take part in the Templar love-feasts?'

'I did,' he said. 'They were very boring. I had to lie still while people kissed me. I did not find it pleasurable. But death-now death is never without interest.'

'Tell me,' requested Phryne. Her muscles were beginning to tremble from staying so still for so long.

251.

*252 'If I was to push this knife into your breast, just there, it would slide in like butter,' he said eagerly. 'The blade is very sharp. It would meet no resistance. Then, as long as I withdrew it carefully, there would be no visible bleeding. It is unlikely you would feel much pain. You would become sleepy and then collapse, and the people who found you would never notice the little puncture. So while they were bringing the smelling salts you would exsanguinate and die. Just pass away, under their hands.'

'I see,' said Phryne. 'But Gerald . . .'

'That Nicholas interfered,' protested the light voice. 'Not fair. He leapt in the way, spoiled my stroke, and then my favourite blade Eleanora got jammed in his shoulder.'

'Eleanora?'

'I name my knives. Eleanora was my mother's name.'

Phryne bit back a comment about filial loyalty and tried a small flinch.

'It's cold on the ground,' she suggested. 'And you want me to do something for you, before you kill me?'

'Oh. Oh, yes,' said the Joker, slightly disconcerted. 'Perhaps you should get up, then. I will walk behind you,' he said, allowing Phryne to feel the prick of the blade in the middle of her back. 'And if I stab you here, you will be paralysed for quite twenty minutes before you die.'

Phryne believed him. She got to her feet carefully, shook herself, and dusted down her costume. Her hands went to the strings of her pouch.

'May I smoke?' she asked coolly. 'Even the executed are allowed a last cigarette.'

'No,' he said waspishly. 'I don't approve of ladies smoking.

Shall we go?'

'Where?'

252.

*253 'Something I need to make sure of,' he said. 'Just walk, Miss Fisher.'

Phryne's fingers worked at the thongs of the pouch as she strolled, slowly, into the main drying yard. It was strung with lines made of all substances from string to galvanised wire. The Joker, however, divined that Phryne might try to trap him and forced her away from the middle of the yard and into the black shadows at the edge.

Damn, she thought. And these strings have chosen a hellish time to make themselves into a knot. He is going to kill me.

Without a thought. Without a qualm. He is a true monster.

And I really will miss Lin Chung. And Dot. And coffee.

'Left or right?' she asked at a corner.

'Left, please. I say, Miss Fisher, you are taking this well.

I hope you aren't expecting to be rescued. I doped the Templars'

followers. That will be attracting a lot of attention.'

'Did you poison them?' asked Phryne.

'No, just chloral hydrate in the marzipan. You seem very alert, though.'

'I don't like marzipan,' Phryne responded.

'That would explain it,' he agreed.

His muscular control was remarkable, Phryne thought.

That knife had not moved, even though both of them were walking. It was about an eighth of an inch into her back, and one movement would sever her spine. She dragged at the knotted thongs. They did not budge.

'Now, where is the place?' he muttered. 'These old houses are so confusing. Not built, you know, but just "growed", like Topsy. Where is the kitchen from here?'

'If I gesture, will you impale me?' she asked, and he laughed, a light boy's laugh full of good humour.

'That's for me to know,' he chuckled, 'and you to find out.'

253.

*254 'The kitchen, I believe, is to your right and somewhat behind you,' she said, deciding not to risk the gesture.