The Lark's Lament: A Fools' Guild Mystery by Alan Gordon

that causes that.”
    He guffawed and held out his hand. “Truce?” he asked.
    “Truce,” I said, taking it.
    Behind us, I heard Helga sigh with relief.

THREE
    Where is my clown? I need him now, to take my troubles away.
    —BLACKMORE’S NIGHT, “FOOL’S GOLD”
    “Ever been to Marseille?” I asked as we were ferried across the river that flowed into the city’s harbor.
    “Once, as a child,” said Claudia. “When Father took my brother and me to Paris, we sailed first from Sicily into Marseille. I remember seeing Lazarus’s Grotto and having nightmares that he was going to rise again and come looking for me.”
    “You actually believed that story?” I asked. “My most skeptical wife, I am astounded.”
    “I was eight years old,” she said defensively. “The priests at the abbey said it was where Saint Lazarus heard confession after he became Bishop, and who was I to contradict all of those priests?”
    “The abbey does very well with that legend,” I said. “I think they also say Mary Magdalene ended up here. Along with all of the others whose story didn’t finish in the Gospels.”
    “I thought she ended up in that cave in the mountains,” she said. “Wasn’t there some abbey we passed claiming her?”
    “At least three, I think.”
    “Why would she come all the way to Languedoc just to live in a cave?” asked Helga. “Didn’t they have caves in the Holy Land?”
    “They did,” I said. “But they became very popular and overpriced after Our Lord and Savior made his appearance. All those hermits competing for space. It’s no wonder she left.”
    “And how did people here know who she was?” persisted Helga. “She would have gotten here before the Book was written. Nobody would have known she was of importance, and it’s not as if she could tell them, yes, that was me, I was the girl in the story. She wasn’t anyone yet.”
    “Everyone who isn’t anyone comes to Marseille,” Claudia said as the ferry bumped into the wharf. “And now, we are here.”
    The ferrymen secured the boat and lowered a plank ramp. I guided Zeus and the wain carefully onto the wharf.
    “Do you know Pantalan, the Fool?” I asked one of the ferrymen.
    “Sure,” he said, grinning. “He spilled a pint of ale on my head once. Funniest thing you ever saw.”
    “It certainly sounds it,” I said. “Do you know where he lives?”
    “Somewhere in the Ville-Haute, near the church of Saint-Martin,” he said. “Ask around. Try—”
    “The taverns?” guessed my wife, smiling sweetly.
    “Oc, Domna,” he said. “I expect a looker like you will be welcome there.”
    “How gallant!” sighed Claudia, doing that fluttering business that so often swayed lesser men. Helga watched her studiously.
    “Come, wife,” I said. “The sun is plummeting, and we must find our friend before the nightwatch comes out.”
    I guided Zeus past the competing hostels of the Templars and the Hospitalers and stopped. In front of us was the mad profusion of wharves, inns, brothels, warehouses, and shops that made up the Ville-Basse. Through them swarmed hundreds of pilgrims seeking supplies to keep them alive during the forty-day journey to the Holy Land, and twice as many Marseillese seeking to overcharge them for those supplies. On the other side of the harbor, a safe distance away, the walls of the Abbey of Saint-Victor stood in solitary rebuke to the manifestation of greed facing it. Where Lazarus died a second time, and no one there to raise him. I looked at the abbey shutting out the world, then back at the Ville-Basse, which made one appreciate why they would want to.
    “What’s wrong?” asked Claudia.
    “I barely recognize this place,” I said. “It’s doubled in size since I was last here.”
    “This Pantalan will help us,” she said. “Do you know him well?”
    “I knew him for the same week that I knew Folc, and that was a long time ago,” I said. “I wasn’t expecting to come here. I thought that we