Early 13th century. Six jesters mysteriously disappear in Constantinople. Alarmed by this, the guild of jesters instructs their best secret agent Festa, who has just brilliantly solved the murder of Duke Orsino, to investigate the circumstances of the new case. Feste travels to the capital of Byzantium with his wife Viola, disguised as a guild student. Quite quickly, he manages to find out that the local jesters have become aware of a conspiracy against the emperor, in which someone from the inner circle of Alexei III is involved, and the conspirators are only waiting for the onset of some specific event to carry out their plans. But what is this event and who is involved in the conspiracy? Having made the main character of his book one of the characters from Shakespeare's comedy Twelfth Night, or Whatever, Alan Gordon created a wonderful epic full of humor about the adventures of the jester detective.