{"id":1245,"date":"2026-01-10T11:50:44","date_gmt":"2026-01-10T11:50:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.jadownes.com\/excerpt-from-predestination-the-bloodstone-of-boiorix\/"},"modified":"2026-01-12T14:57:28","modified_gmt":"2026-01-12T14:57:28","slug":"excerpt-from-predestination-the-bloodstone-of-boiorix","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jadownes.com\/blog\/excerpt-from-predestination-the-bloodstone-of-boiorix\/","title":{"rendered":"Excerpt from Predestination: The Bloodstone of Boiorix"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>From <a href=\"https:\/\/jadownes.com\/predestination\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Predestination: The Bloodstone of Boiorix<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Jack threw down the hand of cards he held and exclaimed, &#8220;How could you know that I held the Pope of Diamonds?&#8221;<br>\nGerolamo sighed, and started to explain his theory again, &#8220;I didn&#8217;t know Jack, it was just extremely likely given the total number of cards and the cards we have already seen played. Think of it this way&#8230;&#8221;<br>\nBut Jack had had enough, and snorting his disgust he said, &#8220;I cannot listen to your over-long explanation again, not on an empty belly. I&#8217;ll go out and get us some food and drink for our supper.&#8221; With that he rose from the table and reached for his cloak and money bag.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gerolamo gathered the discarded cards and quickly shuffled them, fanned them out, split the pack and shuffled again, before squaring up the pack and placing it in a neat pile on the table. Then with exasperation evident in his voice he said, &#8220;This last month of secretive travelling from one village to another has been very trying. And, I know, I know, I have not always seemed appreciative. But I really do thank you for accompanying me. We both know that I would not have survived on my own. I just hope we gain some definite information about Dr Dee&#8217;s location soon. This impoverished existence is almost more than I can endure. If I had been able to stay in London a few more days I am sure I could have contacted several scholars and learned exactly where Dee resides and then we could have gone straight there. Alas, that dratted mob outside the Steelyard put a stop to that. I curse my weakness for gambling, I truly do, but watching the run of cards does permit me the occasion to perfect my mathematics of probability don&#8217;t you think?&#8221;&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From Predestination: The Bloodstone of Boiorix: &#8220;Jack threw down the hand of cards he held and exclaimed, &#8220;How could you know that I held the Pope of Diamonds?&#8221; Gerolamo sighed, and started to explain his theory again, &#8220;I didn&#8217;t know Jack, it was just extremely likely given the total number of cards and the cards &#8230; <a title=\"Excerpt from Predestination: The Bloodstone of Boiorix\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/jadownes.com\/blog\/excerpt-from-predestination-the-bloodstone-of-boiorix\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about Excerpt from Predestination: The Bloodstone of Boiorix\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1229,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-predestination"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jadownes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jadownes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jadownes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jadownes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jadownes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1245"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jadownes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1245\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1272,"href":"https:\/\/jadownes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1245\/revisions\/1272"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jadownes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jadownes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jadownes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jadownes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}