In a rush of clattering footsteps, a crowd of boys and young men swept into the courtyard, all chattering excitedly. They were dressed in old-fashioned robes cut in the fashion of boubous, a plain drapery of muted colors designed not to excite the eye. I caught snippets of words, and it seemed they had been out to watch the festival procession. Although they had not witnessed the disturbance I had caused, rumor of its occurrence had spread. When an older man with blond hair and the ruddy features of a heavy drinker entered the courtyard at the tail end of the procession, they all hushed so quickly that the voice of the one poor boy who hadn’t noticed rang out.

“—They heard a voice say, ‘A rising light marks the dawn of a new world.’ ”

As proctors carrying willow wands converged on the hapless speaker to whip his hands, I looked in vain for a line of girls. I was the only woman in the glass courtyard; no female proctors or servants flocked at the edge of the shuffling horde of youths. The overly talkative boy was biting his lip so as not to cry out under the humiliating punishment as everyone stared.

I could not bear to watch, and anyway, I needed to find the headmaster. A staircase led up to the long corridor and the closed door of his study. The well-oiled latch eased down with a soft click. I slipped inside.

For an instant I thought I had accidentally walked through the wrong door into the wrong room, because nothing in the spacious chamber looked as I remembered it. The chalkboards and desk had vanished, replaced by gilt-embroidered chairs that looked as uncomfortable as they were showy. The bookshelves had been cleared of all their books and scrolls, and they now displayed gold cups, gold bowls, and brass or silver wine flagons. One bookcase held nothing but a grisly collection of skulls, arranged from the largest at the top left to the smallest at the lower right, which horribly seemed to be a baby’s actual skull. On the long table lay not a dinner service for five but so many empty wine bottles and empty glasses I did not bother to count them. Only the circulating stove set into the fireplace and the pedestal holding the head of the poet Bran Cof remained from the last time I had entered this room. It surely did not look like the study of a scholar with the many diverse interests and formidable intellect of the headmaster. It took no great acumen to suspect that he had been replaced as master of the academy.