“All those other people he was talking about,” Farrell said. “Sounded like mail call in Sherwood Forest.”

Ben glanced sideways as the car took one of the Avicenna hills’ Russian-roulette corners. There were few street lights here, and the car was crowded with the prickly, fragrant shadows of jasmine, clematis, and acacia. “I told you, he’s like that most of the time. It used to turn off for his classes, but I hear it’s even getting into the lectures now. He’s got his own names for everybody, and when he’s talking faculty politics, you’re just supposed to know who he means. That’s what all that stuff was about, the king and the war and whatever.” He grinned then. “I will say, it does lend a certain grandeur to fights over who has to teach the freshmen this semester. Makes it all seem like the Crusades, instead of mud-wrestling.”

“He called you Egil something,” Farrell said. Ben nodded, rubbing his mouth. “Egil Eyvindsson. It’s the name I used at the party. Egil was the greatest of the Icelandic skalds, and there was another man around the same time called Eyvind the Plagiarist. Professors at play.”

They had parked in the driveway before either of them spoke again. Ben cut the engine and they sat still, looking up at the wishbone-sharp gables and the pagoda flare of the porch roof. Farrell asked idly, “How many windows on this side of the house?”

“What? I don’t know. Nine, ten.”

“That was yesterday,” Farrell said. “Nine windows yesterday, eleven tonight. They never come out the same way twice.”

Ben stared at him for a moment, then turned away to study the house again. Farrell said, “There are usually more of them at night. I’m not sure why that is.”

“Eleven,” Ben said. “Eleven windows, counting that halfsort of thing in the pantry.” He smiled at Farrell, opening the car door. He said, “At my house, when we were kids. You remember how many times you fell down those last few stairs into the basement? All those years, and you never could keep track, you just kept stepping right off into space. Eleven windows, Joe.”