The school of Chinese classics was the most prestigious in the university. Its professors held the highest rank, and its graduates were the most likely to win first place honors and advance rapidly in the government.

The large main hall, customarily used for lectures, was connected to smaller flanking halls by covered galleries. There was no one about in the gravelled courtyard or in the galleries. After a moment's indecision, Akitada climbed the steps to the central hall and entered. The vast dim space lay silent, and the classrooms were empty. Once he thought he heard a step in the main hall, but when he went back he found nobody. He began to wonder where all the people were. In his day, the place would have been bustling even at this early hour.

Then the handsome student suddenly walked into the hall. He stared at Akitada, muttered, "Forgot something," and headed for one of the classrooms.

"Just a moment, young man," Akitada snapped.

The student turned around. "Yes?"

"What is going on here? Where are the professors?"

"Oh, if you want the great man, he's in the library, along with his personal sycophant," the young man said curtly and jerked his head towards the western wing, before walking away.

Shaking his head, Akitada walked along the covered gallery. He was by now intensely curious about this student's teachers. In the library, he found two men seated side by side, bent over a yellowing scroll. The older man, tall and with a fine head of white hair, wore a splendid brocade robe. At the sound of the door he looked up angrily.

"Yes, what do you want?" he barked when he saw Akitada. His face was smooth-shaven and still handsome, but his flashing black eyes fixed Akitada disdainfully. "I am very busy and cannot be troubled with trivial matters."

Feeling himself flush, Akitada apologized and introduced himself. The elegant gentleman thawed a little, gave his name as Oe, and introduced his companion as his assistant Ono.

Ono was in his early thirties, small, slender and weak-chinned, a defect which he had sought to disguise by wearing a mustache and a small chin beard.

"Get some tea, Ono!" Oe commanded, and the younger man jumped up, bowed deeply and scurried out. "Can't abide the fellow," Oe said, without lowering his voice. "No sense of dignity at all and he looks like a squirrel. Acts like one, too. But he's useful. Wouldn't have anyone who wasn't. Sugawara, did you say? Good family that, but sadly come down in the world. Sit down! You were a student here before my time?"

Akitada nodded.

"Hmm, law is not a field that appeals to many, but Hirata's a sound man, I hear. Mind you, he's nearly incompetent when it comes to self-advancement. Many a time I have offered to introduce him to the right people, and he turned me down. I have friends in the highest ranks, you know, the very highest . . ."

At this moment Ono entered with a tray holding a teapot and bowls, and his superior interrupted himself to reprimand him for his slowness, his clumsiness, and his choice of tea bowls. "You would think you would know by now that I drink only from the imported porcelain cups," he snapped.

"How stupid of me," Ono said immediately, bowing deeply several times. "Shall I go get them now?"

"No, no! We will make do this time. Did you steep the tea properly?"

"I think so." Ono turned to Akitada. "The professor has extremely refined tastes, unlike anyone else in this university. I often tell him that he is wasted on the yokels from the provinces who attend his classes."

Far from being flattered by this speech, Oe snapped, "Don't be an idiot, man! I have plenty of students from the best families. There is Prince Yoakira's grandson, Lord Minamoto, and a nephew of the prime minister, both of them with imperial blood in their veins. How dare you say I teach yokels?"

Akitada, trying to divert Oe's wrath from the hapless Ono, said quickly, "Just now I met a very superior looking young man in the main hall. An older student. Very tall and handsome."

"Older?" Oe frowned at Ono.

"It must have been Ishikawa, sir. He came early to pick up the essays."

"Ishikawa? He's a nobody. Graduate student. Clever, but comes from a poor family and stays here on scholarship. Mind you, he makes himself useful by reading papers for me. I am pressed for time, you know. The Kamo festival is coming up, and I am arranging a poetry match between the university faculty and the nobles. We were just reviewing the account of such a contest on the occasion of Emperor Mou Tsung's river party. Very appropriate, as we are to meet in the lake pavilion of the Spring Garden. No doubt you will be invited. Do you compose?"

"I am afraid my poor talents are solely in the area of prose," Akitada said awkwardly. "A memorial on encouraging farming by easing the rice tax, and a report on Buddhist practices in the provinces."

"Hmm. I can't abide the Buddhists. The Chinese knew how to deal with them. Kicked all the monks out of the temples and melted down the gold buddhas for the imperial treasury. Recite some lines from the thing on farmers!"

Akitada confessed that he could not remember enough to oblige.

"That should tell you something. If it were good, you'd remember. I myself composed a memorial several years ago. It went like this."

Oe recited in a deep, resonant voice. Akitada began to understand the man's reputation. The syllables and lines rolled from his tongue like music.

Ono sat enthralled. When Oe finally stopped, his assistant reached into his sleeve for a tissue to dry his moist eyes. "Beautiful!" he sighed. "Nothing better has ever been written. Not even Po Chu has your way with assonance and the balanced line."

"You can take the tea things back," said Oe sourly. "I must return to my work, Sugawara, but I expect to see you around."

Akitada removed himself from the presence of the great Oe. He took a shortcut to the school of law by walking through the courtyard of the mathematics department. A stranger blocked his way.

"Who are you?" he demanded in an irate tone.

Akitada explained and discovered that the irascible person was the incumbent in mathematics. Professor Takahashi was a lean man, in his fifties, with thinning hair and the wrinkled face and neck of an ill-tempered turtle. He peered at Akitada for several moments before acknowledging his status as a colleague.

"I cannot imagine what possesses them to use temporary people," he said nastily. Our reputation is bad enough as it is. However, I dare say this is better than letting Hirata struggle on alone. He is getting past it. Have you met any of the others?"

Akitada mentioned his morning's encounters.

"Nishioka is an intellectual zero. He has his nose in everybody's business instead of doing his duties, and Sato is a drunk with the libido of a badger," Takahashi informed him. "Oe, of course, is our great man! Fortune smiles on him. Those empty-headed court nobles are impressed by all that passion and thunder. And fame fills the pockets nicely. The man has even acquired a summer villa on Lake Biwa. Next he will, no doubt, be appointed to the Council of State."

For a moment Akitada was bereft of words. Takahashi seemed to have few qualms about blackening his colleagues' reputations. What a change from the kindly man who had held this position before! Akitada said, "I see there have been many changes here since my time. Apparently few of my former professors are still teaching. Besides Professor Hirata there seems to be only Professor Tanabe left, and he was busy preparing his lecture when I arrived."