DANIEL PAUSED IN THE CENTER of a Gothic arch and looked out over a spread of stone steps that led down into the Great Court of Trinity College: an area about four times the size of Neville's Court. In a strange way it reminded him of the ‘Change in London, except that where the ‘Change was a daytime place, all a-sparkle with Thomas Gresham's golden grasshoppers and vaulting Mercurys, and crowded with lusty shouting traders, this place was Gothickal in the extreme, faintly dusted with the blue light of a half-moon, sparsely populated by robed and/or big-wigged men skulking about the paths and huddling in doorways in groups of two or three. And whereas the ‘Change-men made common cause to buy shares in sailing-ships or joint stock companies, and traded Jamaica sugar for Spanish silver, these men were transacting diverse small conspiracies or trading snatches of courtly data. The coming of Court to Cambridge was like Stourbridge Fair – an occasional opportunity for certain types of business, most of which was in some sense occult. He couldn't get in any trouble simply walking direct across the Great Court to the Gate. As a Fellow, he was allowed to tread on the grass. Most of these lurkers and strollers weren't. Not that they cared about the College's pedantic rules, but they preferred shadowy edges, having the courtier's natural affinity for joints and crevices. Across broad open space Daniel strode, so that no one could accuse him of eavesdropping. A line stretched from where he'd come in, to the Gate, would pass direct through a sort of gazebo in the center of the Great Court: an octagonal structure surmounting a little pile of steps, with a goblet-shaped fountain in the middle. Moonlight slanted in among the pillars and gave it a ghastly look – the stone pale as a dead man's flesh, streaked with rivulets of blood, pulsing from arterial punctures. Daniel reckoned it had to be some sort of Papist-style Vision, and was just about to lift up his hands to inspect them for Stigmata when he caught a whiff, and recollected that the fountain had been drained of water and filled with claret wine in honor of the King and of the new Chancellor: a decision that begged to be argued with. But no accounting for taste . . .