We became friends very simply. He arrived in the last week of October. That’s unusual, of course. He was five weeks late for term. And then his age. Sixteen. There are transfers sometime, boys sent up from lesser schools who come here for “finishing” and to rub shoulders with the future leaders of the realm. But Thomas had not been to any other school. He was “home taught.” Nobody knew what to make of it. There was even some talk that it was illegal. Rumour had it, his parents fought his going off to school; resisted ever since he’d turned eleven. They’re poor folk, I think, though noble enough, and live in the far north of the dominion; an unruly land. The Crown’s arm reaches that far, but it does not have the same weight. And now he is here, this wild boy. Like something that’s been raised by foxes.

But he does not like to talk about himself. Even to me.

He arrived by himself: no parent to see him off, no sibling, not even a servant to help him carry his things. Climbed off the mail coach that had picked him up at the train station, in Oxford. A knapsack on his shoulders and a valise in each hand. That’s how I ran across him, in my free hour after lunch: him standing at the inner gate, chin raised, tired, listening to the porter who was talking at him in his coarse country tongue, shouting practically, asking him who he was.

“It’s the new boy,” I said. “They brought up a cot for him just yesterday. To the dormitory. I’ll take him, if you like.”

Thomas did not speak, not until we arrived and I had pointed out his bed to him. It was near the window, the least popular spot, for it meant sleeping in its draught. He put down his luggage, straightened, looked me over, and asked,

“What is it like here?”

I was about to give him some meaningless answer, something to the effect that he would feel right at home, never he worry. Then I noticed his expression. There was something in his face that said, Don’t mollycoddle me, don’t lie, don’t feed me any bull.

Or I’ll despise you forever.

So I gave him the truth.

“It’s like a prison,” I said. “Like a prison our parents pay for.”

He smiled at that and told me he was “Thomas.”

We have been friends ever since.

THE TRIP

THE TRIP

They make him wait for his punishment.

It’s laundry day the next morning and, having no choice, Thomas throws the sodden, smelly shirt into the basket, along with the week’s underwear and bedclothes. The Soot stain has faded but not disappeared.