The school was old, a collection of faded, crenellated redbrick buildings around a quadrangle, at the center of which stood a bronze statue of a man who must have once been someone important. The cobblestones of the courtyard had been worn smooth from centuries of shuffling feet. The window frames looked as if they could use another coat of paint—or perhaps some fresh lumber altogether.
“I expected something more elegant,” Iolanthe said. She’d attended grander, lovelier schools.
“Eton has a tendency to make do. They used to stuff seventy pupils in a broom cupboard and conduct class with the door open in winter.”
She could not understand. “Why this school? Why a nonmage school at all? Why not just stick you in the monastery and give you incompetent tutors?”
“The Bane has his own seer. Or had—I have not received intelligence on the seer in my lifetime. But apparently he once saw me attend Eton in a vision.”
The first principle in dealing with visions was that one never tampered with a future that had already been revealed.
“Destiny, then?”
“Oh, I am destiny’s darling.”
Something in his tone made her glance sharply at him. But before she could say anything, several boys came around and shook her hand.
“Heard you were back, Fairfax.”
“All healed, Fairfax?”
She grinned and answered the greetings, trying not to betray the fact that she had no idea who anyone was. The boys went on their way. The prince was listing their names for her to remember when she was jostled from behind.
“What the—”
Two beefy boys chortled to each other. “Look, it’s Fairfax,” said one of them. “His Highness has his bumboy back.”
Iolanthe’s jaw dropped. His Highness, however, was not the least bit flustered. “Is that any way to refer to my dearest friend, pretty as he is? Or perhaps you are just jealous, Trumper, since your own dearest friend is as hideous as a crushed turnip.”
So Trumper was the thick-necked one and Hogg the one with a broad, pale, and somewhat squashed-looking face.
“Who are you calling a crushed turnip, you limp-wristed, molly-coddled Prussian?” bellowed Hogg.
“You, you big, virile Englishman, of course,” said the prince. He placed his arm around Iolanthe’s shoulders. “Come, Fairfax, we are running late.”
“Who are they?” she asked when they were out of hearing.
“A pair of common bullies.”
“Are they alone in thinking that we share this particular relationship?”
“What do you care?”
“Of course I care. I have to live among these boys. The last thing I want is to be known as your . . . anything.”
“Nobody has to know, Fairfax,” he whispered. “It can be our little secret.”
The way he looked, between irony and wickedness, made something go awry inside her. “The unvarnished truth, if you would.”
He dropped his arm. “The general consensus is that you are my friend because you are poor and I am wealthy.”
“Well, that I can believe, since I’m sure no one wants to be your friend otherwise.”
He was silent. She hoped she’d injured his feelings—assuming he had feelings to injure in the first place.
“Friendship is untenable for people in our position,” he said, his tone smooth, almost nonchalant. “Either we suffer for it, or our friends suffer for it. Remember that, Fairfax, before you become best chums with everyone around.”
Early school, as the first class of the day was called, was taught by a master named Evanston, a frail, white-haired man who all but disappeared underneath his black master’s robe. As it was the beginning of the Half, Evanston started on a new work, Tristia, by a Roman poet named Ovid. To Iolanthe’s relief, her Latin was more than sufficient for the coursework.
Early school was followed by chapel. After the religious service, which she found slow and mournful, the prince took her back to Mrs. Dawlish’s house, where, to her surprise, a hearty breakfast was laid out. The boys, many of whom she’d seen buying breakfast outside earlier, wolfed down a second one as if they’d been starving for three days.
After breakfast, they returned to classes—called divisions—until the midday meal back at Mrs. Dawlish’s. Mrs. Hancock, who had not been there at breakfast, was now present. Again, it was she who said grace. This time she did not mention Fairfax by name, but Iolanthe still felt her sharp-eyed gaze.
She didn’t know what made her do it. At the end of the meal, when the boys were filing out, she broke rank and approached Mrs. Hancock.
“My parents asked me to tell you, ma’am, that I’ll be less trouble this Half,” she said.
If Mrs. Hancock was taken aback by Iolanthe’s maneuver, she did not show it. She only chuckled. “Well, in that case, I hope you are listening to your parents.”