I had not yet met all the students, but I had started to recognize a few. Ramsay was a towheaded boy of about thirteen who always looked apprehensive. Timson, the same age, had a roguish look, and it pained me to realize that he reminded me of myself at that age. Frederick Sutcliff, the prefect, was tall, lanky, older than the other students, and generally despised. He was full of himself and not above a little harsh discipline that he did not report to Rutledge. His father was also one of the wealthiest men in England.

The Classics tutor, Simon Fletcher, gave me a nod. He did not live in this house, but in the one opposite, called Fairleigh. Fletcher liked a quiet pint in the village tavern, and I'd met him there on more than one evening. The mathematics tutor, Tunbridge, was lecturing his star pupil as usual, a spindly youth of sixteen with a heavy brow.

The lads stared at me as I made my way down the stairs and out of the house. They always stared because I was a tall, broad-shouldered man obviously wounded in the war, and also because they'd heard I'd refused to toady to Rutledge. This had raised me to a certain admired status.

Some of the boys nodded and said a polite, "Captain." Most of the others simply watched.

Cool damp air awaited me outside in the quad, and I breathed it in relief. Rutledge's study was comfortable enough, but his moods fouled the air.

The setting of the Sudbury School was fairly peaceful. The houses had been built in the time of Henry VIII. They had dark, narrow staircases and galleries that creaked, small windows, and crumbling plaster. But the estate had been owned by a family of vast fortune, who were able to fortify the houses and modernize them as time went on without marring their beauty.

The Head Master's house comprised the north and east sides of the quad, and Fairleigh, named for one of the founders of the school, the west side. The south building housed a large hall and two smaller ones for lectures, tiny classrooms, a common dining hall for the boys, and a more formal dining room, in which Rutledge hosted visitors to the school.