Black Wreath by Peter Sirr

little, and that was the day he must live for.
    McAllister’s easy ways got easier with every day. He now did very little work and rarely attended lectures. Vandeleur was around constantly, sitting in McAllister’s rooms with his boots on the table, admiring their sheen. He would sometimes ask James to polish them and James felt like telling him to walk into town and get himself a shoeblack. If McAllister was present he would wave Vandeleur away. ‘Leave the boy alone, he has enough to do.’
    Once or twice, Vandeleur called when McAllister was still abed or had gone out somewhere, and then he presented his boots to James like a goad, and James was left with no choice. He performed the job as inexpertly as he could, ignoring all the knowledge of the art he had learned from Harry, until Vandeleur tired of his game. ‘You really are a useless article, aren’t you?’ he sneered, before turning his attention to something else.
    He and McAllister spent more and more of their time in the taverns and gaming houses and often came home drunk. Although the college authorities had forbidden it, Vandeleur usually went out with his sword, the end of whose scabbard he’d removed, just the way the Pinkindindies did it, hoping that he might be provoked into drawing a little blood.
    McAllister had no interest in swords, but one evening when Vandeleur arrived in his friend’s room he came bearing a gift. It was a sword, just like his own, in a scabbard with the end removed.
    ‘Really, Vandeleur, you know I’m not going to go around with that thing.’
    ‘Oh just this once, be a man for one night, and we’ll speak no more of it.’
    McAllister strapped on the sword, turning to James as he did so. ‘It’s possible that we might overdo things tonight …’
    Vandeleur snorted. ‘Possible! It is entirely likely. We shall be gloriously drunk.’
    ‘Could you come to the Bull’s Head around midnight to escort us home? Do you know it?’
    James nodded.
    Vandeleur snorted again in obvious distaste. ‘We don’t need
him
,’ he said. ‘We’re not mewling infants who need a nursemaid to come and fetch us home. Isn’t that right, Nursey?’
    James ignored him and spoke directly to McAllister. ‘Of course I’ll come,’ he said.
    With Vandeleur still muttering discontentedly, the two left the grounds of the college. As things were to turn out, James wished he hadn’t been given this task. The two companions spent their evening in various taverns and finally ended up in the Bull’s Head in Fishamble Street, where they drank to their companionship, and with pocket knives carved their names on the table; beside their names they carved, as a final flourish,
quis separabit,
who will separate us? There was an answer to that question, but they didn’t know that yet.
    By the time James got to the Bull’s Head McAllister and Vandeleur were the worse for wear.
    ‘Why James,’ McAllister said, ‘what brings you here?’ He had evidently forgotten his request.
    ‘Why don’t you toddle off home?’ Vandeleur said. ‘You’re not needed here.’
    James was forced to wait until the two had exhausted their capacity for drink and talk. Finally they left the Bull’s Head, with James attempting not very successfully to direct them. As they staggered up the hill, they managed to get into an argument with a man who had been in the tavern earlier. Maybe he had heard something he’d objected to, or maybe Vandeleur or McAllister had said something provocative. James wasn’t sure what the cause was, and he could make no sense of the shouts from McAllister and Vandeleur.
    ‘Come away,’ he said, ‘it’s time to go home.’
    Vandeleur pushed him roughly and James fell. As he got up, he saw that the argument had grown more heated. Angry words were tossed back and forth, and before James could make another attempt to get them to keep the peace, the man rushed at Vandeleur, who grabbed his sword so that the exposed end was pointing at the