A short story of 4.5k words A young Henry. A young Thomas of London. One, by poli­tics, deter­mi­na­tion, and birth, the King, and one, a commoner, and outsider at Court. We know how their friend­ship played out, in the end: with the murder of Thomas Beket. But where would the friend­ship have ended had the murder not occurred, had there been no death in the cathedral?