Extract

When the day porter arrived to assume the post, William could not run from the college quickly enough.

The crossroads at the top of Broad Street was already a scramble of activity: traders were bringing their wares to set up their stalls along Cornmarket. William dodged between the wheels of the carts and the hoofs of the horses. Men sneered down from their perches, souring the air with their curses.

William cried back, raising his hat in his hand, 'I have a son! A boy!' but his declarations were lost in the cracking of whips and the thrumming of wheels of the carts and the hoofs of the horses. Men sneered down from their perches, souring the air with their curses.

Once the words were out in the air William could not contain them. He went striding down St Giles, hollering up at the college walls as if he were a boy himself: 'I have a child! A boy, a boy! A son and heir!'

And as he ran, there was a voice at his back. It caught him just by the door of St John's College. 'Are you quite sure?' A laughing voice, as sharp as steel 'Are you quite, quite sure?'

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