They gathered in the Combination Room, Gresham and the fifteen other Fellows, before going in to High Table. It was panelled, as was the Hall they were about to enter, very much in the new fashion. Gresham loved the depth of the wood, the changing pattern of its rich colour, but a part of him yearned for the ancient stone that lay behind it. The contrast of rough stone with rich hangings draped over it, hard against soft, wild colour against sombre grey, warmth against cold seemed an emblem for life. Contrast, change, the clash of ideas, these were what made Cambridge breathe and live.
'Well met, Sir Henry,' said Alan Sidesmith, the President Gresham had placed in nominal charge of the unruly crowd that went to make up Granville College. 'Was your ride restorative?' Gresham had never seen Alan Sidesmith drunk, nor ever seen him without glass or even tankard in his hand. Alan knew more of Gresham's other business than Gresham had ever told him, but Sidesmith was one of the few men in whom Gresham had complete trust.
'I've a good horse, good health and will soon have a full stomach. And it's summer in Cambridge… how could I not be restored?' Gresham replied lightly.
'That would depend, I suppose,' said Sidesmith equally lightly, 'whether a certain miller who sent you a message this morning was wishing to display to you his corn, or whether he had something else in mind.'
Gresham knew better than to be drawn.
'Yes,' he said, as if debating a matter of great significance, 'that would depend, wouldn't it?' He grinned at Sidesmith, who grinned back.
'Now, Sir Henry,' announced Sidesmith in a businesslike tone. 'Those newly knighted such as yourself are best placed to advise me on a tricky question of etiquette. Over there…' he pointed to a large and prosperous man whose desire to show off expensive clothes had overcome his reluctance to boil alive in the summer heat, '… we have a rich London merchant, a Trinity man, who wishes to transfer allegiance for his son to Granville. However, over there, we have a new Scottish Lord from Court who claims to have a degree from Europe. Who shall have the seat of honour on my right-hand side — Mr Money In The Bank and a good degree, or My Lord Influence At Court and probably not much else?'
'There is no choice, old friend,' announced Gresham. 'The Scottish Lord already smells to high heaven, whilst the merchant will take a good hour or so to do so despite all he sweats now.'
'Thank you, Sir Henry,' said Sidesmith. 'So helpful, as ever. Perhaps you would care to tell the noble Lord that he has been relegated because he stinks?' He moved off with a smile. The merchant gained the seat of honour on the President's right-hand side, the given reason being that he had his degree from Cambridge.
The great gong struck, and they processed into the Hall. Gresham's money had refounded Granville College, one of the most ancient and derelict in the University, yet he took his place on the High Table in strict order of seniority and the timing of his Fellowship, making him one of the most junior. The students in their gowns shuffled to their feet, benches scraping on the cold floor, as the President and Fellows entered. A student, a thin-faced boy with a face pockmarked from smallpox, came nervously forward, bowed to the President, and recited the long Latin grace. There was a subtle chorus of shuffling and, from somewhere among the depths of the student body, a hurriedly suppressed squeal as an arm was pinched. More bowing, and the business of the meal was allowed to continue.
Gresham's companion sniffed as he sat down.
'Out of sorts, Hugo?' asked Gresham, taking his own linen napkin from his sleeve.
The Fellow in question was a huge man, slobbering rolls of fat hanging over his neck and bulging out his thick arms into rotund sausages of flesh.
'I approve of tradition,' the man replied, grabbing at the warm bread that had already been placed on the platters in front of the Fellows. 'If three tables was good enough for this College in all its history, it's good enough for me.' He was already looking hungrily for the servant to bring in the first trenchers of food, and a glass of wine had already gone into the cavern he called his stomach.
'Ah,' said Gresham, 'but you didn't have the task of telling the eminent citizen of this town that he was good enough only for the second table, or telling that same to a man with an excellent degree who sees some jumped-up favourite of Court dining here on high.' It was an old argument, and Gresham did not offer it to convert, but merely to annoy. It worked. Hugo spluttered and sent dangerously large lumps of bread firing from his mouth across the table.
'It is a nonsense! A nonsense. I firmly believe…' Dinner at High Table was started, and would proceed along its normal path. Gresham had insisted that Granville College have a High Table for Fellows, guests and those with BAs and above, and the remaining tables for those studying for their first degree or those with no degree. He had proposed the abolition of the second, intermediate table to the President.
Alan Sidesmith had smiled.
'It'll cause a rumpus, you know,' he had said, with no sign that it concerned him at all. 'The young men of pleasure we seem to be receiving at this University in such large numbers will dislike a College where they can't buy their way into higher fare, and out of the company of the poor students.' Under the old system, the third table had been reserved for 'people of low condition'.
'What a great pity,' Gresham had replied. 'We'll just have to make do with taking students who wish to learn, instead of those who simply wish to play tennis, get drunk and swagger that they've done their study in Cambridge.'
'Now that would be something new,' Alan had responded, a mischievous twinkle in his eye. 'But I do hope it won't restrain you personally in pursuing those noble aims.'
In fact the young and the rich had flocked to Granville in its new foundation. Its High Table was frequently extended to several tables as it was besieged by the rich and the famous, its simple rule that no man without his Bachelor of Arts could sit there giving it an unexpected prestige. The fact that the rule had been waived only once, for Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth I, had added to rather than taken away from the distinction.
The heady smell of fresh-baked bread and roast meat mingled with the sharper tang of the wine on High Table and the ale and beer cheerily being consumed by the students. Granville College ate a good dinner, the platters loaded with meat and fish and the game pies being offered first to High Table, and then taken down to vanish into the gaping mouths of the students. A senior student was reading aloud from the Bible, one of many monastic traditions the Colleges had absorbed. The difference was that whilst total silence would have greeted the reading in the monastery, here a burble of conversation was allowed to accompany it.
Hugo was denouncing the decline of logic in favour of rhetoric to his other neighbour at table. Gresham turned to the man on his left. A man after Gresham's own heart, he had been fighting for a greater musical element in the Cambridge course.
'How goes the new material?'
Edward smiled at Gresham.
'Slowly, but surely. Master Byrd presents challenges to those who try to do justice to his music'
'Musical challenges, or other challenges?' Gresham asked innocently. William Byrd was widely believed to be a committed Papist. He had published a book of sacred songs in 1575 which had circulated among Papists and found their way into Gresham's hands, and from thence to the man who ruled over the choir of Granville College.
'Challenges of all types,' answered Edward, with no sign that he wished to relinquish any of them. 'Firstly, it's a matter of debate whether or not the songs should be performed in a chapel at all. Secondly, singing them seems tantamount to declaring an allegiance to Rome. Thirdly, it's the Devil's own job deciding if they need an organ alongside them.'