The Stone Gryphon, Part 1: Oxfordshire 1942
Chapter 15 - Crossroads - Part 4
In which more telegrams are sent and received and railway timetables are consulted.
"No, no! The adventures first," said the Gryphon in an impatient tone: "explanations take such a dreadful time."
L. Carroll, The Adventures of Alice In Wonderland
Still not King… oh wait, I mean "Still not mine." But, I'm not a King either.
It was with relief that Mary was able to hand Petunia, Polly's cat, back to her owner as they were leaving the Bird and Baby. Cats had that way of always gravitating to the one person in the room who least preferred their company. Petunia was no exception and in a pub with a dozen people in it, all coaxing, cooing and offering bits from their pasties and pies, still the Shorthair insisted on occupying Mary's lap.
Mary did not hate cats; she didn't hate any creature. She just preferred more than cats virtually every other creature in existence, including sand fleas. The felines sensed her indifference and so made a point of always seeking her out. It was the same anywhere she went. She was followed about by cats like the English Maiden (Ha!) Aunt that Polly pretended to be. Maiden! Ha! No more than I am.
Perhaps she smelled of catnip to them? Catnip was Nepeta cataria, wasn't it? Did other members of family Felidae respond to N. cataria? P. leo? P. tigris? A. jubatus? Or were the psychotropic effects of it limited to F. catus, the domestic cat?
Mary linked arms with Digs on one side; Polly took the other, Simon at her heels. The late day was easing to early evening. Everyone else was hurrying home for supper; the three of them, plus dog and cat were more leisurely, and taking up most of the walk on St. Giles.
"Polly, did you and Richard ever try using catnip in the bush to distract lions?"
Polly looked sideways at her around Digs. "You are wondering why Petunia is always so attracted to you even though you don't like cats?"
"Imagine that," Digs muttered. "Not liking Cats."
He and Polly exchanged one of those Secret looks again. There had been a lot of those this afternoon.
Mary harrumphed over that and shrugged it off. "It's not that I dislike cats," she corrected. "I simply do not appreciate them as others do."
Polly laughed. "Yet they do assuredly love you, Mary."
Petunia meowed her assent from inside the carpet bag.
"In answer to your question, Mary, I have heard hunters' tales of using catnip on lions; the same stories say it does not work on tigers. Richard and I generally did not wish to attract them, so we never tried it. We preferred avoidance, good camp management, and a loaded gun as a last resort."
Digs made an awkward, throat clearing sound. Mary caught Polly's eye and the wisp of a grin. Digs became uncomfortable when the two of them discussed Richard so casually, like a canteen a considerate person shared with friends. Poor Digs. Sometimes he really was the odd man out. In the cosmic allotment, he had received a very different sort of Victorian sensibility than Polly had.
So N. cataria may be effective on P. leo, but not P. tigris? "We could test that hypothesis at Whipsnade, I suppose," she told Polly.
"Are Gryphons not sufficiently occupying you, Mary?" Digs asked.
"Oh! I forgot to tell you!" she squealed. "Young Peter maligned my competency this afternoon, but I've heartily forgiven him as it's led to the most amazing idea."
"Peter?" Polly repeated, with that irritating tinge of worshipfulness they all seemed to have. "Maligned you?"
"Perhaps he was distracted having just solved Fermat's Last Theorem," Digs murmured.
It was getting just a bit ridiculous. Living saints, reincarnated Kings, the greatest naturalist mind since Darwin, and now a brilliant mathematician who solved the unsolvable? She was beginning to feel about Peter the way she felt about F. catus. He was a boy with no better grasp of the Aeneid than she had herself. Digs had made her suffer through the War of Latium as well and Mary thought that even ten years later she'd be better able to conjugate a Latin verb than Peter could.
Speaking of…
Mary turned on her former tutor with mock ferocity. "I'll have you know that due to your warning, Peter would not permit me to lecture him on the subject of dinosaur hips."
Digs pulled his arms free of their interlocked arms and clapped his hands over his ears.
Polly laughed and with a nudge of her own hips, pushed Digs aside to join arms with Mary. "We are scandalizing him."
"Again," Mary agreed, humour returned. It was such fun with Polly, especially over a glass. She had the best stories about Richard; with Digs there, though, she never told them. She'd have to break out the gin tonight at the house, just the two of them.
"You and I think so alike on this, Mary," Polly said with zest. "Nothing quite like a good set of hips."
"Not just the hips," she confided. "It's the shoulder to hips ratio."
Polly pulled her up and they both looked back. With their stop, Simon promptly sat, well-trained as he was.
Digs was standing at a newsstand they had just passed, digging through his pocket for coins.
"Something wrong, Digs?"
"No more than the usual death and mayhem," Digs said, glancing over the headlines and then tucking the paper under his arm.
Bloody war. Every perfect day always ends with it.
Asim and Peter were sitting under their tree outside Digs' office. The evening paper and a map were on the grass along with the remains of Mr. Patel and Lee's efforts to recreate Indian cooking from an English Victory Garden.
Simon bounded ahead, leash trailing behind like a streamer, and joyfully barreled into Asim and Peter. Polly was close on his heels.
"Oi! Simon!" Peter called as the spaniel thrust his nose into a tin, obviously deciding that friends could be greeted anytime, but Kwong Lee's samosas, dosas, and pav bhaji were not to be missed. Peter grabbed the spaniel by the collar and playfully wrestled him away from the food as Asim hurriedly put lids back on.
Mary didn't want to think what sambar and green chiles might do to a spaniel's digestion. As Simon would be at the house tonight along with Polly, she appreciated Peter's quick efforts so they wouldn't be dealing with the after effects.
"Peter!" Digs called out heartily. "Do let me congratulate you! So what happened to Percy Fawcett?"
"Cannibals," Peter responded promptly with a grin, as he fondled Simon's ears. Simon rolled over on his back and began chewing on the sleeve of Peter's jacket.
Mary looked at Polly and Asim, but they didn't seem to follow the joke either.
"And the answer to Fermat's Last Theorem is '42,' Professor."
"And the Mary Celeste?" Digs asked.
"A doorway opened up on the deck of the ship and took all the crew Down The Rabbit Hole," Peter supplied, rubbing Simon's belly.
Now that Mary could follow. "So we'll find the Mary Celeste crew in Wonderland with the White Rabbit and the Gryphon!"
"And flying horses!" Polly exclaimed.
"Flying horses?" Mary asked her. "There aren't any flying horses in Alice."
One of those odd fond looks passed between Digs and Polly. "But there should be!" Polly countered cheerfully.'
Bloody Secrets.
Asim was attentive to something behind her. Looking over her shoulder, Mary saw he was tracking a young man on a bicycle peddling in the direction of Digs' College. Asim hurriedly stood, dusting crumbs and grass off to Simon's snuffling delight. "It's Mr. Cartwright from the telegraph office in town."
The whole atmosphere amongst them tensed as Asim strode over the sidewalk, waving to Cartwright. Everyone at the telegraph offices in and around Oxford knew Asim very well.
This was always an ordeal. Asim would receive some anonymous and uncommented upon telegram and there was nothing Mary could or would say to him other than, "Of course. Stay as long as you need to." Then, he would disappear. Sometimes, someone would come for him in a jeep or truck, or Mr. Patel would drive him to the station, or he would walk to a telephone box, or he took the car. Watching the papers or listening to the broadcast on the radio, she might be able to guess what called him away suddenly to somewhere, but she never knew for certain. He never, ever said, and she never, ever asked.
She saw him take the envelope and hand Cartwright some coins. Asim walked quickly back to them. He did not, however, open the telegram.
"Peter," he called, "it's for you."
Mary did not know that someone could move that fast. One moment Peter was rubbing Simon's ears, and then next he was beside Asim, tearing open the envelope.
Polly and Digs rushed to Peter's side. "Peter!" Digs said with panic in his voice. "Your parents, are they…"
Peter shook his head. "It's from Edmund."
Edmund. He was the younger brother, in Cambridge.
Thrusting the paper at the Professor, Peter was obviously, visibly, shaken. Asim sidled up and stood next to her, putting a foot on Simon's leash to keep him from wandering.
"Is everyone alright?" Mary asked.
There had plainly been some dreadful news. Reading the telegram over Digs' shoulder, Polly looked truly shocked, not a normal expression for her at all. Digs, like Peter, was very troubled, even disturbed.
"No injuries or anything like that, Mary," Digs told her, when Peter did not answer.
The statement was not reassuring, given Peter's reactions. The boy was badly unnerved, pulling hands through his hair, fretting and anxious.
"Just some truly shocking family news," Polly added. To Peter she said, "Am I reading this right? Is Edmund saying Eustace…"
Eustace? Asim shifted next to her. He recognized of whom they were speaking, though she did not.
"Yes," Peter broke in, very curtly, "as incredible as that may be. And you understand what Ed's written about himself and Lucy?"
Lucy was the youngest sister, Mary remembered.
"Are they well?" Mary asked again, looking for some clue as to what could unsettle the three of them so profoundly yet not be death or injury.
"It's nothing serious…" Digs began, but Peter interrupted him sharply, "No, it is serious, and I should be there with them."
Mary waited for Digs or Polly to say something, to articulate some objection at being spoken to so, but they both simply pulled inward, bowing their heads, deferring to this truly shirty behavior. Digs handed the telegram back to Peter. "Of course, Peter."
"How can we help?" Polly asked, quietly.
Peter acknowledged them with an absent nod, and looked straight passed her to Asim. "I need to get to Cambridge. Tonight. What do you recommend?"
Something profound was happening here, though Mary could not fathom what it was.
Asim looked at his watch. "There's a train on the Varsity Line leaving in forty-five minutes. We should just have time to run you by Digory's to pack a bag, and get you to the station. That train runs very, very slow due to all the military and freight traffic this time of day, but it will get you to Cambridge, eventually."
Peter clapped Asim on the shoulder. "Excellent. Let's do that."
Mary would have gladly volunteered their services, had he asked. She was annoyed that Asim was doing it without asking her, that Peter was very nearly ordering Asim around and that he was definitely treating her as though she was invisible. And how did Peter know that Asim kept railway timetables in his head the way other people memorized multiplication tables? She reasserted her prerogative. It was her car and petrol.
"We would be glad to help, Peter."
Her injection brought him and the dictatorial conduct up short. "Thank you, Mary. I appreciate your offer very much."
"Polly, Digs, would you mind cleaning up after Peter and Asim, and then going to see Richard until I get back?"
With a jerk of her head, Mary said, "The car is this way."
She hitched her bag over her shoulder and started walking, Asim falling in step next to her. "Do you understand what is going on here?" she muttered.
"Some," he said ambiguously.
"Perhaps you can explain that 'some' to me then?"
"I shall try."
The explanations had to wait as Peter came striding up behind them just as they reached the car.
Mary climbed into the back of the Standard. Peter sat in front, next to Asim. She was trying to work out if there was any particular meaning to that and decided there probably was not. Digs' cottage wasn't terribly far, but they'd have to back track to make it to the railway station.
Peter was thrumming the dash of the car like it was a set of drums. As when Alice had tried to get to Wonderland through the door, Peter seemed too large and the space in the car too cramped for him in his present state. It was too small for his restive spirit, too small for his body, simply too completely and utterly confining. Mary understood very well what she saw and sensed: the restlessness; the wild need for movement; and the anxiety of being mired by circumstance and desperately longing to be somewhere else other than where you were trapped.
When she couldn't stand the tension any longer, she asked, "You are going to your aunt and uncle's?"
"Oh, didn't I say?" Peter said, the question rousing him from his distraction and thrumming. "Yes, that's where Edmund and Lucy are staying."
"How far is their home from the station?"
"Several miles."
"Do you need a map?" Asim asked, negotiating the winding streets.
"No."
The thrumming resumed. Mary wanted to tie his hands down.
"Should you…" she began as Asim pulled up to Digs' tiny cottage.
"I won't be more than a minute or two," Peter said, interrupting her. Not waiting for the car to come to a stop, Peter shot out of the front seat like a ball from a cannon, cleared the front picket fence in one fluid movement, and without a moment's loss of forward momentum, pushed into the house.
Mary saw two lights go on in the windows. "Who is Eustace?"
Asim looked at her in the rear view mirror then glanced again at the house. "Peter's cousin."
"What do you suppose happened? It didn't sound like physical injury."
"No," Asim agreed. "I suspect it is more emotional, or spiritual, in nature."
There was a tinge of unreality to it all, a feeling as if she was joining Alice and the crew of the Mary Celeste down the Rabbit Hole. So many out-of-the-way things had happened lately, that Alice had begun to think that very few things indeed were really impossible. Yes, Alice summed it up nicely. Mary did recognize the symptoms and was prepared to give Peter some latitude, overbearing though he was. As the Gryphon said, this was the nature of unexpected adventures – the adventure came first, explanation later.
The lights winked out and Peter plunged out the front door, now carrying a small case. Mary considered its small size disapprovingly. The valise certainly was not sufficient to carry anything he would need on an adventure.
He had to go back twice to make sure the door was shut. Again, eschewing the gate, Peter hurdled the fence ringing the cottage and landed neatly in the front seat of the car.
It took her a moment to register the whole of it. The feat actually required a fair amount of athleticism, and Peter had cleared it without a thought.
At least now he was fiddling with the handle on his case, rather than beating the dash.
"Peter!" she said for the third time, trying to rouse him from his reverie.
He turned around the seat. "Excuse me, Mary. I am a bit distracted. You were asking?"
"Shouldn't you send a wire back to someone saying that you are coming, possibly in the dead of night?"
With a wry snort of disgust, Peter said, "My aunt and uncle might change the locks or pretend no one is home."
"They are the odious non-mathematicians, correct?"
"Indeed."
"Edmund and Lucy would wish to know, wouldn't they?" Asim asked.
"Yes, they would," Peter said slowly.
"Write down the message and the return for your brother, and I'll drop it off at the telegraph office. Asim will take you to the station."
"Yes, thank you."
He was patting down his pockets, but Mary handed him a pencil over the front seat. Peter smoothed the crumbled telegram on the dashboard, scribbled something on the back, folded the paper up, and handed it back to her over the seat.
"Pencil?" she reminded him before he pocketed it. "I'm usually the pencil thief, Peter, so I tend to be protective of my own."
Asim pulled the car up to the telegraph office. Sliding out, she called, "I'll meet you at the station," and hurried in.
Mr. Cartwright was back behind the counter. He knew her almost as well as Asim, and knew they both tipped well. The men and women who manned telegraph offices were truly nothing short of miraculous, doing what they did, and doing what they had done during the Blitz. Cartwright was barely out of school and there must be some reason why he was here, rather in service and dying in North Africa.
He examined Peter's telegram and copied the return down. She waited while he sent the wire.
It was all right out of the Wonderland. Curiouser and curiouser.
She paid, tipped, and bustled back across the street to the railway station. The car was parked in front; Asim and Peter were leaning against the bonnet, in the light of the overhead lamp.
"Now then," Mary said briskly, stalking toward them. The size of Peter's case was troubling her. It was plainly inadequate for the job. "Do you have everything you need? Are you all equipped for your adventure?"
"Adventure?" Peter echoed. "I'm catching a train to Cambridge."
Asim's snort of disbelief coincided with Mary's own "Nonsense!"
Goodness, Peter did have a formidable frown.
"Come now, Peter. It is never just a train ride. Surely you've set out before but ended up somewhere you didn't expect, taken the road less traveled, or fallen down the Rabbit Hole?"
The frown turned into a sharp, cautious look that gave him all away.
"Ahhh! See, Asim?"
"I do, Mary," Asim replied blandly.
"Peter has had adventures! Someday we shall have to hear of them! I ask again, are you prepared?"
He brandished his little case. "The contents of my packing are not..."
"I'm not talking about a toothbrush and a change of clothes. Supplies, Peter. Do you have supplies?"
Peter looked helplessly for support from Asim, but there would be no aid coming to him from that corner. In this she and Asim were always of one mind and certainly knew better than Peter did.
"Do you have a torch?" Mary asked.
"No, of course not."
Arguing! Peter was arguing with her!
"Matches in a waterproof container?"
"For a train ride?"
Ignorance! You always needed matches!
"Something to carry water in? Rations? Oilcloth for kipping out on?"
"No, no and NO!"
"Don't be tetchy, Peter," Mary scolded. "Asim and I are experts in intending to journey somewhere and ending up somewhere else, and we would have indeed been in the Okavango Delta without a canoe if we hadn't been prepared. For instance, Asim, do you remember the time we were trying to get from Zanzibar to Madagascar?"
"Vividly," Asim said helpfully. "We ended up on the West Coast of Australia."
"With only three packets of nuts and two tins of sardines for the width of the Indian Ocean!" Mary said gleefully.
"No," Asim corrected. "That was when we left Singapore, for Hong Kong and ended up in the Philippines looking for flying lizards."
"Correct me, Mary, if I err," Peter said, not concealing his irritation at all, "but there is no steamer transport involved between here and Cambridge. This is a train ride."
"But, trains are the most exciting, Peter! There are always possibilities! Asim and I once tried to get from Bombay to Kolkata, and we ended up at a base camp in the Himalayas."
"With no blankets," Asim said mournfully.
She nodded her agreement. "That was a very cold side trip."
"I would have thought you both would have a better sense of direction," Peter said with something between a laugh and a snarl.
He was doing it! Again! Maligning her competency! Mary wanted to hit him on the side of the head, all her former sympathy for his predicament evaporating.
Asim hurriedly injected, "Allow us both to advise you on this, Peter. We do keep packs in the car and for just this sort of event."
Pulling a reluctant and protesting Peter by the sleeve (it was still a bit damp from Simon's drool), Mary followed Asim around the back of the car. Keeping a firm grip on Peter's elbow, with her other hand, she found the torch in her bag and lit it. As Asim opened the boot , she shined the light in, illuminating the dark space.
Peter huffed lightly under his breath as he took in the scene. He squinted as she aimed the beam back in his face. "Admit it. You thought the boot of our car would be a ruin, didn't you?"
"Yes," he said grudgingly, maligning her competency yet again.
The boot was as organized as Kwong Lee's spice cupboard. She and Asim were both old campaigners and they kept their supplies ready. Asim grabbed an extra day pack. "I checked the battery in this one last week," he said, handing it to Peter.
"The rations may be a bit stale, but there will be a tin of something in there and it will do in a pinch," Mary added. "Is that the one with the anchovy paste?"
"No."
"Dreadful stuff, anchovy paste. Good protein source, though. Keeps forever."
Asim shut the boot as a train whistled in the distance. Mary shined the light back in Peter's eyes. "You're welcome."
He rather forcefully pushed the torch down. "Thank you, both. Very much."
"It would sound more sincere, Peter, if you weren't gritting your teeth." She flipped off the torch and put it back in her bag. "You have money? ID card?"
"Enough!" With a deep breath, he mastered himself and Mary felt a small curl of satisfaction of finally achieving some emotional reaction from this Sphinx. She had also managed to do so without using the word magnificent.
"Thank you, again. I very much appreciate your most solicitous assistance, Mary."
Sarcasm! That was sarcasm wasn't it?
"Pocketknife?" she couldn't help adding as they hurried back to the platform.
That brought Peter up short and she ran into him from behind. It was like hitting a wall.
"Sorry," she said rubbing her nose. "You mean you don't have a pocketknife?"
Peter was searching through his jacket now. "Asim, I still have..."
"Keep it, Peter. For now. I would be remiss indeed to see you on your way without one." Asim inclined his head, "Inshallah, may your journey be well."
"Ma'a salama, Friend."
The train was pulling in and would barely stop, as there was no one else on the platform. Peter hesitated, looking at her expectantly, but she recognized the feeling well enough in herself, how you were brimming with impatience for the adventure to begin. She understood and felt even a stab of regret for her own lost adventures. It was never just a train ride and there was certainly mystery at the end of this one.
Mary shooed him off. "Go! After all that, you don't want to miss it. Good luck!"
Slinging the pack over his back with one hand, and grabbing his little satchel in the other, Peter jogged along, next to the train, and then jumped aboard.
They stood side by side, in a pool of dim lamplight, waving the train away into the dark.
"Do you suppose I overdid it?" Mary asked, as the train left the station.
"If I did not mention it before, allow me say now that while Peter understands and greatly appreciates the importance of logistics and planning, he does not require mothering."
Mary snorted. "He was certainly treating you like his supply officer."
Asim shrugged. "Yes, he did, but it is an accustomed role for us both. In retrospect, I should have expected it."
"So there is a General in his karmic mix as well?"
"Do you have a better explanation for that extraordinary behavior with Digory and Polly?"
She didn't, really.
"Anything else unusual occur?" Mary asked.
"The clerk in the station disagreed with my recommended route. He thought Peter would be better going into London and then out again, rather than taking the Brain Line given all the delays."
"And this was significant how?"
Asim sighed patiently. "Mary, you are accustomed to taking my advice. I assure you the typical Englishman would defer to the advice of one of his own race in those circumstances, rather than the opinions of a dirty Arab."
"But Peter did not?"
"Peter is no more the typical Englishman than I am. He listened with more patience than he obviously felt, asked my view, and I repeated that while the Varsity Line runs late, it can be counted on to always run given what else runs on it."
"And to that advice he followed?"
"He thanked the clerk with courtesy but said he would rely on his logistics man, and to please give him the ticket he had asked for."
Wordlessly, Asim put out his hand.
"How did you know?" she sputtered, hoping to have kept him in suspense just a bit longer.
"We both wanted to know what was in that telegram, he wrote the response on the back of the one from his brother, and you never returned it to Peter. You either lost it, which I seriously doubted, as you never lose anything, or you kept it."
She placed the purloined telegram in his palm. "I can't make sense of it at all."
Unfolding the creased, yellow paper, Asim held it under the light and read aloud the message from the brother:
"Lu, Eust & I been to N. Saw Casp. Saw A. Lu/me no go back. Ed"
Asim flipped the message over to read what Peter had scrawled for Mary to deliver to the wire office.
"Am coming 2night. A. is here 2."
"Eust is the cousin, Eustace, I assume. Lu is the sister. So where is 'N?'" Mary asked. "And who is 'A'?"
"I think that 'A' is clear enough," Asim said.
"Oh?"
"'Allah."
She would have laughed, but Asim never joked about his faith. "I said the other day that Peter was not Hindu or Buddhist. He is not Muslim either, Asim."
"There is only one God, though known by many names."
Asim carefully folded the paper up and tucked it into the folds of his robes. He would undoubtedly dissect the day's events with Mr. Patel, Lee and Kun.
"Was Peter still glowing like a bloody torch?"
"Do not refer to miracles in such words, Mary. But yes, of course, the light was perhaps more intense than before, but it was difficult to tell amid all his roiling agitation."
She sensed Asim draw reflectively inward, a pause. "What?"
"It was the first time I had ever seen so many, so favored, in one place. It was humbling, I suppose. A bit disturbing to contemplate."
"I wish I could see it."
Mary knew she sounded petulant making the repeated complaint. She couldn't help it. It was so important to Asim, and so it was important to her, and she just couldn't see it, try though she did. There was no rhyme or reason to it, either. He searched out these rich, light-touched personalities the way she could find venomous snakes. Which really wasn't a good analogy at all, come to think of it. Invariably, as exploration, whim, or science took her on adventures, Asim would join her. While she was looking under rocks and examining specimens, he would find some new milepost marker on his spiritual journey to somewhere.
Asim touched her arm, just for a moment, fleeting and brief. It was a very strong cultural conditioning; he never touched her, unless to protect her from a physical threat. The fact that he traveled with her at all was due solely to his equally firmly held belief that going where she did would lead him to that higher place he sought.
"I pray you might as well, Mary."
She put a hand to her ear. "Do you hear that? It's Richard bellowing."
"Let us follow the shouting, then, all the way to the hospital, and we may report to Polly and Digory that Peter is off on his adventure."
"I should like an explanation of Peter's adventures some day," Mary admitted.
"As would I."
Here ends The Stone Gryphon, Part 1: Oxfordshire 1942.
The Eagle and Child is a pub on St Giles, Oxford, England owned by St. John's College, Oxford. It is commonly referred to as the Bird and Baby or the Bird and is one of the places where the Inklings writers group met, whose members included J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis.
Thanks to another RS, Renata, who helped with the Indian snacks and Arabic.
I need to correct an error in the previous chapter. A reader pointed out that it was not the British who cracked the Enigma machines. In fact, it was the Polish cryptographer, Marian Adam Rejewski, and colleagues at the Polish Biuro Szyfrów (Cipher Bureau) who first decrypted the codes the machines generated and then shared their work with British and French intelligence. I've corrected my error in the notes in the previous chapter.
There really was a Varsity or "Brain" Train Line, and interestingly it traveled through Bletchley Park and carried a lot of commercial and military traffic at the time.
A very special thanks to my articulate and dedicated reviewers who have given me so very much to think about and consider. You astound and humble me.
The Stone Gryphon, Part 2: The Queen Susan in Tashbaan, is to follow. First stop in that story is at the end of the Varsity Line, in Cambridge. Click below for a preview.