The Indigo King - James A. Owen [5]
When they were not adding notations—or more rarely, new maps—John kept the atlas in his private study, inside an iron box bound with locks of silver and stamped with the seal of the High King of the Archipelago, the Caretakers, and the mark of the extraordinary man who created it, who was called the Cartographer of Lost Places. In that box it was the most secure book in all the world, but now it was wrapped in oilcloth and tucked under John’s left arm as he walked through Magdalen College. Still safe, if not secure.
John shivered and hunched his shoulders as he approached the building where Jack’s rooms were, then took the steps with a single bound and opened the front door.
The rooms were spare but afforded a degree of elegance by the large quantity of rare and unusual books, which reflected a wealth of selection rather than accumulation. A number of volumes in varying sizes were neatly stacked in all the corners of the rooms and along the tops of the low shelves that were common in Oxford, which all the dons hated. Jack commented frequently that they’d probably been manufactured by dwarves, just to irritate the taller men who’d end up using them.
As John had feared, Hugo was already there, sitting on a big Chesterfield sofa in the center of the sitting room. He was being poured a second cup of Darjeeling tea by their host, who looked wryly at John as he came in.
“The frog in a bonnet set you back again, dear fellow?” said Jack.
“I’m afraid so,” John replied. “The dratted thing just won’t stay wound.”
“Hah!” chortled Hugo. “Time for a new watch, I’d say. Time. For a watch. Hah! Get it?”
Jack rolled his eyes, but John gave a polite chuckle and took a seat in a shabby but comfortable armchair opposite Hugo. The man was a scholar, but he wore the perpetual expression of someone who anticipates winning a carnival prize: anxious but cheerily hopeful. That, combined with his deep academic knowledge of English and his love of truth in all forms, made him a friend both John and Jack valued. Whether he was suited for the calling of Caretaker, however, was yet to be determined.
The three men finished their tea and then ate a sumptuous meal of roast beef, new potatoes, and a dark Irish bread, topped off with sweet biscuits and coffee. John noted that Jack then brought out the rum—much sooner than usual, and with a lesser hesitation than when Warnie was with them—and with the rum, the parcel that had been sent to Charles.
“Ah, yes,” said Hugo. “The great mystery that has brought us all together.” He leaned forward and examined the writing on the package. “Hmm. This wouldn’t be Charles Williams the writer, would it?”
Jack and John looked at each other in surprise. Few of their associates in Oxford knew of Charles, but then again, Charles did have his own reputation in London as an editor, essayist, and poet. His first novel, War in Heaven, had come out only the year before, and it was not particularly well known.
“Yes, it is,” said John. “Have you read his work?”
“Not much of it, I’m afraid,” Hugo replied. “But I’ve had my own work declined by the press, so I might find I like his writing more if my good character prevails when I do read it.
“I’m familiar with his book,” continued Hugo, “because the central object in the story is the Holy Grail.”
“The cup of Christ, from the Last Supper,” said John.
“Either that, or the vessel used to catch his blood as he hung on the cross,” answered Hugo, “depending on which version of the story you believe is more credible as a historian.”
“Or as a Christian,” said John, “although the Grail lore certainly blurs the line between history and myth.”
“It’s very interesting that you feel that way,” Jack said, unwrapping the parcel and casting a sideways glance at John, “because the line between history and myth is about to be wiped away entirely.”
Inside the brown wrapper was a book, about three inches thick and nearly ten inches square. It was bound in ancient leather, and the pages were brown with age. The upper left-hand side of