Sharps (51 page)

“Just a minute,” Giraut said. “It was my go.”

“Sorry,” Phrantzes snapped, with a total absence of sincerity. Addo moved the bishop and picked a pawn out of white’s wall. Phrantzes moved the knight again, the same move as the first.

Ten moves each later, white was reduced to their king and a solitary pawn, which fell at the next move. There were no black pieces to restore, since white hadn’t taken any. All the black pawns turned into rooks and bishops. “Checkmate,” said Addo.

Phrantzes was scowling furiously at the board. “But that’s not fair,” he said. “White can’t win. It’s impossible.”

“That’s right,” Iseutz said. “That’s what Giraut told us before we started.”

“Yes, but you two won the first game.”

“Ah well.” Addo smiled. “Beginner’s luck.”

For an instant, Giraut was sure Phrantzes was going to knock over the board. But the moment passed and he leaned back in his chair. “Right,” he said. “I suppose it serves me right, trying to win against the Irrigator’s son. I should’ve known better.”

That made Iseutz quite angry. “It wasn’t just him,” she said. “I’m here too, remember.”

Phranztes didn’t bother to reply, which made her angrier still. Giraut started to put the pieces away. “You didn’t help.” Phrantzes rounded on him. “You kept making stupid mistakes.”

“Did I?” Giraut sounded tired. “Well, it’s only a game.”

“That’s exactly what I’d expect you to say.”

“Well, it is.”

“Fine.” Phrantzes stood up sharply and walked away. There was an awkward silence, then Addo said, “You know, this marble thing, it isn’t a table. It’s a tomb. Look, there’s writing on it.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Iseutz said. “Who’d put a tomb in the middle of a common room?”

“I don’t think …” Addo stopped, and got up. “I wish we had some way of knowing what time it is,” he said.

“It must be nearly noon,” Giraut said. “I feel like I’ve been stuck in this room for days.”

“One more game.” Phrantzes had turned to face them.
I’ve never seen him like this before
, Giraut thought,
except maybe when he fought Suidas
. “Come on,” he added loudly, with a broad, humourless grin, “it’s not like we’ve got anything else to do.”

Iseutz gave him a worried look. Addo was frowning. “If you insist,” he said. “Though to be honest with you, I’d rather save up my remaining luck for this evening.”

“Fine,” Phrantzes said. “Then you won’t mind if I beat you.”

“I think we may be missing the point,” Giraut said. “It’s supposed to be
fun
, not a duel to the finish.”

“It is fun,” Phrantzes said grimly. “Let’s have some more fun, just to pass the time.”

“Oh, let’s do as he says, for pity’s sake,” Iseutz said nervously. “Addo, set up the board.”

“Fine,” Addo said. “Tell you what, let’s have different teams this time, Giraut, you and Iseutz against Phrantzes and me.”

“That’s not my idea of fun,” Phrantzes said. “Same teams as before.”

Phrantzes and Giraut were black. They played five moves each. Then Addo moved a knight and said, “Checkmate.”

They all stared at the board. Then Iseutz laughed, a little awkwardly. Giraut was gazing at the white knight in total confusion. “That’s crazy,” he said. “White can’t win.”

“I think we just did,” Addo said gently.

Phrantzes grabbed the black king, lifted it and looked down at the board. He was quite still for what seemed like a long time. Then he laid the king down carefully on its side, stood up and held his hand out to Addo. “Well done,” he said. “Thanks for the game.”

Addo hesitated, then shook his hand. “My pleasure,” he said. “I promise you, it really was a fluke. Sheer luck.”

Phrantzes nodded stiffly. “Four consecutive flukes,” he said. “A more likely explanation would be that you’re a very good player. As is only to be expected.”

Gently, Addo pulled his hand free. “My father always says you can tell a really good chess player by the way he always loses so long as there’s no money at stake. He’d like this game, though. I must teach it to him when we get home.”

Phrantzes’ face registered a sort of smiling frown, as though Addo had just made a rather good joke but in very bad taste. “Quite,” he said. “And when this is all over and we’re back in Scheria, you must all come over and have dinner with Sphagia and me. She’d love to meet you, I know.”

Addo put the chess pieces back in their box and tucked it in his pocket. Iseutz yawned and stood up. “It’s got to be nearly noon by now,” she said. “I hope they’re going to feed us beforehand.”

“I don’t think I could eat anything,” Giraut said with feeling.

“Probably best if we don’t,” Addo said.

“Nonsense.” Phrantzes crossed to a huge carved-oak chair by the door, sat down and put his feet up on a small table. “When I was fencing competitively, we always used to have a three-course lunch with a bottle of decent white wine beforehand, and it never did anyone any harm. Micel Zeuxis, who was the champion before me, used to insist on clear soup followed by saddle of lamb and a fruit pie. He was a magnificent fencer. Before your time, obviously.”

“I know the name,” Addo said politely. Nobody else seemed to have been listening.

“I beat him, of course,” Phrantzes went on. “I noticed he had a slight tendency to get square on when he was crowded on the outside. I’ll never forget the look on his face when I landed the winning touch. He lost heart after that and gave up completely, which is a shame. I’d have liked to fight him again, just to prove it wasn’t a fluke.”

Iseutz shot Addo a why’s-he-doing-this glance, which he saw but didn’t react to. Giraut got up, crossed the room and leant against the marble rectangle that wasn’t a table, pretending to be interested in the inscription, though it was too badly worn to be legible. Phrantzes folded his hands in his lap and closed his eyes. Giraut could tell by his breathing that he wasn’t asleep.

Eventually, a steward came to tell them it was time to go. Phrantzes, who by that time really had fallen asleep, woke up with a ferocious grunt and looked round, terrified, until he realised what was going on. Iseutz, meanwhile, was pleading with the steward for time to go back to her room and fix her hair. Eventually Addo had to grab her by the shoulder and say, “Come
on
,” at which she sighed and fell in behind him. Giraut brought up the rear, feeling strangely cheerful; one more fight, said a voice inside his head, and then it’ll all be over and we can go home. The voice sounded just like his mother, on various occasions in his youth when she’d lied to him.

“I didn’t even know they liked fencing,” they heard the Master whisper to the Minister of War. “I never heard of them taking an interest in it before.”

“Well, apparently they do,” the Minister replied. “And there’s no need to whisper. They don’t speak our language.”

He was, of course, entirely wrong about that; but the three Aram delegates (Auzeil, Cosseilhatz and no Vei) had guarded the secret carefully, and they’d learned not to grin, and where to look when someone said something especially unfortunate. There were times when the imbalance of knowledge made the delegates feel as though they were cheating. They knew everything they needed to know about the Permians, who’d never even bothered to ask them their names, on the assumption they wouldn’t be able to pronounce them.

“What exactly is it we’re going to see?” asked the Auzeil, in Aram.

“Swordfighting,” replied the no Vei.

“Ah.” The Auzeil frowned. “Some kind of trial by combat?”

“I don’t think so,” the no Vei replied. “As far as I can gather, the fighters have no quarrel with each other. Quite often they’ve never even met before.”

“Then why do they fight?” the Cosseilhatz asked.

“So the people can watch,” the no Vei told him. “Apparently.”

“That’s absurd,” said the Auzeil.

“It’s barbaric,” the Cosseilhatz amended.

“Yes.” The no Vei settled himself comfortably in his seat and folded his hands in his lap. He was ninety-one years old, and sitting still for any length of time made his knees ache. “But it’s their national obsession. Almost like a religion. It’s all the common people ever talk about, so they tell me.”

“I’m curious,” said the Cosseilhatz. “Do they only fight foreigners, or do Permians actually fight Permians?”

“Oh, this is an exception,” the no Vei said gravely, “a special occasion, the first foreign team to fight in Permia since before the War. Usually it’s Permian against Permian. Hence the excitement.”

The Cosseilhatz shook his head. “Presumably they don’t use real weapons, though.”

“They most certainly do,” the no Vei said. “Real and sharp. I understand that’s not the case in Scheria. But in Permia, most definitely.”

“Then how do they keep from getting injured?”

“With great difficulty, I would imagine. Ah, here’s the First Minister and his party. You’ve met him, haven’t you, Sichem?”

“Briefly,” the Auzeil replied. “At a reception.”

“What did you make of him?”

“He’s an idiot.”

The no Vei turned his head and bowed politely to the First Minister, who nodded back. “Yes,” the no Vei said. “But apart from that.”

“Weak, indecisive and scared,” the Auzeil said. “Just intelligent enough to know what has to be done, but far too frightened of his own people to do it. Most of all, I think, he’s terrified that there might be another war. Talking of which …”

“Not now,” the Cosseilhatz said pleasantly. “I have an idea that man over there, he’s something in the Treasury, might know a little Aram. Probably not enough, but let’s not take unnecessary risks. We’ll continue this discussion after the fighting’s over.”

“Oh dear,” the Auzeil said. “I do hope there won’t be any blood. It makes me sick to my stomach, and we’re supposed to be ferocious savages who eat small children.”

“Do your best,” the no Vei said firmly. “They’ll think it’s rather odd if you’re ostentatiously looking the other way.”

“Look.” The Cosseilhatz sat up straight. “Something’s happening.” He shaded his eyes with his hand. “Is that the Carnufex boy, do you suppose?”

“I don’t think so,” the no Vei replied, raising his voice to make himself heard over the roar from the benches all around them. “The first match is rapier, I believe, between—”

“What’s rapier?” the Auzeil interrupted.

“I gather it’s a long, thin sword with blunt edges. You can stab with it, but you can’t cut.”

“How curious. I’m sorry, you were saying?”

“Hush,” whispered the Cosseilhatz. “I think they’re starting.”

Giraut completed the salute – a little stiff, but adequate – and composed himself into a high first guard. He wouldn’t be able to hold it for long, but he sincerely hoped he wouldn’t have to. The idea was to draw the enemy into a lunge from just an inch or so over middle distance, then volte or demi-volte and win the match in one play.

Nothing happened. He looked past the hanging point of his rapier at the man standing opposite him. Terrified, Giraut diagnosed. Not good. He’d been counting on contemptuous aggression.

The game is, white always loses
. He’d made up his mind to play white.

Quite some time ago, in fact: in the bell tower, when he’d been leaking blood by the pitcherful. The idea back then had been to cheat by dying before they could get to him. A bit like resigning as soon as you lose your first capital piece; white always loses, but at least you get out on your own terms, defeated but unbeaten – a subtle distinction, but none the worse for that, and subtleties are the most you can hope for, if you play white.

The fool was just standing there. Annoyed, Giraut took a step back to cover the transition from high first to middle fourth; not a guard he favoured, but more comfortable for waiting in. It also sent a message:
You had your chance and you missed it, so now you’re going to have to work for it
. Somewhere in the vast distance, somebody coughed. Then it was dead quiet again.

The points are sharp, Giraut told himself. A man could die of impatience. Make him come to you, he’s a nervous wreck and you aren’t. Let him come. Let someone else do the decent thing, for once.

White always loses; he really wished someone had bothered to tell him that earlier, because unless you knew, how were you supposed to make sense of anything? White wins by losing. It’s the rules.

He knew, or at least he thought he knew, why the way station had been deserted, why the bandits had been allowed to roam unmolested through Scherian territory, why they’d been there, so improvidently close to a military outpost, at precisely that time. He had a good idea, or at least a plausible theory, about why Tzimisces kept wandering off, and why the Aram Chantat had turned on their allies the Imperials. He’d had his suspicions all along, but the revelation about white had allowed him to make the connections he’d overlooked, probably wilfully, up till now. He wondered if the Permian knew he was playing black. He didn’t look like he knew, but maybe he was simply aware that in the game, there’s always the possibility of a rogue element, as Addo had proved when they played the last hand. The points, he reminded himself, are sharp. But I have the advantage. You can’t kill a man who’s already dead.

Not strictly true, of course; you can, if he gets careless, you can kill him very dead indeed, and we don’t want that to happen if it can be avoided, now do we? But if it does, at least we can console ourselves with the thought that it really doesn’t matter all that terribly much. Dead then, dead now or dead about half an hour after I get home; who really gives a damn, anyhow?

He took a left-leg step forward; the Permian retreated. He leaned forward just far enough to enable him to tap the front two inches of the Permian’s blade with his own point. The crowd laughed. The Permian was shivering. How pathetic can you get.

It had, of course, all been a trap, a set-up; a snare, excuse the pun. He wondered how they’d forced or manipulated the girl into agreeing to do it. Presumably they hadn’t told her that her father was going to die. Probably they’d made out that Giraut was the intended victim, or else the Senator was certain to kill him and thereby get himself in trouble. Like it mattered. He should’ve guessed, of course. Now he thought about it, the girl had been ludicrously easy to get into bed. At the time he’d put it down to his irresistible charm, so really he’d deserved everything he’d got.