OCC: I was saving this story for post-update, you can decide whether me posting it now is intended as encouragement or means I have given up on the update ever coming. P.S. This story was written March 3rd, so any similarities with Crezth's story is completely coincidental though perfectly understandable considering the popularity of gambling on chess in this time period.
The fourteenth day of the first month in the nine hundredth and third year since the Prophet Dajid, blessed be his name, ascended into Paradise.
Finished taking on stock. The ship has been provisioned with the total of:
-four hundred and fifty pounds of cheese
-five tons of meat
-four tons of herring
-one and a quarter ton of butter
-five and a half tons of dried peas
-two and a half tons of dried beans
-half a ton of salt
-forty-two barrels of beer
-ten barrels of wine
Left port at sunrise. By the Grace of Shavat we will see it again soon.
These things written by Alexander Fortuna at the command of his most gracious lord Matar son of Avan, of the lineage of Khurshid, the son of the Thrice Blessed Dajid. May the Eternal Light of Shavat shine upon him always. May the True God also look after me, Alexander, His servant.
I gave a firm knock before opening the door to Matar's cabin. I had not seen him since the day of my purchase. I had been busy cataloging and paying for the provisions we were taking on for our next journey. Matar had also been busy, and not "busy" in the slightly euphemistic way most sailors were "busy" when reaching port for the first time in months. Or so I gathered. I had heard from the Watch that Matar came back to the ship two hours after dusk and left again one hour before dawn, not the normal schedule of one giving into one last debauchery before setting sail.
Matar sat where I saw him last, almost as if he were some piece of furniture, unable to move around the room except by another's power. However, where before the table had been set for supper, now it was empty save for a neatly stacked pile of papers and a quill and ink with which Matar was writing.
"Do you play
Shatranj, sorry what is it called in your tongue, chess?" Still, he wrote, his eyes never leaving the parchment in front of him, almost as if he was talking to himself rather than me.
"A little, my lord."
"And are you any good?"
I paused slightly, wondering how to answer him. "I am good enough to know who I should lose to and who should lose to me." That, after all, was my world, one of status and privilege. Those that were smart realized that the weaker should always lose to the stronger; the base lose to the exalted; the poor to the rich. Chess was not a game of skill, but a game of social control, you lost to those of higher status and won to those of lower status. The one who was not smart enough to realize this point was not one who could live long in that world anyway.
"There is a chess board on top of the bookshelf, the pieces are in the carved casket beside it." He paused slightly to give me time to walk over to the bookshelf, "You will be white. I will give you Knight's odds. You will call out each move you make, I will verbally respond and you will move the pieces for me." I looked over my shoulder as he talked, still he wrote, only pausing to dip his quill into the ink.
I retrieved the wooden board, worn smooth with age and use as well as the silver casket in which was kept the pieces. The pieces themselves, I discovered, as I began to set up the game, were superbly carved ivory and ebony. The knights even had small jewels inset for eyes: diamonds for black, rubies for white. Despite our tropical location, they were cool to the touch, a fact that made me uneasy for some unexplainable reason.
"I find it hard to concentrate without some stake in the matter. If I win I get your wine ration for a week. If you win, I'll drop you off at Lorenza, I'll even let you keep your silver collar to help you pay for your passage home." I was sure he was lying, masters had no reason to keep a promise to a slave, still less reason when the two were alone, with no man to serve as witness to the oath. But still...despite my best efforts of logical thinking, of telling myself I would be a fool to believe his honeyed words, my body betrayed me in its desire to believe. I could feel my palms begin to sweat, my breathing turned almost into an animalistic pant, my heart starting roaring as if two monstrous ships were exchanging cannonades inside of me. And that man, that man damn him, he saw it, he observed every little sign my body gave to its excited state, and he, may he be cast into the Eternal Darkness, gave a faint smile.
"Agreed, King's pawn up two spaces."
"King's pawn, same."
So we started, me calling out the moves, him, never looking up from his writing, responding. Very quickly I realized that he was better than me, much better. Even starting down a knight and not looking at the board, he had nearly equalized our strength twelve moves in. Many of my own pawns were isolated and unable to help each other, his grouped as tightly as an ancient phalanx, guarded the center.
"As your scribe, shouldn't I be doing that writing for you? Queen's pawn up one space." Though a small hope, I could only count on burying my own moves within a conversation, hoping it would break his concentration.
"If you want something kept a secret, you have two options, doing it yourself or allowing another to do it and then cutting out their tongue." He looked up, the first time all game his eyes had left the page on which he had been writing. "Though since you can write, I suppose I would have to cut off your tongue and hands. King's bishop takes rook's pawn."
Any conversation which led to a discussion about me losing my tongue and hands was one I did not wish to engage in, so I switched topics. "Not looking at the board seems to have had no ill-effects on your game, bishop to king's knight five, have you had a lot of practice doing it?"
"My ancestors were warriors, and before that, nomads. In order to pass the time during a march, they would play each other, calling out moves to the person riding beside them. I suppose, bishop to king's knight six, you could say that for my people playing chess with a board is a strange western variation to our game. Even now, when armies have been replaced by merchants, camps replaced by gardens, and swords replaced by lace-lined fans, there are those you would call masters, men for whom chess is but a child's diversion from their real game. A game where men are pawns, ships their bishops, and princes their queens. Men like Aram."
He told me the story then, or at least part of it, over the course of the remainder of the game which ended with my concession on the thirty-sixth move. The part of it he didn't tell then I was told by Suli, his personal slave, who was the only one to accompany him that day.
Those who have seen a Kamulkar garden have seen Paradise. So claimed one of their poets. Though I do not know whether that particular poet was referring to the flowers or one of the women who spent her time there, it is undeniable that race treated their gardens as some men treat their temple. I suppose that when one is surrounded by desert sand, any greenery is akin to a miracle. Thus, it says something of the station of my master that when summoned to appear before the Prime Vizier, he was not summoned to the court, nor a library, nor room, but the emotive center of the palace complex, the garden. That or it was just cooler in the garden, sometimes their minds work in ways that baffle me.
Matar and Suli were led by a slave into the garden. Suli reported to me the slave had no tongue, I was reminded of Matar's own words to me during our chess game. Prime Vizier Aram, the most powerful man in Qasrábi, perhaps even in the whole Kamulkar Sultanate, was feeding a caged song bird when Matar arrived. When I had asked Suli what the Prime Vizier had looked like, he had only shrugged, "He liked to smile." Such was a slaves impression. I had asked Matar, knowing first hand that he, at least, would note every detail, the smallest scar, the slightest wrinkle. But he too proved evasive, " He's old, his age traceable in the deep gulleys which run through his face. You do not live to be that old by accident."
"Please forgive me if I do not return your bow," Aram said as Matar gave the proscribed one bow, "when you reach my age, when you go down you do not get back up again very easily. Let us sit in the shade for a moment." Both moved to the silk awning which had been set up to provide relief from the worst of the afternoon sun. As if by magic, a flask of wine and two golden goblets appeared as they lowered themselves onto the waiting pillows. "I heard back in the coffee houses in the capital you used to have to give Rook odds to get anyone to play with you."
Matar inclined his head slightly, "Tell me, do you know the Shatranj playing habits of every captain that comes through your port, or should I feel especially honored?"
Matar folded his hands, leaning his head against them. "It is said when the armies of the Prophet Dajid, blessed be his name, first rode out, Dajid appointed captains not by birth, nor riches, nor reputation. But instead, he held a grand Shatranj tournament. The winner became the captain of all the armies, the second place, directly under the winner, and so on and so on, each being appointed according to his skill in Shatranj. When asked why he ordered his armies in such a way, the Prophet, blessed by his name, replied: 'As a still pond reflects the countenance of a man gazing into it, so Shatranj reflects the soul of the one who plays it. For in the playing, a man shows whether he is reckless or cautious; whether he panics in front of danger or remains steadfast, whether he can perceive danger and grasp the one opportunity for victory. In short, Shatranj reveals to what extent a man can be trusted to accomplish what the Nizam asks of him.' It is for this reason, as our historians tell us, that Shatranj is known in some circles as the 'Statesman's Game.'
I have been asked by our Most Excellent Lord, The fourth Nizam of the Qasrábi, Ghazir Ikhvan al-Haanji to determine if you are suitable for a task he wishes to be accomplished. So, following in the example of the Holy Prophet, blessed by his name, I have decided to test your suitability by examining your play at Shatranj. We have no board, but I trust for one of your reputed skill that will not be an obstacle."
"And what wager shall we play for?"
"I have before me," replied Aram, "a commission to hunt down one Kamar Blackheart completion of which will merit a just and fair reward. If you win, I will give the commission to you. On the other hand, if I win, well I hear tell that you have amassed an interesting book collection. I will come down to your ship on the morrow and choose whichever two of them I desire."
Matar stood up and made as if to leave. "While your offer is most generous, most honored Vizier, I am afraid that for such a little wager I would not be able to focus. If you wish me to give my all in this little test of yours, you will have to make a better wager than that one, for as it is said: if you wish to entice a bee, you do not do so with gold, but with honey."
"You disappoint me Matar, I heard that in the capital you were a lion, that you would never refuse a challenge, no matter the wager or the odds required of you."
"It is true, o wise Vizier, that among the gazelle, the lion stalks unafraid, taking down whom he wishes. But among the elephants, the lion steps cautiously, lest he be trampled underfoot. So tell me, which are you, a gazelle or an elephant?"
Aram laughed, a laugh which quickly turned into a labored wheeze. "Well if my dried out meat cannot invite an attack by the hungry lion, perhaps something more to its taste will be in order. I have heard that you have been scouring the souqs searching for a particular book,
The Golden Life, a book of poetry, so I hear. Well it just so happens that I have a copy, the only copy on the island, in fact, which I bought just yesterday. Perhaps if I add it to our already existing wager you will find it more enticing?"
"Tell me Vizier, do you have nothing better to do with your time than check after what every man who lives in your city does his spare time?"
"No, my dear Matar, I do not have anything better to do. And the day I do have something better to do is the day I will cease being Prime Vizier. For as it is written,
With knowledge comes safety and the peace of the realm is secured by many eyes. Now then, unless you have a further objection, shall we begin?"
For the first time all meeting, Matar smiled, if it could be a smile which moves the mouth but keeps the eyes cold, "I thought we had already begun."
And if Suli is to be believed, for the first time all meeting Aram stopped smiling. "And I thought the lion treaded carefully among the elephants."
The game itself, I am sorry to say, I never learned much about. Suli, of course, had neither the skill nor the interest to relate it. And Matar was strangely silent about the moves, though in the days that followed I would occasionally catch him starring at a chess board, as if reliving the game and trying to figure out what went wrong. If one could even say that anything went wrong. I have never seen someone as upset that he won as Matar was over that game. But while he did not talk about the game itself, he would often recount the conversation between himself and the Prime Vizier after the game, as if that conversation were in truth more important than the game itself.
"And that, I believe, is checkmate." Matar said, his voice devoid of any kind of triumph. "It is too bad that you did not recognize the setup for the last attack ten moves ago, your knight could have sacrificed itself to stop it and thereby leave me in a terrible state."
Aram motioned to a slave who fastidiously wiped his brow from the accumulated sweat. "I suppose age dulls the senses more than one likes to admit."
"Dulls them even for the master Aram, who as a young boy was able to offer Queen's odds to all comers and still win?" Matar held up his hand to forestall Aram's reply, "As you said earlier, 'Knowledge brings safety," and so the reverse must also be true, 'A lack of knowledge brings danger.' I just want to know one thing, to sooth my vanity and satisfy my curiosity: when did you first decide to let me win?"
"From the moment you stepped off your ship," Aram replied, "there were only three outcomes possible. First, that you proved yourself dangerous, in which case you would not left this garden alive; second, that you proved yourself a fool, in which case I would have easily defeated you and sent you on your way, and third, that you proved yourself dangerous, but useful, in which case you would win the game and live, at least for as long as you were useful. Whatever else you might be, you are not a fool." Aram stood, offering Matar the commission. "By the time you arrive back at your ship, you will find our wagered book already there. I advise you leave as soon as you can before I change my mind and decide you are, after all, more dangerous than useful."
No matter how wise Matar considers Aram, it is those last words which I believe show his foolishness. For I believe if he was truly wise he would have killed Matar while he had the chance.
