Death's Jest-Book Read Online Free Page A

fact that the only session she had
available (and that only because another budding virtuosa had
discovered ponies) was nine o'clock on Saturday morning.
    So goodbye to breakfast in bed,
and all that.
    But a man is still master in his
own head if not his own house, and Pascoe buttered himself another
piece of toast and settled down to the rest of Roote's letter.

    Letter
1 cont.

    Sorry
about the hiatus!
    I was interrupted by the entrance
of a train of porters carrying enough luggage to keep the Queen of
Sheba going for a long state visit. Behind them was a small lean
athletic man with a shock of blond hair which looked almost white
against his deeply tanned skin, whom I recognized instantly from his
dust-jacket photos as Professor Dwight S. Duerden of Santa Apollonia
University, California (or St Poll Uni, CA, as he expressed it). He
seemed a little put out to find himself sharing the Quaestor's
Lodging with me, even though I had modestly chosen the smaller
bedroom.
    (You will already, I'm sure, have
worked out that I'm not the Quaestor - whatever that is - of God's,
but merely a temporary occupant of his rooms during the conference.
The Quaestor himself is, I gather, conducting a party of
Hellenophiles around the Aegean on a luxury cruise liner. This is a
line of work that interests me strangely!)
    Professor Duerden and most of his
luggage have now finally disappeared into his bedroom. If he intends
a complete unpacking, he may be some time, so I shall continue.
    Where was I? Oh yes, in the midst
of what looks dangerously like becoming a rather tedious
philosophical digression, so let me get back to straight narrative.
    The following day, I played
Polchard to a draw. I think I could have beaten him, but I wouldn't
like to swear to it. Anyway, a draw seemed best for starters.
    After that we played every day.
At first he always had white but after our third draw he turned the
board round and thereafter we alternated. The sixth game I won. There
was a moment of cenotaph silence in the room, only more in
anticipation of sacrifice than remembrance of it, and as I made my
way back to my cell, men who'd become quite friendly over the past
couple of weeks drew away from me. I paid no heed. They were thinking
of Polchard as . King Rat, I was thinking of him as Grand Master.
There's no fun playing someone not good enough to beat you, and less
in playing someone who's good enough but too scared. My long-term
survival plan depended on establishing equality.
    That was my
thinking, but I knew I could be wrong. I dreamt that night I was in
that scene in Bergman's Seventh Seal where the Knight plays
Death at chess. I woke up in a muck sweat, thinking I'd made a
terrible mistake.
    But next day he was sitting with
the board set up and I knew I had been right.
    Now all I had to do was find a
way of letting him beat me without him spotting it.
    But not straight off, I thought.
That would be too obvious, and for him to catch me losing would be
worse than constantly winning. So I played my normal game and planned
ahead. Then Polchard made a move three times quicker than usual, and
when I studied the board I realized I didn't need to worry. All that
solitary exercise had turned him into a fine defensive player. Well,
it's bound to when you're resisting attacking gambits you've devised
yourself. But the bastard had been soaking up the details of the way
I played and suddenly he'd gone into full attacking mode and I was in
trouble.
    It would have been easy to fold
up before his onslaught, but I didn't. I twisted and turned and
weaved and ducked, and when I finally knocked over my king, we both
knew he'd beaten me fair and square.
    He smiled as he re-set the
pieces. Like a ripple on a dark pool.
    'Chess, war, job,' he said. 'All
the same. Get them thinking one way, go the other.'
    Not a bad game plan I suppose if
you're a career criminal.
    After that I stopped worrying
about results.
    Now everyone was my friend again
but I played it cool. I wanted to