The Betrayals(66)

I said, ‘You’re not a genius.’

He glared at me. He was right, the de Courcys do have a murderous streak. I gave him my most anodyne smile.

At last he said, deadpan, ‘Thanks.’

‘You’re welcome.’

Sometimes I feel like we understand each other, but this time I didn’t even know if he was being sarcastic. He’s always holding something back. I wish I knew what he was thinking; it’s like he’s wearing a mask, all the bloody time. I’d give anything to see him without it. For a second. Just long enough to …

I do it too. But at least I know what I’m hiding.

I said, ‘I’ll see you in Cartae,’ and went to get changed.

Twenty-second day (I think)

Starting to panic about my summer game now. Nine weeks.

It’s fine. I can write a game in nine weeks.

Well. If I had an idea for it, I could.

Come on, inspiration. You’re leaving it pretty late, aren’t you?

It’s so bloody stupid. They tell us the grand jeu is art. No, actually – worship. It’s a mystical process of creating an abstract object which allows communion with the divine. A testament to the grace of God in the minds of men. The paraclete blowing where it listeth – if you’ll excuse the Christian reference … That’s right. Oh, and, by the way, you have to produce games to order, when we say, on the dot, and we’ll mark you out of a hundred.

No contradiction there, then.

I said something like that to Magister Holt today, but he only smiled.

Twenty-third day

Today in Historiae the Magister referred to adversarial games, which I’d never heard of. He only mentioned them in passing, and when I asked him to elaborate he waved his hand as if he was striking through a measure and said, ‘I’m afraid we must move on.’ I didn’t push it; he hasn’t liked me since I lost my temper about politics last term. But it sounded interesting, so after the Quietus I went to the library to see what I could find. There wasn’t much, though. Or at least, if there was, I didn’t know where to look. The archivist on duty was useless. I spent ages looking through concordances, trying to track down some games to have a look at, but I didn’t find any. Not even any articles.

I don’t understand. How would it work? I can’t even imagine it. Two players, standing opposite each other, all of it improvised, so no score for the audience … Not like our dead, rehearsed, perfected games. Something alive. Something actually happening.

Twenty-fourth day

Argh. If we have one more lesson on the Bridges of K?nigsberg I will kill someone. The Magister Cartae, ideally. (I wouldn’t have to make much of an effort, he’s teetering on the edge of the grave as it is.) At the beginning of the term he put this on the blackboard and made us copy it: A few games well chosen, and well made use of, will be more profitable to thee, than a great confused Alexandrian Library. To which I would like to say, Oh shut up, you old windbag.

The worst thing, the positively worst thing, is that bloody tune. It keeps going round and round in my head. And yes, I realise that’s the point, but it’s driving me potty. Carfax thinks it’s hilarious, of course. He’s got into the habit of using the same rhythm when he knocks on my door.

Speak of the devil.

Later

It’s past two, but I can’t sleep. I’ve been trying to scribble down some ideas, but I’ve got past the point where they make any sense. But the main thing is, I’ve got it. I’ve got something, anyway.

Thanks to Carfax.

It was him knocking, earlier. He’d come to show me something he was working on, and he sat down on my bed and watched me while I looked over his notes. It was his summer game – all meticulously planned, naturally – and it was all about storms and maelstroms and whirlpools, fluid dynamics and wave mathematics and Beethoven. I told him it was quite overwhelming and he bristled and said, ‘Yes, well, storms often are,’ but a second later he said, ‘All right, then, smart-aleck, so what should I do about it?’ So we got into a discussion about that, and I told him I thought it was too abstract and too clever, and that he needed some narrative. (Narrative! Dear me! Whatever next?) I suggested he have a look at The Tempest, and he nodded with that non-committal expression that means he thinks I’m talking drivel, and I threw a pencil at him. Anyway, we got on to my complete dearth of ideas, and he asked without conviction whether there wasn’t some old draft I could resurrect, and I said no, and he said, well, why couldn’t I find inspiration in the library, and I said without thinking that the library might as well have been burnt to the ground for all the help it was. He shot me a glinty-eyed look, but he didn’t say anything, so I couldn’t tell if he was offended or not. In any case I was already babbling about how I’d been to try and look up adversarial games and found literally nothing.

He said, ‘You went to look up adversarial games? Yes, of course you did,’ and laughed.

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘You are absolutely obsessed with winning, Martin, aren’t you?’

‘It’s not that. No one’s ever told us about adversarial games. I wondered what they were like. How they worked.’

‘You want to start with Wright and Percy. They were mid-sixteenth, I think. Or the Poets of Nishapur. Or have a look at Babbage and Klein – early nineteenth, they were probably the last to play really adversarial games, after that it all started to merge into joint games, which isn’t exactly the same.’