The Giant's Almanac

the rules, that would dishonour him – so instead she made up a set of verses, a song that would suggest a move on the board, a move her husband could use to reverse the tide of play, and save them both. She sang the verses to her maids, and her husband – he was already paralysed by the misfortune he thought would destroy them both – and her husband heard her voice, and he understood her meaning, and he evaded the trap laid by his opponent. And so,’ Fitz concluded, reciting the story just as it had been told him, ‘she saved him, and their love, and all his wealth and estates.’

‘It is the most famous mansūba in the history of shatranj,’ said Ned. ‘He would have lost everything without her.’

‘But it also has a meaning,’ Fitz said, excited. ‘In order to save his queen, the nobleman had to sacrifice his two chariots, his most valuable pieces. We learn from this mansūba that our situation is not always what it seems, and that sometimes when things look their worst, we are at our strongest.’

Clare’s mouth was hanging open.

‘Is something burning?’ asked Ned.

‘No,’ Clare answered. She hadn’t taken her eyes off the board. ‘I’m warming the oven for dinner, that’s all.’

Fitz was looking out of the window, where smoke appeared to be rising from something in the lane. He cocked his head, and saw through the grey, rising billows a flash of blue: Ned’s car.

Then it exploded. They all had time to watch the fireball rise, incredibly slowly, on its pillar of black, choking smoke.

Clare was first to her feet. She leaped for the hallway, and was about to open the front door when someone rapped on it, hard, from the outside. She froze.

Ned and Fitz joined her in the hallway. All three of them stared at the chest of drawers, then at the door, still swinging slightly open, held only by its chain.

And then it came again – three short raps. Fitz’s pulse pounded in his neck.

No one knew what to do.

The door flew open, kicked hard, and the heavy oak hit the wall of the hallway with such force that, with a thud and crunch, it stuck fast, embedded in the plaster.

Mr Ahmadi stood on the threshold. He was dressed in a suit and a black riding cape, and wore a tall, formal top hat on his head. This he removed as he stepped forward and offered his hand to Ned.

‘Habi Gablani Ahmadi,’ he said. ‘I am sorry about your car.’

Ned stared vacantly at him, shocked and wrong-footed, while they shook hands. He was obviously confused.

‘That is to say, I am sorry I blew it up. It was necessary.’

Ned was obviously still bewildered. They all were. ‘Why?’ he asked, weakly.

‘To distract the man who has set fire to the roof.’ He gestured up the stairs, where thick black smoke was starting to curl round the ceiling.

‘We have a few minutes at most,’ said Mr Ahmadi. ‘Take what you need, what you love, but only what you can carry.’ He turned to Fitz and placed his hand on his shoulder. ‘What you love, little prince, is the shatranj board, and the crescent lamp. And my book. Be quick.’

Before Clare could protest, Fitz had sprinted up the stairs and into his room to fetch the lamp where it hung from the inner post of his bed. Keeping low, he retrieved it easily, along with the book from beneath his pillow, without disturbing the thin film of smoke that had already begun to seep from the loft hatch. From the hook behind his door he grabbed his hooded jacket, then dashed down the stairs again, taking them two at a time.

Ned had packed the pieces back into the board, closed it, and carefully stowed it in a cloth bag that Clare usually used for knitting. He held it tight to his chest while he peered down the hallway towards the kitchen, and through its windows to the garden. In answer to a look from Mr Ahmadi, he shook his head.

When Clare rejoined them in the hallway, she was holding a notebook and a sketch pad under one arm, while wrestling to get a raincoat over her other shoulder.

‘I called the police,’ announced Mr Ahmadi. He still held his top hat in one hand, and was knocking it against the other as if to beat out the seconds while he waited. His eyes moved with purposeful precision across the hallway, into each of the rooms, and up the stairs while he waited. He was assessing everything.

Clare stuttered to a full halt, and with her arm still tangled in her coat reached out with it to pull Fitz close to her. ‘The police – they can’t –’

‘I understand,’ answered Mr Ahmadi. He placed his hat on his head. ‘That’s why I gave you only a few minutes. I want to get you into those trees before they arrive.’ He gestured out of the front door. ‘You will be gone, but they can take care of the fire. Now, we go.’ He stepped lightly to the door and nodded towards the trees across the lane.

‘It’s our only move.’

The sun had dropped behind the steep hillside down the lane. As they crossed it, skirting the billows of smoke still pouring from the car fire, Fitz noticed a little clutch of Michaelmas daisies, turned into the mud and now coated with ash and soot. The smoke would conceal their flight, but it also blotted the light that would normally be glowing through the narrow gap between the crowns of the tall trees. That was a light he loved, that he knew as surely as his eyes knew day, his skin the summer, his feet his home. As they hurried into the undergrowth and the damp air of ferns and moss brushed against his ankles, Fitz felt distinctly that they had passed from day into a long night.

Before them, the shadows clustered round the trees, cool and