Page 1 of Love Is A Draw
PROLOGUE
Paris, July 22, 1818 — Three days before the White’s Tournament entry deadline
The Chessman Chronicles Reprint
Vol. XXVII – January 1818
Official Gazette of the International Board of Chessmen
A Most Noble Invitation to the Boardmen’s Tournament at White’s
It is with the greatest satisfaction that we announce the long-anticipated return of the Boardmen’s Tournament, to be held this August within the venerable walls of White’s Club, London. For the first time in a decade, the finest strategic minds in the realm shall assemble under one roof, in pursuit of intellectual triumph and honor.
This year’s tournament promises an exhibition of unmatched brilliance, with competitors drawn from the highest ranks of the European chess elite. The victor shall be awarded a princely sum of two thousand pounds—a prize not offered since the celebrated match of 1808—as well asthe singular distinction of entering a private contest with the elusive and undefeated master known only as The Black Knight.
His name, long spoken of in hushed tones across salons and academies, has become synonymous with elegance, precision, and the fearsome clarity of genius. His agreement to play once more marks this event not merely as a competition, but as a moment in history.
Admission to the tournament is reserved for members and White’s honored guests. Competitors are to submit credentials and pedigrees to the Secretary of Games no later than the 25th of July.
May the best player win.
— Issued by the Governing Board of the International Chessmen’s Council
Paris, 1818
The pension stank of boiled meat and regret, and Victor Romanov was ready to leave both behind. Tomorrow, he’d cross the Channel and fight for the one thing he couldn’t claim on this side of the water—a name.
In London, if he defeated the Black Knight, he’d win not only a match but would earn the right to stay. Legal. Safe. Free.
And he wouldn’t just be a Jew from the Pale of Settlement anymore. He’d be the Black Knight. A man who mattered. Admired for wit. Valued for knowledge. Known for skill.
His satchel lay open on the narrow bed, its worn leather flaps gaping like an unfinished thought. Victor folded his shirt with care, smoothing the creases from the fine lawn and laying it atop the small stack of pressed garments. He had only one to take. But his clothes were clean. Sharply folded. Ready.
He slid his ledgers in next—notes, annotated match records, puzzles solved and unsolved—years of study scrawled in black ink, carefully indexed. He touched the top one before fastening the buckle. A dozen cities, a hundred beds, and this same bag. It wasn’t much. But it mattered to him.
He didn’t need closets full of clothing or adorned walls to feel worthy. What filled his head—thatwas his future. “That’s potential,” his mentor had always told him. Even at four-and-twenty, Victor’d rather be a man of substance than one with gilded frames and nothing to say.
The hearth crackled behind him, its light faint and unconvincing. The pension smelled like all the places to which he never wanted to return. He wouldn’t miss it.
Sleep wouldn’t come. Perhaps that was a mercy.
He sat at the small mahogany table, shoulders tight, the fire’s flicker catching on the brass nib of his quill. The page before him bore the wounds of the evening: scratched diagrams, notes in the margins, corrections more numerous than conclusions.
Move 12. Knight to b3. Bishop takes b3.
Plain. Irreparable.
His mouth tightened.
He had played white. First move, first strike. And still, he’d squandered it.
A memory flickered—his legs dangling from a too-tall chair, Grandmaster Dmitry Tarkov’s voice like winter wind across his skin.
“You fall in love with your knights,” Tarkov had said, in cool, exacting Russian. “They leap, they surprise. But chess is no hero’s work. Use every piece, or you lose.”
Victor had flushed, withdrawing his hand from the board, folding his fingers into a fist.
Even now, ten years later, he felt that sting of reproach.
