Vladimir was not only beating the Sultan’s champion, he was thrashing him. The Muscovite had just won the second game and had now—as the Sultan returned from his meeting and resumed his place on his throne—taken an early lead in the third. The Sultan’s brow furrowed with concern. The match could be over by mid-morning and his champion humiliated. The crowd seemed to sense this, too. Every time Vladimir took one of Zaman’s pieces, they cast nervous glances at the royal stage and whispered animatedly. Having survived his bristly conversation with the queen, my teacher now watched the game with renewed interest. I noticed that his eyes narrowed curiously as he followed each move. And so as that third game progressed, I followed it in an unusual way: by glancing alternately from the playing stage to my teacher’s face and back again—like someone watching one of my father’s tennis matches. For, yes, Mr Ascham was watching the game but I sensed he was seeing something else in it that the other five thousand people in that hall were not.
