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“I have come to the personal conclusion that while all artists are not chess players, all chess players are artists.” – Marcel Duchamp
“I don’t know why you try so hard,” Makalaurë grumbles. His tongue grows sharp only when he is coaxed from composing—or when Carnistir draws on his sheet music with charcoal, as happened the day before. “You’re never going to win.”
Maitimo flushes, two high points of color on his cheeks. “I know that. But I would like to put up a better fight.”
“A finer failure? Surely that will impress him.”
“Káno. Please?”
Makalaurë sighs, imagining himself the vessel of a weary wind rising from the sea. It is an unfortunate truth, being the younger brother of such an elder: if Maitimo says please, he’ll do anything.
“If you insist,” he says, and puts his harp and his parchment aside. Maitimo steps around him and places both on a higher shelf.
“Did you forget?” One eyebrow, lifted, a near-perfect imitation of Atar. “Carnistir will find them again.”
When it comes to practical matters, Makalaurë is forgetful. He knows it, Maitimo knows it, Atar certainly knows it. He mumbles his thanks and they walk together to the library, where the chess set is already laid out, resplendent in the finger-beams of Laurelin that peek through the windows.
Atar crafted the set himself—each piece is of light metal, faceted so sharply that they gleam like mirrors in the light. As a child, Makalaurë was fond of making armies beneath the table with the turrets and rearing steeds, grouping them around the fair king and queen, the sentry trees.
The fondness abided only until Atar taught him and Maitimo the rules of the game.
Maitimo sits at the chess board with his left knee drawn up against his chest, his left arm resting on it, and his right hand guiding his pieces. He beats Makalaurë in too short a time for Makalaurë’s pride, then has the gall to compliment Makalaurë’s strategy.
“I have no wits for this, as you well know.”
Maitimo feigns disbelief. “You took my queen!”
“You took both of my rooks, half of my pawns, and trapped my king in three places.”
“Well.” Maitimo bites down on his smile. “I guess you were right about the finer points of failure.”
Makalaurë stands up. “I am going back to my harp now.”
“Káno…”
“Make Tyelkormo play with you. Or teach Atarinkë. Valar’s piss, ask Amil to give you one of the twins in between suckling, and teach him!”
“Valar’s piss?” Maitimo nearly falls off his chair with surprised laughter. “That’s a new one.”
Makalaurë is ashamed of his vulgar flare of anger. He bows stiffly, as if Maitimo isn’t still laughing. “Your game far surpasses mine, Nelyafinwë. Pray excuse me.”
He doesn’t look back to see if Maitimo is stung, as he often is, by the use of his full father-name.
“Very good, Curvo.” Atar’s eyes gleam like stars. “You conceal your strategy well.”
Atarinkë’s ears seem to prick into sharper points, so wide is his smile. The smile slides off his face as Atar gently nudges his king over.
“But not well enough.”
“What is the point of chess?” Tyelko rages. Along with the humiliation of being thrice-defeated, he’s lost one of his favorite boots, and is tearing the room apart searching for it.
“The art of war and diplomacy,” Maitimo answers, from beneath the book he holds above his face. He is lying on the window seat, and he is too long for it, as he is too long for almost everything.
“The art of letting Atar gloat,” Carnistir mutters. “Pityo! Would you like to see a spider?”
Pityo squeals in fear, and Makalaurë swoops down, lifting him to his hip. “There is no point in chess,” he says. “Carnistir, take the spider outside. Amil will box your ears if she sees it.”
“Well-met, my sons!” Fëanáro calls. Light seems to hang around him as he enters, throwing aside his cloak, his soot-streaked apron. There is something kindled in his eyes that none of them can put a name to, though it stirs some answering flame within each of their hearts.
Nerdanel appears with a steaming pot of tea. “Dinner will be served shortly,” she says. “My love, cleanse your hands. How much longer must I bear traces of ash in the butter?”
“Very well!” Fëanáro answers, too cheerful to be dismayed by such a reproach, and over his shoulder he says, “Lay out the chess board, Curvo! I desire a conquest.”
His sons wait until the sound of the water-pump before they groan.
The Ambarussa are allowed to play as one, russet heads bent close together. They consult in bird-like whispers, and Fëanáro smiles indulgently though the fey light never leaves his silvered eyes.
One still-small hand stretches out, then retracts.
“Make your move, sons.”
Another flurry of consultation. Then Telvo clears his throat and pushes their remaining tree three squares forward.
“Alas,” Fëanáro sighs, and fences in their king.
Atarinkë puts up a good fight. An hour passes, and Nerdanel despairs of dinner. Stomachs are rumbling—Tyelko is munching a handful of nuts and trying to hide them from his brothers—but Fëanáro has not given anyone leave to gather round the dining table.
“Do not let yourself become hasty in the flush of triumph,” Fëanáro chides, when he wins, but his smile is still fond.
It always is, for Atarinkë.
“Sometimes,” Fëanáro observes, shaking his head and resetting the pieces in their appointed place, “Sometimes, Morifinwë, I do not think you try at all.”
“Turcafinwë, do not chew your nails so. Think you that all battles can be won by force of arms?”
“This is hardly a battle.”
“What did you say? No, Nelyafinwë—stay out of this. I would hear his words repeated.”
“I said this was hardly a battle.” Tyelko drops his gaze as he says it, lest his eyes be stormier than his voice.
Fëanáro’s lips thin. “How many times since boyhood have we played thus?”
“Many.”
“How many times have you bested me?”
A silence.
“I am accustomed to being answered.”
“None.”
“None.” Despite the crackle of tension in the air, Fëanáro smiles. “Do not shy away from calling a war a war, merely because you cannot find a way to win it.”
“Atar,” Makalaurë offers, his voice limpid and smooth, “Perhaps we should resume our contest after the evening meal? I know how much care Amil took in preparing it.”
“And give you and Nelyo a chance that your brothers had not, to meld new strategies?” Fëanáro studies him closely. “Your fingers grow ever-cleverer with that harp, my son. I would see, now, how they fare at the board.”
Badly, Makalaurë thinks, with a sigh like the sea, but he does not say it aloud.
The worst part of his turn, Maitimo thinks, is that all his brothers have already been beaten and are now thronged around him to watch him fail.
“Don’t bite your lips,” Atar scolds. “It is as bad as Turko and his nails—these are not princely habits. Come now, Nelyo. I know you have it in you to defeat me. Let the hammer fall!”
Maitimo sets his lips in a firm line, and hopes that Atar cannot read the rebellious thoughts he never speaks aloud. He’s not Tyelko; he doesn’t fight back.
Atar must have crafted something truly magnificent today—something truly beyond his past work. He is aglow with his own genius, and Maitimo is proud of him. But pride, of course, can run alongside shame and weariness and impatience, and it does for Maitimo. Nothing is ever simple.
Worst of all, he’s hungry. Tyelko has been cramming his cheeks with nuts, but the rest of them haven’t eaten since the morning. Atar forgets about eating when his mind walks in the light of inspiration, and his children and wife have to endure it.
The chessboard swims before Maitimo's eyes.
Still, he manages some success during the mid-game, taking both of Atar’s knights and one of his rooks, though he loses a tree for his pains.
In three moves—he can see that far ahead, he’s been playing for a century—he’s going to lose his queen, and there won’t be much he can do about it. After that, it will be a swift descent to crushing defeat.
A hand settles on his shoulder, and he starts.
“Fëanáro.” It’s Amil. She manages to make Atar’s name sound both respectful and somehow worse than the clever curses Makalaurë was so fond of a few decades ago.
“Nerdanel?” Atar lifts both brows, daring her to argue. “Have you a question?”
“I am substituting myself for Maitimo,” she says. “Maitimo, move.”
Maitimo grits his teeth, because being caught in the middle of his parents’ sparring is something he has made it a life-long practice to avoid. But Atar doesn’t seem angry; he seems intrigued.
“Get up, Nelyo,” he says. “Let your mother take your place.”
Gratefully—an unfinished game is not a defeat, though it is also not a victory—Maitimo vacates the seat of doom.
Amil sits heavily. Sometimes she moves more like a man than Atar does. She props her elbows on the table and her chin in her hands. “If I win,” she says, “There will be no chess games for a year.”
Atar’s eyes spark with indignation, and he opens his mouth to protest, but Amil fulfills Maitimo’s move, and takes Atar’s queen.
After that, the play is furious and silent. Maitimo and Makalaure hold the Ambarussa aloft so that they can see better, but no one dares even to breathe loudly. Atar’s fingers hover over a pawn, flexing in the air, as though something holds him back from decision.
It is strange, to see Atar like this.
In contrast, Amil plays with calm precision. She has the same expression on her face that she does when she uses her smallest chisel to capture a dimple in a stone cheek, a curl in flowing marble hair. One by one, with few losses, Amil wages a ruthless campaign against Atar’s army.
Finally, only his king remains. Atar reaches out with one finger and tips it on its side.
“I concede,” he says. He sounds strangely breathless, as though his fëa trembles. Those are words Maitimo has never heard him speak before; words he imagines he will never hear spoken again.
“Very good,” Amil agrees, smiling serenely. She rises. “Now, for dinner—”
“Will you instead retire to watch the stars with me, my love?” Atar asks, surging to his feet. His eyes are kindled with a different kind of light, one of warm affection. It is the opposite, and yet not, of all their quarrels.
Amil shakes her head, sending her spiraling curls tossing over her shoulders. “Certainly not, husband. I’m starving.”