I bought a chessboard from a local stonemason. He spends some of his free time as a lapidarist, cutting and polishing pieces of marble left over from larger commissions.
The detail in each piece, and the stark contrast between ivory white and charcoal black, were too compelling for me to keep my wallet in my pocket.
I keep the board in the Castle’s game room, beneath a window and between two sconces that burn long into the night.
Sometime past midnight, I found it lit only along the far side. The ranks gathered there caught the light the way stone catches morning, pale and precise. My own men stood in shadow, barely shapes at all.
Except for one.
A knight, out ahead of the others, standing alone in the only light that fell across my side of the board.
I did not remember advancing it.
Somewhere in an evening I have already lost to memory, I must have reached across the board and set it there.
Out ahead. Undefended.
✧
I reflecting on it longer than the move deserved.
The knight looked exposed there. No piece beside it. No friendly rank near enough to make its position feel comfortable. And still it stood alone in the only light my side of the board had been given, waiting on an answer it had already provoked.
I have made that move before the board existed.
Advanced into a conversation, a decision, a year, before I was certain it was wise. Only certain that waiting would cost more than moving.
✧
I left the knight where I had put it.
I did not reach for another piece, reconsider it into safety, or counter it from the other side.
The far ranks stayed gathered in their light. Mine stayed gathered in the dark behind one small piece of standing marble, unwilling to take back what it had already offered.
I turned off the lamp instead and let the board keep its answer for the morning.
The light will be different again.
✧
This letter is now part of the Conservatory — those who find one often need another.