6

David Snowell’s train climbed steadily north. The windows were filmed with frost, and now and then a flurry of snow rattled against the glass.

He shared his compartment with a young woman in a plain coat, her hands resting on a carved music box. She had introduced herself earlier as Emily Brent. They had exchanged only a few words since.

When the train lurched over a rough patch, the music box slid towards the floor. Snowell caught it by reflex and handed it back.

“Thank you,” she said. “It never sits quite still. Rather like me.”

The lid had shifted, and a few notes of a carol played before the mechanism stuck with a soft click.

“It is going to Snowfall Manor as well,” she added after a pause. “To earn its keep.”

She took an envelope from her bag. Cream paper. Green wax, pressed with the shape of an evergreen. Snowell recognised it at once but did not say so.

“I am to play for a gathering there,” she said. “It all sounds rather grand.”

Snowell took out his notebook. On a clean page he set out the first moves of a small game he half-remembered, one in which a knight, of all pieces, brought matters to their close. He tried to see how the sequence might be rebuilt from the beginning.

Starting from the initial position, construct a game that ends with Black promoting to a knight with checkmate on move 5 (both players play 5 moves each).