The Accursed

by Joyce Carol Oates

  “My page is too young to play draughts,” the Countess protested, “and my brother is a master of draughts who can’t be beaten, or even held to a draw; so it would be only slaughter, and can’t be permitted.”

  “All things are permitted,” the Countess’s brother said to her, with a scornful curl of his lip. “All things in the Bog Kingdom are permitted me.”

  The Count was delighted that his sister’s Rat-boy page had issued such a challenge, for, over the centuries, he had grown so skilled at draughts, and so ingenious and frequently negligent in his playing, he often played with two or three opponents simultaneously, and had begun to find the game, even with its bloody finale, tedious. So he rejoiced that this evening should at least be diverting; for in the history of the Bog Castle, dating back to time before Time, no child was ever known to issue any challenge to any adult, still less one of the nobility. And it struck the Count that there was something treacherous, something uncontrollable, indeed something unnatural in the very concept of a child. “For is not a ‘child’ a being that will alter by degrees, not quite before our eyes, yet in our presence,” the Master of the castle mused, “and is not a ‘child’ an early version, or mockery, of ourselves?—an image of our despoiled innocence and our blasted hopes? Most intolerably, is a ‘child’ not one who will replace us?”

  The Count’s pallid frog-face brightened in a smile, that revealed jagged yellow teeth as the Count clapped a hand upon Rat-boy’s head, in a pretense of genial affection; and said that yes indeed, he would accept Rat-boy’s challenge at once, for the evening was unusually slow and dull, and a perpetual wintry rain fell through the bog, and his companions had become cowards who dared not challenge him, or even one another—for there was no fresh blood at the castle, hence no “fresh blood” for the night’s sport.

  “Could you have spoken all along, Rat-boy? And ‘held your tongue’ out of cunning?” the Count asked the Countess’s page, with a deceptive sort of sympathy; seeing the Countess frown and shake her head just perceptibly, behind the Count’s back, Rat-boy shook his head slowly to indicate no, all the while grimacing, and twitching his shoulders, to suggest that indeed speech was difficult for him, if not painful.

  The game board was set up on a stained marble pedestal, in a central position in the vaulted room, several yards from the fire burning without much heat in the largest fireplace. In itself the board was a work of art, or had been at one time, comprised of zebrawood, with squares set individually in place, and painted in exquisite tones of red and black; around the edge of the board, a matte-finished gilding in an abstract design to suggest the Oriental and the serpentine. The draughts-pieces, or checkers, were somewhat larger than the ones Todd had played with as a child, fashioned of carved ivory with serrated edges; and divided, as usual, into two armies, the red and the black.*

  Unfortunately, not fifteen feet away from the game board was the reeking chopping block, a much-abused stump of log taken from the bog; and the deadly ax itself with its sturdy handle worn smooth over the years and an enormous double-edged blade covered not only in dried and blackened blood but in myriad hairs as well. (This repulsive sight clearly worked to the Count’s advantage, as it unnerved the brashest of players, while the Count affected utter nonchalance, as if unaware of its presence.)

  The Count led Rat-boy to his chair, and took his place across the board from him, and said in a pretense of sobriety that he supposed the game of draughts as played at the Bog Castle required no detailed explication; but in the event that Rat-boy had forgotten, the novelty of the game was this: “If your army triumphs over mine, you are required to employ that ax—(do look at it, my lad: do!)—and with all the strength in you, you must sever my head from my body. You cannot grant mercy because you have not the power: the Bog Kingdom admits of no mercy, even to its masters. Is’t understood?—and you promise not to dissolve into tears at being required to kill your host and benefactor, who has tolerated your presence here in his kingdom for so long? However, in the event that your army, these red fellows, are defeated,” the Count said, with a sly smile, “why, our situation is simply reversed; but that event is so remote and unlikely, we need not waste our time in speculation.”

  Though this was a feeble sort of wit the hall rocked with malicious laughter; but Rat-boy, poor frightened Todd Slade, sat frozen with eyes affixed to the game board. Clearly in his head the admonition sounding clearly Do not glance up, do not glance up even once.

  A tankard of pungent dark ale was brought to the Count, and a miniature version brought to Todd, to provoke laughter from the onlookers; diverse sweetmeats were served; and the bloody “cannibal sandwich” that had once sickened Annabel. These dainties the Count nibbled on through the game, wiping his sticky hands on his velvet clothing, while Todd declined to eat at all; though in truth he was faint with hunger.

  As the hollow-sounding bell of the castle tolled midnight the game began, with Master allowing Rat-boy the first move, as his army was red; and the idlers of the court, including sulky Countess Camilla and her retinue, drew around. With some hesitation Todd made his first move, taking up one of his first-row pieces; but felt a sudden fear of releasing it from his fingers.

  “Come, come!” the Count chided, “—you must let go; there is a time limit for such ploys, beyond which the offense fingers are chopped off.”

  Then, it was the Count’s turn. Fearfully Todd raised his eyes to take in that queer flaccid green-tinted face in which, lurking beneath its ugly exterior, one could almost discern a reptilian sort of nobility. Was this the very personage whom Todd’s cousin Annabel had loved, or had been hypnotized into believing she loved; was this the very person that had precipitated the ruin of the Slades, and the devastation of Crosswicks?

  “Take care!”—the Countess hissed at Todd, with some disgust.

  For, in the mere instant required to gaze at the Count’s face, and think his melancholy thoughts, Todd’s cunning opponent had managed to knock from the board two of Todd’s pawns . . .

  On all sides the Master’s sycophants chuckled. So swiftly had the frog-Count moved, so stunned was Todd to see his army already reduced by two playing pieces, the boy was unable at first to fully comprehend what had happened.

  A stern voice admonished him Your only hope is never to glance up from the board. So he’d been warned clearly enough, yet like a fool he’d forgotten.

  The Count naturally betrayed no awareness of having cheated, still less of his child-opponent’s look of dismay.

  For some minutes the game proceeded in a more or less normal fashion, though with painstaking slowness on Todd’s part, for again he was reluctant to lift his fingers from a checker; and recalled how recklessly he’d played as a boy, at Crosswicks, trusting to good luck and inspiration to carry him along, as frequently it did, to his grandfather’s delight. When the Count asked, in a kindly voice, if Todd would like another sort of beverage, one more suited for a child, Todd knew that he must not be deceived, and look up at the man; he must only just shake his head no, but keep his eyes fixed to the board. I will not be drawn into my own death. I must concentrate exclusively on the game of draughts.

  By contrast, the Count moved his black pieces swiftly, and with a show of indifference, never failing to snap his chin up after a move, that he might beguile Todd into glancing up at him and locking eyes; but Todd clenched his jaws and did not surrender to the impulse.

  Concentrate!—Grandfather Slade had counseled him. Only in concentration can you succeed.

  So the game proceeded slowly. At one o’clock a number of the onlookers muttered among themselves that the game had grown “tedious”—and they might be up until dawn at this rate. Countess Camilla dared to taunt her brother by observing that it was clear he wasn’t half so gifted a player as he prided himself, if a mere child of ten years or so could keep him at bay. “Move for move, and piece for piece,” the provocative woman said, “the lord of the manor and the lowly Rat-boy seem to me near evenly matched, neither b
eing sparked by genius.”

  This rude remark was meant to annoy the Count, as it did; he disguised his vexation by yawning, and stretching, and sighing; and drawing out of his vest a worn leather pouch filled with a sharply poignant substance smelling of bay rum and heat. He dipped his fingers into the pouch, and raised them to his nose: the familiar motion of “taking snuff” in one nostril, and then in the other; as Todd couldn’t watch him directly, these motions were distracting; and so he surrendered to the instinct to glance up another time.

  Poor Todd!—in that instant the fiend’s free hand darted across the board and so blithely removed one of Todd’s crucial checkers, which was in a position to guard his back row, that, a second time, Todd blinked in confusion and incomprehension. How was it possible that anyone could cheat with such quicksilver skill?—and such seeming innocence?

  Again, everyone laughed. Even the Countess laughed in disgust. And the Count merrily sneezed, and blew his noise most repulsively into his handkerchief; and urged Todd to make his move—“For the hour is growing late for you, my lad. Soon, it will be your bedtime.”

  By this time Todd was both demoralized and terrified; his poor red army had been depleted by three pieces, at no cost to the black army; like a crippled old man he sat rigid and hunched over the board; dangerously, his eyes flooded with tears. He had to blink rapidly to clear his vision; but did not dare wipe his face, for fear that his opponent would take advantage. In a mock-kindly voice the Count was saying, that draughts, having little of the subtleties of chess, should really be played in a carefree manner. Wasn’t it the quintessence of childhood—a game of straightforward simplicity, all its elements visible to the eye, and requiring little ratiocination? “In draughts one may as well move a piece quickly as after deliberation,” he said, “for it will make little difference, eventually.”

  So tense had Todd become, when finally he made his next move, and lifted his fingers from the checker, he saw to his horror that he’d made a terrible blunder—and could not now retract it.

  Concentrate!—so Winslow Slade admonished.

  Never glance up from the board!—so the elderly servant admonished.

  As if suspecting a trap, the Count hesitated; then proceeded to leap over not only the luckless piece Todd had moved, but a second; and bore them off this time in honest triumph from the battlefield.

  At which the gathering of sycophants and idlers responded with hand-clapping, and murmured compliments to the Master on his prowess.

  Sullenly the Countess said, “It was the boy’s mistake, not the Count’s ‘prowess.’ ”

  Now a sickly sort of realization came over Todd, as he feared he’d forgotten the rules of the game. At Crosswicks, when he’d played so heedlessly with Annabel and Josiah, he’d often violated the rules, and his cousins had not much minded.

  “Come, Rat-boy,” the Count said, “my little army is roiling for the kill. And you know, caution is useless.”

  Todd tried to recall: the object of the game was to become “kinged”—in that way to acquire more power. Being “kinged” had something to do with the back row of the board. This recollection came into Todd’s mind like a drifting butterfly, in time to allow him to make his move; and a lucky move it was, as if it had been deliberated.

  So hastily then the Count pushed a piece into Todd’s depleted ranks, with the obvious plan of acquiring a king in the next move, he committed a blunder as well; which he and Todd saw at the same moment. But by then the Count had released his piece, and had to surrender it.

  Or was this a trap?—Todd wondered. His eyes darted frantically about the board.

  Yet it seemed not to be a trap. Every sycophant and idler in the vast gloomy space drew in breath, in anticipation. Todd shifted a lone piece into a strategic position that blocked two of his opponent’s crucial pieces, and would in the next move account for the loss of one.

  “Child’s luck. Rat-boy luck.” The Count muttered sullenly, like a petulant child. For now he was forced to make his move, and to sacrifice a piece. “Well. I see Rat-boy will be ‘kinged’ now. But so shall I, soon. And you have postponed your bedtime, it seems, for another hour.”

  How innocent, how unobtrusive, the Count’s stubby fingers, resting lightly on the gilded edge of the board; but Todd knew how swiftly those stubby fingers could move, and did not dare look away.

  King! He’d acquired a king. He felt an uneasy thrill of elation, though he had but seven pieces remaining, to his opponent’s eleven.

  Do not. Glance up. DO NOT.

  Minutes passed, and, to the disgust of many, a full hour; and when the hour of 2 a.m. sounded the perspiring Rat-boy had but five pieces remaining, of which three were kings; and his opponent had six pieces, of which only two were kings. By this time the raucous crowd of onlookers had quieted and the atmosphere had grown brittle.

  “Here is another tankard, brother,” the Countess said, with a sly sort of solicitude. “Perhaps it will yield inspiration.”

  The Count took the tankard from her irritably, and drank deeply, and, with a bluff swashbuckling motion, made a move to approach one of Todd’s unprotected men from the rear; yet in so eccentric a manner, it must be a trick.

  Todd brooded long over the new alignment on the board, yet could discover no logic to it. He saw now how the game mimicked war: there was no logic to it. He started to move one of his kings, then hesitated; started to move the lone piece, then hesitated; and stared, and swallowed hard. Was his opponent planning an ingenious assault, or had the Count plunged ahead blindly, without seeming to see that a sharp-eyed opponent could capture one of his two kings in two or three skilled moves . . . ?

  How Todd’s head ached, and his eyelids quivered with strain!

  Badly he regretted his past life, his heedless child’s life, when he had been so headstrong with his family, so cruel to even his loving mother, and a thorn in the heart of his father; even with Annabel whom he’d loved, he had often been rude. And he had not admired Josiah enough, and had taken his exemplary cousin for granted.

  He had not loved his grandfather Slade enough: he had not ever forgiven his grandfather, for the humbling “confession” in the cemetery.

  The Count was betraying some apprehension, for he shifted about in his throne-like chair, and wiped at his face with a soiled handkerchief. “Rat-boy,” he said softly, “you are perhaps not a child at all.”

  “He’s a child, Brother! He’s just a child. You must be prepared to be beaten by a child, in front of witnesses.” The Countess laughed in delight, revealing yellow-tinged teeth, that did not detract from her curious mask-like perfection, but rather enhanced it.

  After a long minute of deliberation Todd made a move; and the Count made his; and, suppressing a shiver of apprehension, or a little cry of elation, Todd quickly took advantage of his opponent’s poor judgment—capturing not one king but two in a spirited hopping march across the board!

  At this, Annabel would have applauded. Even if Todd were beating her.

  Now it seemed that Rat-boy was near to winning the game, unbelievably, against the Master of Bog Castle. All of the great hall grew hushed.

  “Well, Brother, you are driven to it,” the Countess Camellia declared in a voice both exhilarated and fearful. “You and I both—for my fate rests with yours. Take care.”

  Slowly the Count drew forth his filthy snuff-pouch and, while positioning a tiny pinch of the foul tobacco in one of his nostrils, succeeded in wafting a grain or two in Todd’s direction; with the result that the boy’s eyes welled with stinging tears, and he could not stop himself from sneezing—once, twice, a third time; and, instantaneously, the wily Count swept Todd’s most valued king to the floor.

  All of the assemblage reacted with a murmur, though not of support for the Count’s crude move; for even a cheater is obliged to act with grace, and to disguise his dishonesty.

  Todd saw at once what the situation was, and fought back tears of helplessness and anger; for he’d been tricked again
, and truly unfairly. The Count was like Todd as he’d once been, as a spoiled child; but far worse, since his pranks were lethal.

  Yet Todd managed to recover, to a degree, to continue the exhausting game, and in so forthright a manner, no one could have told that the loss of the king had thrown him into a temporary panic. Following this exchange, so warily did the Master of the Bog Castle and the lowly Rat-boy play at their game of draughts, and so cautious were their soldiers of one another, the castle bell tolled 3 a.m.; and then 4 a.m.; at last 5 a.m.—with no significant change of fortune. How strange that I am evenly matched with the Devil—the thought came wryly to Todd.

  By this time all but the hardiest of the onlookers had lapsed into drunken slumber. The Countess Camilla had resorted to taking snuff, with her retinue of coarse-featured court women, in order to stay awake.

  “Shall we declare a draw, Brother?”—so the Countess said, disguising her concern in a jesting voice. “It would not be so dishonorable, you know, but something of a novelty in the Bog Kingdom.”

  “No. Never a draw.”

  “But—”

  “I said no. Never. This Rat-boy is a devil of some sort, from another sort of Bog Kingdom, and not what he seems. But I will beat him—fairly. I promise.”

  Todd’s throbbing head was nodding; his eyelids had grown heavy. Of a sudden he heard Annabel addressing him, her voice soft and close against his ear. Once you are a swan you will be a swan.

  He sensed his opponent’s weariness as well, but knew enough not to glance up at the Count. Once a swan. A swan!

  At last the game of draughts ended, in an altogether unexpected way, at 5:21 a.m.; when only six pieces remained on the board, evenly divided between three kings of the red army and three of the black, timidly huddled together in their respective camps.

  By this time, so far as Todd Slade knew, all of the vast Earth had been reduced to the shimmering squares before him. Dazed, hollow-eyed, faint with hunger and anxiety, he could recall little beyond the game board or the game. All that mattered were maneuvers and counter-maneuvers. In two moves possibly—in three moves assuredly—he might win; yet it was best to be prudent, to take care. If the red king advanced by one more square, then the cornered black king would be forced to move laterally; but what of the other black king, positioned so crucially? There was no end to the game in sight. The game of draughts, Todd saw, was interminable—it was his life. And when he weakened, or slid helplessly forward in a faint, it would be his death.