The Prisoner's Dilemma

by Sean Stuart O'Connor

  Smith laughed for the first time that evening.

  ‘How very, very interesting. I look forward to hearing about your visit and Lord Dunbeath’s game. Perhaps you’d be kind enough to write to me while you’re there?’

  ‘I most certainly shall,’ replied David Hume, raising his glass to his new friend. ‘You have my word on that.’

  Chapter 4

  If the winter was harsh at the Castle of Beath this February, the thermometer was yet lower still, fifteen hundred nautical miles away in the south eastern Baltic, and it was there that the port of Königsberg lay huddled under a heavy blanket of snow.

  Snow, rain or fine, however, trade was the lifeblood of the great city and trade would flow through its veins whatever the heavens might bring. The port sat on the banks of the mighty River Pregel and this great waterway washed around the two islands that formed the centre of the city before it drained into the vastness of the Frisches Haff, the more westerly of the two lagoons that connected Königsberg to the coast. From this enormous lake, ships would pass through a narrow gap in the long sandy spits that enclosed the lagoon, and from there out into the Baltic. It was this extraordinary natural position that gave Königsberg the most blessed of its attributes for it ensured that the port was ice free all year round. Unsurprisingly the city fathers took full advantage of this, and as Prussia’s merchant elite, they made certain that the great trading centre was open for business at all times. Now, in this fierce winter, teams of men could be seen labouring around the clock to clear snow from the roads and lanes that led to the quays.

  The people of Königsberg were as proud of the city’s past greatness as they were of its current prosperity. For centuries it had been the capital of the monastic state of the Teutonic order, and although successive port masters had repeatedly modernised the warehouses and wharves that lined the riverbanks, the burghers themselves preferred to leave unchanged the extraordinary medieval heart of the city.

  Three men now walked away from the forest of masts at the main quay and headed towards this ancient centre. They made their way across the first of the famous seven bridges that connected the islands to the mainland, and from there on towards the Great Square, their bodies hunched against the harsh north-easterly that blew down from the Gulf of Finland. Slowly they passed the baroque beauty of the Marienkirche, then crossed the square itself and turned with relief into the relative shelter of the warren of ancient streets beside the Rathaus, the magnificent City Hall.

  Two men flanked a far larger man that walked between them, padding along with a strangely deliberate tread, deep in thought. The outer two had the air of an escort although they wore the sailors’ standard clothing of a thick jacket and heavy sea boots. Like so many of their kind on the quayside, they rolled unevenly as they walked, clearly less certain of a street under their feet than a deck.

  But it was the central character that took the eye. Alexis Zweig. A sea captain.

  Not only was he taller than his companions but he was far more powerfully built. Unlike most men of such stature, however, he wore his scale with such a relaxed air that his physical presence seemed more latent than actual. If one had to guess at his age, he looked to be in his early thirties but he carried about him a far more timeless sense of authority. Now, in response to a tiny gesture of command from him, the little party tacked at a junction of two lanes and turned to have the bitter wind at their backs: running under full sail they would have said.

  As Zweig and his men made their slow way under the oriels and jetties of the ancient city, the crowds and traffic seemed to part in front of them in a kind of unspoken homage. Some that passed them glanced at Zweig with undisguised respect and some others even raised a hesitant hand in greeting. He seemed not to notice. Or if he did, he made no reply.

  As they went by, a few looked back and whispered to each other: ‘That was Zweig! Did you see him?’ Then they would walk on, their heads coming closer together in the universal gesture of gossip, retelling the news of whatever latest coup he was said to have conjured. Most of the rumours about him were nonsense, of course, but some were more accurate. It was certainly true that he had come from nothing and yet had risen like a meteor to be the youngest captain that anyone could recall in Königsberg. And it was common currency that he had rewarded his early investors tenfold. It was said of him that he would trade in anything and stories of the way he’d secured the lumber contract for the great Winter Palace at St Petersburg and then negotiated a supply deal with the local amber mines, were spoken of with awe. Another masterstroke had seen him somehow manage to buy the rights to an extraordinary new paint that he’d named ‘Prussian Blue’ – and had then cornered the European market for it.

  His strength was that he was both a fleet owner as well as a natural merchant, charming to deal with, fluent in five languages and conversant in several others; subtle, shrewd and remarkably honest. But his greatest achievement had arisen from the way he’d overcome Königsberg’s most notorious shortcoming. The existence of a large sand bar where the lagoon met the city meant that only ships drawing less than ten feet of water could come into its quays. Larger vessels had always been anchored near Pillau at the mouth of the lagoon and merchandise had then been carried out to them from the city in smaller vessels. But Zweig had commissioned the construction of a fleet of large, shallow-draft traders that could moor in town – a market-changing coup that had given him such an advantage that he’d attracted the envy as well as the grudging respect of Königsberg’s merchant elite.

  Now, as the three men walked through the city on this bone-chilling morning, Zweig’s great natural presence was further increased by his striking appearance. Under a wide-brimmed hat, edged with pale ostrich feathers, he wore his hair long and braided as if he was more used to the fashions of southern ports. His features were dark and strangely wild, his eyes like bloodstones, widely spaced and generally half closed in his complete self absorption. His dress was richly exotic and glinted with eastern silks, heightened by the occasional flash of pearl buttons and silver buckles. Across his shoulders hung a sumptuous swathe of the fur of a rare Siberian bear, held in place at the shoulder by a heavy gold clasp.

  This was all mere surface adornment. It was Zweig himself that was so striking and intriguing and although his gaze was fixed downwards on the street, in the manner of one sunk in deep thought, he strolled with an air of such unhurried confidence that he seemed to exude an absolute belief in himself as well as a complete clarity of purpose. Anyone who even glanced at him was left feeling that they were looking at a man whose will would prevail, and would have to prevail for him to continue to exist - however long that might take.

  He now moved through the ancient streets with an easy certainty and such a slow, deliberate step that his two smaller assistants had to break stride every few yards to stay alongside him.

  One of them now looked ahead and spoke rapidly to his captain. Zweig looked up and saw their destination - a grand townhouse with a metallic trade sign of a giant boot set high up on its brick side. Above it, spelt out in large brass letters, were the words ‘Johann Kant. Leather Merchant’.

  But the captain’s passage up the crowded street had already been witnessed from inside the house. Kant’s daughter, Sophie, had seen them as they’d rounded the corner, just as she’d come onto the small landing of the staircase’s return, a half round that projected out over the front entrance. The glass sides of this mezzanine were designed to let light into the stairwell but they also allowed people on the stairs see up and down the street and as Sophie now stood watching through the windowpanes, she smiled with pleasure as she realised that the three men were helming over towards the house. She’d seen Zweig glance up at their trade sign and it was with a thrill that she realised that they were altering course to make for her father’s door.

  Sophie had met the extraordinary Captain Zweig only twice but she remembered both occasions well. Such was the strange and powerful attraction she’d felt – and t
he huge sense of excitement – that she’d lived in the hope of seeing him again. And as soon as possible. On the second of the two occasions, at a gathering of merchants at the Rathaus before Christmas, he had even remembered her name and had paid her some attention. As they’d spoken, she’d been conscious of the envious stares of strangers and the hesitant, half smiles of her friends as they clustered around the two of them, silently watching how she dealt with the famous Zweig, ‘the great man of tomorrow’ as they’d called him. As he’d towered over her he’d shown no sign of being aware that they were the centre of such attention and instead had been serious and grave and deeply courteous in the way he had talked. After he’d been called away she was only too conscious of how much she’d enjoyed the glances and compliments of her companions.

  ‘Of course he’s noticed you, Sophie!’ said her friend Gretchen when she tried to make light of the meeting a little later. ‘Didn’t you see the way he looked at you? You might have been a treasure map, the way his eyes lit up! And why shouldn’t he? We all know you’re one of the two great beauties of Königsberg. You and the cathedral. But you’re only twenty three – you have four hundred years on your side!’

  Sophie was far too spirited to give in to such flattery but even she had been rendered speechless as her friends had laughed and gently prodded her sides in affection. She was, indeed, one of the great sights of Königsberg. Blessed with the beautifully curved brow of a Botticelli goddess, she had a perfect yet intriguing profile, a glorious, full mouth and expressive eyes of the softest green that told their story of her intelligence and independence. Framing her was a mass of rich, dark hair in which a thousand different colours fought for prominence as it curled and twisted to be released from whatever constraint her mother tried to bring to it. But Sophie Kant was more than simply beautiful. An impression of spirited self-reliance shone from every glance of her eyes and gesture of her body. And it was a secret known only to her family and a few others that an intelligence that matched her beauty was being fed by two of the leading mathematicians at the university who came to tutor her at home, hidden from the criticism of a society that held that women should barely be educated, let alone in the sciences.

  Sophie had suffered after the evening at the Rathaus. She may have found Zweig captivating but she’d also been disturbed by the strength of the feelings that he’d unleashed in her. To her dismay she’d realised that she hadn’t been able to dismiss him from her thoughts as easily as she’d have liked. She was concerned by this. Was this love, she wondered? Was it the need for possession? The great power of her mind could make sense of most things but these feelings had made her confused.

  More alarmingly she’d even found that the fascination of the mathematical texts she so enjoyed immersing herself in no longer had the power to captivate her in the way that they once had. These had always taken her away from the trivial realities of daily life yet she was finding that Captain Zweig was showing a still greater power to distract her thoughts. The previous day her mind had even wandered as she’d tried yet again to tackle Leonhard Euler’s famous challenge. The great Swiss mathematician had thrown down the intellectual gauntlet to find a walk through Königsberg that crossed its seven bridges once, and once only. It intrigued her that half of Europe was considering the problem and she’d been determined that it should be an inhabitant of the great city itself that found the theory to answer it.

  Now here was Zweig to distract her in person. And she was delighted! Perhaps he really had noticed her.

  The little party in the street approached Kant’s front door and Sophie heard a heavy knock as it echoed through the house. She turned to look down to the hall and saw that her mother and father had emerged onto its ocean of black and white stone tiles and were now standing, waiting for the maid to appear and open the door.

  Both of them were dressed as always in the sober black of Königsberg’s merchant nobility, but although they were still as they waited for the servant to come, she saw that they were unusually ill at ease, and that their features were stressed with anxiety. Sophie was startled by the sight. She’d noticed that they had both seemed distant for some days but she’d pushed the thought away. Now she saw them whisper to each other in urgent tones and her mother unconsciously ground her hands together before reaching up to brush her husband’s shoulders.

  At last the maid appeared and pulled at the door. Captain Zweig nodded to her in greeting and then left his companions in the lane and stepped into the hall. He removed his hat and bowed to Frau Kant with a show of the greatest sincerity and then gave a brisk salute to Sophie’s father. Together the two men walked towards a side door that led to Kant’s study and Sophie was still smiling at Zweig’s exaggerated politeness when she suddenly saw her mother lift her chin in a fierce, determined gesture towards the closed door. This small, unseen act of defiance seemed to exhaust her because, with a sudden sob, she buckled at the waist and buried her head in her hands.

  Sophie gave a small gasp of alarm and hurried down the stairs to take her mother in her arms.

  ‘Oh, Sophie, Sophie,’ her mother wept when she was buried in the soothing embrace, all restraint gone, ‘I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry.’

  ‘But what is it, Mama? Why are you sorry?’

  ‘It’s the end of us. That man is set on seeing us finished.’

  ‘What man? Captain Zweig? Surely not, Mama. Whatever can you mean?’

  There was no answer as sobs overwhelmed her thin, tense body. Sophie knew that her mother was a proud woman – she and her husband had worked hard to take their place among the elite of Königsberg’s merchants. But now all was falling around them. Bit by bit Sophie heard the worst.

  ‘Zweig was commissioned by your father to bring a large cargo of leather from Spain. The whole ship was his order alone. Papa was advised to wait until the weather eased in the spring but, you know your father, he wouldn’t listen. Business is good, he kept saying, the army needs more bridles and harnesses – King Frederick is set on seeing through his fight with the Austrians. We must have more hides now. Zweig was the only captain that would take the journey on. Everyone else said the weather made it too dangerous. But Zweig had Papa sign contracts to underwrite the voyage and …’ she faltered at this point as tears overtook her again, ‘…the ship has foundered. Everything is lost. We are due for the money now and we can’t possibly find the full amount, even if we sell everything we have. Your father has ruined us, Sophie, ruined.’

  Sophie stood in silence, absorbing the impact of what she’d just been told. There was little she could say and the two of them stayed quietly entwined for a few more minutes as her mother regained some composure and with it a measure of her lost strength. Sophie let go of her and gently wiped her face.

  ‘We’ll be all right, Mama. We shall see.’

  Shortly afterwards the door opened and her father emerged, followed by Zweig. Again the captain bowed deeply to the two women but if he’d noticed any change in them he gave no sign of it. He picked up his hat from the table and walked in his strange, deliberate manner towards the door. As he did so, Sophie glanced towards her father and was shocked to see how he quickly looked away from her.

  The door closed and silence returned to the house. Johann Kant stood still, waiting for the maid to go about her business. Once she’d left, he lifted his eyes from the high polish of the floor and quietly muttered to his wife in a laboured, broken voice.

  ‘Mother, we must speak. Sophie, will you find Immanuel please and join us in my study in five minutes.’

  Sophie was about to object when she saw her mother give a quick nod of agreement. She turned and hurried up the stairs, heading towards where she knew her brother would be, as he always was, with his nose in a book. As she reached his room and rushed into the cramped library he’d made for himself in a far corner he barely raised his eyes. But one glance at her tense, shocked face was enough for him to urgently put his reading down.

  ‘Why Sophie, you look terribl
e. Whatever’s the matter?’

  Sophie suddenly realised that she hadn’t given any thought to how she would break the news of her father’s downfall and now, as she looked down on her brother’s anxious face, her heart began to fail her.

  Immanuel was twenty-one, only two years less than herself, but he had always seemed so childlike and so very much younger than she was that the difference in their ages seemed far greater. His bookishness was already legendary and from an early age he’d been removed from the demands of normal life. He had enrolled at the university when only sixteen and, to nobody’s surprise, he’d already decided that he would make his life there. He was quite different to his sister and in place of her spirited personality and fierce, quick intelligence he was already settling into a life of withdrawn eccentricity into which a strict routine and an unbreakable timetable ruled his days.

  She braced herself to tell him the news but even as she did so her mind raced forward with a sinking depression. Who, she now began to panic, would look after this introverted and unworldly soul when their fortunes fell?

  There was nothing to be done but repeat what she’d just heard. Immanuel listened hard and then turned to look at the wall.

  ‘Poor Papa,’ he muttered more to himself than to Sophie, ‘he will take this very hard. How cruel the world is. Perhaps we shall all go hungry now?’

  Sophie gave a brave smile. She leant over towards him and they embraced.