Chapter One – The Simplest and Most Complicated Pleasure

A fleck of paint peeled from the slowly rotating ceiling fan above a perfectly made queen sized bed and onto the forehead of a dark haired young woman. Sighing heavily the woman rolled over onto her side, staring at the slightly cracked wall opposite her bed. She pushed herself out of bed and padded softly across the carpet into the ensuite bathroom, turned on the tap to the sink and splashed icy water onto her face. Raising her head she stared at herself in the surprisingly clean mirror.

Florence Vassy was not an unattractive nineteen-year old young woman. She had large caramel coloured eyes, which were set off by her creamy skin, and long coffee coloured hair, which fell around her face in curls. That morning Florence wandered around her small bedroom and bathroom picking out an outfit, showering and pulling her hair back into her characteristic bun. Grabbing her bag from a chair in the corner she pulled open the door to her room and tiptoed down the hall, not wanting to wake her four other housemates. She had moved into this small somewhat run down terrace house in Shepherd's Bush on recommendation from the elderly woman who ran the orphanage in London she had been sent to after the uprising in Hungary when she was only a child.

Florence could remember almost everything of the night that she had left Hungary. She had been woken from her sleep by her father and taken to the train station along with her neighbours and their son Daniel who was four years older than she had been. She was told to stay with him no matter what, her father and mother kissing her and hugging her and telling her she would be fine and they would see her soon. She remembered the train pulling away from the station, and being shepherded into the baggage car, leaning against Daniel, confused and cold from the chill November air coming through the windows. She remembered stopping in a small town in Germany and changing to a train that took them all the way to Calais before boarding a boat that bore them to England. It was a few days later that news of Hungary reached them, she and Daniel and the other young children and teenagers had been lucky leaving Budapest on the night of the 3rd of November. Budapest had fallen the next day and as far as Florence and Daniel were concerned they were now orphans.

That had been a long time ago to Florence now and although the memory was fresh in her mind she quelled it as much as possible. She was an independent young woman now, a university student at the Queen Mary University studying business, and although she had only been there for a week she was somewhat content. Florence hurried down the street to the nearest underground station that would take her to her university in Mile End. Something was nagging at Florence this morning and she could not put her finger on what it was, she felt as if a storm cloud was above her head and she could not shake it. Her classes didn't start until just after lunch but nothing was keeping her in the dingy house that morning, not with the sun finally shining brightly and wisps of white clouds streaked across the blue sky.

Upon arrival at her university Florence wandered to the grassed courtyard outside the library settling herself under a tree, pulling out a book on commerce from her bag and immersing herself in it, barely registering anything around her apart from the warm sun and the sweet breeze from the jasmine bushes nearby.

"I'm telling you Edward, Takedo will win this year's tournament, no one can beat his Queen's Gambit opening!" A loud and relatively obnoxious voice said from nearby Florence.

She raised her head from her book, noticing two men just apart from her yet still in the shade of the tree. They had a small chessboard in between them, both men studying it intensely. Florence was interested suddenly; she had not played chess since the day before she had left Hungary. Her house had lost electricity that night, and she and her father had played by candlelight into the night until her mother had insisted she go to bed.

"Takedo is good I warrant you, but will he beat the Soviet?" The boy named Edward mused.

The obnoxious boy scratched his head and pushed his glasses up his nose, squinting at chessboard. Florence could see the plays of both boys and knew that the boy with the glasses would have no hope of beating Edward unless he took the white rook. He did not, choosing to move knight instead and taking a pawn.

Before she could stop herself she blurted out, "You should have taken the rook. You are now wide open for him to take your Queen."

Both boys looked at her, Edward raising a delicate blonde eyebrow, a slight smirk on his face. The bespectacled boy reddened staring down at the board then back at Florence.

"So I guess you win then Edward." He groaned. "Again."

"Not necessarily, all you need to do in your next move is move your Queen and take the bishop on E7, then perhaps you have a chance to take the King."

Edward laughed and turned now to face Florence. He was a cocky looking young man of twenty-one, with sandy blonde hair and flecked green eyes and the notable air of someone who had a lot of money. His companion was not nearly as good looking, scrawny with jet-black hair and glasses that were too big for his face.

"You seem to know a lot about chess." Edward said. Florence shrugged. "Why haven't we seen you at the club if you know this much?"

"Club?" Florence repeated.

"Queen Mary Chess Club." The bespectacled boy said. "We've won the last three inter-university championships, well, when I say we, I mean Edward and I have. Edward is the Queen Mary Grandmaster, I'm his second you see."

"I see." Florence said.

"So how come we haven't seen you there?" Edward asked.

"I didn't know it existed. It's really only my second week here." She replied.

"What's your name?"

"Florence."

"Just Florence?"

"Florence Vassy. But I don't see why my full name really matters."

Edward laughed. "It doesn't. I'm Edward Middleton, and this loud mouth here is Maxwell Adams."

"Or just Max." Maxwell said with a sigh.

"You should come along to the club today though. We could use some more talented people. People who actually know the game, people who can compete. We have a tournament coming up you see, in a couple of weeks. It's a talent scouting tournament, some of the best players in the world are coming to play some of the up and comings in chess, looking for new seconds or sponsors looking for the next big thing in chess." Edward said, as if everyone knew of this fact.

"Why are you telling me this?" Florence asked.

"Come along tonight, six o'clock. Building three, lecture hall five." Edward said, packing up the board and motioning to Max to come.

"See you tonight." Edward said over his shoulder as he and Max wandered off in the direction of the history building.

Florence watched them go with some apprehension. She wasn't sure what to make of her encounter with these two boys, but talking chess earlier had somewhat lifted that little cloud above her head and filled her with something new.