Page 41 of Vows of Revenge

They had bagged their Munro, duly kitted out, making a day of it. They’d chosen an easy one, unused as they both were to hill-walking, ascending up through larch forests to emerge on to the heather and head up to the peak, where they’d hunkered down out of the keening wind to eat their sandwiches and the obligatory Kendal Mint Cake, looking out from their lofty viewpoint over the glories of the Scottish Highlands spread around them, mile after mile.

The next day, needing a rest, they’d set off in the four-by-four to explore the area, driving past brooding lochs and forest-covered slopes, all ringed by heather-covered mountains. They’d stopped for lunch at a wooden lodge, both of them braving haggis and neeps—Damos smiled in recollection—before driving on to seek out a towering waterfall plunging down from the heights, sending myriad rainbows dancing over the spray.

Yesterday Duncan had taken them out on their own loch in a motorboat, exploring the far shore, cruising the length of it, while he regaled them with bloodthirsty tales from Scotland’s warlike history, of feuding clans and invasion from both the Vikings and the English. And today Duncan was initiating him into the mysteries of fly-fishing...

‘Och, laddie—did I not warn you?’

Duncan MacFadyen’s admonishment made Damos realise that he’d let his thoughts wander and his second cast had, indeed, caught the low-hanging branches on the far side of the river. Disentangling it took Damos some time, but he had learnt his lesson and refocussed his attentions. After another half-hour he was doing distinctly better, and Duncan was saying they might try for a fish after lunch.

Lunch was taken seated on folding chairs around a table that opened up from the boot of the four-by-four, which was drawn up near the riverbank for the occasion. As ever, Mrs MacFadyen had done them proud, with a hot raised crust venison pie, poached salmon scallops, root vegetable salad, and fresh-baked crusty bread with salty Scottish butter and tasty Scottish cheese, all washed down with local beer for him and Duncan, and cider for Kassia.

Their repast finished with a ‘wee dram’ that Duncan produced from the silver hip flask kept about his person.

Damos downed his in one. Kassia choked over hers.

‘Oh, good grief!’ She looked at Damos and Duncan. ‘How on earth do you cope with that?’

Duncan chuckled. ‘Practice, lassie, just practice,’ he said. He turned to Damos. ‘Ye’ll be wanting to visit our local distillery, mind. They’ve a fine single malt—aye, verra fine indeed. Take a bottle or two back with you to Greece. And if it takes your fancy you can buy yourself a cask, keep it here to mature. There’s many a rich man does just that.’

Damos’s eyes glinted. That might be a good idea. He went into a detailed discussion with Duncan about the excellence of the local whiskies and then, a second and final sampling of Duncan’s flask done, went off with him to try his luck with a salmon.

He looked about him as he waded back into the water. This was good, this day—very, very good. The sun, the scenery, the salmon—and Kassia.

What more could he want right now?

Greece, Athens, Cosmo Palandrou, Yorgos Andrakis and any thought of outmanoeuvring them, helping himself to Cosmo’s logistics empire and taking it from under Yorgos Andrakis’s nose, seemed very far away.

Irrelevant.

And supremely unimportant.

Kassia’s hand hovered over the chess board. She was deeply uncertain over what her next move should be. She could hear the rain pattering on the drawing room’s leaded windows. The fine weather had turned, although the MacFadyens had said it was only a summer squall and would blow out overnight. Until it did, the drawing room was a cosy retreat, with the log fire roaring.

They’d kept indoors all day, except for an extremely bracing—and brief—expedition in gumboots and macs to the edge of the loch. Damos had huddled into his waterproofs, but Kassia had laughed, letting the rain wet her hair, and being buffeted by the wind—which had not been cold, only gusty, whipping up the waters of the loch and bowing the birch trees.

Damos, less used to British weather than Kassia, had endured it for five minutes, then called time, heading back to the castle.

She’d gone with him willingly, glancing sideways at him to where raindrops had caught his eyelashes, making her own heart catch as well. As it did every time she looked at him.

She stole another glance at Damos now, still hesitant about her next move. Chess was not her thing. She could never plan or plot ahead sufficiently. Damos—who had, so he’d told her, learnt chess on long sea journeys when he was a deckhand—was way better than her at it.

An enigmatic smile was now playing about his mouth as her fingers hovered indecisively, first over her bishop, and then her knight.

‘I wouldn’t, you know,’ he warned. ‘You’ll lose your rook if you move your bishop, and you’ll expose your queen if you move your knight. Here, this is safest...’ He reached to advance one of her unused pawns. ‘Now your other bishop can threaten my other rook. Except—’

His hand moved to his own pieces, and before she realised it he’d moved his knight to guard his rook, which then gave his bishop free run at her king.

‘Check,’ he said.

‘Oh, grief—what do I do now?’ Kassia said in dismay.

‘You move your bishop to intercept mine and protect your king—which will likely lose you your bishop, but...’ he pointed out ‘...it then lets your knight threaten my queen.’

She sat back, pretty much lost. ‘I just don’t think I’ve got the right kind of mentality for this,’ she confessed. ‘I can never see more than one move ahead—if that.’

Damos smiled pityingly. ‘Foresight is essential—and planning ahead. And not just in chess, of course. In life, too. It’s about spotting unexpected opportunities, if they present themselves,’ he went on. ‘And then moving to exploit them.’

She frowned. ‘“Exploit” is not a pleasant word.’

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