The Prisoner's Dilemma by Sean Stuart O'Connor Page B

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 attheir 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 the 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.
    â€˜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 inwhich 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