Author's Note: All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

Disclaimer: I'm not even a custodian, my dears, let alone an owner. These characters and their settings are the work of others. I hope I do not offend with my homage.

"Do you play?" Grandda asked, taking the chess set from a shelf and setting it on the table between them.

Tom nodded. "It usually ends in a stalemate though."

Brian wondered why that should be, but set up the pieces without saying anything else, then palmed two of the pawns and offered his closed fists for Tom to choose. The boy tapped the knuckles of his grandfather's right hand, and the white pawn was revealed. "Begin," the old man said, handing it to Tom, and placing the black pawn in its place on the board, while Tom did likewise with his own pawn.

The Dublin boy did not speak during the game, which was good, but to Brian's surprise, his opening gambit was to move the pawn at the extreme left of the Board from its original position at a2 forward the two spaces allowable on a pawn's first move to the a4 square. His second move was pawn to b3. The third pawn to c4. Was he ever going to attack?

Apparently not. His concern seemed to consist solely of a decorative alternating of pawns across rows 3 and 4 of the board. It began to dawn on the old man why he was so often stalemated. Brian won handily, losing no time in crushing his grandson's non-defense under a ruthless offense.

Tom looked surprised, but not at all upset. "That was fast," was all he said about having lost.

"Shall we play again?"

"Yes, please."

They set up the board again, and this time the old man played white.

It made no difference. Once again, Tom began to set up his grid pattern of pawns.

"Why are you doing that?" Brian couldn't resist asking.

"What?"

"Setting up your pawns like that?"

Tom looked bewildered. "That's how we always play."

"Your opponents do that, too?"

"Yeah."

Brian blinked. "What for?"

Tom looked down at the board, as if the answer could be found on it, then looked back up at the old man. "I don't understand what you mean, Grandda."

"I mean, what are you doing it for? What good does it do you? What purpose does it serve?"

Tom seemed puzzled, as though his moves did not require a reason. "I don't know."

"This is a game of strategy, boy. What is your strategy?"

His grandson gave him a blank look.

The old man shook his head in amazement. "Do you know what the object of this game is?"

Tom was beginning to look afraid. "Checkmate. To take the king."

"Right. And how do you do that?"

"By… by moving your pieces so that the king can't stay where he is, but has nowhere else he can safely go."

"Excellent," Brian agreed. "So how do you need to move your pieces?"

Tom was out of answers, as well as out of breath. He panted as though he'd been running, and licked his lips, but didn't speak.

The old man gave up the Socratic method in favor of direct statements. "You need to move them to places that will give you control of the center of the board. You need to take your opponent's pieces, as many as you can. You need to attack. Every move, attack.

"You keep throwing away your first eight moves making a useless grid: no wonder you keep losing! You need to be attacking. Remember, Tom: if you haven't attacked, you've wasted your move."

Lord Grantham certainly wasn't wasting any of his moves. Having begun his campaign with an attack on Tom's continued presence in the house, and followed up with open disapproval of the young man's choice of name for his daughter, the older man's next salvo targeted his son-in-law's faith. And he had brought in reinforcements.

"But isn't there something… un-English… about the Roman Church?" Mr. Travers asked Tom at dinner.

Ten years of service and a lifetime of respect for the religious were required to keep the obvious fact that basis for the Church of England was Henry VIII's bollocks behind Branson's teeth.

"Since I am an Irishman, that isn't likely to bother me," Tom told him instead.

Wasn't it enough that Sybil was dead without putting him through this? Mercifully, others at the table agreed and came to his defense, even the dowager Countess. Presumably, if Roman Catholicism was good enough for a Duchess, it was good enough for a scion of the Crawleys.

And what did it matter, anyway? He and his daughter would be in Liverpool soon, so what difference would their religion make to Lord Grantham?