They had come to a pool so still and dark and deep that it hardly seemed to belong to the real world. The branches of great trees spread their arms over the surface of the water; a bright green frog plopped suddenly from a leaf into its depths. A kingfisher flew off with a flash of blue and emerald.
And over the surface of the water there danced and swooped and circled a host of dragonflies. Shafts of sunlight turned them every color of the rainbow and in the silence she could make out, very faintly, the dry clatter of their wings.
She said nothing, just shook her head in wonder—and Karil knew that it was all right to have brought her here. He could not have borne it if she had gushed and exclaimed.
“There’s a place there behind those boulders where no one can see us.”
He led her along the side of the pool and they scrambled over the flat stones into a kind of hollow soft with fallen leaves and moss.
“Are there otters?” she asked.
Karil nodded. “You have to come at night to see them.”
“I think this must be the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen,” said Tally as they sat down side by side, resting their backs on the cool stone. “But then, this is a marvelous country. I knew it would be. I wanted to come from the moment I saw it on the newsreel.”
“You’re with the British team, aren’t you?”
Remembering the rumors he had heard about the British “savages” he smiled, and Tally stared at him. He looked quite different when he was no longer serious and stern.
“Yes. We’re very bad—in fact we’re terrible—everyone’s going to laugh at us. We invented this thing called the Delderton Flurry Dance and it’s really weird, but it was the only way we could get here.”
“Why did you want to come here so much?”
Tally had been watching a tiny spider crossing the stone.
“It was because of the king.”
“What king?” said Karil, startled.
“The king of Bergania, of course. I saw him on the newsreel and he looked so strong and brave—but tired, too. And when they wrote and said they wanted people to come to a festival, I sort of bullied everyone into coming.”
“But what could you know about the king?”
“I knew he had stood out against Hitler . . .” She saw the spider safely into her hole and went on. “We have a king, too, in England and he’s really nice—absolutely decent. George VI he’s called . . .”
Karil nodded. Carlotta had played with his daughters in Buckingham Palace.
“He has a stammer, and when he makes his speech on the wireless at Christmas my aunts get terribly worried in case he’s going to break down and not be able to finish. They sit there clutching their sherry glasses, just willing him to go on. But he’s not like the king of Bergania. He’s not a ruler.”
“I can’t see how you could tell what he’s like just from watching a film.”
Tally shrugged. “I don’t know . . . but I felt it. I was sure. Perhaps it’s because of my father. He’s not a king, of course, he’s a doctor, but he’s like that. He knows what’s right and he does it whatever it costs. I get annoyed when he’s back late and I wanted to be with him, but I wouldn’t want him to be someone who had nothing to do except look after me. Anyway, when I saw Bergania and the king I wanted to come here. I felt I had to. And I thought Matteo was behind me—he persuaded the others that folk dancing wasn’t sissy—but he’s been so odd since we came. He never seems to be there when you want him; it’s as though he’s hiding all the time. And just now he was furious with me for attacking the Nazi.”
“Well, of course. You could have got into serious trouble.”
“He can’t want me to just let things happen without fighting.”
Karil had been pulling the seeds out of a fallen pinecone. Now he threw it into the water. “Tell me again about the Bergania film. Tell me exactly.”
“I was with my friend Julia. She wanted me to come to the cinema and we saw an awful film—but before that there was this travelogue. And it was as though the country sort of spoke to me—it was so beautiful. It was silly, because I’d only been at school half a term and I was still settling in—progressive schools are hard work—but I knew I had to come.”
“Because the country was beautiful?” he asked.
She shook her head. “No, I’ve told you. It was because of the king. Because he was brave and true to what he believed in and wouldn’t let himself be bullied. Because he knew that if you have power you must use it well and not be afraid.”
Karil said nothing. Something inside him was changing . . . a knot was dissolving.
She turned to him. “You live here,” she said. “You must know. Is he like that?”
Karil took a deep breath. “Yes,” he said joyfully. “He is like that,” he said. “That is exactly what he is like.”
They were silent for a while, watching the ripples made by a fish as it jumped for a fly. Then he turned to this unknown girl who had given him back his father and said, “Thank you. Thank you very much.”
“For what?” she said, surprised.
“Oh . . . just . . . never mind.”
She had taken out the handkerchief and was flattening it on the stone. She had not guessed, yet when she saw the initials and the crown embroidered in the corner, she was not surprised.
“Of course,” she said. “I’ve been an idiot. I know who you are.”
He braced himself, waiting for a fuss—she would be too respectful, or angry—or back away, make him feel “different.”
“You’re Karil,” she said—and because she had used only his name and not his rank he allowed himself a moment of hope.
“I would have liked us to be friends,” he said, looking down at the ground. “I would really have liked that.”
“Well, of course we’re going to be friends. That’s obvious. It’s what’s going to happen.”
He shook his head. “It won’t work,” he said wearily. “They read my letters and the doors are locked and . . . Oh, you’ve no idea what it’s like.”
“Look, Karil, if I want to be friends with someone, nobody is going to stop me. Absolutely nobody. Perhaps I should tell you that I’m named after my great-grandmother who washed the socks of tramps in the London Underground. She came over as a young girl from America to marry my great-grandfather and she used to go up to these fierce men, some of them dead drunk, and make them take off their socks and give them to her to wash. Now that is difficult.” She folded up the handkerchief and put it in her pocket. “And I think you should stop feeling sorry for yourself. It’s not the end of the world, being a prince.”
In the palace the king came out of his emergency meeting with a lagging step. It seemed there was no end to the bullying his country had to endure. More than anything he wanted to see his son, but he had left Karil in a temper. Perhaps it was better to let the boy calm down in his own good time.
He had taken only a few steps down the corridor when he was almost knocked off his feet by someone who had been waiting half hidden by the velvet curtains.
“Karil! Are you all right?”
“Yes. I’m absolutely all right. And I’m sorry—I’m very, very sorry I was angry. It won’t happen again. I’d like to help more . . . if you tell me . . . I’m . . .” He swallowed. “I’m so proud of what you do.”
The king put his arm around the boy’s shoulders. Just when one thought one couldn’t carry on any longer something happened to make life bearable.
“And I’m proud of you, Karil. Prouder than you can imagine.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The Festival Begins
The town square had been bustling with people and carts and carriers since dawn. Everybody seemed to be involved in the preparations for the folk-dancing display and for the opening ceremony that preceded it.
Workmen hammered, putting finishing touches to the platform on which the important people of the town would sit and from which the king would declare the festival o
pen. The wooden stage for the dancers at the other end of the square was bedecked with flags and bunting; extra tubs of flowering trees had been brought in and there was hardly a windowsill or lamppost which was not festooned with greenery.
At the Blue Ox the waiters hurried from the kitchens to the restaurant and the beer garden, bringing bottles of champagne or lemonade or jugs of coffee and cream. There was a good view to be had from the windows of the inn and all available tables were taken very early in the day.
In his bedroom Colonel Stiefelbreich put the finishing touches to his uniform. He had been offered a seat on the platform and was making sure that every single medal was polished and in place. His bodyguards were going to mingle with the crowd, but Mr. Stilton did not intend to leave the Blue Ox. He had spent the previous day trying to persuade some peasants to buy his indoor flush toilets, but they had behaved in a very stupid way and told him that they preferred the wooden huts they had always used. It gave them some peace from their families, they told him, to go across the fields with their newspapers. Well, if they wanted to go on living like savages, let them, thought Stilton; he had other things to do, and now he left his room and made his way up a narrow flight of stairs to an empty attic which had an uninterrupted view across the square to the town hall. He would get a much better view of the procession from here than jammed in a crowd of unwashed yokels.
Once inside, he locked the door behind him. Then he opened his case, took out a packet of sandwiches—and certain things which had absolutely nothing to do with lavatories—and settled down to wait.
Countess Frederica, who would be sitting near the front of the platform, stood before her mirror, wondering whether to add a touch of color to her outfit. Her dress was black of course and so were her vest and her knickers, but she could perhaps add a colored scarf. Karil seemed to set great store by this occasion—and it was quite a long time since anyone had died. But in the end she decided against it; there was no need to dress up for a lot of unruly children.
Everyone else, though, seemed to be in their best clothes. The Baroness Gambetti was dressed like a peacock in a gaudy blue and orange two-piece and as much jewelry as she could get around her neck. She was in excellent spirits but her husband, who was trying to eat his breakfast, looked like a ghost, only yellower.
“He promised me it will all be very civilized,” he kept muttering, “a peaceful takeover,” while his wife told him to shut up and finish his egg.
In the square, the brass-band players rubbed up their instruments, workmen sprinkled sawdust along the route of the royal procession, policemen put up ropes. Wooden benches were brought and set out for those who wanted to watch the dancing, and colored lights were strung between the trees—for the evening would end with a great open-air party for anyone who cared to come.
The Berganians had always been good at celebrations.
Now that the festival was really upon them everyone felt better. Even if they made fools of themselves it would soon be over. Tally, helping Kit fix the bells onto his ankles, had quite forgotten her black mood of the day before, and now that they were all dressed they didn’t look too bad. In fact, suddenly they looked unexpectedly nice, and this was because of Magda.
Magda had stopped having Important Thoughts about Schopenhauer long enough to notice that the girls’ wreaths had not really recovered from their bashing in the luggage van of the train and had suggested they go to the market early in the morning and buy some fresh flowers to fill up the gaps.
“But have we enough money?” Julia had wanted to know.
And again Magda had surprised everyone, by groping about among her notes and card indexes and extracting her purse.
So Tally and Julia had got up very early and come back with roses and lilies of the valley and cornflowers still moist with dew, and everyone had set to healing the poor wreaths.
“What about our hats?” Kit wanted to know. “Don’t the boys get any flowers?”
So Julia pinned a hyacinth to the brim of his hat and, though it would probably fall over his nose once he began to dance, he was pleased.
“We may look a bit odd, but no one can say we’re not fresh and floral,” said Tally.
And for the first time they wondered whether after all it might turn out all right, this Flurry Dance which had given them all so much trouble.
The broken staves had been mended, Augusta’s bananas had been stowed in her violin case, and Matteo, looking more like a bandit than ever in a black corduroy shirt and dark trousers, had assembled his sackbut, so there was hope that he would come in with his oom-pa-pa at important moments.
It was still difficult not to be upset by the empty German tent, but the other teams, all dressed now in their dancing clothes, looked really festive. The Italians with their sashes and bright kerchiefs, the French girls with their white headdresses . . . the Yugoslavs in goatskin jackets with feathers in their caps . . . Lots would be drawn after the ceremony to decide the order in which the teams would dance.
They made their way over the bridge, joined by crowds of people in their best clothes and children waving flags. In the square they were given their places. The Deldertonians were in the front, against the ropes that marked off the route the king would take as he rode toward the platform on which the distinguished guests would sit. The visitors would come on through the double doors of the town hall, but the king and the prince would mount by special wooden steps from the square.
The crowd was in a party mood, wanting to forget the crises and threats that beset their country.
Now the great doors opened and the mayor, in his gold chain, took his seat on the platform, followed by the lord chief justice and the prime minister. When Gambetti appeared with his wife there was some booing in the crowd, but it was quickly hushed—today was not a day for politics.
Stiefelbreich marched on in his jackboots. For a moment his face turned toward the attic of the Blue Ox and then away again. More and more people filed on to the platform. The clock in the tower on the north side of the square struck eleven, and eleven apostles came out, marched woodenly out of their niches and went back again.
“We’ve got a really good view,” said Tally.
“Matteo hasn’t,” Julia pointed out.
This was true. Matteo was standing behind an exceptionally tall and heavily built policeman in a brass helmet, one of a whole contingent who was lining the route.
“There’s room here,” called Tally, but Matteo only raised a hand and stayed where he was.
There was the sound of rousing music, a rustle of excitement from the crowd—and the procession which had set off from the palace entered the square.
“We’ll give them something to remember,” the king had told his son, so he rode the gray Thoroughbred that was kept for state occasions and wore his most dazzling uniform, that of the Berganian Rifles in scarlet and white and gold. The prince, riding his favorite chestnut, was hardly less grand. Ignoring the discomfort of the scratchy braid around his throat and the ludicrously tight trousers, he had chosen the uniform of the Mountain Cuirassiers because here was something worth dressing up for: not a dead saint or a railway station but a festival made by children who had come together from everywhere—and a girl who had brought her friends to honor the king.
Behind them rode Uncle Fritz, the minister of culture, then came the household cavalry, the men-at-arms, the band of the fusiliers . . .
There were shouts of “Long live the King! . . . Long live Johannes!” People climbed up lampposts to see better. There had never been such enthusiasm for this ruler, who had become a hero to his people.
The procession was drawing level with the place where the children from Delderton were standing. Everything was going as expected—the marching men, the trotting horses, the band . . .
Then the burly policeman who was standing in front of Matteo shifted to one side—and everything changed.
The king reined in his horse and came to a stop—and as the king stopped so did
those who were behind him. The sound of the band spluttered and died away, and in the silence that followed, the king’s words rang loud and clear.
“Seize that man!” he cried. “Hold him! Don’t let him go!”
And he pointed directly at Matteo, standing very straight among the children he had brought.
The policeman who had been standing in front of Matteo grabbed his arm, and a second officer came forward to help restrain him. Matteo did not struggle. All the time he stood erect and looked steadily at the king.
“Bring him here,” ordered the king.
While the crowd murmured and wondered and craned their necks to see the criminal, Johannes dismounted and handed the reins to his son.
Then he stepped forward and lifted the rope that separated him from the crowd and let it fall, and at the same time Matteo freed himself and moved toward the king.
There was a moment of total silence. Then the king’s arms came around Matteo and the two men embraced. The throng of people might not have existed; they saw only each other.
“My God, Matteo,” said the king. “It’s been so long.”
No one could hear the words the men now spoke.
“Later,” said the king, freeing himself reluctantly. “As soon as this is over.”
Then Matteo went back to stand beside the children and the king with his son rode to the platform and dismounted and climbed the wooden steps—and old von Arkel, the prime minister who had served him for many years, thought that Johannes looked as he had not looked since before his wife had died.
The ceremony began. The lord mayor made a speech. The Countess Frederica scowled and speculated. Who was this bandit whom the king had embraced so publicly, and how could she make Karil behave as he should when his father so forgot himself?