Then at last it was over—but as the train emerged the door of the carriage was thrown open and everybody gasped, for it was as though the person who stood there had gathered all the darkness of the tunnel into herself. Dressed entirely in black, scowling furiously as she stared into the compartment, was the Countess Frederica.
Instantly the children sitting next to Karil drew closer, trying to shield him, but Karil made no attempt to hide behind his companions. The woman who had looked after him since he was four years old would know him instantly wherever he was and whatever clothes he wore. And of course she would give him away. She would see to it that he was stopped at the border and brought back to the palace and it would all go on again: the scolding, the etiquette . . . She would never let him go.
The Scold’s black eyes were raking the compartment. Barney’s shoelaces were undone; Kit’s comic had fallen to the floor. Verity’s bare feet rested on the seat opposite. Magda had handed out her egg sandwiches, but in the agitation of the night before she had not boiled the eggs hard enough and the children were dabbing at their clothes.
“I thought I had made it perfectly clear,” said the Scold, fixing Karil with her steely gaze, “that sandwiches may only be eaten if a clean napkin is first spread across the knees. Both knees.” She took a large starched handkerchief out of her pocket and handed it to Karil. “You may return this when we reach Switzerland. I shudder to think what Carlotta would say if she could see you now. And if you continue to sit hunched up in your seat you will get a crooked back. Posture is everything for those of royal blood, as I have told you many times before.”
And she slammed the door shut again and marched away down the corridor.
For a while after the countess left everyone was silent. Tally had recognized the witchlike woman she had seen at the barred window of the palace and a shiver went down her back. But what she said was, “Who’s Carlotta?”
Karil wiped the egg yolk off his trousers and said, “She’s a sort of cousin of mine. She has ringlets and wears white dresses and smiles a lot.”
“Do you like her?”
“I’ve never met her.”
But now, for the first time since the death of his father, he thought about where he might be going if he reached England safely, and it seemed as though it must be his grandfather’s house in London.
“She lives with my grandfather.” And then wearily: “I suppose that is where I shall have to live if I get across the border. It’s full of my relations.”
“No, you don’t have to,” said Tally. “Not unless you want to. You can come to Delderton with us. You’d like it.”
The others nodded.
“There’s lots going on. You could have an animal to keep,” said Barney. “I’ve got an axolotl.” He was about to say that the axolotl’s name was Zog and then thought better of it. After all, Karil himself was now a sort of Zog.
“We’re going to do a play of Persephone next term,” said Verity.
“Matteo gives amazing biology lessons,” said Tod.
“And there’s a river with otters,” said Tally. “It’s almost as nice as your dragonfly pool. And even the awful lessons are quite funny, like when you have to be a fork or boil up motherwort.”
She described the gentle countryside, the cedar tree in which a thrush sang every morning, the white-painted rooms, one for each child, which they could decorate in any way they liked. “Of course, being free can be exhausting, but you soon get used to it.”
“I can’t imagine being free,” said Karil, “being allowed to do what you want.”
Kit, however, felt that something should be made clear. “We don’t play cricket. Not ever. You’d have to put up with that.”
But Karil did not mind about cricket, which was not played much in Bergania.
“Would they let me come?”
“Of course.” As far as Tally was concerned the matter was settled. “Even if you haven’t got any money, the headmaster will probably give you a scholarship. I’m on a scholarship, so why not you?”
“You wait till you see Clemmy,” said Barney. “She teaches art and she’s the best cook in England.”
The train steamed on toward the border and Karil closed his eyes, dreaming of a place where one could wake each morning among friends, and choose one’s day. And Matteo would be there—the man who had been his father’s friend.
Tally, on the other hand, was thinking of Carlotta.
Should I smile more? she wondered. But it wouldn’t really help. There was still the question of the ringlets. Aunt May had tried to curl her hair once and the results had been disastrous.
And she had never in her life worn a white dress, let alone owned one.
It had not taken long for the people in the palace to realize that the prince was not in a safe place for his own protection, but quite simply missing, and a great search had begun.
The Countess Frederica had rampaged through the rooms, lifting the lids of chests, opening cupboard doors, scouring basements and attics. The king’s turnip-shaped aunts searched, too, calling and imploring. So did Uncle Fritz and those of the servants who had not run away in terror after the assassination—for order and discipline were breaking down fast.
After a few hours the countess had swallowed her pride and gone to see the Baroness Gambetti.
“If you know anything about the prince, please tell me,” she begged. “The king put him in my charge, as you know.”
But the Baroness Gambetti knew nothing. “The wretched boy’s hiding somewhere, I suppose,” she said. “As though there wasn’t enough trouble. Poor Philippe is at the end of his tether.”
And indeed Gambetti could be heard in the bathroom, groaning and being sick.
When the countess returned to her room in the palace she found two army officers who informed her that she would be put on a train and sent back to England first thing in the morning.
“British subjects are no longer welcome in this country,” they said.
“I’m not leaving without the prince,” she had said. “It’s out of the question.”
The officers belonged to the new order: men who supported Stiefelbreich.
“You can take one suitcase,” was all they said, and left, locking her into her room.
The countess fought all the way to the station. Her shoes were as spiky as her elbows and her nose; one of the officers who manhandled her had thin legs. Now, sitting in her compartment, the countess allowed herself a sour smile as she recalled his yelps of pain.
Even on the platform she went on struggling. Then, in the crowd of children making their way to the train, she saw a boy wearing an absurd ivy-wreathed hat and surrounded by a group of hooligans who seemed familiar. And at that point she had ceased to struggle and allowed herself to be escorted to a first-class compartment at the front of the train and locked in.
“The guard will open the door when the train is under way,” said one of the officers. “But I warn you: if you attempt to return to Bergania it will cost you your life.”
The door slid open and, looking up, the countess saw the bandit who now had Karil in his charge.
“What happened?” Matteo wanted to know. And when she told him: “What about the bloodhounds? Were they out for the boy?”
“Yes. There are two lackeys of Stiefelbreich’s—vile-looking men who look as though they will stop at nothing. They set them off.”
“Can you describe them?”
“One is huge, with a missing ear. But the other one is worse—a slimy little worm of a man with a scar on his lip and a gold tooth.”
Matteo nodded. It was what he had expected.
“But at least they still think that Karil is somewhere close, which gives us a little time.” He turned to the countess. “You do realize, don’t you, that once they suspect that the boy is fleeing the country you will be followed. They know how close you were to the prince.”
The countess drew her fierce eyebrows together. “Thank you, it is not necessary for you to tell
me this. I am perfectly aware that it would not be wise for me to be seen with the prince when other people are nearby. But whenever it is safe for me to do so I shall appear and do my duty toward him as I have always done. Even on a short journey it is possible for a boy to get into bad habits, and this I shall prevent with all the power that I have. You may expect to see me again in Zurich.”
Left alone again, the Scold allowed herself to lean back against the cushions. She was not a woman who gave in to her feelings, but now she closed her eyes and permitted a few tears to well up behind her lids. She wept for Bergania and the dead king, for old von Arkel, who had been taken away for questioning . . . Above all she wept for the boy who was now an orphan and eating egg sandwiches among children who walked without clothes on toward the showers.
But she did not weep for long, for it was clear that she had one overriding duty and that was to take Karil to Rottingdene House, where his grandfather would keep him safe. Things were done properly there; there was no place where rules were stricter or etiquette was enforced more strongly—and the boy would be surrounded by nobly born relations to make sure that he did not lapse. In Rottingdene House, with dear Carlotta at his side, Karil would be safe until this nonsense was over and he could return to Bergania to be crowned as the country’s rightful king.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The Pursuit
The campsite was deserted. A colored kerchief caught in the branches of a tree, a mouth organ forgotten in the grass were the only signs that a few hours ago children had stayed here and been happy. Soon workmen would come and surround the site with barbed wire—the tents were going to house soldiers of the occupying army.
In the cathedral the king’s body lay in state, ready for burial.
So everything was going according to plan. Yet in his room in the German consulate, Colonel Stiefelbreich paced the floor, angry and frustrated. His thoughts were on one thing and one thing only.
Where was the prince?
Every nook and cranny in the palace had been gone over; the king’s aunts—tiresome women who would have to be sent to a convent to get them out of the way—had been questioned. The mountain hut of the king’s old nurse had been searched, and every stick and stone of the surrounding countryside had been scoured. On the hill, the bloodhounds had drawn a blank.
This meant trouble for Stiefelbreich. He was supposed to hand the prince over to his superiors as soon as they entered Bergania—failure to do so would have serious consequences. A radio message had just come through from the commandant at Colditz to say that everything was ready to receive the prince. A cell had been prepared for him in the High Security Block, the commandant had said. Not that it mattered whether it was a high-security block or not—the whole of Colditz was high security. No one had escaped from that doomed fortress and lived to tell the tale. Stiefelbreich picked up the telephone.
Earless and Theophilus were resting in their room after their all-night search. They were not pleased with the accommodation they had been given above the consulate garages. Theophilus was worried about the effect of the fumes from the cars on his lungs and was spraying disinfectant up his nose.
Earless was sitting on his bed, which sagged under his weight, and worrying about Belinda. There was a man who served in the corner shop at the bottom of their street at home who smiled at Belinda in a way which Earless did not like. He thought of writing to Belinda and warning her, but reading and writing were very difficult for him and as so often before he thought how different things would be if he still had his other ear. The man in the corner shop wouldn’t have had a chance if Earless had both his ears.
But when they heard that Stiefelbreich wanted them, both men cheered up. There is nothing like work for taking your mind off your troubles.
“Tell me again exactly what happened with the bloodhounds,” he said when the men stood before him.
“They followed the scent easily enough into the hunting ground, up to that lodge by the gates, but then they started going all over the place, running down the hill and coming back. But that’s not surprising—there was a whole stampede of kids up there last night,” said Theophilus.
“Exactly,” said Stiefelbreich, rubbing his chin. “So I think we must face the fact that the prince may have been among them, that somehow he has sneaked out of the country with the children that left on the train this morning. He can’t have gone on his own—the passes have all been watched and the roads checked. And if so, it’s likely that he might be trying to get to Great Britain—after all, his mother was British.”
“So we’d be looking out for that man the king spoke to in the square perhaps,” said Theophilus.
Stiefelbreich nodded. “Or that woman who looked after him. Mind you, she still thought the boy was here when we put her on the train, so she didn’t know anything then. But the main thing is that you must leave at once.”
“Trouble is, they’ve got a good start on us, on that train,” said Earless.
Stiefelbreich shook his head. “I’ll let you have one of the consulate cars—a Mercedes. The train will go slowly—everything’s disrupted; we’ve seen to that, and it stops altogether in Switzerland. But he mustn’t get away. If he reaches the Channel and gets over to England, we’ve lost him. The Führer doesn’t want any trouble with the British government—or the Americans.”
“And if we find him—” began Theophilus.
“Not if,” snapped the colonel. “When.”
“When we find him,” said Theophilus, “do you want him brought back here?”
Stiefelbreich shook his head. “You’ll be in radio contact with the SS patrols; they’ll take him straight to Colditz. As soon as you have the prince, arrange with them to hand him over. You’ll get your bonuses just the same.”
But Theophilus had one more question: “If there’s any difficulty . . . there might be a struggle perhaps . . . I take it you want the boy alive?”
“Certainly we want him alive,” snapped Stiefelbreich. “Unless . . .” He walked over to the window and stood looking out. “He mustn’t get across the Channel,” he said. “But yes, if possible, we want him alive.”
Left alone again, Stiefelbreich sent a message to the commandant at Colditz.
“Expect prisoner hourly. Inform time of arrival,” it said, and it was signed with his code name, which was Iron Fist. It was a good name, thought Stiefelbreich; he had chosen it himself.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The Berganian Mountain Cat
The train was traveling more slowly now. The stops grew more frequent; convoys of army trucks passed on the road. The time for Bergania to be “protected” by the brave soldiers of the German Reich was coming very close.
In their compartment the children waited anxiously. The ordeal that faced them was not far away now. At the border with Switzerland there was a checkpoint where passports and permits were examined. The Deldertonians were traveling on a group passport. It contained photographs of Matteo and Magda; the rest were mentioned only by name: four girls, four boys . . .
Only now there were four girls and five boys. Somehow they would have to lose a boy or confuse the customs officials and persuade them that the numbers were right.
As the train reached the beginning of the Altheimer Pass, which crossed the last mountain range into Switzerland, it stopped in a final sort of way and the guard came down the corridor and said everyone was to get out. The rest of the journey was to be completed by bus.
Everyone grabbed their belongings and piled out of the train. At the other end of the platform, keeping her back to them, they saw the Countess Frederica standing with the other first-class passengers.
They waited for nearly an hour and then three buses appeared labeled ZURICH. The first-class passengers were led to one of them, the children scrambled into the others and they set off.
The pass was dramatically beautiful; the bus climbed and snaked and climbed again. The land below them was neutral and safe as it had been for centurie
s. Switzerland had kept out of the last war; it had given sanctuary to thousands of refugees in the centuries that had gone by. It wasn’t just chocolate and cuckoo clocks and cheese that the Swiss were famous for, but safety and peace.
Then as they approached the top of the pass the buses drew into a lay-by and stopped. The drivers got out and stretched and lit cigarettes. They seemed to be waiting for orders.
Inside the bus, Matteo suddenly spoke. “Out,” he said. “All the Deldertonians out. Quick.”
The children stood up. This was how their biology lessons began—with Matteo ordering them out. Matteo strung his binoculars around his neck and said a few words to the driver, who shrugged and turned back to his colleagues. Then he turned to the children.
“We’re going up the path to that rocky ledge. No one must make a sound.”
“What is it?” whispered Barney.
“Probably nothing,” said Matteo below his breath, “but possibly—just possibly—one of the rarest mammals in Europe: the Berganian mountain cat.”
The wind at this height was piercing; the quartz in the rock sparkled; the sun beat down. Tally was completely bewildered. Was this part of the prince’s escape or was it a biology lesson?
It was a biology lesson. Nobody was allowed to talk, anyone not picking up their feet was glared at, and strangely, all of them, in spite of what they had gone through, were focused on one thing and one thing only: the snow leopard of the Alps, the Berganian mountain cat. Matteo had described it. Fur pale as honey, black tufted ears like a lynx . . . a predator that could leap a hundred meters down on to its prey . . .
They climbed until the buses below them had turned into toys. Tally and Julia tried to keep Karil between them—shielding him had become a habit—but the boy moved at speed. Even in his exhausted state he knew exactly where to put his feet; the mountains were his home—and when Augusta stumbled it was he who steadied her.