Eva Ibbotson - The Star of Kazan

‘I’m going to rebuild the stables and keep my carriage horses up here,’ said Hermann, ‘as soon as I’m of age. And build some proper kennels for the hunting dogs — Uncle Oswald keeps them at his place, but they’re ours really — and a decent gunroom that can be locked properly. You can’t trust people nowadays.’

‘Are there any animals here now?’ asked Annika.

Hermann shook his head. ‘They’re down at the farm, across those fields.’ He led her round to the front of the house, to a terrace of paving stones which abutted the lake. On each side were drainage ditches, dark with waterweed and frogspawn.

‘This is Spittal Lake. It’s fifteen kilometres long and it all belongs to us.’

The lake on this cloudy morning was uniformly grey with only a few sudden bubbles of marsh gas breaking the surface. There were thick reeds growing right round the edges, and the ground surrounding the water was a muddy swamp. Wooden duckboards led to a boathouse on the eastern shore, and another walkway connected with a path over the fields which led to a huddle of farm buildings. The wind rustled in the reeds, a flock of geese flew over, honking mournfully, bitterns boomed, and in the ditch dark shapes darted through the water.

‘Do you swim here in the summer? In the lake?’

Hermann shook his head. ‘It’s too muddy — you have to wade for ages to get into clear water.’

It was a mournful, lonely scene, yet Annika was happier here than she had been in the house. In spite of the wind it felt less dank and cold than in the unheated rooms, and there were living things. She looked curiously at the frogspawn; she had never seen so much. ‘You must get an awful lot of frogs.’

‘The cats mostly kill them,’ said Hermann, ‘but there always seem to be more. I’m going to change everything as soon as—’ He broke off. ‘I’m going to clean the moat and dredge the lake and fill it with trout and freshwater salmon — they give you good sport. And I’ll invite all the important people to come and shoot; there used to be famous wildfowl shoots here before—’

This sentence too he left unfinished. ‘Could we go and look at the farm?’ asked Annika.

Hermann sighed. ‘It’s time for my bayonet practice,’ he said. ‘I always do it at eleven.’

Annika stared at him. Surely he was joking?

‘I have a straw dummy on a stand in my room. It’s important to stick to the routine.’

‘Would it be all right if I went alone, then? I’ll be very careful and not disturb anyone.’

‘There isn’t anyone to disturb down there. They’re just farmworkers. Tell Zed I’ll want my horse saddled for three o’clock tomorrow. He’s to bring him into the courtyard, to the mounting block, not hang about in the lane.’

‘Who’s Zed?’ Annika asked.

‘He’s the stable boy. He’s called Zedekiah because his mother was a gypsy and gypsies are all mad. Be careful of him; he steals.’ Hermann was making his way back to the house, but at the door he turned. ‘He stole my dog,’ he said.

It was a relief to be alone. There was a high light-grey sky over the sombre lake, and she could see the yellow heads of coltsfoot just appearing on the banks. Spring was coming, even to Norrland.

All the same she was hungry. In Vienna no one had bayonet practice at eleven. What they had at eleven was a drink of milk and whatever it was that Ellie had been baking, but obviously the aristocracy did not go in for feeble things like midday snacks, and resolutely she started off down the path towards the farm.

The low buildings were made of lath and plaster and looked homelier than the main house. Being sunk in the swampy earth seemed to suit them better. As she came closer she heard the sound of lowing cattle, and stopped at the door of a shed to find three black-and-white cows tethered in their stalls, and an old man carrying a milking stool. It was the man who had driven them from the train the night before, and when she had said good morning, she asked him if his name was Zed.

He shook his head. ‘I’m Wenzel. Zed’s in the paddock. Go through the farm and you’ll see him.’

Annika thanked him and watched for a moment before she went on.

After the cow byre came the hen-house; the chickens were scratching about outside in the mud and a handful of ducks were cleaning their feathers in a puddle in the rutted lane.

If there were chickens and ducks, thought Annika, there must be eggs. Perhaps they would have omelettes for lunch; soufflé omelettes, soft and golden and splendidly filling. She imagined herself hurrying them out of the oven, sprinkling them with chopped chives… and then drew in her breath as she remembered that she was never going to cook again. She would obey her mother, but it was going to be hard — harder than anybody realized. It wasn’t till you were told you couldn’t do something that you realized how much it had meant to you.

The door of the pigsty was closed and the pigs were inside. She walked past it, past a storage shed and the dairy… past the two big carriage horses that had brought her to Spittal the night before, looking over their stable door. There seemed to be a lot of empty buildings here too — deserted sheds and byres and stalls like the ones she had seen in the courtyard of the big house. The farm must have been much bigger once.

Then the path dipped into a hollow and she came to a small house. It was a very small house; a hovel really, though the checked red-and-white curtains looked clean and fresh.

But what made Annika stop and give a cry of pleasure was what was on the roof.

On a wheel fixed to the chimney was a pile of sticks — a messy and untidy pile, as though someone was going to light a bonfire. And sitting on the pile, looking very large against the smallness of the house and very pleased with themselves, were two storks.

‘Storks bring luck,’ Ellie had told her. ‘They come back year after year if they like a place and they bless the house.’

Annika stood still for a while, her head tilted back, and the storks clattered their beaks together, making an amazing din. They did not seem to be in the least shy or bothered by her presence.

But now she had seen the paddock ahead of her — and walking towards the gate, one arm thrown round the neck of his horse, was the boy she had seen out of the window when she woke.

Annika waited till he came up to her, and introduced herself.

‘I know who you are,’ said the boy.

‘And you’re Zed?’

‘Yes.’

He was taller than Hermann, and older she guessed, thirteen perhaps, and he had an unexpected sort of face. His skin was a clear olive and he had thick, dark hair that looked as though it had been cut with shears — but his brown eyes were flecked with lighter colours; with bronze and hazel and with gold.

And he was eating something, a slice of some large root with white flesh, cutting off pieces and sharing them with the horse.

Annika sighed. She had a message from Hermann and she found that she didn’t really want to think about Hermann.

‘Hermann said could you please bring his horse round at three o’clock tomorrow.’

The boy stopped eating. ‘Really,’ he said, grinning. ‘Hermann said please?’

‘Well, I may have put that in,’ Annika admitted. ‘He said bring it into the courtyard, to the mounting block, not into the lane.’

‘He’ll never make a soldier if he can’t mount without a block,’ said Zed.

‘But isn’t it difficult? Hermann’s no bigger than me. How big is his horse?’

‘This is his horse. Everything in the place belongs to Hermann, surely you know that, even if you only came last night.’

Annika was silent. She had felt sure that the horse that was resting his muzzle on the boy’s shoulder belonged to him.