Eva Ibbotson - The Star of Kazan

The Baron had finished.

‘And you told this story to your niece? To Frau Edeltraut?’

‘Yes, I did. But I swear I had no idea — even when I met Annika I didn’t guess — not till the Eggharts came. But Edeltraut was desperate. She’d have done anything to save Spittal.’

Zed nodded. ‘Yes. Thank you, sir.’

‘You believe me, don’t you?’

‘Yes, I do.’

‘Not that it matters. I’m too old to worry about the future. I wouldn’t have told you now except for the galoshes. Annika’s a nice little thing. If Edeltraut took the child’s jewels she should have shared. You don’t steal from your own daughter.’

Zed had finished his story.

‘So you see,’ he said, looking round the professors’ kitchen, ‘if the story is true and the jewels in the trunk were priceless, then Annika has been most cruelly robbed.’

Professor Julius now became a sleuth.

‘We must get proof before we accuse Frau Edeltraut,’ he said when they had finished listening to Zed. ‘I believe that Zed is telling the truth, but there could be other explanations for the disappearance of the trunk.’

‘What sort of explanations?’ asked Professor Gertrude.

‘I don’t know. But Zed will agree with me, I’m sure, that we must look into this further before we confront her.’

‘Yes, I do. That’s partly why I came here. I don’t even know whether a mother is entitled to the things that belong to her daughter. Maybe she hasn’t committed a crime in the eyes of the law.’

The professors shook their heads. ‘In Austrian law it is certainly a crime. The property of someone who is under age has to be kept in trust for them till they’re grown up. It’s twenty-one here — it may be different in Germany.’

So Professor Julius made a list of all the jewellers in Vienna and set to work, visiting them one by one to see if he could find the man who had heard the story of Fabrice and the Eggharts’ great-aunt while in the baths at Bad Haxenfeld. He had some help from Professor Gertrude, but not very much. She was so shy that going into a jeweller’s shop and asking peculiar questions upset her badly, and she always felt she ought to buy something to make up for wasting the jeweller’s time, so that she came home with silver ashtrays and cigar-cutters and thimbles, which she did not want at all and which, when added together, turned out to be surprisingly expensive.

She was also very busy with her new harp. Harps have to ripen slowly, like fruit, and though her wonderful concert-grand had come seasoned and strung, it was a slow job keeping it at the pitch she required. Liquid ‘plinks’ and ‘plonks’ came from Gertrude’s room whenever she had a spare moment, but there were times when she felt very sad because she knew that her harp would not come into its full glory till the last years of its life, by which time she herself might be dead.

As for Professor Emil, he did not help with the jewellers at all because he had been sent off to Switzerland to look for Herr von Grotius; and if possible to find his grave.

Zed had intended to remain in Vienna only as long as it took to tell Annika’s story, but Professor Julius had said firmly that he would have to stay until everything was sorted out.

‘We might need you to confirm anything we discover and check it with what happened at Spittal.’

Zed had tried to argue: ‘I feel I should go, sir. I have hardly any money left and I need to get to Hungary.’

‘The money is neither here nor there,’ said Professor Julius. ‘You can stay with us. It shouldn’t be for long.’

‘I suppose I could sleep in the hut if it’s only for a few days,’ Zed had suggested.

But nobody thought this a good idea. The hut was private property; and if he took Rocco it would only be a matter of time before he was discovered.

‘Could he have Annika’s attic?’ Ellie asked, and it showed how completely she trusted Zed that she suggested this.

But Zed shook his head. ‘It’s hers. I wouldn’t want to — it wouldn’t be right.’

In the end it was Pauline who decided where Zed should sleep.

‘He can come to the bookshop. There’s a storeroom at the back — we can put a camp bed in there — and he can come round by the back lane to see to Rocco. Grandfather won’t mind. He probably won’t even notice.’

Pauline had been convinced that Zed spoke the truth the moment she saw him. ‘I always knew no good would come of Annika turning into a “von”,’ she said, and she did her best to make Zed comfortable. Some hostesses do this by bringing their guests breakfast in bed or putting flowers in their room. Pauline did it by piling the books she thought would interest him on the upturned packing case that served as his bedside table.

She brought him a book called The Heavenly Horses of the Emperor Wu-Ti , who believed that his horses would carry people’s souls to heaven when they died. She brought him a book by the Duke of Newcastle on how to train horses for dressage.

And she brought him one of her grandfather’s most prized volumes, On the Art of Horsemanship , written by the famous Greek general Xenophon more than 2,000 years ago.

Zed had seen it in the Master’s hands at Spittal. Now he picked it up reverently. There was a picture on the cover of Xenophon astride a black stallion on the shores of the Black Sea. His hands were thrown up as he gave thanks to the gods after a 2,400-kilometre march with his soldiers — and he rode without stirrups!

Zed opened the book.

On horses such as these even gods and heroes will appear, and men who know how to work well with them will look magnificent!

He was still reading by the light of the paraffin lamp, long after Pauline and her grandfather slept.

But when it came to looking after Rocco and admiring him, Pauline made it clear that real horses made her nervous.

‘Rocco’s just a person who happens to be a horse,’ said Zed — but Pauline was not convinced.

To the little Bodek boys on the other hand, Rocco was a miracle of which they never tired. They burst out of their house as soon as they woke and went to the stable clutching carrots and pieces of apple which they begged from Ellie and which even Hansi only rarely ate himself. The baby, who had just learned to walk, threw up his hands and said, ‘Up, up!’ whenever he saw Rocco, and when Zed put him on his back he sat with his blue eyes wide with awe, and screamed horribly when he had to get down. Georg woke in the night, worrying in case Rocco, who liked to drink in the fountain, should swallow a goldfish.

Fortunately Stefan could control his younger brothers, but he did more than that. He took Zed to see his uncle, and the blacksmith shod Rocco and wouldn’t take payment. When there were odd jobs to be done, Stefan shared them with Zed and divided the money he earned.

Zed had told him that Rocco did not really belong to him, and Stefan, who was usually so placid, became quite cross.

‘Nonsense,’ he said. ‘Anyone can see he’s your horse. You might as well say Annika doesn’t belong to Ellie because Ellie isn’t her mother. People belong to the people who care for them.’

For Zed, who had fended for himself ever since the Master died, the kindness he was receiving was overwhelming. Sigrid tore up two of the professors’ old shirts and made him a new one. The lady in the paper shop gave him a rug for Rocco. Josef in the cafe saved the straw from his crates for Rocco’s bedding.

And Ellie cooked him noodle soup, and schnitzels so big that they covered the plate, and sat over him while he ate.

‘You’re too thin,’ she said. ‘We’ve got to build you up.’