Eva Ibbotson - The Star of Kazan

Ellie was reaching up for the black book, looking at the envelope she had placed between its pages. Annika’s handwriting sprawled over the back. ‘It’s the egg white that will keep them light,’ she said. ‘Twelve eggs, it says here; we’ll have some beating to do.’

‘You can get egg-beaters that work mechanically,’ said Annika. ‘I saw one in a shop.’

‘Over my dead body,’ said Ellie. ‘No egg is going to be touched by that new-fangled machinery in my kitchen.’

But Annika was looking at the envelope. ‘What an idiot — I sent it on the back of the letter I found in the desk at Spittal. I suppose I’d better take it back with me when I go.’

And suddenly the lull in which the three of them had worked together, as so often before, was over.

The farewell meal had been cleared away. The food had been a triumph, but no one felt very cheerful and Pauline actually lost her temper and stormed out before the strawberry bombe, though this was her favourite dessert. It happened when Frau Bodek asked Annika if she really had to go back to Spittal and Annika said, ‘She is my mother,’ in a way that made Pauline, she said, feel sick.

‘Did you like the Norrland Nussel?’ Annika asked Ellie. ‘What did you think?’

‘They were good,’ said Ellie, who did not feel like saying that the whole meal had tasted to her like sawdust. And, looking at Annika’s anxious face, ‘I think you ought to copy the recipe into the book.’

‘Really?’ Annika was pleased. ‘Then you can cook them when I’ve gone.’

And Ellie nodded, though she thought that nothing was less likely than that she would swallow a Nussel ever again.

‘I’ll do it in my room,’ said Annika, and she took the black book and the envelope and kissed Ellie and Sigrid rather quickly, because this was not a night for lingering over anything emotional.

The house was very quiet. Zed had gone to say goodbye to Stefan’s uncle. He had already packed up his belongings in the bookshop and set up his camp bed in Sigrid’s ironing room, ready for an early start.

The cathedral clock struck eleven. This time the day after tomorrow she would be gone. No, that was silly, she wouldn’t think like that. There might be an earthquake. She might die in her sleep.

She reached for the black book and for her pen and inkwell.

‘Twelve egg whites, seven ounces of chestnut purée, six tablespoons of molasses…’ wrote Annika.

The letter was still there inside the envelope — probably it was just an old bill, in which case there was no point in taking it back to Spittal.

She finished copying in the recipe, and slit open the envelope.

Annika read the letter once, peering at the old-fashioned, looped handwriting. Then she read it again.

It was definitely not a bill.

Zed had not forgotten the police officers who had stared at him so hard in the Prater, but as the time to leave came closer he was sure that he would get away.

So when the bell rang early in the morning as he was packing his saddlebags he did not think it had anything to do with him. Then Sigrid came and said there were two uniformed men at the door, asking for the boy with the bay horse.

Zed’s first instinct was to go into the backyard and ride Rocco away down the lane. But it was already too late. The front door was open, the tall man with the bushy eyebrows was standing in the hall. He did not look like someone with whom one could play cat-and-mouse for long.

‘I’ll show them into the sitting room,’ said Sigrid.

Zed squared his shoulders. It had come then. Prison for him for stealing a horse — and for Rocco, what?

The two men were standing beside the porcelain stove: the very tall one and the smaller, tubby one with the gingery moustache.

At least they were polite. They said good morning, shook hands, asked his name.

But then came the words Zed had heard so often in his head.

‘We would like you to come with us. You and the horse. Just halter him — no need to bring his tack.’

So they weren’t just going to charge him. They were going to confiscate the horse.

‘Come along, boy; we have a lot to do.’

There was nothing for it. Zed led them out of the house and into the courtyard.

Rocco was not a vicious animal, but he could bare his teeth as threateningly as the next horse when he wanted to. Now, however, he let Zed down badly, rubbing his face against the uniformed sleeve of the tall man as though he was meeting his oldest friend.

Zed slipped on the halter. His hands were clumsy; misery engulfed him. It was over then, everything was over.

What happened to horses who were taken away by the police? Did they get sold on or spend their days in some wretched compound, a sort of dumping ground for equine down-and-outs?

Or did they simply get shot?

He led the horse round by the back lane and into the square. Rocco was stepping out as if to a party, his feet high, his neck arched, as though impressing the policemen who walked beside him was the most important thing on earth. So much for the instinct of animals, thought Zed bitterly.

They began to cross the square, making their way towards the chestnut trees and the Keller Strasse.

How long did one stay in prison for stealing a horse? Two years, three… no, more probably. Much, much more. Would they put him in a dungeon, or in a cell with murderers and drunks?

‘Stop. STOP, Zed. Wait!’

He turned round and so did the two men who were taking him away.

‘Good heavens!’ said the taller one.

A girl with streaming corn-coloured hair was running across the cobbles towards them. She was barefoot, and still in her dressing gown, but even without shoes she ran like the wind.

‘Stop, stop,’ she cried again — and Rocco too turned his head and recognized someone he knew, and came firmly to a halt.

Annika came panting up to them.

‘I found this last night. Read it, Zed, quickly.’ And to the two men, ‘Please let him read it. Please?’

Zed took the sheet of paper she held out to him.

‘Go on then,’ said the tall man, and took the halter rope from Zed. ‘But remember, we are busy people.’

Zed opened the letter. He recognized the handwriting at once and his heart beat faster. It was from the Freiherr von Tannenburg to the head of the stud at Zverno, asking him to find a horse suitable for his grandson, Hermann. ‘Something very steady and quiet,’ he wrote, ‘as the boy is not a natural horseman. I’m giving Rocco to Zed; I think together they will go far.’

The rest of the letter was about the price he was willing to pay for Hermann’s horse and the details of how he wanted it to be sent.

The letter was dated the sixteenth of March 1906 and had never been posted because the following day the old man had his stroke and neither wrote nor spoke again.

For a moment Zed could not speak. It was as though the man he had loved so much was there beside him. Then he felt an incredible relief and joy. He was not a thief. Rocco was his.

‘He’s my horse,’ he said in a dazed voice, looking up at the two men. ‘I haven’t stolen him. He belongs to me.’

‘Well, of course he belongs to you,’ said the tall man. ‘Anyone can see that. Now please don’t keep us waiting any longer.’

‘Why?’ Zed was suddenly very angry. ‘Why should I come along? I haven’t done anything. I suppose it’s because my mother was a gypsy. You’re going to find something you can use against me and arrest me — my people have always been persecuted.’

The tall man sighed. ‘What’s the matter with you, boy? We’re not from the police.’

‘Well, where are you from then?’

The tall man was displeased. He had thought that everyone in Vienna knew who he was; certainly everyone who owned a horse.