Eva Ibbotson - The Star of Kazan

By paying extra — by paying quite a lot of extra — the carriage could be stopped at the highest point — sometimes for a few moments, sometimes for much longer. If the full price was paid it would stay suspended at the highest point for a whole hour, and the other passengers had to wait down below. Stefan’s father had arranged everything for them.

Annika and Ellie and Sigrid were up at dawn on the day, packing cold pheasant in aspic and ham strudels and salads of cucumber and radish. They piled chocolate mousse and vanilla puffs into boxes, and made lemonade, and wedged the professors’ champagne into a silver bucket filled with ice.

And Annika bought two big bunches of summer flowers from the old flower seller in the square, because there could be no proper celebration without flowers on the table, and found two heavy vases that would not fall over as the wheel went up into the sky.

They piled into three hansom cabs and drove to the Prater, and Stefan and Zed unloaded the hampers and then Annika and Ellie and Sigrid set the long table with a white damask cloth and put the flowers in the vases and slowly, very slowly, in regular jerks, the famous wheel rose up, and then up again, and up once more.

The food on the table held steady, the professors walked from side to side pointing out places that mattered to them, and Annika remembered the last time she had been on the wheel by herself, and thought how fortunate she was to grow up in this place.

At the highest point the carriage stopped with a little click and they hung suspended in space.

Ellie, however, did not permit long sightseeing sessions.

‘The meal is ready,’ she said firmly, and at these important words the professors left the window and everybody seated themselves at the long table — and ate.

But after the last of the chocolate mousse had been scraped from the dishes, and the last sip of wine had disappeared down the professors’ throats, Annika got to her feet.

‘There’s something I wanted to do when I was up here last time,’ she said. ‘Only I couldn’t. So I’m going to do it now. Would you please pass me the vases — both of them?’

So Professor Gertrude pushed down the vase opposite her, and Zed pushed over the one which was next to him — and everybody watched as she took all the flowers out of both vases and patted the stems dry with her napkin.

Then she gathered up the blooms and walked over to the side of the carriage with the one small, high-up window which could be opened — and asked Stefan to open it.

‘I think I can reach.’ she said. ‘Yes. Just. Could you hand me the flowers one by one please? I don’t want to knock anybody out.’

So they passed her the flowers they had brought, and Annika stood on tiptoe and strewed them — the blue irises, the pink tulips, the marigolds and larkspur and zinnias, the delphiniums and the sweet-scented stock… strewed them and scattered them over the golden city which was her home once more.

The wind had dropped; the flowers fell gently. Some swirled away on air currents to the city’s edge, but most fell down over the roofs and booths of the funfair, and the people who saw them looked up for a moment and then went back to their work as though this kind of thing was no more than they deserved. And one — a large red tulip — fell on the turf path of the Prater where Rocco had reared up to save the life of a small fat boy in a sailor suit.

And it so happened that Fritzi, in the same sailor suit, was walking with his mother and his sister in her pram, as he walked each afternoon along the path that he had walked along that day, when a large red tulip descended and fell at his feet.

Fritzi had learned not to let go of his mother, but he picked the tulip up with his free hand and examined it.

‘Mine,’ he said — as he had said that day when he found the big red ball.

But this time no thief came running towards him to deprive him of his spoils.

Fritzi was pleased. There is a lot you can do with a tulip — fill the flower cup with sand, hold it aloft by the stem like a sword, put it over your shoulder like a rifle…

‘Mine,’ he said again, and his mother nodded, for it did not seem to her at all surprising that the heavens had opened and thrown a flower at the feet of her magnificent son.

This, after all, was Vienna.

Edeltraut was standing by the window of her drawing room, looking out at her estate. Though it was summer now, the lake was still grey; a cold wind rippled its surface.

She was alone. Uncle Conrad was leaving Bad Haxenfeld, to follow the dentists to a newer, more fashionable spa in the south. The dentists had convinced him that the waters were hotter there, and smelt stronger, and the treatment was more up to date.

At least that was what the Baron had told her, but she knew he was angry with her for having pretended that Annika was her daughter, for having deceived the family about Annika’s birth.

Mathilde too was angry. She had been fond of Annika, she said. It was all right to ‘borrow’ the belongings of a true daughter, but not to pretend to have a daughter and take her away from those who loved her.

Edeltraut thought this was nonsense. She had so nearly succeeded in her plan. If only she’d had that wretched dog put down when Hermann had first tied a firecracker to his tail… And if she’d succeeded, everyone would have grovelled at her feet.

But it was no good thinking about the past. Only the future mattered now, and the future was Hermann and Spittal, and the great inheritance of the von Tannenbergs. There had always been von Tannenbergs at Spittal. Always. Since the first Ritter von Tannenberg had conquered this marshy corner of Norrland and built his great fortified house and dug his moats and put iron studs on his doors, there had been von Tannenbergs with their proud flag fluttering in the wind.

And there always would be von Tannenbergs. Everything she had done, she had done for Hermann. In five years he would ride in at his gates, a fully commissioned officer, and she would hand him the keys of his kingdom. Lieutenant Hermann von Tannenberg, her son, Master of Spittal and its villages and forests and fields.

And after Hermann would come his sons and his son’s sons — and then she could die content.

She put on a shawl and went out of doors to stand on the terrace. The pike plopped in the water, the storks were wading in the ditch, picking off the last of the frogs. At least she had made the roof sound, and repaired the stonework. Spittal would be safe now for many years.

She was still standing there, lost in her dream, when she heard a carriage turn into the courtyard and went to see who could be calling at this time of day.

The carriage was unfamiliar but the letters on the side made her heart pound. St Xavier’s Military Academy for the Sons of the Nobility.

The carriage stopped and two men in uniform got out: a captain with a weather-beaten face and the ribbon of the Iron Cross on his chest, and a young lieutenant who turned and spoke to someone huddled on the back seat.

The huddled figure straightened itself and stepped out on to the cobbles.

It was Hermann.

Not in his St Xavier uniform with the cap and the swagger stick and the shiny boots… Hermann in a cloth jacket and trousers, with a woollen cap pulled over his forehead. He looked pale and ill, and when his mother went towards him, he turned away.

‘Hermann!’ she cried. ‘What has happened? Why are you here?’

The boy did not answer, and she saw that he was trembling.

‘May we have a few words with you in private?’ said the captain.

Frau Edeltraut led them into the drawing room. ‘What is it?’ she cried again. ‘Is he ill?’