Eva Ibbotson - The Dragonfly Pool

Herr Keller frowned and said that His Highness hated to be photographed.

“Why?” asked Verity. “Is there something wrong with him?”

“Certainly not,” said Herr Keller, offended. “He is a very nice-looking boy. I can show you a picture in the smoking room.”

But the picture was of a very small boy in a sailor suit, his face hidden by an enormous sun hat.

He led them into the dining room, where the other children were already sitting.

The food was delicious, and the waitresses were very helpful about bringing a plate of boiled rice for Augusta Carrington. Only the head waitress, a middle-aged woman with ginger hair and a square, plain face, behaved oddly; they caught her again and again staring at Matteo and it was not till he glared at her angrily that she stopped.

“Perhaps she just wanted you for a friend,” suggested Tally, who was sitting next to him, but then he turned and glared at her instead. Well, he can suit himself, thought Tally as she helped herself to a gigantic pancake oozing with apricot jam.

When the Deldertonians returned to the camp, the German children were already in their tents, their belongings stacked neatly outside. From inside their tent came the sound of an old Bavarian folk song sung in perfect harmony.

“Why are they so good at everything?” said Julia irritably. “If they weren’t so nice one would be really annoyed.”

But the German children were nice: friendly and helpful and kind. They could not have been less like those Hitler Youth Corps one saw on the newsreels, saluting and stamping and marching about.

“Right, it’s time for bed,” said Matteo.

One by one they crawled into their sleeping bags. Magda and Matteo stayed up a while, talking very quietly, but at last all the tents were silent.

Tally fell asleep at once, but two hours later Verity turned over in her sleep and kicked her. The soles of Verity’s feet were very hard from walking barefoot even in Paddington Station, and Tally was jerked into instant wakefulness. She tried to go back to sleep again but she was overtired; images from the journey kept running through her brain, and presently she gave up the attempt.

Matteo had insisted that everyone bring a torch, which they put beside their pillow. Now, as she slipped into her gym shoes and put on a jersey over her pajamas, she reached for hers and crept out of the tent.

But when she got outside and straightened up she found there was no need for a torch, because she had come out into a world of silvery brightness: the moon was full over the mountains; the single snow-covered peak dazzlingly white; the trees in the park standing out black against the sky.

She left the tents behind and made her way toward the little pavilion, built like a Greek temple, but her eyes kept being drawn upward to the moonlit palace on its hill. Now, in the night, it looked like the impenetrable fortress it must once have been, not a place of pleasure.

The statue appeared before her suddenly as she crossed a foot-bridge and rounded a bend on the path. It was very white in the moonlight, and when Tally got close to it she saw that the woman was wearing a long white dress, and in her hair was a kind of tiara — or was it a crown?

Tally switched on her torch. The woman was very beautiful, though her face was sad. In her hands, which were loosely clasped, was a bunch of flowers. At first, because of the unreal white light Tally thought they were made of marble like the rest of the statue, but as she went closer she saw that the flowers were real; she could even smell, very faintly, the scent that came from them. Someone must have brought them and put them in the statue’s hands.

At the base of the statue was a plaque. Like all the notices in Bergania it was in three languages — Berganian, English, and Italian.

ALICE, QUEEN OF BERGANIA,

BORN 10 APRIL 1900, DIED 15 JUNE 1931.

DAUGHTER OF THE DUKE AND DUCHESS OF ROTTINGDENE,

WIFE OF HIS MAJESTY KING JOHANNES III

AND MOTHER OF THE CROWN PRINCE KARIL.

SHE SERVED HER PEOPLE WELL.

Tally switched off her torch. The marble face looked down at her, thoughtful and sad. The prince had been four when his mother died, so he would remember her, thought Tally, but only just. She herself had no memories of her mother, but one could manage without a mother if one had a good father, and both she and the prince had that. The prince would be all right.

She was turning away when she heard footsteps and saw, coming over the little bridge, a man in dark clothes. He was walking very fast, almost running, and from his hurrying figure there came a sense of menace. He looked dangerous and angry.

Tally braced herself. She was quite alone. There was nothing to do except wait and hope he would go past.

But he did not go past.

“What the devil are you doing out here alone?” came Matteo’s furious voice. “You must be out of your mind. Surely it’s obvious that you should stay in the camp?” He shone his torch, infinitely stronger than her own, and transfixed her in a beam of light. “You’re in a strange country — anything could happen to you.”

But Tally stood her ground. “I don’t feel as though I’m in a strange country,” she said. “I feel as though I’m in a place where nothing bad could happen.”

But Matteo was not appeased.

“There is no place where nothing bad could happen,” he said. “Not in the world we live in now.”

Karil had removed the latest photograph of Carlotta from the table by the window so that he could rest the arm with which he was steadying the big telescope he had borrowed from the library. Usually when he looked down at the town he used the binoculars his father had given him for his birthday, but to make out actual people he needed a stronger magnification.

But even with the telescope he saw the children only as scurrying ants, not as individuals. The British tents were the closest, next to the bridge; the other tents were partly screened by the trees that grew along the river, but he could see the wooden platform which had been put up so that the dancers could practice.

There was a group there rehearsing now, stamping and swirling. They were brightly dressed in red and yellow — Spanish perhaps, or Portuguese? He could hear very faintly the sound of guitars and tambourines.

He directed the telescope back to the British tents. The children there seemed to be doing chores, shaking out sleeping bags and fixing a clothesline. Two boys were banging wooden sticks together — one girl, small as a grasshopper, was taking a little boy through the steps of a dance. Karil tried to follow her with the telescope, but she was like quicksilver and he kept losing her.

An angry voice behind him made him turn around.

“May I ask you what you are doing, Karil, staring out of the window when Monsieur Dalrose is waiting to give you your history lesson?” said Countess Frederica. She walked over to the window. “And where is the photograph of Carlotta? What have you done with it?”

“It’s on the chest of drawers.” Karil sighed and put down the telescope. Actually it seemed to him that the whole room was full of pictures of Carlotta. She was like those earthworms that one cut in half and each half grew again. “I only wanted to see what the folk dancers are doing. Especially the British ones.”

“The less said about the British team the better,” said Countess Frederica. “I saw the Baroness Gambetti this morning and she told me that their behavior is shocking.”