The Dragonfly Pool (16 page)

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.

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.”

K
aril 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.”

Karil turned away from the window. “How? How is it shocking?”

The countess drew her ferocious brows together. “I'm afraid I can't tell you that. But I can only say that you can stop showing an interest in what appear to be ruffians with no discipline and no manners.”

The Scold did not normally spend time with the Baroness Gambetti. Whether the wife of the foreign minister did or did not sleep with a picture of Hitler under her pillow, she was certainly a woman who disagreed with the king, and whatever the countess's faults she was utterly loyal to Johannes. But they had met in the salon of the dressmaker who made clothes for the court, and the baroness had been full of gossip and indignation.

“The British rabble have no uniform—they came with a ragbag of clothes and not one of them can curtsy. And they call their teachers by their Christian names. But that's not all—they wear nothing in the shower rooms.” She lowered her voice. “Nothing at all.”

Countess Frederica had tried to be fair. “Of course, it would not be sensible to shower in one's clothes,” she pointed out.

“No, of course not,” snapped the baroness. “But it is customary to slip off one's bathrobe at the very last second, whereas these children just wander about in the washroom till it is their turn. They have no modesty and no shame. And the man who is in charge of them looks like a bandit. My husband says his face is familiar—he's probably wanted by the police.”

There had been no time to hear more about the British children but the countess had learned enough.

“Put the telescope away, and put Carlotta back in her rightful place, please.”

But at lunchtime Uncle Fritz seemed to be very pleased with the way things were going down in the park.

“Everyone has settled in very well,” he said. “It's so good to have young people.” He sighed.

“They're going to have a tour of the town today,” he went on. “They'll come to the palace—only the staterooms, of course, and the ramparts—but if you look out of the window you'll be able to see them. Fortunately they seem to be getting on very well, the different teams. That's because it's not a competition, just people coming together to make music and dance,” said Uncle Fritz happily.

But the best news was still to come. After the meal was over, an equerry sent for Uncle Fritz and asked him to come to the council chamber because His Majesty wanted to speak to him. When he came back he was beaming.

“Your father will come himself to the opening ceremony,” he told Karil. “It is quite unexpected—no one thought the king would have time to open what is after all only a children's festival. You will accompany your father, of course. The master of ceremonies is arranging the details now.”

But if Uncle Fritz was delighted and the prince, too, the chief of police and the head of the army were appalled.

“It's madness—trying to arrange proper security at such short notice. Two days! My reservists will be away at camp,” said Colonel Metz.

“We'll have to use the trainees,” said the chief of police. “And he's going on horseback—both he and the prince will ride. He thinks the children will prefer it. What's got into the king—and just now when everything is so tense?”

The king himself could not have told them what had got into him. He only knew that after yet another week of endless meetings, threatening telegrams from the German chancellor, heckling and nagging from Gambetti and his followers, he was reaching the end of his tether. He had forgotten what it was like to be a human being, to have a son whom he loved, to live in a world where children came together to make music and to dance.

That night he left a meeting of his defense committee early and made his way to Karil's room.

“Is it true?” was the first thing his son said. “We're going to open the Folk Dance Festival together?”

“Yes, Karil. We'll give them something to remember! I'm calling out the Mounted Guard. And I shall see that the children are presented to you.”

The prince was silent for a moment. Then: “Couldn't I actually meet them? Not just have them presented—meet them properly?”

It was the king now who was silent. “Karil, it never works, trying to make friends with people from outside our world. Believe me—I know what I'm talking about.” His face was somber as he looked out at the mountains. “You will only get hurt.” He put his hand on his son's shoulder. “Perhaps we shouldn't put it off any longer, going to the dragonfly pool. I can't promise, but there are no meetings tomorrow. I'll see what I can do.”

T
he Berganians had done their best to make the campsite comfortable for the visiting teams, but camping is camping—there is nothing to be done about that.

Kit found a toad on the slatted floor of the shower and came back to tell Tally that he did not like it. He did not like it at all. Then there was breakfast. Matteo had gone off early, no one knew where, and Julia and Tally tried to light the Primus while Magda was still in the shower, but it was an ancient, temperamental contraption with a will of its own and, however much they pumped, it wouldn't get going.

“I can perhaps help?” said a boy from the German tent. He had a mass of brown curls and a friendly smile, and with him came his sister, whose hair was even curlier and whose smile was as broad.

And he did help, without any fuss, so that in a few minutes the stove was roaring like a furnace.

At this point Magda appeared and decided that she would make the porridge, and she began well, stirring the pot with a big ladle—only then she had an important thought about Schopenhauer—you could tell when this happened because her eyes glazed over—and the ladle moved more and more slowly, and though Barney rushed to take it from her, it was too late.

“It's funny—you can eat burned toast and it isn't too bad at all,” said Borro, “but burned porridge!”

After breakfast they started on their chores. Augusta Carrington must have swallowed something which disagreed with her—perhaps a piece of meat that had got stuck to her plate of rice—and had come out in lumps on her back, and Verity needless to say did nothing to help but wandered past the tents of the other children, showing them how beautiful she was, but the rest of them worked with a will.

The Deldertonians were in their ordinary clothes, but most of the children wore their national costumes and the campsite was a blaze of color—the orange and yellow of the Spaniards and the Italians, the cool blue and white of the Scandinavians . . . the fierce black-and-red embroidered shirts of the Hungarians . . .

The buses that were to take them on a tour of the town were not due till eleven, and while they waited some of the teams took turns rehearsing on the wooden platform. The Germans had gone through their dance early. It was beautiful and didn't involve anybody hitting themselves on their own behinds, though there was a certain amount of yodeling.

“But yodeling is a good thing really because it's how people call each other in the mountains,” said Barney.

After the Germans came the Yugoslavs, whose dance was very ferocious with a lot of stamping, and music from a very strange instrument which was covered in fur and had a horn sticking out of each end.

“Do you think we should be stamping more? ” asked Julia anxiously but Tally said no, she didn't think the British did much in the way of stamping.

“It's no good worrying about the poor Flurry Dance—it may be odd but it got us here,” said Tally. “And the people are pleased to see us; they really are.”

This was true. The assistants in the shops, the waiters in the Blue Ox, mothers strolling through the park pushing prams—all greeted them and said how good it was to see children from other countries.

“You really like it here, don't you?” said Borro. “I mean,
really
.”

“Yes,” said Tally, “I really do.”

The Swedes were on the platform, their blue skirts swirling gracefully as they waltzed, when the two buses drew up on the other side of the bridge.