The Dragonfly Pool (44 page)

Please come upstairs, Your Excellency.” And then: “I remember your father.”

Matteo followed him up the uncarpeted stairs and into a room with a scrubbed wooden table and a few upright chairs. As he entered, the two men standing by the window turned. A man with long silver hair and light blue eyes, and an old man with a wise face and a full white beard, who came forward with both his hands stretched out.

“Welcome, Matteo, welcome!” he said in Berganian. “As you see, we have reached safety.”

It was von Arkel, the faithful prime minister who had served the king for so many years, and with him was the king's uncle Fritz, the minister of culture. The chief of the army was about to join them, they told Matteo, and together they meant to form a government-in-exile.

“We shall have to see what we can do,” said von Arkel. And then: “You have news of the boy?”

T
he headmaster of Foxingham School put down the cane with which he had been beating a boy called Widdrington and went over to his desk.

Widdrington was a dreary little runt of a boy who seemed to have been made for punishment. Even before he came into the room he began to snivel and whimper, and already with the first whack on his bare bottom he was screaming the place down. It was quite difficult to stop after the regulation twelve thwacks—the temptation was to go on and draw blood, and there wouldn't have been any trouble if he had. Widdrington's parents were too grateful to the headmaster for accepting the boy at Foxingham. They were thoroughly vulgar, self-made people and desperately anxious to have their sons educated with the upper classes.

He should have been beating young Hohenlottern next, thought the head. The boy had skived off the early-morning run, pretending to have a cold—but he was third in line of succession to the kingdom of Prussia if it was ever restored, and the headmaster preferred to deal with boys like that in other ways. Fortunately young Transjordania never gave any trouble. With his father ruling over one of the wealthiest countries in the Middle East, too much physical punishment might have been awkward.

Thinking about these two boys made the head turn his thoughts to the prince of Bergania. He had been happy to give the boy a scholarship; if the war went the right way young Karil would become king, there was no doubt about that, and Foxingham's reputation as a cradle for princes would be enhanced.

But how long was he going to wait for the duke to send his grandson? Karil had had an attack of homesickness and run back to his grandfather, that much seemed certain. The other boys had all described how the prince had rushed out of the train, and there was really no other explanation. Probably Karil was very attached to his grandfather, who was reported to be an upright and excellent man. So far it had seemed reasonable to say nothing to the duke and wait for the prince to come—one didn't want to expose the boy as a milksop—but the head had his honor and dignity to consider.

He pressed the bell on his desk and his secretary, a gray-haired, sharp-nosed woman, entered the room.

“Nothing in the post from Rottingdene, is there?”

“No, sir, nothing at all. Matron was wondering how long she should keep his trunk—it's more than three weeks now. Should she send it back?”

The headmaster rose and went to the window. Outside, in the driving rain, the bottom form was doing PE. In their singlets and shorts they shivered with cold, and the headmaster was annoyed.

“Silly ass, that Johnston. He's not working them nearly hard enough. A couple of whacks on their legs and they'd soon warm up. I shall want to see him after the class.”

Then he turned his attention once more to the problem of the prince of Bergania. The behavior of the namby-pamby PE teacher had soured his mood, and he found that his patience was exhausted.

“I'll write to the duke today. This nonsense has gone on long enough. Either he sends his grandson straightaway or the scholarship is canceled.”

The duke picked this letter off the silver salver in the dining room—and the effect was spectacular. First he turned a brilliant scarlet—his breath came in gasps, he threw the letter across the table. Then he let out a roar which sounded through the entire household. The monkey scuttled for cover; Pom-Pom hid under the sofa.

“You have had bad news?” said Aunt Diana, who was not very bright.

The duke shot her a look of contempt and loathing.

“I have been deceived. I have been made a fool of and I WILL NOT STAND FOR IT.”

His fist came down on the dining table, and a glass ashtray slipped to the floor and shattered.

“Oh poor little Pom-Pom! He will cut his feet,” cried Princess Natalia.

“Poor little Pom-Pom can go to the devil!” shouted the duke.

He had risen from his chair and was pacing the room.

“It's an outrage and an insult and I will not forgive it. I shall sue the headmaster—the idiot. Does he really think I would let my grandson skulk at home? I'm going to ruin him and ruin his school. And as for Karil . . . the boy is a deceitful monster. I suppose I should have expected it, with all that foreign blood.” He kicked a chair and swore—he had used the wrong leg, the one that wasn't made of metal. “As soon as he's back I'm going to break his will. I'm going to beat him within an inch of his life—and that will only be the beginning. Defying me, making a fool of me.”

The uncles waited, hoping his rage would die down, but it didn't. Eventually the Archduke Franz Heinrich said, “Where do you think the boy can be?”

The duke stopped pacing and lowered his bull-like head.

“He must have run away,” said Aunt Phyllis, “but where to?”

The duke scowled at her. But it was true he had no idea where to search for Karil.

Then Carlotta rose from her chair. She was wearing white, which was fortunate, for she might well have been a messenger from on high as she laid her hand tenderly on her grandfather's arm.

“I think I know where he might be, Grandfather,” she said, with her most winning smile. “I can't be sure but I think so. You see, letters used to come for him from that dreadful school . . . from the children he came to England with. I thought Karil was cured, but now I think perhaps he's run away to be with them.”

The duke shook off her arm.

“What?” he roared. “Those disgusting delinquent brats . . . those nudist anarchists . . . those gutter rats . . . It's impossible. I won't believe it. Even Karil cannot have sunk so low.”

But the Scold now came to stand beside Carlotta. “I'm afraid the dear child may be right. I said at the time that they had a most dangerous effect on him. I could . . .” But the Scold fell silent. She had done everything she could to keep Karil away from Tally and her friends—but though she had scolded and bullied the boy for years, she had also loved him. Suddenly she did not want him hounded anymore.

The duke stopped pacing.

“I'm going to hunt the wretched boy down like the criminal he is—if it's the last thing I do!”

The day began so well.

They were rehearsing the scenes in the Underworld. They had agreed that Hades should be a place of confusion and mist, with the trapped spirits looming in and out of the vapor.

And that meant dry ice!

The blocks of frozen carbon dioxide had arrived the night before, heavily packed in straw—a special consignment as a try-out before the play at the end of term. They had to be carefully lowered into a tin bath and warm water poured over them, and Karil, filling the buckets from the tap in the cloakroom, was in a state of bliss. The more water you poured, the mistier and more obscure the stage became.

The three little girls who were the heads of Cerberus were near the front of the stage; their masks had not been finished yet, but their necks swayed alarmingly. Barney was on a ladder, trying to reach his jet of water. Other spirits dashed about moaning and beseeching.

The ice was going so well that it was becoming harder and harder to make out the characters onstage.

“Isn't it amazing stuff?” whispered Tally, and Karil nodded.

More mist floated onto the stage. And more figures blundered about. One was very large and used language that was not in the script as he tripped over a rock.

“It's a policeman!” cried one of the heads of Cerberus.

“Two policemen,” called out the second head.

The men were enormous, looming in and out of the vapor with their arms stretched out in front of them.

For a moment, Karil was turned to stone. Then he threw a last bucket of water into the tub, ran out of the wings, jumped over the end of the stage, and raced the length of the hall.

Straight into the arms of a third policeman, guarding the door.

It was over so quickly, all the hope and the happiness. As he was led away by two of the policemen, it was all Karil could do to walk upright and hold up his head. Knowing what awaited him, he felt a despair so deep that he did not know how he would bear it.

Behind Karil and the policemen came his friends. The officers tried to shoo them away, but they had been through too much with Karil to leave him now.

Apparently he was not to be driven straight back to the hell of Rottingdene House. The policemen were making for the headmaster's study, and Karil shivered. Had the duke come himself to clamp him in irons? Everything seemed possible.

Daley was seated behind his desk. Yet another policeman stood beside him—a swarthy man with a mustache, holding a briefcase—but this was clearly a high-ranking officer, because the men who had held Karil saluted him.

Karil's friends had followed him into the room.

“It's no good throwing us out,” said Tally, “because we won't go.”

“Your manners are deplorable,” said Daley. “But as a matter of fact I wasn't going to. Karil may be glad of your support.” And to Karil: “This is Chief Inspector Ferguson from Scotland Yard.”

The inspector nodded at the policemen. “You can let him go now,” he said. He walked over to Karil. “You'd better sit down, Your Grace. I'm afraid I've got some very bad news for you.”

He pointed to a chair and Karil sat down, ever more confused and bewildered. Had the duke decided to send him straight to Borstal? The fact that the inspector was being so kind was surely ominous. And why was he calling him Your Grace? That was his grandfather's title.

“Perhaps a drink of water, sir?” suggested one of the policemen, and Daley poured out a glass from the carafe on his desk.

Karil took it but could not bring himself to drink. His heart was beating so loudly that he thought it must be heard by everybody in the room.

“What is it?” he managed to ask. “The bad news . . . ?”