The Dragonfly Pool (20 page)

“You're with the British team, aren't you?”

Remembering the rumors he had heard about the British “savages” he smiled, and Tally stared at him. He looked quite different when he was no longer serious and stern.

“Yes. We're very bad—in fact we're terrible—everyone's going to laugh at us. We invented this thing called the Delderton Flurry Dance and it's really weird, but it was the only way we could get here.”

“Why did you want to come here so much?”

Tally had been watching a tiny spider crossing the stone.

“It was because of the king.”

“What king?” said Karil, startled.

“The king of Bergania, of course. I saw him on the newsreel and he looked so strong and brave—but tired, too. And when they wrote and said they wanted people to come to a festival, I sort of bullied everyone into coming.”

“But what could you know about the king?”

“I knew he had stood out against Hitler . . .” She saw the spider safely into her hole and went on. “We have a king, too, in England and he's really nice—absolutely decent. George VI he's called . . .”

Karil nodded. Carlotta had played with his daughters in Buckingham Palace.

“He has a stammer, and when he makes his speech on the wireless at Christmas my aunts get terribly worried in case he's going to break down and not be able to finish. They sit there clutching their sherry glasses, just willing him to go on. But he's not like the king of Bergania. He's not a ruler.”

“I can't see how you could tell what he's like just from watching a film.”

Tally shrugged. “I don't know . . . but I felt it. I was sure. Perhaps it's because of my father. He's not a king, of course, he's a doctor, but he's like that. He knows what's right and he does it whatever it costs. I get annoyed when he's back late and I wanted to be with him, but I wouldn't want him to be someone who had nothing to do except look after me. Anyway, when I saw Bergania and the king I wanted to come here. I felt I had to. And I thought Matteo was behind me—he persuaded the others that folk dancing wasn't sissy—but he's been so odd since we came. He never seems to be there when you want him; it's as though he's hiding all the time. And just now he was furious with me for attacking the Nazi.”

“Well, of course. You could have got into serious trouble.”

“He can't want me to just let things happen without fighting.”

Karil had been pulling the seeds out of a fallen pinecone. Now he threw it into the water. “Tell me again about the Bergania film. Tell me exactly.”

“I was with my friend Julia. She wanted me to come to the cinema and we saw an awful film—but before that there was this travelogue. And it was as though the country sort of spoke to me—it was so beautiful. It was silly, because I'd only been at school half a term and I was still settling in—progressive schools are hard work—but I knew I had to come.”

“Because the country was beautiful?” he asked.

She shook her head. “No, I've told you. It was because of the king. Because he was brave and true to what he believed in and wouldn't let himself be bullied. Because he knew that if you have power you must use it well and not be afraid.”

Karil said nothing. Something inside him was changing . . . a knot was dissolving.

She turned to him. “You live here,” she said. “You must know. Is he like that?”

Karil took a deep breath. “Yes,” he said joyfully. “He is like that,” he said. “That is exactly what he is like.”

They were silent for a while, watching the ripples made by a fish as it jumped for a fly. Then he turned to this unknown girl who had given him back his father and said, “Thank you. Thank you very much.”

“For what?” she said, surprised.

“Oh . . . just . . . never mind.”

She had taken out the handkerchief and was flattening it on the stone. She had not guessed, yet when she saw the initials and the crown embroidered in the corner, she was not surprised.

“Of course,” she said. “I've been an idiot. I know who you are.”

He braced himself, waiting for a fuss—she would be too respectful, or angry—or back away, make him feel “different.”

“You're Karil,” she said—and because she had used only his name and not his rank he allowed himself a moment of hope.

“I would have liked us to be friends,” he said, looking down at the ground. “I would really have liked that.”

“Well, of course we're going to be friends. That's obvious. It's what's going to happen.”

He shook his head. “It won't work,” he said wearily. “They read my letters and the doors are locked and . . . Oh, you've no idea what it's like.”

“Look, Karil, if I want to be friends with someone, nobody is going to stop me. Absolutely nobody. Perhaps I should tell you that I'm named after my great-grandmother who washed the socks of tramps in the London Underground. She came over as a young girl from America to marry my great-grandfather and she used to go up to these fierce men, some of them dead drunk, and make them take off their socks and give them to her to wash. Now that
is
difficult.” She folded up the handkerchief and put it in her pocket. “And I think you should stop feeling sorry for yourself. It's not the end of the world, being a prince.”

In the palace the king came out of his emergency meeting with a lagging step. It seemed there was no end to the bullying his country had to endure. More than anything he wanted to see his son, but he had left Karil in a temper. Perhaps it was better to let the boy calm down in his own good time.

He had taken only a few steps down the corridor when he was almost knocked off his feet by someone who had been waiting half hidden by the velvet curtains.

“Karil! Are you all right?”

“Yes. I'm absolutely all right. And I'm sorry—I'm very, very sorry I was angry. It won't happen again. I'd like to help more . . . if you tell me . . . I'm . . .” He swallowed. “I'm so proud of what you do.”

The king put his arm around the boy's shoulders. Just when one thought one couldn't carry on any longer something happened to make life bearable.

“And I'm proud of you, Karil. Prouder than you can imagine.”

T
he town square had been bustling with people and carts and carriers since dawn. Everybody seemed to be involved in the preparations for the folk-dancing display and for the opening ceremony that preceded it.

Workmen hammered, putting finishing touches to the platform on which the important people of the town would sit and from which the king would declare the festival open. The wooden stage for the dancers at the other end of the square was bedecked with flags and bunting; extra tubs of flowering trees had been brought in and there was hardly a windowsill or lamppost which was not festooned with greenery.

At the Blue Ox the waiters hurried from the kitchens to the restaurant and the beer garden, bringing bottles of champagne or lemonade or jugs of coffee and cream. There was a good view to be had from the windows of the inn and all available tables were taken very early in the day.

In his bedroom Colonel Stiefelbreich put the finishing touches to his uniform. He had been offered a seat on the platform and was making sure that every single medal was polished and in place. His bodyguards were going to mingle with the crowd, but Mr. Stilton did not intend to leave the Blue Ox. He had spent the previous day trying to persuade some peasants to buy his indoor flush toilets, but they had behaved in a very stupid way and told him that they preferred the wooden huts they had always used. It gave them some peace from their families, they told him, to go across the fields with their newspapers. Well, if they wanted to go on living like savages, let them, thought Stilton; he had other things to do, and now he left his room and made his way up a narrow flight of stairs to an empty attic which had an uninterrupted view across the square to the town hall. He would get a much better view of the procession from here than jammed in a crowd of unwashed yokels.

Once inside, he locked the door behind him. Then he opened his case, took out a packet of sandwiches—and certain things which had absolutely nothing to do with lavatories—and settled down to wait.

Countess Frederica, who would be sitting near the front of the platform, stood before her mirror, wondering whether to add a touch of color to her outfit. Her dress was black of course and so were her vest and her knickers, but she could perhaps add a colored scarf. Karil seemed to set great store by this occasion—and it was quite a long time since anyone had died. But in the end she decided against it; there was no need to dress up for a lot of unruly children.

Everyone else, though, seemed to be in their best clothes. The Baroness Gambetti was dressed like a peacock in a gaudy blue and orange two-piece and as much jewelry as she could get around her neck. She was in excellent spirits but her husband, who was trying to eat his breakfast, looked like a ghost, only yellower.

“He promised me it will all be very civilized,” he kept muttering, “a peaceful takeover,” while his wife told him to shut up and finish his egg.

In the square, the brass-band players rubbed up their instruments, workmen sprinkled sawdust along the route of the royal procession, policemen put up ropes. Wooden benches were brought and set out for those who wanted to watch the dancing, and colored lights were strung between the trees—for the evening would end with a great open-air party for anyone who cared to come.

The Berganians had always been good at celebrations.

Now that the festival was really upon them everyone felt better. Even if they made fools of themselves it would soon be over. Tally, helping Kit fix the bells onto his ankles, had quite forgotten her black mood of the day before, and now that they were all dressed they didn't look too bad. In fact, suddenly they looked unexpectedly nice, and this was because of Magda.

Magda had stopped having Important Thoughts about Schopenhauer long enough to notice that the girls' wreaths had not really recovered from their bashing in the luggage van of the train and had suggested they go to the market early in the morning and buy some fresh flowers to fill up the gaps.

“But have we enough money?” Julia had wanted to know.

And again Magda had surprised everyone, by groping about among her notes and card indexes and extracting her purse.

So Tally and Julia had got up very early and come back with roses and lilies of the valley and cornflowers still moist with dew, and everyone had set to healing the poor wreaths.

“What about our hats?” Kit wanted to know. “Don't the boys get any flowers?”

So Julia pinned a hyacinth to the brim of his hat and, though it would probably fall over his nose once he began to dance, he was pleased.

“We may look a bit odd, but no one can say we're not fresh and floral,” said Tally.

And for the first time they wondered whether after all it might turn out all right, this Flurry Dance which had given them all so much trouble.

The broken staves had been mended, Augusta's bananas had been stowed in her violin case, and Matteo, looking more like a bandit than ever in a black corduroy shirt and dark trousers, had assembled his sackbut, so there was hope that he would come in with his
oom-pa-pa
at important moments.

It was still difficult not to be upset by the empty German tent, but the other teams, all dressed now in their dancing clothes, looked really festive. The Italians with their sashes and bright kerchiefs, the French girls with their white headdresses . . . the Yugoslavs in goatskin jackets with feathers in their caps . . . Lots would be drawn after the ceremony to decide the order in which the teams would dance.