The Dragonfly Pool

Karil’s arrival at Rottingdene House had caused some serious problems for the duke and his household. It hadn’t taken long to move out the two governesses who occupied a bedroom on the top floor and give it to Karil, and the boy did not look as though he would be expensive to feed.

No, the problem was that of precedence. Nobody had been absolutely certain whether the son of a king, even a king who was dead, should be served first at table, or go ahead of the others into the dining room. Was he more important than Prince Dmitri, who had a crest with sixteen quarterings, or Archduke Franz Heinrich, whose family had ruled over Lower Carinstein since 1304, or Don Alfonso, who was descended from a long line of Spanish conquerers?

While the matter was being looked into, the uncles and Karil took it in turn to go ahead of the others into the dining room.

The first supper after the declaration of war was much like the other meals Karil had endured at Rottingdene House. The duke sat at the head of the table in an ancient dinner jacket which smelled of mothballs, and slurped his soup. Don Alfonso appeared in one of the twenty or so military uniforms he had brought from South America and fed tidbits to the monkey, and Carlotta, who had changed her dress for the third time that day, simpered and smiled.

On the whole the uncles were pleased about the war, because they thought that once it was over they would become rulers once again. Uncle Dmitri would return to his estate in Russia with ten thousand peasants doing his bidding; Uncle Franz Heinrich would be back in his turreted castle in Lower Carinstein, and Don Alfonso would once more have charge of his vast lands on the Pacific coast. Of course it was a pity that so many people might be killed first, but if it ended with them restored to power it was all worthwhile.

They were kind, too, to Karil, assuring him that once Hitler was defeated, the people of Bergania would clamor to have him back as king.

“It will all be over soon, my boy,” they said, “and then you will be back on the throne where you belong.”

And Karil, who had begun by trying to tell them that he did not want to become king, had long since given up trying to explain.

After dinner everybody retired to the Red Salon to take coffee—and then came the ritual that took place every night, and for which Karil, when he first came, had waited with such eagerness.

A footman entered with a silver salver which he placed on a gilt-legged table—and on it were the letters that had come by the afternoon post.

When he first came, Karil had always jumped up and looked at the tray, sure that there would be a letter from Tally and his other friends. He had never doubted that they would write straightaway and tell him what was happening at Delderton. When nothing had come, either by the morning or the afternoon post, he had told himself that they must be busy returning to school and catching up with their work, but as day followed day and the salver disgorged letters for everyone but him, his hopes had faded and died.

He himself had written straightaway, long letters that he had been careful to seal tightly before he laid them in the brass bowl in the hall where all letters were put for the footman to stamp and carry to the letter box. It was a relief to know that Rottingdene House had a system for posting letters, because he had no money and even buying stamps would have been difficult. He had told Tally about Pom-Pom, who had to be accompanied by two footmen, one at each end, when he went out, in case he was kidnapped by anarchists and eaten. He had told her about the monkey, who looked sweet but bit as soon as one came too close, and about the duke’s hearing aid, which had fallen into the soup but not actually been swallowed. Gradually he found it harder to think of lighthearted things to write—he had begun to plead a little for an answer to his letters, and then to tear them up and try again because he did not want to seem to be making a fuss or admitting his unhappiness.

But as the weeks passed and there was only silence, Karil realized he had been wrong to trust his friends so utterly—and he remembered his father’s words when he asked if he could meet the children who had come to his country.

It never works trying to make friends with people outside our world, he had said. You’ll only get hurt.

The king had been right. Karil had got hurt, and it served him right for being such a fool. Yet tonight, because the outbreak of war was after all not an ordinary day, he got up and walked over as he had done at the beginning, to look at the envelopes laid out on the salver.

But there was nothing. Nothing from Tally—nothing from Barney or Julia or Tod. Nothing from Matteo, who had been his father’s friend.