The Star of Kazan

If there were chickens and ducks, thought Annika, there must be eggs. Perhaps they would have omelettes for lunch; soufflé omelettes, soft and golden and splendidly filling. She imagined herself hurrying them out of the oven, sprinkling them with chopped chives . . . and then drew in her breath as she remembered that she was never going to cook again. She would obey her mother, but it was going to be hard – harder than anybody realized. It wasn’t till you were told you couldn’t do something that you realized how much it had meant to you.

The door of the pigsty was closed and the pigs were inside. She walked past it, past a storage shed and the dairy . . . past the two big carriage horses that had brought her to Spittal the night before, looking over their stable door. There seemed to be a lot of empty buildings here too – deserted sheds and byres and stalls like the ones she had seen in the courtyard of the big house. The farm must have been much bigger once.

Then the path dipped into a hollow and she came to a small house. It was a very small house; a hovel really, though the checked red-and-white curtains looked clean and fresh.

But what made Annika stop and give a cry of pleasure was what was on the roof.

On a wheel fixed to the chimney was a pile of sticks – a messy and untidy pile, as though someone was going to light a bonfire. And sitting on the pile, looking very large against the smallness of the house and very pleased with themselves, were two storks.

‘Storks bring luck,’ Ellie had told her. ‘They come back year after year if they like a place and they bless the house.’

Annika stood still for a while, her head tilted back, and the storks clattered their beaks together, making an amazing din. They did not seem to be in the least shy or bothered by her presence.

But now she had seen the paddock ahead of her – and walking towards the gate, one arm thrown round the neck of his horse, was the boy she had seen out of the window when she woke.

Annika waited till he came up to her, and introduced herself.

‘I know who you are,’ said the boy.

‘And you’re Zed?’

‘Yes.’

He was taller than Hermann, and older she guessed, thirteen perhaps, and he had an unexpected sort of face. His skin was a clear olive and he had thick, dark hair that looked as though it had been cut with shears – but his brown eyes were flecked with lighter colours; with bronze and hazel and with gold.

And he was eating something, a slice of some large root with white flesh, cutting off pieces and sharing them with the horse.

Annika sighed. She had a message from Hermann and she found that she didn’t really want to think about Hermann.

‘Hermann said could you please bring his horse round at three o’clock tomorrow.’

The boy stopped eating. ‘Really,’ he said, grinning. ‘Hermann said please?’

‘Well, I may have put that in,’ Annika admitted. ‘He said bring it into the courtyard, to the mounting block, not into the lane.’

‘He’ll never make a soldier if he can’t mount without a block,’ said Zed.

‘But isn’t it difficult? Hermann’s no bigger than me. How big is his horse?’

‘This is his horse. Everything in the place belongs to Hermann, surely you know that, even if you only came last night.’

Annika was silent. She had felt sure that the horse that was resting his muzzle on the boy’s shoulder belonged to him.

‘Does he know he belongs to Hermann?’ she asked. ‘The horse, I mean?’

Zed looked at her sharply and did not answer and Annika asked him the name of the root in his hand.

‘It’s a mangel-wurzel. We grow them for the sheep, but they’re not bad. You need to pick a small one.’

‘Can I try a bit?’

Zed nodded and cut her a piece, shaving off the skin.

She chewed it carefully, then nodded. ‘It’s nice and crisp. Is there any more?’

‘They’re in the root cellar; I’ll show you. You better ask me till you’re used to the place; you have to make sure there’s no mould on them.’

Annika smiled, and the boy looked at her, noting the way her face changed; she had seemed rather forlorn when he first saw her. ‘I never thought I’d be eating the sheep’s mangel-wurzels now that I’m a member of the aristocracy.’

‘We all eat them down here – those of us with teeth,’ he said, glancing at old Wenzel, who was shooing the cows out into the field.

He had begun to lead the horse out of the paddock and Annika walked by his side. She had been wrong about the stallion’s colour; in the full light of morning he was not black but a rich chocolate colour, with a darker mane and tail. There was a white star no bigger than a coin between his eyes, which looked both gentle and intelligent.

As they passed the empty sheds and byres and stalls again she said, ‘Do cows and sheep and pigs have to go away to be cleaned too? Or reframed in Bad Haxenfeld?’

Zed turned his head and saw that behind her flippant words there was anxiety.

‘It used to be a big farm when the Master was alive. Everything was different then.’

‘I know I’m asking a lot of questions, but who was the Master?’