The Star of Kazan

12 The House at Spittal

After breakfast, Annika was shown round the house by her mother.

‘You come too, Hermann,’ she said to her son. ‘Annika may be interested in your plans.’ She turned to her daughter. ‘When he is of age, Hermann will of course be the master here. I am just looking after Spittal for him until then.’

The house, with its massive stone walls and windows protected by iron grilles, was ancient. It had survived the Thirty Years War in which Protestants and Catholics had slaughtered each other in various gruesome ways. Even now it seemed to be a house meant for sieges and wars, with its surrounding moats, and the long lake that stretched away to the front and made it impossible to approach it from the north.

They went through the downstairs rooms first. The drawing room, which, like the dining room, faced over the water, was grandly furnished with rich, dark hangings, and gilt-legged tables and claw-footed chairs. The vast floor was bare, which made their footsteps sound very loud, and on the walls were still more portraits of von Tannenberg ancestors, and glass cases housing — not stuffed fish as in the hall but stuffed waterbirds: ducks, geese, teal and pochard all crouching among realistic-looking reeds.

‘My father shot those before he went away,’ said Hermann. ‘He’s the best shot in Germany.’

But here too there were unexpected spaces on the walls. Which ancestors had been removed, wondered Annika, and why? Wicked great-aunts? Drunken uncles banished to the cellar? They would be my relatives too, she thought. But the truth was simpler: the pictures and tapestries, explained Frau Edeltraut, had been taken to Bad Haxenfeld to be cleaned.

‘They’re very valuable,’ she said, ‘and have to be looked after carefully.’

In the library, which looked out over the moat to the east, there were more bare patches, and a lot of the bookshelves were empty because the books, as Frau Edeltraut explained, had been taken away to be rebound. ‘The leather bindings can be affected by the damp, and some of the books are priceless,’ Annika was told.

Hermann didn’t seem interested in the fate of the books, but he showed Annika a table on which was painted a large shield in crimson and black with two griffins rampant and a mailed fist. The motto, in gold round the edge of the shield, said: ‘Stand Aside, Ye Vermin Who Oppose Us!’

‘That’s the family crest,’ said Hermann. ‘We’ve had it since the time of the Emperor Charlemagne.’

Annika was impressed. The room was icy like the drawing room, but the crest was splendid and for a moment she wished that Loremarie was standing by her side.

The other downstairs rooms were shuttered, and Spittal, unlike the professors’ house in Vienna, did not have electric light.

‘We won’t fetch lamps now,’ said Frau Edeltraut, and she explained that the rooms they entered were the billiard room and the music room, but that the piano had been taken away to be retuned.

‘You may go into any of these rooms if you wish,’ said Frau Edeltraut, and Annika thanked her mother though she was not sure how much she wished to enter these cold and echoing places. ‘But there are other places which you must be careful to avoid. That door there leads down to the cellar and you must on no account go there. It is flooded at the moment and if you slipped on the steps you could be drowned. And Hermann doesn’t like anyone to go into his room — he has everything carefully arranged, haven’t you, dear?’

Hermann nodded. ‘I’ve got three hundred lead soldiers lined up in battle formation. They’re valuable and I count them every day.’

‘Hermann is going into the army. He’s waiting for a place at cadet college now, St Xavier’s. He’ll be off as soon as—’ She broke off.

They were making their way up the stone stairs that led to the first floor. Ahead of them, her back bent and breathing heavily, was old Bertha, holding both handles of a basket piled high with logs which she was carrying up to her mistress’s bedroom.

In a moment Annika had bounded up the next three steps and taken one of the handles. ‘Let me help,’ she said. ‘It’s awfully heavy.’

As she began to lift the basket, her mother’s voice came from behind her.

‘Annika, what on earth are you doing? Put it down at once. Bertha doesn’t want to be helped.’

‘No… no…’ muttered the old woman. ‘I can manage.’

Bewildered but obedient, Annika let go of the handle and the old woman stumbled on.

‘Perhaps now is the time, dear, to make something clear to you,’ said Frau Edeltraut, when they reached the landing. ‘I know you have been brought up to make yourself useful, but now you must promise me not to interfere with the servants in any way. For example, I don’t ever want to see you go into the kitchen or the scullery or any of the rooms where the work of the house is being done. It’s particularly important because of your background.’ She put an arm round Annika’s shoulder. ‘You see, I want my daughter to take her rightful place in society, to be part of our family. If anyone found you with the servants they would think… well, that you were nothing better than a servant girl yourself. And that would break my heart,’ she said, pulling Annika closer and dropping a kiss on her head. ‘You do understand, don’t you?’

Annika nodded, safe in her mother’s embrace. ‘Only… Jesus did help people—’ she began, but then she realized that she was being foolish. Jesus had not been an aristocrat, he had been a carpenter.

They went on to look at the other bedrooms, the old nursery, the guest rooms… Everything was very large and very grand — and everywhere there were spaces on the walls where pictures or tapestries or statues were being reframed or cleaned or polished by experts in Bad Haxenfeld.

‘This is my boudoir. I work here and for that I need to be alone. But of course if you want me you only have to knock and I shall come out at once. And now, dear, I will let Hermann show you the grounds — and tell you where it is safe to go. I have some tiresome papers to see to. Don’t forget to be ready at half-past twelve to go to lunch with your new aunt and your cousin.’

Hermann led her out into the cobbled courtyard. The cobbles were covered in a layer of mud. There was a large stable, but some of the doors hung off their hinges, and the loose boxes were empty. Most of the outhouses were deserted; wisps of straw blew about. They passed an old cider press, a rusty ploughshare on its side. A flock of starlings flew out suddenly from under the sagging roof of the old brewery.

‘I’m going to rebuild the stables and keep my carriage horses up here,’ said Hermann, ‘as soon as I’m of age. And build some proper kennels for the hunting dogs — Uncle Oswald keeps them at his place, but they’re ours really — and a decent gunroom that can be locked properly. You can’t trust people nowadays.’

‘Are there any animals here now?’ asked Annika.

Hermann shook his head. ‘They’re down at the farm, across those fields.’ He led her round to the front of the house, to a terrace of paving stones which abutted the lake. On each side were drainage ditches, dark with waterweed and frogspawn.

‘This is Spittal Lake. It’s fifteen kilometres long and it all belongs to us.’

The lake on this cloudy morning was uniformly grey with only a few sudden bubbles of marsh gas breaking the surface. There were thick reeds growing right round the edges, and the ground surrounding the water was a muddy swamp. Wooden duckboards led to a boathouse on the eastern shore, and another walkway connected with a path over the fields which led to a huddle of farm buildings. The wind rustled in the reeds, a flock of geese flew over, honking mournfully, bitterns boomed, and in the ditch dark shapes darted through the water.

‘Do you swim here in the summer? In the lake?’

Hermann shook his head. ‘It’s too muddy — you have to wade for ages to get into clear water.’

It was a mournful, lonely scene, yet Annika was happier here than she had been in the house. In spite of the wind it felt less dank and cold than in the unheated rooms, and there were living things. She looked curiously at the frogspawn; she had never seen so much. ‘You must get an awful lot of frogs.’

‘The cats mostly kill them,’ said Hermann, ‘but there always seem to be more. I’m going to change everything as soon as—’ He broke off. ‘I’m going to clean the moat and dredge the lake and fill it with trout and freshwater salmon — they give you good sport. And I’ll invite all the important people to come and shoot; there used to be famous wildfowl shoots here before—’

This sentence too he left unfinished. ‘Could we go and look at the farm?’ asked Annika.

Hermann sighed. ‘It’s time for my bayonet practice,’ he said. ‘I always do it at eleven.’

Annika stared at him. Surely he was joking?

‘I have a straw dummy on a stand in my room. It’s important to stick to the routine.’

‘Would it be all right if I went alone, then? I’ll be very careful and not disturb anyone.’

‘There isn’t anyone to disturb down there. They’re just farmworkers. Tell Zed I’ll want my horse saddled for three o’clock tomorrow. He’s to bring him into the courtyard, to the mounting block, not hang about in the lane.’

‘Who’s Zed?’ Annika asked.

‘He’s the stable boy. He’s called Zedekiah because his mother was a gypsy and gypsies are all mad. Be careful of him; he steals.’ Hermann was making his way back to the house, but at the door he turned. ‘He stole my dog,’ he said.

It was a relief to be alone. There was a high light-grey sky over the sombre lake, and she could see the yellow heads of coltsfoot just appearing on the banks. Spring was coming, even to Norrland.

All the same she was hungry. In Vienna no one had bayonet practice at eleven. What they had at eleven was a drink of milk and whatever it was that Ellie had been baking, but obviously the aristocracy did not go in for feeble things like midday snacks, and resolutely she started off down the path towards the farm.

The low buildings were made of lath and plaster and looked homelier than the main house. Being sunk in the swampy earth seemed to suit them better. As she came closer she heard the sound of lowing cattle, and stopped at the door of a shed to find three black-and-white cows tethered in their stalls, and an old man carrying a milking stool. It was the man who had driven them from the train the night before, and when she had said good morning, she asked him if his name was Zed.

He shook his head. ‘I’m Wenzel. Zed’s in the paddock. Go through the farm and you’ll see him.’

Annika thanked him and watched for a moment before she went on.

After the cow byre came the hen-house; the chickens were scratching about outside in the mud and a handful of ducks were cleaning their feathers in a puddle in the rutted lane.

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?’

‘The Freiherr von Tannenberg. Your mother’s father. Your grandfather, I suppose.’

The man who had been so strict and fierce that her mother had not dared to bring her baby home!

‘We had some marvellous riding horses then. Rocco is the only one left.’

‘Is that what he’s called? Rocco?’

‘Yes.’ They had stopped in front of a stable with an open door. ‘I’m going to groom him now,’ he said.

‘Can I help? Have you got more than one brush?’

Zed looked at her curiously. ‘If you like.’

He handed her a brush, and showed her how to use it, moving away from the horse’s head in slow, steady strokes. Then he took down a wisp of plaited straw and began to rub Rocco’s flank. After a while he said, ‘You’ve been used to work, I see.’

Annika stopped, her brush in mid-air. ‘Oh no, don’t say that. I’m not supposed to help. I tried to help Bertha carry a basket of logs and it’s the wrong thing to do because my mother doesn’t want people to know I was brought up as a servant.’

She looked so upset that Zed said, ‘Well, I’m a servant too. It seems to me that servants are the only people who can actually do anything. It’s who you choose to serve that matters.’

‘Yes, I know… only I have to learn to be a von Tannenberg.’ But she had taken up the brush again. ‘It’s going to be difficult — I’m so used to working. I’ll have to be careful.’

‘No one will see you down here.’

‘I know. But I’ve only just found my mother. I don’t want to disobey her even in secret.’

They went on grooming in silence for a while. Then she said, ‘When I saw you riding this morning it reminded me of seeing the Lipizzaners in Vienna. I know they were white and they were dancing… but they seemed happy like your… like Rocco. Sort of light and floating…’

Zed had wheeled round to face her. ‘You’ve seen the Lipizzaners? The ones in the Spanish Riding School?’

‘Yes. I went for my last Found Day… I mean I went with the people I lived with. I don’t know anything about horses, but there are things you can see… like the way they do everything so willingly when they must be strong enough to break away.’

‘Were they using Maestoso Fantasia? Is he still the lead stallion?’

‘Yes. He’s old, but the Viennese love him.’

‘Lipizzaners don’t get old for years. What about Pluto Nobilia? He had a tie-back operation last year.’

Annika nodded. ‘They used him for the “airs above the ground”. When he did his caprioles everyone cheered.’

But some of Zed’s eager questions were difficult to answer. Had the riders used stirrups for the quadrille? Did they use the long rein or the short rein for the piaffe at the pillars?

As she answered him she was frowning, trying to remember everything that had happened on the day of her treat. Then suddenly the remembering went wrong. She forgot the horses and felt Ellie’s warm bulk beside her, and remembered the way she had stood up at the end and said, ‘It makes you proud to be Austrian.’ She remembered Pauline, hanging over the balustrade… and afterwards the meal at Sacher’s, where the professors had told her that she was to call them uncle. And her eyes filled with tears, which she tried in vain to hold back.

‘It’s the wind,’ she said angrily, and Zed agreed that it was the wind.

‘There’s always a wind here,’ he said politely. ‘Even in the stable.’

She wiped away her tears and for a while they went on working in silence while Rocco blew contentedly through his nostrils. Then Zed put down his brush and said, ‘Come on. I’ll show you where I live.’

Where he lived, of course, was in the house with the storks on the roof. The birds were still on their nest, managing to looking both absurd and regal.

‘You’re so lucky to have storks! Why aren’t there any at the big house?’

‘Storks go where they want,’ said Zed.

He opened the door and she stepped into a tiny, dark room with a scrubbed, flagged floor, plants on the window sill — and a big tiled stove, which was alight and gave off a marvellous warmth. Round the stove was a wooden bench on which lay a neatly folded blanket.

‘Bertha sleeps there,’ he said. ‘It’s her house. I sleep out at the back on a truckle bed.’

Annika was looking round her with pleasure. The house she had thought of as a hovel was cosy and in a way familiar. Ellie too had a pot of chives on the window sill and a picture of the emperor on the wall — only this was the Emperor Wilhelm, whose expression was much fiercer than that of the Austrian ruler.

‘Is Bertha your grandmother then?’

Zed shook his head. ‘She’s no relation. She was the Master’s nurse; she came when he was a baby. The Master asked me to… look out for her — that’s why I’m still here.’

‘She seems very old to do the work she does up at the house. I suppose she doesn’t want to retire?’

‘She wants to all right. Sometimes when she comes back she can hardly walk, her joints are so stiff. But no one else will work up there for nothing.’ He went over to the table and lifted the muslin cover from a blue jug. ‘Here, drink this. We don’t have much, but there’s always milk.’

‘Thank you.’

As she drained her glass and stood up to go, she heard the sound of barking coming from an outhouse at the back.

‘That’s Hector. He’s woken up.’

‘Could I see him?’

‘No, not now. You need… a lot of time for that, and I’ve got to go and feed the pigs. Anyway, you’d better get back; they’ll be wondering where you are.’

He had suddenly withdrawn and she made her way to the door, trying not to feel snubbed.

‘Thank you,’ she said, turning to smile at him.

‘For what?’

‘The mangel-wurzel, the milk… letting me help with Rocco.’ Outside the dog stopped barking and began to whine. ‘I’ve always wanted a dog,’ she said wistfully.

‘You wouldn’t want this one,’ said Zed.