LITMIR.BIZ

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like a witch, or not that kind of witch, anyway. Her clothes were neat and plain, but there was a sort of glamour about her. Her voice was smooth as cream as she held out a hand in the English way and said: ‘You must be Princess Anna. How do you do?’

      Anna winced as she shook hands. Miss Carter had begun all wrong: she ought to have addressed Anna as ‘Your Highness’ but, more importantly, she ought to have greeted Alex first. Anna might be the eldest, but royal etiquette dictated that Alex came first in everything. The Countess pursed her lips, already displeased, but of course Alex didn’t care a bit, he just smiled and shook Miss Carter’s hand too. The new governess smiled back at him, and for a brief, flashing moment, she seemed somehow familiar. Then the moment was gone and Miss Carter was a stranger again, smiling a rather too-wide, too-white smile. It was a Cheshire Cat grin, all sugar and charm, whilst her dark eyes flitted about the room as though she was looking for something.

      ‘Rather a peculiar choice, isn’t she?’ Anna overheard the Count say to the Countess later. They were in their private sitting room, but his voice rumbled out of the open window, on to the terrace where Anna could hear every word.

      ‘Hmmm,’ said the Countess. It was amazing how she could fill such a small sound with so much disapproval, Anna thought. ‘You know what Leopold is like. But she does at least come with solid academic qualifications.’ There was the rustling of paper – that must be the letter that Grandfather had sent about Miss Carter. ‘He says that she speaks German, French and Italian. And she knows all the best English schools. I suppose he thinks she will help to prepare Alexander.’

      The Count grunted in reluctant agreement, but her words made Anna feel cold inside. Alex was eleven now, and she knew that very soon he would be sent away to boarding school in England. Going away to school was what boys in their family always did: it was what their father had done, and Grandfather before him, and no doubt his father and grandfather before that. The Countess said that English schools were the best, and of course Alex must have the best of everything. For he was the Crown Prince of Arnovia, next in line to the throne after Grandfather, and that meant that one day he would be King.

      Anna, on the other hand, would not be going away to school. Not to England, nor to anywhere else for that matter. Although she was thirteen – two whole years older than Alex – in Arnovia, girls could not inherit the throne. It was always the eldest boy who was Crown Prince, and heir to the kingdom. Anna was a princess, but a princess’s education was not considered to be very important. When Alex went away to school, she would be left here. Left behind, she thought now, with nothing but more coaching from the Countess in deportment and etiquette, to prepare her for a future of attending balls and making polite conversation, which was all that anyone expected of a princess.

      That was what the Countess meant now, when she said: ‘Leopold says that the governess is musical, and can dance. That could be useful to Anna.’

      ‘But she’s so young!’ protested the Count. ‘She must be scarcely out of the schoolroom herself !’

      The pages rustled again, and then the Countess said: ‘Well perhaps that is no bad thing, Rudolf.’ Her voice was as precise as the tick of the ancient clock that had been passed down from generations of long-ago Wildersteins. ‘Considering everything, a young girl may be easier to manage . . .’ Then her voice dropped lower, and Anna could hear no more.

      She walked slowly back along the terrace, taking care that her feet did not make more than the quietest scrunching sound on the gravel. Anna knew that princesses were not supposed to listen in at windows, or to eavesdrop on private conversations, or to do what Alex affectionately called sticking their noses where they didn’t belong. If she were caught by the Countess, Anna knew she would be sentenced to even more time sitting at the hard back-board, embroidering the crest of the Royal House of Wilderstein on yet another handkerchief. There were few things Anna hated more than embroidery; and worse still, while she sewed, she’d have to listen to one of the Countess’s lectures about their family’s proud history. Though, of course, the Countess didn’t think the lecture was a punishment. In fact, she probably thought she was giving Anna a delightful treat.

      ‘The Royal House of Wilderstein has a most distinguished heritage,’ she would begin grandly. Her jewellery would tinkle as she moved to and fro in a waft of lavender water and scented face-powder, the train of her brocade gown trailing across the floor. ‘Our family dates back to 1314, with the heroic King Otto the Wise of Arnovia . . .’ Anna had heard the lectures so many times she thought she could probably quote them in her sleep.

      Family history and tradition were impossible to escape here. In the ballroom, generations of her own ancestors seemed to watch her from the oil paintings that hung on the walls. There was King Otto the Wise himself, shown in a dramatic battle scene, brandishing his sword aloft. There was the Count, in full military dress, wearing a helmet with spikes on it and holding a sabre. There was the Countess as a young woman, in a vast, fearsomely ruffled gown.

      Anna’s own face was amongst them too. On Alex’s last birthday, Grandfather had sent a photographer to the castle to take portraits of each of them, which now hung side by side in small oval frames. But they were not very good pictures; somehow the photographer had managed to make them both look even smaller and paler than they actually were. Alex did not look at all like a future King: instead he was mouse-like, blinking short-sighted dark eyes, a rogue tuft of hair sticking up at the back of his head. As for herself, while princesses in fairy tales were usually radiantly beautiful, she was anything but. Instead she looked uncomfortable in the formal black velvet frock with the stiff collar that the Countess liked, her hair hanging straight and smooth over her shoulders, very dark against the white of her cheeks.

      Their photographs hung beside the vast framed portrait of their mother and father, which was surrounded by sombre black curtains. Until Anna was four, the children had lived with their parents and Grandfather in the Royal Palace in Elffburg – but then their parents had died.

      Assassination was the proper word for what had happened to them. It hissed like a snake, tracing along her spine.

      An assassination, Grandfather said, was when someone – often a royal someone – was murdered in a sudden or secret way, for political reasons. In this case, some people who opposed the monarchy had thrown a bomb at their parents’ carriage when they had been travelling home from the opera. They had both been killed at once.

      The assassination had caused an uproar, with riots on the city streets. The children had been whisked away to safety in the mountains, under the careful supervision of the King’s cousin, the Count von Wilderstein and his wife, the Countess. Even when the danger had passed, they had remained at Wilderstein Castle. The air was supposed to be healthier for Alex, who had asthma and suffered from fits of wheezing. ‘Up here, I know you are safe,’ said Grandfather.

      His eyes were heavy when he talked about their parents, his voice husky and sad. People whispered about what had happened in hushed voices, saying it was a terrible tragedy. But the truth was that Anna and Alex didn’t really miss their mother and father because they couldn’t really remember them. Anna sometimes stood and looked at their portrait, but even when she searched her memory, willing herself to conjure them to life in her mind, she couldn’t. They were strangers: just paint and canvas. No more than an old portrait in a tarnished gold frame.

      Grandfather, on the other hand, was very real indeed. He spent most of his time in Elffburg, busy with his royal duties, but once or twice a year, he’d arrange for them to visit him. These trips seemed to Anna to belong to a different world, in which she wore a white dress with a green sash and Alex a smart uniform. Grandfather would take them out on official visits all around the city: they’d go to the huge old cathedral dedicated to St Anna, the patron saint of Arnovia for whom Anna herself was named. They’d take a boat trip along the River Elff, or drive in the royal carriage down the narrow streets of colourful houses, where the warm smell of chocolate would drift from the open door of a little konditorei selling delicious cakes. In Elffburg the sky always seemed to be blue, and wherever they went, people smiled and waved the green-and-white Arnovian flag; officials bowed low; the head konditor rushed out to present them with the speciality

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