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arms around her small sister and pulled her close.
    “Oh, Katalin, I shall miss you so!” she sighed. “You always make even the most impossible things seem as if one can achieve them.”
    “One can! This is the whole point!” Katalin said. “Do you remember how Papa would not let us go to the horse show? Then suddenly he changed his mind. Well, I did that!”
    “What do you mean?” Zosina asked.
    “I willed and willed and willed him when I knew he was asleep at night or when I knew he was alone downstairs without anybody to disturb him and quite suddenly he said, ‘why should you not go? It will do you good to see some decent horseflesh!’ So we went!”
    Zosina laughed.
    “Oh, Katalin, you make everything seem so easy! What shall I will for myself?”
    “A husband who loves you!” Katalin replied without a pause.
    Zosina laughed again.
    It was in fact Katalin who made everything seem an adventure, even the moment when the Royal train steamed out of the station leaving three rather forlorn little faces waving goodbye from the platform.
    “Goodbye, dearest Grandmama!” they had all said to the Queen Mother, then hugged Zosina.
    “You will have a lovely time,” Theone prophesied.
    “I wish I was you,” Helsa chipped in enviously.
    But Katalin with her arms round Zosina’s neck had whispered,
    “Will – and it will all come right. Will all the time you are there and I shall be willing too.”
    “I will do that,” Zosina promised. “I do wish you were coming with me.”
    “I will send my thoughts to you every night,” Katalin promised. “They will wing their way over the mountains and you will find them sitting beside you on your pillow.”
    “I shall be looking for them. So don’t forget.”
    “I will not,” Katalin asserted.
    She waved from the window not only to her sisters but to the crowds of officials and their wives who were there to bid the Queen Mother farewell on what they all knew was a very important journey.
    As the Royal train was spectacular and, since the Archduke had been confined to the Palace, very rarely used, crowds outside the station had come to watch it pass.
    As she thought the people would be pleased, Zosina stood at the window waving until her grandmother told her to sit beside her so that they could talk.
    “I have hardly had a chance to see you, dearest child,” she began, “and I must say you look very lovely in that pretty gown. I am so glad you chose pink to arrive in. It’s always, I think, such a happy colour.”
    “You look lovely in your favourite blue, Grandmama,” Zosina answered.
    The Queen Mother looked pleased.
    She was still beautiful, although the once glorious red of her hair was now distinctly grey and her face, which had made a whole generation of artists want to paint her, was lined with age.
    But her features and bone structure were still fine and she had a grace that was ageless and a smile that Zosina thought was irresistible.
    “Now dearest,” her grandmother was saying, “I expect your father has told you how important this visit is to our country and to Dórsia.”
    “Yes, he has told me that, Grandmama,” Zosina answered.
    There was something in her tone of voice that made her grandmother look at her sharply.
    “I have a feeling, dear child, you are not as happy about the arrangements as you should be.”
    “I am trying to be happy about them, Grandmama, but I should like to have some say in my marriage, although I daresay it’s very stupid of me even to think such a thing.”
    “It’s not stupid,” the Queen Mother said, “it is very natural and I do understand that you are feeling anxious and perhaps a little afraid.”
    “I knew you would understand, Grandmama.”
    “I often think it’s a very barbaric custom that two people, simply because it’s politically expedient, should be married off without their being allowed to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to such an arrangement.”
    Zosina looked at her grandmother. Then she