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anything, other than wait here with the Prince and his retinue on this distant knoll, which only a scattering of enemy cannonfire has reached all morning. When his turn at last arrives and the orders are signed, sealed, and tucked into the leather pouch at his side, he is off, galloping his sleek black mount down the hillside, over the trampled yellow grass, past the blood-spattered tents where doctors are sawing limbs off the shrieking wounded, between the slow columns of sullen reserve troops brought forward to fill the gaps in the dishevelled lines. He rides as if this is the whole world, the roar of the wind, the lunging flanks of the horse beneath him, the intoxication of his body’s youth and animal vigour. He surprises himself with the thought that this feeling surging up in him is an absolute joy.
    I am happy
, he thinks, and laughs out loud.
    He remembers the letter that arrived in camp a month ago, informing him and his father of the death of the Countess, his mother, in childbirth. For the first time since that day the cold ashes in his heart have stirred to life.
    I
have a sister
, Ludwig reminds himself.
Someday, when she is old enough to understand, I will tell her about this moment
.
    He was sent to find his father, but it is his father who finds him. Led here by the captain who saw the boy fall, the Count at first does not recognize his son. Ludwig is stretched out on the grass, hat missing, his head propped against the wheel of asmouldering gun carriage. His hands are resting loosely, palms upward, in his lap. This is how beggars slump against walls. Ludwig’s head lolls to one side and his jaw hangs like an old man’s, as if in a single morning he has aged thirty years.
    The Count dismounts and kneels beside his son. Ludwig’s eyes are closed, his face chalk-white. He sighs like a gently roused sleeper about to awaken.
    The Count turns to the captain.
    What happened?
    The man sputters. He does not know. He saw the boy fall from his horse, he rushed over and carried him to the gun carriage. The Count searches his son’s uniform for traces of blood, gently opens the wings of his gold-embroidered coat. The white shirt beneath is spotless. At the Count’s touch, Ludwig opens his eyes.
    Let’s go home, Father
, he says in the tone of a bored guest at a card party.
    He draws in a long, drowsy breath, as though about to yawn. His head falls softly sideways against the axle of the carriage. The Count moves closer and looks into Ludwig’s eyes.
    Peace to his soul
, the captain says, doffing his hat.
    After a moment the Count draws his blood-crusted sabre and cuts the braided topknot, the Ostrov badge of warrior ancestry, from the head of his son. He rises shakily to his feet.
    What killed him?
he asks the captain, who lifts his blackened hands helplessly and lets them drop.
He just fell from his horse?
    Yes, Excellency. I saw him coming down the hill, then he slowed up and began searching this way and that, shading his eyes with his hand. Looking for you, I suppose. He was riding towards me when just like that he slid off the saddle and fell to the ground
.
    When?
    I had scarcely rushed to his side and carried him here when I saw you riding by, Excellency
.
    The Count tucks the topknot into his belt. He gazes over the trampled ground, as if he might find the past few moments lying among the other litter of war.
    Others are pausing now on their way back from the last expiring groans of the battle, to gawk, crane their necks, find out who has fallen here. There being a nobleman on hand, it must be somebody of importance. The Count glares around, his naked sabre held before him like an accusation, as if someone here knows the answer to this riddle and refuses to tell him. Young men do not just die.
    Two officers on horseback canter past, pausing in their conversation to take in the scene with impassive faces. A grenadier follows soon after, leading another whose eyes are hidden by a dirty bandage, his