The Emperor's Dessert

Compared with the famous tourist city of Hallstatt, St. Wolfgang was hardly well known. It lacked Hallstatt's noise and crowds, but it was where Princess Cissy and Franz had met.

Bad Ischl station was still some distance from Wolfgang. By that stream was the place where Cissy had run away from home to fish.

Emperor Franz loved the chestnut cake made by a shop called Zuaner in Bad Ischl. Legend had it that it tasted even better than the cakes served at Vienna's Café Central. For a bite of that cake, he had made a special trip to Wolfgang.

As the train pulled into the station, a light rain began to fall by the lake. The swans that had frolicked in the lake during the day had all gone back, yet a young conductor braved the rain to buy Pomona the famous cake.

Zuaner meant magic in German. Many wizards lived in the mountains and forests near Bad Ischl. This cake shop had attracted not only the Emperor; even wizards who could use magic had been won over by its deliciousness.

In truth, the conductor had not needed to do that, but Severus had helped them a great deal. Before leaving, the supervisor had instructed them to take good care of him. Thus, someone had volunteered to handle this slightly troublesome but not particularly difficult favor.

And that was how so-called privilege came into being.

Raindrops struck the speeding train, leaving streaks across the window glass. Pomona drank Yingde black tea of the same brand as the Queen of England, ate freshly baked chestnut cake, and read Rousseau's Discourse on the Origin of Inequality.

She had read the book long ago, but with nothing else to do now, she treated reading as entertainment:

Among those pursuing personal comfort and the