We tuck our heads into our collars and hold down our hats with our hands. Every so often I make a screech of delight and point to some wave or another, toppling over its mates, just exactly like one of those idiots who gets his kicks from Nature’s wrath, the ones who line up on the beaches to witness a hurricane. We’ve only gone about a quarter mile when a pair of figures resolves from the shadows. My heart stops. Then I see the gleam of rifles, the curve of caps.

“Patrol,” I mutter.

“What’s that?” she says, because the wind is so noisy, and then she sees them too. She turns to the railing and squeals. I join her and pretend to laugh. The Swiss guards approach us.

“Damen! You shouldn’t be out, it’s too dangerous.”

“Oh, but we love storms. Don’t we, Lenore?”

“Ja,” I say, which is about all the German I can safely utter without raising suspicion.

“But she’s expecting! You must go home.”

“Now, my dear fellows. This is nonsense. We’ll be careful, of course.”

“Frau, you’re very foolish.”

“Please.”

The two guards look at each other and shrug. “It’s on your own head, then,” says the one on the right, or something like that, and they continue past us, shaking their heads. I release my breath. When I glance down, I see my hand is laid over my belly like a bandage, and I wonder what the devil good that’s going to do, should a Swiss guard decide I’m a suspicious character, should some rifle discharge some bullet on this wind-whipped esplanade, where only the foolhardy and the desperate tread.

We linger another moment, gazing at the water as if in rapture. The sky behind the mountains is now bright and angry, a bundle of nerves, shedding light on the lake which is now more akin to an ocean. The waves hurtle along the surface and fling themselves on the shore. Our coats are wet with spray, our hats dripping. “It’s impossible,” Margaret gasps.