The Secret Forest

After that we drifted through a flea market that had sprung up near the cathedral, buying still more ham and wine besides. Our load grew heavier by the armful, and Herman bought a basket too, then plucked a square of cloth from a general-goods stall and tucked it in with the rest. By then I could no longer pretend I hadn’t the faintest inkling of what he was up to.

“Are we going on a picnic?”

Herman answered with nothing but a brief, assenting smile. Warm sunlight spilled across the bridge of my nose, and I lifted a hand to shade my eyes and check the weather. The day was so clear I half fancied I could smell the crispness in the sunlight itself.

Even so, on a weekend afternoon under a sky as lovely as this, any spot with a decent view was sure to be packed shoulder to shoulder already.

“The shores of Lake Adelin, or Viola Hill — they’re bound to be crowded already with people out on a picnic…”

Both were exactly the sort of place to spread a cloth and read in the warm sun at the height of early summer, and by that very token they had grown far too famous as beauty spots for anyone to hope for a moment’s peace there on a weekend. I doubted anyone could enjoy a picnic wedged in among tight-knit families and doting young couples. On top of which, here we were with our faces all bundled up beneath our hats, every bit the pair of shifty ruffians up to no good.

If we’re going on a picnic, I’d sooner enjoy it in a bit more comfort.

The prospect of spending my weekend hemmed in by such vast crowds held little appeal.

“Don’t you worry. Where we’re headed is the quietest place in all of Balter.”
“Then perhaps you mean the Goldbach riverside? That won’t do either — it’s quite a way out.”
“Sorry to disappoint. It’s not there either.”

Herman only gave an unconcerned shrug and started toward where the Ernst carriage stood. I walked along beside him in silence, but my curiosity wouldn’t be shaken off, and I kept badgering him.

“Then where are we going? It isn’t anywhere gloomy and dangerous, is it?”
“Now, now — it’s a secret, I told you.”
“Surely you can tell me by now. There’s no other reason to it — I really am just curious.”
“No. I’ll never tell.”
“Why not?”
“Because I want to surprise you, of course.”

What a maddening man he was, truly.

Who does he take himself for — Lohengrin?

Even Lohengrin, the knight and Elsa’s own betrothed, could surely not have guarded a secret more thoroughly than this. In my head I understood well enough why Herman wanted to surprise me, and yet the sight of him grinning away to himself left me strangely put out. The way he kept fobbing off every question with “it’s a secret” stung a little, and the swelling curiosity had me restless besides, so I pursed my lips into a pout.

About then I caught sight of the Ernst carriage some way off, drawn up before the opera house. Herman still gave no sign of meaning to reveal where we were bound, and in the end I had no choice but to climb aboard none the wiser.

The river curved in a wide U through the capital, taking a different name along each stretch: the East River, the South River, the West River. Lake Adelin’s shores and Viola Hill lay south of the South River, and the Goldbach riverside sat near the lower reaches of the West River; every beauty spot worth the name, in short, lay somewhere to the south. To the north spread a vast forest and the imperial palace, so most of the land around it was crown property, access restricted across the greater part of it and thus ill-suited to a picnic.

And yet the carriage held its course not south, but north.

“Surely you don’t mean to spend a weekend afternoon at the imperial palace?”

I shook my head firmly and told him the very idea was out of the question.

However deep his friendship with His Majesty the Emperor might run.

There could be no emperor alive who would gladly surrender a corner of his palace just because a cherished friend fancied reading somewhere quiet.

“You’ve the look of someone afraid I mean to go and stretch out right in the middle of the palace gardens.”

He had me there. The notion was absurd, and yet somehow, this being Herman Ernst, it slid into the realm of the possible.

“Tell me it isn’t so — plainly.”

When I asked, disbelief plain on my face, he narrowed his eyes to slits.

“Joking, or in earnest — I honestly can’t tell which.”

When I met that only with steady silence, Herman huffed out a dumbfounded laugh.

“So you are serious.”
“Of course I am.”
“As if I ever would. Stretching out in the palace gardens, honestly. That I’d refuse even if His Majesty himself commanded it.”

As if to make good on his words, the carriage turned the horses’ heads aside at the junction that led toward the palace. I watched the palace slip slowly out of view and let out a breath of relief. Even so, this whole surrounding district was crown land all the same.

“Is this really somewhere we can just wander into like this?”
“No, it isn’t. But for me it’s fine.”

Herman gazed out the window without a care in the world. And to cap it all, he left me to fret and stew while he hummed a little tune about what a fine day it was.

I truly cannot make out what goes on inside that head of his.

Before long the carriage drew to a stop at the mouth of the path into Rosenwald Forest. Armed guards stood at rigid attention, keeping close watch on it, and a brief exchange seemed to pass between them and the coachman.

“Are we going into Rosenwald Forest?”

The forest sprawled vast behind the imperial palace, a place that for generations none but the imperial family had been permitted to enter. The whole of it was held to be a kind of sacred boundary, which had made it famous besides as a symbol of the crown’s very authority. Now and then, and only when the imperial house held a hunting tournament, it was thrown open to a chosen few nobles, and even then within strictly drawn bounds. That the two of us, with no such purpose to our visit whatsoever, could pass into such a place so easily was something I could scarcely believe.

“That’s right. We’re going deep into Rosenwald Forest.”
“Deep into the forest?”

I had read of it once, in a book called The Rosenwald Ecological Survey. Because the public was barred from the forest, an ecosystem untouched by human hands was said to have taken shape within it, and the book told too of great ancient trees, rare plants, and creatures out of legend all making their home there. The deeper one ventured, it promised, the more wondrous the scenery grew, and that alone was enough to set a reader’s imagination ablaze.

And beyond even that — they said a lake lay hidden there, more beautiful than any to be found anywhere else on earth.

Before I knew it my heart was pounding, the strain of having crossed into forbidden ground and the thrill of the unknown braided together into one.

“Mm. Deep inside.”

Herman lifted one corner of his mouth in an unhurried smile, with the air of a man who knew this forest as well as the back of his own hand.

“You can look forward to it.”

About then the carriage, which had stood still, rolled into motion once more, its round wheels turning down a quaint old path and deeper into the forest. As though under a spell, I pushed the window open and stretched my hand out into the air. Whenever the wind blew, the leaves rustled into an unfamiliar melody, and the sunlight that slipped between my fingers was soft as spun gold.

I have lived my whole life in the imperial capital, and never once did I imagine a place like this could exist.

Every last thing before me was a sight strange to my eyes, and as though in a dream, I gave myself over to wherever the carriage might lead.

Now and again the sound of Herman’s laughter reached me. Whenever I glanced over he was sitting there composed as ever, yet the moment I turned back to the window a faint laugh would come drifting across again before I knew it. Unable to bear it any longer, I was on the very verge of saying something, of demanding what on earth had got into him.

With a jolt that broke the forest’s stillness, the carriage came to a halt.

“We’re here.”

Herman nodded toward the world outside, and borrowing his hand, I stepped down from the carriage.

“It can’t be.”

Before a lake so clear and so vast that it beggared belief, a wonder rose in me that all but stopped my breath. The water ran so clear that the very bed of the lake showed through, and across its surface the shadows of leaves and sky lay mirrored, sharp and vivid; when the wind blew, the lake’s face shimmered silver and rippled. The trees ringing it were every one immense, their branches drooping long over the water like a cradle fashioned by nature herself.

“What is that building?”

But what drew the eye above all else was the structure that rose in solemn majesty to face the lake. In its grandeur, as though the temple of some ancient nation had been carried here whole, there was even something otherworldly about it.

“The late Empress’s secret sanctuary.”

I wanted to ask what on earth he meant, but I hadn’t the composure to spare for even that. Like someone robbed of speech, I only walked helplessly onward, drawing step by step nearer to the building.

I reached one of the thick white marble columns and laid a hand against it. The faint coolness, the solid weight of it, was for all the world like touching a work of art with my own fingers.

“…It’s so very beautiful.”

I whispered it, my gaze climbing the endlessly soaring column toward the ceiling. Perhaps because I had come here straight from an opera peopled with the ancient gods, I felt as though I had stepped bodily into that very scene.

“The late Empress was a great lover of art and letters, you see. It seems she wished to raise a hall where the history and achievements of Balter might all be set down.”

Herman, who had come up behind me, offered the explanation.

“Though for all that, this style of architecture belongs to another country entirely — one with nothing whatever to do with us.”

He said it while patting the column lightly with the flat of his hand.

“But how in the world did we ever manage to get in here?”

He turned and let his gaze travel slowly across the broad lakeshore, and only after a long while did he speak.

“Some time ago I made a wager with His Majesty the Emperor, on horseback. The loser was to grant the winner a single wish.”
“And? Did you win?”

I stepped closer to Herman and asked. Gazing into my curiosity-filled eyes, he answered lightly.

“I don’t start wagers I’m likely to lose in the first place.”