With the baron’s eye for beauty came a keen sense of efficiency. He always kept up on the latest technological developments, and the yearly advent of new and more advanced machinery had steadily reduced the number of men and horses required since the previous century, so well over half the east wing now sat vacant. Many rooms were empty, others had been converted to storage uses, and two or three of those nearest the joining of the two wings were kept maintained for guest use, although the main west wing also boasted at least a dozen guest rooms of its own. All of the workers lived on either the ground or the first floor. The entire second floor of the east wing was silent as a tomb.

Food preparation and serving facilities were located on the ground floor, the kitchen at the junction of the two wings, family dining room off it to the west, servants’ and laborers’ dining room off it to the east. A large vegetable garden sat partway down the slope to the north, spreading around the northeast corner itself.

Around the uppermost circumference of the house ran a parapet wall with battlement about a meter high, leading on the far northeast corner to a flat rooftop balcony. Whether this clever bit of architectural design had been intended to watch for approaching enemies, or so that the yeoman could keep a visual eye on his workers and foremen in the expansive fields stretching out below, might have been a question worthy of inquiry had not any hope of an answer been long since lost in the mists of antiquity.

In either case, on a clear day one could see for many kilometers from this rooftop vantage point toward Poznan to the southeast, toward Berlin to the southwest, and even, on the clearest of days, could one imagine faint glimpses of the Baltic fifteen or twenty kilometers due north.

The rooftop had always been one of the baron’s favorite places on the whole estate. Surveying the countryside from this high perch had always given Baron von Dortmann much pleasure. But these days it was with a skeptical eye that he gazed out, watching Berlin with the inner eyes of his thoughts, wondering what would come next. He also took in the countryside in the direction of Poland and Prussia, where they stretched out along the eastern horizon, well aware that Lebenshaus sat squarely in the middle of a growing conflict between the new forces ruling Germany and the ancient kingdom of Bismarck. Standing here these days, therefore, brought more sighs than smiles, and a strange feeling of unrest in his heart.

From the balcony the entire courtyard was visible directly below, and beyond that, the baron’s other favorite refuge, the place that seemed connected to his very soul: the garden.

6 Silent Witness

6

Silent Witness

The infiltration of snooping eyes throughout every corner of this land was still two or three years in the future.