The baron laughed. “Give us a chance, my boy! We’ve only completed one small rectangle around the south side.”

“May I lead the way to the ballroom, Papa?” said Sabina.

“Lead on!”

They turned right, and Sabina led past the several guest rooms on their left along two turns in the hallway. She stopped at an intersection where the corridor split off to the right.

“This stairway here,” she said, indicating the narrow staircase at the joining of the two corridors, “goes both up and down, and if you follow this hallway to the right, it leads back to where we were a minute ago at my room and the back door of the library. But I want to show you the ballroom. It’s straight ahead.”

So saying, she continued on, around a couple more turns and branches of the corridor, arriving at length at two massive and ornate wood-paneled doors.

“Here we are—Papa, do you have the key?”

The baron stepped forward and pulled from his pocket a large ring with an assortment of old and interestingly shaped keys. One of these he put to the lock, and the next moment the doors swung wide.

The room they entered was nearly square, easily the largest single room in the entire house, some thirty meters from end to end in both directions. The floor was of polished oak perfect for dancing. On the walls hung an assortment of large portraits of family members as well as Prussian and Pomeranian royalty and several large tapestries, and one wall was almost completely taken up with a painted mural of obvious historical scenes. The huge place was nearly empty, though chairs were scattered about the edges.

“Do you ever use it?” asked Matthew, his voice echoing off the walls and ceiling. “I mean for balls and dances and that kind of thing?”

“Occasionally, though not often. My grandfather was more given to that sort of thing. Apparently all through the nineteenth century most of Europe’s royalty visited this room at one time or another. They say the czar has been here, several kings of England, Bismarck, and of course Kaiser Wilhelm was a frequent guest. He and my great-grandfather were close friends. I’ve even heard that King Ludwig of Bavaria visited here—the entire grounds, I mean, not only the ballroom—when he was designing his three castles in the south.”

“And the rest of the time it just sits vacant?” asked Thaddeus.

“I’m afraid so, though we have used it from time to time to put on concerts as well, and every fall, after the harvest, we put on a grand celebration for all our workers and staff, and we do that here. But you’re right, most of the year it remains just as you see it now—empty and silent.”

He led on through the center of the floor toward a single door on the opposite wall.