Before leaving on the tour to the Western Forest region, I had the chance to talk to the ambassador, who was a member of the royal family named Robert Septimus __________. I thought I would include this discussion as it helps to explain the way that the Bravian royal family operates, and how it is that a minor branch of the Bravian royal family was able to find itself a decent position within the royal establishment.

“How did you get the assignment to be the ambassador to the Western forest region?”

“That’s a bit of a long story.”

“If you’ve got time, I’ve got time, as a fellow ambassador and all.”

“Well, it starts with my father, who was a descendent of the seventh son of the second Exilarch. I don’t know how much you know about Bravian history, but the first Exilarch had children late and only ended up having one son, but his son ended up having seven sons, and as time went on, it was obvious that the line of succession would pass our line by. By the time my father had my older brother and I, there was a growing movement to remove royal privileges from those parts of the royal family like mine because of the fear that we would simply be a privileged and lazy elite that would get costly benefits but not provide any useful service to the Bravian people. My father, therefore, raised my brother and I to find an honorable place that we could obtain to show ourselves as being devoted servants of the people of Bravia and thus there was no need to take the privileges of being a recognized part of the royal family away from us, even if there was hardly any chance that we would ever be even close to succeeding to the throne.” He stopped to breathe, and then continued.

“What this meant was that my family was looking for opportunities to serve, niches that were not being met within the royal establishment. We saw that there was a distinct shortage of people among the royal family as well as among the royal courtiers that had a knowledge of the language of the foresters or an interest in their ways. We knew that the crown prince was always tasked with learning all of the languages of the Bravian people, but no one had followed his lead. So we decided to do so, and my brother learned how to speak and write in the Forester language and also managed to make friends among those Forester people that we were able to meet. After a few years, we were both able to participate in diplomatic efforts, and it was around that time that we found out that there were both an Eastern and a Western forest region with related peoples. This happened very recently, and it is the reason why I am traveling to the Western Forest region, to help bring the two people into contact with each other and also to ensure that we are able to have the same relationship with both of these related peoples.”

“Did your family get any sort of permanent position out of it?”

“As it happens, my brother has been named as hereditary governor general of the new Over-The-Eastern-River Province, and that means that the Septimus line will have a permanent royal position of importance through his direct line at least. My parents were overjoyed when they heard the news, because as long as I will be able to serve as an ambassador to the forest people and my brother and his future kids will be able to rule over a province, our service to the people of Bravia and its interests will be well-known enough so that no one will think of removing royal privileges from those lines of the family that are engaged in useful public service at least. Perhaps one of the other lines of the royal family will learn a language and seek a specific position of service themselves, there’s always that possibility.”

“What are the ways of the Forester people that are different from your own?”

“Well, it’s really hard to get to know the Forester people. Even more so than the Bravians, they really do like to keep to themselves. We definitely have that tendency as well, as you have noticed, especially among the High Bravians, and it was our lack of interest in interfering with the forest in the first place that allowed us to make peaceful terms with the foresters to begin with. The other thing that really drew us together was that we both have a very straightforward view of the Bible and its application to life, and so there was a real agreement as to the practical outgrowth of biblical law on society. That meant that they were able to accept our ways and we were able to let them have full autonomy themselves without any of the sort of disagreements that would have made our relationship more difficult. That said, they really do have very separate ways of life from anyone else I have ever seen, read of, or heard of. Their people live in what amount to tree cities, connected together with zip lines and rope bridges spanning across many square miles of forest. They aren’t much for growing crops at all, but they are very intensive harvesters of the areas where they live, especially when it comes to the fruits and nuts and clean animals that live in the forest. The way that they prefer their areas to remain a dense, nearly impenetrable forests can be a bit eerie, I must admit. I’m not sure where they descend from, but they are an indigenous tribe to this particular continent that speaks a language that is totally unlike any other that is spoken among the peoples around here. Before we had contact with them they didn’t have an alphabet at all, but we were able to craft both an alphabet based on our own letters with modifications that allowed for the sounds of their tongue as well as the encouragement of their own syllabary that often appear side by side in diglots in works published where our two areas meet. It is really rare to see a civilized people whose economy is built on intensive hunting and gathering rather than agriculture, but I cannot see how they could have adopted farming without massive social change and I think it’s for the best that we have guaranteed their ability to live peacefully and under their own self-government in the forests that they know and love best.”

“Do you know anything about their government?”

“A lot of people are pretty curious about their form of government, and I must admit that they are pretty quiet about the operations of their people. I do know that like our own people, there is a great deal of consultation and consensus-building between ordinary people and the leadership of the Forester people. I also know that they don’t have a very strong hereditary basis for tribes. They seem to operate by a system where there are both peace and war leaders who run parallel establishments. Our dealings are mainly with the peace ruler rather than the war one, though the war leader also manages the hunting while the peace ruler deals with gathering, so there is a real division of labor and effort between them, and the people keep up their survival skills even during long periods of peace. It seems, at least as best as we have been able to determine, that people learn what skills they have and practice them, and their honing of skills leads them to serve in various roles over the course of their lives in either or both the peace and war establishment where as older people who have acquired decades of wisdom through experience and service they can serve in various positions within the tribal government. I am not sure if we understand their society perfectly, but it works well for them and we have no interest in changing what has obviously allowed them to thrive for hundreds of years, at least.”

“Do these people have any interest in spreading beyond their forest?”

“That is something that we talk about with them from time to time. Sometimes in our travels, we will find a place with a large forest of a similar kind to that which exists in the Western Forest region (or the Eastern Forest region, which I know much less about), and we have asked the Forester people if they are willing to send out groups of people to settle these forests and set up new areas for their tribe to thrive. Discussions are still going on about who would be chosen for this and how many people they would send out at each time.”

“Are there any difficulties with it?”

“The main difficulty seems to be ceremonial in nature. When a member of the Forester people leaves the forest, they view themselves as ceremonially unclean, and there are certain rituals which much be undertaken for a person who has become ceremonially unclean to become clean once again. We know that, at least for now, transportation between the forest regions and other areas requires them to leave their forest and touch foot on unconsecrated ground. What we are hoping to do in order to deal with this is establish an airship service between the forest regions that serve as our current northern border and the forest regions that the Forester people would wish to settle. If they are able to travel on airships above the ground, in wooden vessels that they consider to be consecrated vehicles, then they would be able to dock in the forests where they are to settle, and can work on building up new towns without having to take the time to make themselves ceremonially clean again. If this can be proven to be a feasible means of transportation, we will adopt it for new areas and encourage the spread of the Forester people to allow their people to expand from its current range.”

“Do you consider their expansion to be important?”

“Absolutely so. On one level, to remain stagnant in a world that is changing and around others who are constantly seeking to grow and develop is to go backwards. This cannot be afforded when one wishes to endure in a dangerous world like our own. On a more practical level, keeping the complex balance of our nation means that we want all of the peoples to expand so that wherever Bravia exists there is a little bit of all of the different parts of Bravia that have their own place as miniature Bravian commonwealths, with some High Bravians, some Middle Bravians, some Low-Middle Bravians, some Low Bravians, and having some Foresters in these areas would improve that balance and allow for the combination of approaches and strengths to make each Bravian commonwealth as powerful as possible.”

“Are there many relations between the Forester people and your own?”

“There are some connections that are made, but most of them are in the border regions, where the High Bravians live near the forest region, and where there is a town where Middle Bravians reside just outside the forest while the Foresters have built a community on the edge of the forest. In these places there is a great deal of trade and intercourse. For the most part, though, as the Foresters keep to their woods, and most people are for good reason pretty terrified about trespassing in the forest, there is a good deal of separation between the two peoples except at the borders of the provinces and regions.”

“Thank you for spending some time to talk with me.”

“No problem,” said the prince, before we parted to do what was necessary at the last minute to make our trip. He had more to do than me, it must be admitted.