A chauffeur will pick you up at the Vienna Westbahnhof June 20 1 pm. You pay for your trip yourself.
August Iacobi
Ludwig had probably read it five times already but it did not matter. He took up the Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco, which he bought in English at the Berlin Hauptbahnhof. He read about Adso and William and saw Christian Slater and Sean Connery before him. He dreamed away to the poor, medieval Italy.
Every Friday when no one rang when he was younger, he had spent the time to read. He had always had the ability to step into other worlds. They were there as a safe home and invited him to attend, to observe. It could be a secret meeting at the Royal Academy of Sciences in Stockholm in the 1700s, a country house, a girl lying on the blanket in front of him with his hair in his hand or a library in a monastery in the mountains somewhere in Italy, surrounded by the world's knowledge.
Outside Vienna Westbahnhof he was picked up by a driver who sat quietly until they stopped in a village a few miles outside Graz.
”Young man,” shouted the driver from his cab in German influenced English. ”Up on top of the mountain is old Ruotkerspurch. You may go from here. I do not have the permission of Mr. Iacobi to drive you up.”
A large medieval castle rested on the tip of a mountain around one hundred meters up and supervised the village below.
Half an hour later, Ludwig arrived at a large iron gate on the hill next to the entrance. The clear day became night, and a thin mist filled the valleys below the mountain. The village below the mountain castle, which consisted of four wooden houses and some stables, disappeared into the mist.
Ludwig turned to look around before he knocked. A pair of iron gates closed off a small herb garden. Antique statues stood in a semicircle around on a yard in front of the castle.
Ludwig grabbed one knocker and knocked.
[ Chapter 9 is missing ]
10
Rom
Year 1599
Through the Porta del Popolo Michele came with two messengers, Fabrizio and Mario, whom he had joined the last bit. They were the last to be allowed into Rome as a major prisoner transport was expected to arrive shortly.
Funnily enough, Fabrizio and Mario was the first people Michele met when he came to Rome, and they would quickly become friends. He was also the last to see them alive, after they fled Rome with the coffin to Prague just a year later. It is staggering to think that Ludwig, despite all the time that has passed, was one of the first to open the coffin after Michele helped to hide it in the church of Santa Maria del Popolo.
But believe me, a lot would happen before this.
Before the gate closed Michele turned towards the fields outside Rome. Dusk fell. Far away against the pass, where Michele hid, he thought that he could see a few silhouettes that moved across the fields, but he was unsure.
When the gate locked his shoulders dropped. He breathed easier.
Together with Fabrizio and Mario, he went across Piazza del Popolo. He asked.
”You know of any studios where there´s work?”
Fabrizio asked Michele if it was his first time in Rome.
After he answered yes Fabrizio laughed and showed his rotten teeth.
”My friend, my friend. Rome overflow with artisans and the only ones who can afford to order are the cardinals around Piazza Navona. But if you come to the point where you enter a studio contract, if you are going that far, make sure you let someone read it aloud to yourself a few times before you go to sleep, between two church services. Here”, Fabrizio took out his arms, ”no one helps you and if you help someone, you being cheated. It is true, ain´t it so Mario?”
”Such is the world, Michele”, Mario said, nodding.
After a few steps the party stopped when they saw something strange. A couple sbirri, which was this era´s policemen, guarding two beggar boys. The boys washed away graffiti from a wall. The graffiti was a welcome phrase with an old pun about the greedy and depraved Rome:
Salvete ad
R O M A
Radix Omnium Malorum Avaritia
Obeliskos - Me Sequere
Thoth Fraternitatis
They read the graffiti a few times to really figure out what it meant. Michele who had both read the catechism and Dante's comedy, translated it for Mario who never learned Latin.