The Ludwig Conspiracy

  “I’ll put your eyes out if you don’t go faster!” one Allgäu farmer shouted to Count Crailsheim. A young peasant woman pointed to the staggering prisoners, who were deathly pale, and called to her little boy loud enough for everyone to hear, “When you’re grown-up, you can tell your own children how you once saw the traitors.”

  I expected the first stones to fly through the air at any moment, the first flails to smash the heads of the officials like clods of earth, but nothing of the sort happened. And so Holnstein, Gudden, and the other traitors toiled up to Neuschwanstein, where they were locked up together in a sparsely furnished room in the tower building.

  I stood in the courtyard, a smile on my lips, and looked up to where the sun was just rising behind the castle walls. The king, it seemed, had been saved.

  Only a few hours later, I was to be bitterly disappointed.

  27

  A STRONG AROMA TICKLED Steven’s nose. He awoke with a start and saw a young woman before him, holding out a mug of steaming coffee. It took him a moment to recognize her as Sara. He had been dreaming again of the girl with the blond braids. They had been struggling, with something lying on the floor between them. When he tried to pick it up, the aroma of coffee had brought him back to reality.

  “You grind your teeth horribly in your sleep,” Sara said, smiling. “Did you know that? I hope it wasn’t to do with what you were reading last night.”

  Wearily, Steven sat up in bed and gratefully sipped the hot brew as he tried to shake off his dream. “If I was grinding my teeth, it was more likely because of our experiences last night,” he said. Yawning, he told her what he had read before sleep had overcome him at last, long after the first dawn chorus of birds began to twitter.

  Sara listened thoughtfully as she took small sips of her own coffee. “As far as I remember, that corresponds almost exactly to what’s already known about Ludwig’s last days,” she said when he had finished. “Maybe Zöller knows more.”

  “You trust him again?”

  She laughed softly. “Far from it. I saw him down by the lake just now, along with some unshaven character in a Windbreaker and dark sunglasses. They were having a lively discussion about something, but unfortunately I wasn’t able to catch any of it. But, wait until you hear this.” She paused for dramatic effect. “A quarter of an hour later, I managed to get a quick look at Zöller’s cell phone; he’d left his jacket over a chair down by the kiosk. I went through the latest numbers he called, and guess who Uncle Lu called no less that five times recently?”

  In spite of the coffee, Steven’s mouth felt dry. “Don’t keep me in suspense like this,” he said. “Who was it?”

  “A detective agency.”

  For a moment the bookseller looked at Sara, bewildered. “A detective agency?” he finally asked. “Why in the world would Zöller be getting in touch with a detective agency?”

  Sara shrugged. “No idea. I called the number and then checked the name of the company on the Internet. It’s a small place in Garmisch, run on a shoestring. Nothing special, it mainly investigates insurance fraud and missing persons. But why would Zöller be calling a detective agency five times? And he made a few calls to the States, but before I could try out any of those numbers, he came back.”

  “A detective agency in Garmisch and a few calls to the States . . .” Steven skeptically shook his head. “I don’t know. It could all be a coincidence. Maybe he’s desperately searching for a distant relation and was phoning his sister in the States about it. I’m beginning to think you’re as paranoid as I am.”

  “Could be you’re right.” Sara got off the bed. “Could be I’m working myself up about nothing. Either way, it’s about time we were off to Neuschwanstein. It’s after ten already.”

  “After ten?” Steven stood up and found that every bone in his body ached. He felt as if he hadn’t slept for more than half an hour. “What day is it?”

  “Saturday. Why?”

  Steven sighed wearily, buttoning up his shirt. “Exactly the day for an expedition to Neuschwanstein. We probably won’t even be able to see the castle for all the tourists. But so what? Tomorrow will be no better.”

  Outside the weather had cleared, the sun shone brightly down from the sky, and only a few puddles of rain on the asphalt still bore witness to last night’s storm. The old Prien steam locomotive was approaching from the village, whistling and hooting, to bring a new set of tourists down to the pier, and it promised to be a beautiful fall day, a final farewell to summer.

  Zöller was already waiting in the back seat of the Mini Cooper. He had bought himself a bag of buttery Bavarian pretzels from a stall and was now munching his way through them. He nodded to Sara and Steven, and offered them his bag of greasy delicacies.

  “No, thank you, I feel a bit queasy already,” Steven said, getting into the front passenger seat. Sara got behind the wheel, and the car, squealing, turned the corner.

  “I spoke to a few of my people at Herrenchiemsee,” Zöller said, as he desperately tried to stretch the seatbelt over his belly. “No one has heard anything about those two Cowled Men who ran for it, and I guess no one will. The police are sure to want to ask them some tricky questions. Those officers like to poke about in the dark.” He grinned and picked a few crumbs of pretzel out of his teeth. “My friends among the night watchmen have promised to keep us out of it for now. Especially because otherwise it would come to light that they gave me the key.” Zöller tapped Steven’s shoulder from behind. “Find out anything new from the diary?”

  The bookseller told him, briefly, what he had read the previous night. But Zöller could not make anything out of the latest diary entry he had deciphered either.

  “All common knowledge already,” he grunted. “The arrival in Hohenschwangau of the commission to take the king away, the midnight supper, the arrests . . . All of this was known apart from the conspiracy about Marot and Dürckheim—I’ll admit that I never heard about that before.”

  “How about the descriptions of the castle?” Steven asked, pursuing his point as they drove along narrow country roads toward the western Alps. “Marot meets the king in the Singers’ Hall. Maybe the final keyword is something to do with those Parsifal murals in the Hall. Or anyway one of Wagner’s operas. Wagner is the second word written in capital letters, after Neuschwanstein.”

  “You can find those sorts of saga characters in every corner of the castle,” Uncle Lu said, wiping his greasy fingers on his pants. “Parsifal, Tannhäuser, Lohengrin, Sigurd and Gudrun, Tristan and Isolde . . . The whole of Neuschwanstein is nothing but a setting for Wagner operas. Ludwig wanted to build a memorial to his favorite composer, the man he idolized. Along with all the entire legendary world of the Middle Ages. He’d been fascinated by it since childhood.”

  Steven frowned. “But I can’t help noticing that Marot deliberately refers to that world of legend in the Singers’ Hall.” He took out the diary and leafed through it. “Here. He says he feels like Parsifal or Tristan setting out in search of the Holy Grail.”

  “Just a moment,” Zöller said. “Tristan doesn’t go in search of the Grail—that’s Parsifal.”

  “Yes, but I’m inclined to think that the search for the Grail as a whole stands for our attempt to find the solution to the puzzle. We have to find the keyword, and it’s concealed somewhere in the Wagnerian legends.”

  “Oh, wonderful,” Sara groaned. “I can just about remember who killed Siegfried, but if the keyword has to do with any other characters, I’m afraid I have to pass.”

  Uncle Lu grinned. “Good thing you have me, then.” He rummaged in the crate of books on the back seat beside him. “There must be a reference book on the old hero sagas in here somewhere. We’ll soon find out what friend Theodor was really trying to say.”

  Steven thought of Sara’s research into Zöller’s cell phone. Could kindly Uncle Lu really be plotting against them? But then why had he helped them up to this point? Thinking hard, Steven leaned back in his seat and t
ried to doze, but the constant bends in the road kept bringing him back from dreams teeming with heroes, magicians, and kings.

  They drove westward on small country roads running along the foothills of the Alps. At the sight of the freshly mown flower meadows, the moors, the colorful foliage of the woods in fall, and the old farmhouses standing in the sunlight to the right and left of the road, Steven once again thought he understood why Bavaria liked to think itself a special place. Here at the southernmost tip of Germany, time did indeed seem to stand still. Here you still felt you were in a less complicated time, while the modern world was top-heavy with longing, clichés, and false notions.

  And Ludwig the Second is the idol adored by the people here . . .

  After a good two hours on the road, they had finally reached the small town of Füssen and approached Neuschwanstein and the older castle of Hohenschwangau that stood opposite it. The two castles clung to the walls of a narrow valley bounded on the south by a small mountain lake. While Hohenschwangau—the castle where Ludwig had spent his childhood—was rather modest in appearance, Neuschwanstein was the quintessential fairy-tale castle. Steven knew, of course, that no medieval castle had ever looked like that, but the building, on its rocky plinth and with its turrets, battlements, and pointed roofs, all as white as confectioner’s sugar, was the archetypal building of the Middle Ages as many wished it to be.

  How many, in fact, became clear to Steven only when they made for one of the large parking lots in the valley. The narrow road between the two castles was lined with hotels, restaurants, souvenir shops, and overpriced snack bars. Along it surged a noisy crowd of Americans, Japanese, nouveaux riches Russians, and people of a dozen other nationalities on their way to the ticket office.

  When they stopped in one of the last vacant and wildly expensive parking spots, Sara noisily drew in her breath. Steven stared through the windshield and could not help a nervous start. A police car with its engine running stood right by the kiosk at the entrance.

  “Oh well,” said the bookseller, resigned. “They’ve found us. Now what?”

  “What do you think?” Sara replied, defiantly. “We wait. So there’s a police car. No big deal. Maybe the nice officers want to visit Neuschwanstein. Or maybe they’re simply hungry. There, see for yourself.” She pointed to a kiosk not far away where a stout police officer stood with a curry sausage. Leisurely, the officer strolled back to the car where his colleague was waiting, looking bored and drumming out a rhythm of some kind on the instrument panel.

  Relieved, Sara smiled. “What did I tell you? Nothing to worry about.”

  Suddenly the stout policeman stared their way and stopped dead in the middle of the road. Steven felt as if he scrutinized them forever before he finally strode quickly toward them.

  “Bloody hell,” he said. “He’s recognized us. We’ve got to get out of here.”

  “Right now that really would be the stupidest thing we could do,” said Zöller, speaking up from the back seat. “This is the time to keep calm. Just act bored. And Frau Lengfeld, you start the engine very slowly.”

  Sara turned the key in the ignition, while Steven tried desperately to look like any other American tourist. They rolled gently past the stout officer, who went on walking straight ahead. In the rearview mirror, Steven saw him throw his paper napkin into a trash bin and call something to his colleague in the car. Shortly after, Sara’s Mini turned into a nearby parking lot, and the police officers did not reappear.

  “Three cheers for German bureaucracy and the sanctity of the lunch break,” Sara said. “Half an hour later, and you can bet they would have checked up on us. Now, quick, let’s get lost in the crowd.” She grinned. “At least that shouldn’t be too difficult here.”

  Steven squeezed out of the Mini and looked at the teeming mass of school classes, tourists, and shouting kids holding hands with their parents and obviously getting on their nerves. Horse-drawn carriages without a single vacant seat rattled along the road, and farther back a bus crammed as full as possible was trying to drive up to the castle.

  “How we’re going to find a keyword to solve the puzzle in all this hustle and bustle is a mystery to me,” Sara said a few minutes later as they and Zöller were buying their tickets to the castle. “Sure you don’t know a night watchman here, too—someone who’d let us into the castle when it’s closed for the night?”

  Sadly, the old man shook his head. “I’m afraid not. Security at Neuschwanstein was taken over by a new outfit recently. And even if I did, I don’t think that after what happened at Herrenchiemsee, any of my contacts would let us in.”

  Before they entered, Steven went to one of the souvenir shops and bought himself a crooked Bavarian walking stick, a T-shirt with a castle motif printed on it, and a cheap Bavarian hat. He took his entrance ticket without a word and strode ahead in his new garb. “Not one word,” he said on seeing Zöller’s grin. “The sight of that fat cop just now was too much for me. At least no one will recognize me so easily in this ridiculous getup. Now, bus, period carriage, or on foot? Any preferences?”

  The bookseller was about to change to the other side of the street when a white Maserati raced past him so close that he had to jump back.

  “Bloody bastard!” he shouted at its driver. “This is Neuschwanstein, not the autobahn!”

  The car suddenly stopped and reversed.

  Wonderful, thought Steven. Not only are you wanted by the police, and there’s a lunatic trying to shoot you, but now you get some provincial in a Maserati trying to kill you in a fit of road rage.

  The tinted driver’s window lowered, and so did Steven’s jaw.

  “Hello, Mr. Landsdale. Is that folksy Bavarian costume for back home in Milwaukee?”

  Luise Manstein gave him a friendly smile. She had pushed her sunglasses up into her short gray hair, and she wore a close-fitting pantsuit like the one she had worn on their meeting outside the Grotto of Venus at Linderhof.

  “What . . . what are you doing here?” Steven stammered.

  “I could ask you the same question, Mr. Landsdale.” The president of Manstein Systems neatly raised her right eyebrow. “You left my birthday party rather suddenly. Was your plane taking off in the middle of the night, I wonder?”

  “No, no.” Steven forced a smile. At the last minute it occurred to him to fake an American accent. He was frantically wondering what newspaper he had said he worked for. At least Luise Manstein didn’t seem to know about the gruesome events at Linderhof.

  “Oh, I had a call from the editorial offices in Milwaukee,” he explained. “The boss wants another background story, on Neuschwanstein this time. So I had to get an early night. I hope you had a good time even without me.”

  Luise Manstein’s glance turned to Sara and Zöller, who had approached the Maserati, suspecting nothing. “And your two companions?” she inquired.

  “Er, this is only Al . . . Adolf, my German photographer,” Steven said hastily. “And the girl there is Peggy, my assistant.”

  Steven looked desperately at Sara and Zöller, making small signals with his hand. Zöller was about to say something, but Sara was quick to get in first.

  “The tickets, Mr. Landsdale,” she squawked with a broad Texan drawl. “We gotta be up at the castle at one P.M.” Zöller let out a small cry of pain when Sara’s heel kicked him in the shinbone.

  “You’re not going up to the castle right now, are you?” Luise asked in surprise. “I wouldn’t recommend it. It’s a madhouse up there—you might as well write about Disneyland.”

  Steven shrugged. He was beginning to feel more assured in his role as a provincial American reporter. “I know, but I have to have the story ready by tomorrow at the latest. And I wasn’t able to book a press tour at such short notice. Anyway, I’m more interested in . . . er . . . the historical facts.”

  “Ah, I see. The historical facts.” The industrialist looked at him for some time with a narrow smile. Steven felt the sweat under his Bavarian hat beginning to ru
n down the back of his neck.

  “I’ll tell you something, Mr. Landsdale. I like you,” Luise said. “I have a weakness for the States and their way of making facts into fairy tales. We ought to have a longer talk about that sometime . . .” Her eyes twinkled as she looked at him, pausing for rather longer than was necessary. “So I’ll make you a proposition: what would you say to a nighttime tour of the castle?”

  “A . . . nighttime tour?” The bookseller blinked at her in surprise. “But how . . .”

  She smiled more broadly. “You don’t think I’m here at Neuschwanstein for pleasure, do you? Some time ago, Manstein Systems undertook a big contract for this place. The castle needs a general technological overhaul. An interactive museum, improvements to the logistics and transport system, new software to deal with bookings . . . but above all a modern security system with a new alarm complex.” She pointed to one of the horse-drawn carriages trotting past with a set of Japanese tourists on board. “Technologically, this place is still in the last century, although it accommodates a world cultural heritage worth billions. It’s lucky that no terrorist gang has thought of blowing the castle sky-high.” Shaking her head, she looked up at the proud building towering above them, radiant white like something out of a Disney movie. “The contract is mainly advantageous for my firm’s reputation.There really isn’t much money in it.”

  “And you’d really get us into the building when it’s empty this evening?” Steven asked in surprise.