The Ludwig Conspiracy (18 page)

I stepped into the rocking boat and sat down opposite Ludwig. He looked bloated, and pale as a newt that spends all its life in the dark. Yet he still had that dignity and charm that had always distinguished him as king. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a painting of a scene from Wagner’s
Tannhäuser
on the back wall; I could make out its details only indistinctly in the blue light. It showed a knight in a dark cavern. Little angels hovered around him, while beautiful women moved in a round dance. The man in the picture looked exhausted and happy at the same time.

“Majesty,” I began quietly, “I fear that I do not bring good news. You are in danger. Your ministers want you declared insane. They are in touch with the psychiatrist Dr. Bernhard von Gudden. He is to give an expert opinion that will describe you as unfit to rule the country.”

In a few hasty words, I told him about Dürckheim’s suspicions, my masquerade as a cabdriver, and my headlong flight. Gradually the smile disappeared from Ludwig’s face, and for a long time he said nothing.

“How certain is this?” he asked at last.

I breathed a sigh of relief. You never knew how Ludwig would react, but he seemed to be taking the matter seriously.

“As I said, I myself overheard the conversation between Secretary Pfaffinger, Dr. von Gudden, and a Prussian agent.”

“A Prussian agent?” said the king quietly. “But Bismarck has always assured me that . . .”

“The chancellor will always do what he thinks serves the interests of the German Empire,” I interrupted. “And the Bavarian ministers must have been suggesting to him that you cannot continue to rule this country.”

“Not continue to rule the country?” Ludwig’s voice was suddenly cold as ice. “Merely because I do not rule Bavaria in a way that happens to please those gentlemen? I have had to lead the country into two wars. Wherever you look, there’s saber rattling. The German Empire is too powerful to work any longer. Those damn Prussians and their lust for power.” He angrily sat up in the boat, making it sway as his weight shifted. “They’ll take us into another war that will burn this world to rubble and ashes. Where are the old ideals? The old ideas of kingship? Find me an island, Theodor. Some island where I can be the king I wish to be.”

I closed my eyes, praying that Ludwig would remain reasonable. Recently he had spoken enthusiastically, multiple times, of leaving Bavaria. He had even commissioned several of his employees to seek out some distant land—which they were happy to do, as it sent them on luxurious travels. Unfortunately, the king’s moods changed like the wind. He could write down-to-earth letters and give sensible orders, and the next moment threaten a lackey with deportation for life, or hold a conversation with the bust of Marie Antoinette.

“You must go to Munich and show yourself to the people,” I begged him. “If you make only a gesture of approach to the people, they will take you to their hearts again as they did in the past. And that will destroy the ministers’ plan. No one will believe that medical report if you show how reasonable you are.”

“So I’m to prove that I am not crazy?” asked the king. “How ironic. Do
you
think me . . . deranged, like my brother, Otto?”

“No, Majesty. On my honor, I think you like to dream, and you are more sensitive than most people, but not deranged.”

Ludwig was smiling again. “Sensitive.” He relished the word like a sweet plum. “I think you are correct there. Thank you, Marot. You have always been one of those dearest to me. I value your honesty.” He carefully steered the boat to the bank and climbed ponderously out. “Now, come with me. I want to show you something that will take your breath away.”

As we left the grotto, the blue light inside it changed to a shade of red.

XOIMLQI

We walked over to the castle as the first light of dawn showed in the east. I followed the king in silence until we were on the dark forecourt.

Early as it was, there were already some servants there, carrying a small table decorated with intarsia work, two chairs, and a silver tray laden with all kinds of delicacies on it. In surprise, I realized that they were approaching the tall old linden tree that stood not far from the basin of the fountain. When I looked at the trunk, I saw that roughly halfway up it was a platform to which a simple wooden ladder led. The servants now hauled the furniture and the tray up to this airy terrace with a block and tackle, and they arranged it all as if the table were not sixteen feet up in the air, but in the royal dining room.

“My supper shall be your breakfast today, Marot,” said Ludwig, pointing with a smile to the platform. “Be so kind as to keep me company in my linden tree. I have the finest bedchamber in the world up there.”

The wooden ladder creaked alarmingly as His Majesty and I climbed it. I clung to the rungs and tried not to look down. As so often, I had to shake my head over Ludwig’s eccentric notions. A king in a tree house! No doubt the servants were already gossiping about this latest whim.

But once I was finally up on the platform, the view before me almost brought tears to my eyes.

The Alps surrounded us, like mighty giants of rock, with the soft green of the forests at their feet. The park with its castle, the pavilions, the Temple of Venus, and the chapel lay below us like a child’s toy landscape. At that very moment, the sun rose behind the mountains in the east, bathing the scene in a warm, almost unreal light. In the shady canopy above our heads, the linden leaves rustled quietly.

“Help yourself, Marot. You must be hungry after that ride.” The king had already taken his place on his chair and was serving himself from a dish of fragrant and particularly tender roast veal. But I couldn’t take my eyes off the magnificent landscape. As if at a secret signal, a mighty jet of water suddenly rose from the middle of the fountain below us, and a cool spray wafted up to me.

“Out here in the mountains, far from the city, I am the king I would like to be,” said Ludwig, wiping his fleshy lips with his napkin. “A law of nature, like the sun and the moon. Do you understand now why I can’t go back to Munich?”

“Majesty, times have changed,” I told him “You are not Arthur in Camelot, but the king of Bavaria. Laws have to be signed . . .”

“Let the ministers bring their paperwork on pilgrimage here to Linderhof!” Ludwig interrupted me, pointing to the landscape around us. “What is real and what is false, Theodor? The dirty city of Munich with its intriguing and politicking, or this fairy-tale world? The people still love their king here, and here I am not a marionette.”

“You need not be a marionette if you . . .” I began. But suddenly the words dried up in my mouth. Down below us, a boy, laughing, approached. Beside him was a young woman, wearing a plain bodice and linen skirt with an apron, such as the simple women of these parts often wear on festive days. Her black hair hung loose, fluttering behind her in the wind. The girl’s face was radiant; her whole appearance seemed designed to drive my gloomy mood away, like the sun dispersing the mists of a cold, damp morning. In his loud, cheerful voice, the child beside her was spurring her on to run a race with him.

“Marot, what’s the matter?” I heard my king’s voice behind me. “Does the view up here take your breath away?”

Dazed, I shook my head and sat down opposite Ludwig. “It’s nothing, Majesty. Probably only the long ride.” Surreptitiously, I looked down and tried to catch another glimpse of the unknown girl, but she had already disappeared from my field of vision. Only her laughter rose to me, clear as a bell.

“Do you hear that?” said Ludwig, heaping another portion of steaming roast veal on a porcelain plate with a pattern of swans. “That laughter is music to my ears! Not the music of Wagner, perhaps, but more beautiful, in any event, than the whistling of locomotives and the ringing of bells in those newfangled horse-drawn streetcars in the city.”

“The . . . the young woman down there,” I asked tentatively, trying to show as little interest as possible. “Is she a governess?”

Ludwig laughed, almost choking on a mouthful of veal. “Governess? Oh God, no! That’s Maria from Oberammergau. Daughter of a peasant woodcarver.” A smile played around his lips. “I like to have her near me. She keeps me company, helps a little in the kitchen, and tells me what the people are thinking. You see, Marot, I am not indifferent to the world.”

“If you are not indifferent to the world, Majesty, then promise that you will come to Munich.”

“What liberties do you think you can take, Marot?” he snapped. “I do not have to promise you anything. Who do you think you are?”

I humbly bowed my head. “Majesty, it is only because . . .”

“Be silent, before I regret bringing you up here at all!”

Without another word the king rose to his feet. His chair fell over with a crash, and Ludwig climbed down the ladder to the ground. He did not deign to favor me with another glance and disappeared into the castle.

I struck my forehead and cursed myself for my thoughtlessness. Ludwig was well-known for cultivating an almost fraternal relationship with his social inferiors, but it could change into icy coldness from one moment to the next. I ought to have known! Instead, I had been incautious and endangered my mission. I dared not think what Count Dürckheim would say when I told him about my faux pas
.
Now how was I going to convince the king that he must go to Munich?

Gritting my teeth, I made my way down the ladder hand over hand, wondering how I could mollify Ludwig. My game of hide-and-seek, my flight—perhaps it had all been for nothing.

“Don’t be downcast,” said a clear voice behind me suddenly. “Sometimes the king is like an angry child. His tantrums are like storms. They come suddenly, but they disappear again just as fast.”

Startled, I turned around and found myself looking straight into the face of the black-haired girl whose looks had taken my breath away. Now, at close quarters, the young woman seemed if anything even more beautiful than she had appeared from the platform in the tree.

“Oh . . . I didn’t know . . .” I stammered. She shook her head, laughing.

“I couldn’t help hearing your quarrel. Think nothing of it. You got off lightly; the king has been known to push other men into the fountain from up here.”

I smiled, while I went on surreptitiously looking at her.

“You seem to know His Majesty well. Does he allow you an audience, ma’am?”

Her clear, bell-like laughter rang out again, and my heart beat faster. “Never mind the formality, sir,” she said, chuckling. “I am only the daughter of a simple peasant woodcarver from Oberammergau.” Suddenly her voice was grave, and a small frown of annoyance appeared on her brow. “But you are right, I do know the king well. Better, anyway, than many a minister, state secretary, or councilor. To you, coming from Munich, Ludwig is only a dreamer, am I right? A wayward oddity who won’t do what you all tell him.” She pointed to the forests stretching up into the mountains behind the castle. “But ask the common people here in the Graswangtal, and they will tell you a different story. The king talks to us, asks how we are. And when one of his grooms has a birthday, he serves him a festive meal with his own hands.”

I said nothing but looked in admiration at the young woman who had spoken with so much feeling. Her face was fine-featured, with high cheekbones and clever eyes that hardly suited a maidservant. But for the simple linen skirt and apron that she wore, I would have taken her for a court lady, or a merchant’s daughter. Her whole appearance had something playfully ladylike about it; she had a natural elegance lacking in most of the ladies of high social standing whom I knew.

“The king was right to be angry with me just now,” I said at last, hesitantly. “I was a fool. Perhaps it would be a good thing if someone were to take me to task more often.”

“Well, don’t expect me to do it. Two scamps are quite enough for me.” Her eyes twinkled at me, and I felt a slight shiver down my back all of a sudden. This girl could reduce me to the state of a naïve, stammering peasant with her glances alone.

“Two . . . er, scamps?”

“Well, the king and the naughty little boy shooting sparrows out of the trees there.”

She pointed to a group of bushes from which a flock of birds, twittering angrily, was just flying up. A little boy of about six, with unruly black curls and wearing short lederhosen, was running after them with a slingshot, shouting. It was the boy I had seen from the platform.

“Is that your child?” I asked, and looked at her in surprise. She seemed so young that I would never have thought the boy might be her own. When she nodded, I felt a sharp pang deep inside me.

“Leopold,” she said quietly, and a shadow came over her face. “He will be six next summer. He’s the apple of my eye, even if I sometimes curse him to the devil.”

We were walking together toward the basin of the fountain, which was still sending a powerful jet of water up into the air. Tiny drops moistened my face and formed a misty veil with a rainbow in it above our heads. The girl had now bent down to pick a bunch of flowers. A little way off, the boy was aiming his slingshot at a couple of crows who had come down to settle on the head of a Greek statue of Diana.

“Your boy does indeed seem to be a real scamp,” I said only half seriously. “I expect his father has to read him a lecture pretty often. Where is his papa, by the way?”

The girl went on picking marguerite daisies, bellflowers, and red poppies in silence. Only after a few moments did she turn to me, shaking her head sadly.

“Leopold has never had a father. The king was kind enough to take us in.”

“I . . . I’m sorry about that,” I replied, at the same time ashamed of myself for feeling something like relief. “An accident?”

“No, it’s only that . . . Leo, get down from there at once!”

She had called the last words to the boy, who was now trying to balance on the rim of the fountain. She looked at me, and at least she was smiling again now.

“I’ll have to go and save my little scamp’s life again. I’m pleased to have made your acquaintance, sir. May I ask the gentleman’s name?”