The Ludwig Conspiracy (39 page)

The disaster began with Sonntag, chief district officer of Füssen. Shoulders hunched, kneading his green felt hat in his fingers, he turned up at the castle toward noon. The portly official was visibly embarrassed, but nonetheless he walked with a rapid tread over to the chamber in the tower building where the prisoners were being held.

“Set these gentlemen free,” Sonntag ordered the local gendarmes guarding them. He flourished a document that was wet with rain. “Prince Luitpold’s proclamation has just been telegraphed to Füssen. The gentlemen in there are correct: King Ludwig the Second has indeed been deposed.”

The chief district officer handed the document to the surprised gendarmes and firefighters, and then unlocked the prison door with his own hands. Holnstein came out, his eyes flashing.

“And high time, too,” growled the count. “This has gone on long enough. Now let’s put an end to this farce.”

“I would advise you to leave the castle one by one, and secretly,” whispered Sonntag. “The king does not know that you have been freed, and I can’t guarantee the conduct of the populace.”

Holnstein nodded in silence, but his glare let the local gendarmes standing around know that he would have liked to put them all up against the wall. When the count saw me in the second row, his mouth twisted into a scornful grin.

“Don’t think I’m unaware who’s behind all this, Marot,” he said sharply. “You’d better find yourself a position as a horse-doctor. That is, if the prince regent leaves your fine friend the equerry a few horses after what’s happened.”

I bowed and looked as if I had no idea what he meant. “I’m sorry, Your Excellency, but I really don’t know what you are talking about.”

“The devil with you, Marot.” Count Holnstein was so close to my face now that I could see his mustache bristling. “Did you think your little conspiracy was a secret from us? We didn’t eliminate your group only because you’re none of you anything but squealing rats.” He laughed contemptuously. “What difference did it make whether you warned the king or not? The man’s deranged—surely you can see that by now. He won’t accept help from anyone. So now good day to you; we’ll be seeing each other again soon.”

The count turned away, and I raised my hat to him with a smile, hoping that he did not see my fear.

One by one, the prisoners left the castle. Dr. Gudden kept looking nervously up to where the throne room stood, as if the king might yet scratch his eyes out at the last minute. A hunting carriage was waiting outside the portal to take the gentlemen back to Munich, by way of Peissenberg.

The first act of the tragedy was over.

I had been watching the liberation of the officials in horror from the courtyard side of the gatehouse, when a rider suddenly galloped through the entrance on a whinnying horse. It was Count Dürckheim! On seeing me, he waved me over, and I told him briefly what had happened in the last few hours.

“It may not be too late,” said the count, tearing his sweat-drenched army cap off his head. He had ridden all the way from Steingaden to Füssen at a full gallop. “Take me to the king at once.”

We found Ludwig in his study, bent over a sheet of paper on his desk. As we entered the room, he was just imprinting his seal on a large envelope with his signet ring. A second and considerably smaller letter lay beside it, looking more like a folded message. Ludwig pushed both documents aside and looked at us with happy surprise.

“Count Dürckheim! How good to see you here,” he cried, rising from his chair. “I hadn’t expected you so soon.”

“I rode like the devil, Your Majesty,” replied Dürckheim, bowing. “At this moment, we are in haste. You must come to Munich at once.”

The king looked at him in surprise. “To Munich? But why?”

For a moment it seemed that the count’s face fell, but then he pulled himself together. “Because it is your last chance to escape deposition,” he said in a calm, objective tone. “If you show yourself to the people, the ministers will never dare to have you declared insane. We will write a proclamation of our own, arraign Prince Luitpold for high treason, and . . .”

“Oh, Dürckheim. Munich!” the king interrupted. “Look at me. I am tired and sick. City air does not agree with me.”

“Then . . . then at least take refuge in the Tyrol,” I begged him fervently. “The empress of Austria is your cousin. She will help you. In a few hours’ time, Count Holnstein will have sent a battalion of Munich police officers here to surround the whole castle.”

“My dear Marot, what would I do in Austria?” Shaking his head, Ludwig returned to his desk. “Look down from the mountains at my castles, which wouldn’t be mine anymore? Write a counter-proclamation on my behalf if you think it really necessary, but don’t trouble me any further with it. I have other plans.” He put the larger letter into Count Dürckheim’s hand. “My dear count, I have only two requests to make of you. This sealed document must be taken to Linderhof as fast as possible. It may well be the most important missive I have ever written in my life, so take good care of it.
This
message,” he added, picking up the smaller, folded sheet of paper that had been lying on the table, “tells you to whom you are to hand the document. Do not read it until you have reached Linderhof.
Compris?
”

Count Dürckheim nodded. “I understand, Your Majesty. And your second request?”

“Get me some cyanide.”

Neither Dürckheim nor I said anything for some time; the king’s words had taken our breath away.

“My king, you mustn’t do a thing like that!” the count finally exclaimed. “Bavaria needs you. What is to follow you?”

“Other times,” said Ludwig quietly. “Times in which I do not want to live.”

Count Dürckheim clicked his heels. “Majesty, forgive me, but that is the first order you have ever given me that I cannot obey.”

The king smiled mildly at him. He seemed to be in a distant world once again. It was as if, in his mind, he had withdrawn into one of the mural paintings of the
Tannhäuser
saga that surrounded us on all sides in the study, an ideal medieval world in which knights, minstrels, and real kings still existed. “Very well, Dürckheim, very well,” he said at last. “Leave me alone now.”

The last thing I saw as I turned away was Ludwig throwing letters one by one into the fire burning on the hearth, where they briefly flared up blue and green, and finally fell to ashes.

JG, J

The next blow of fate came hurrying toward us in the form of a battalion of police officers from Munich. They arrived at the castle at eight o’clock that evening and promptly took control of it.

By now all letters to or from the king had been intercepted. From this point on, he was entirely cut off from the outside world, and his orders held sway only as far as the castle gate. However, that did not seem to trouble him much. He had spent all afternoon burning old letters in the study, and then he wandered lethargically around the great halls of his castle. Sometimes he stared through the window for minutes on end, so that I began to fear he might jump out. But since asking for cyanide, he had expressed no more thoughts of suicide. Ludwig seemed to be resigned to his fate. A leaden weight lay over the castle; it was like being in the castle of the Sleeping Beauty, in expectation not of a prince but of the arrival of the traitors. The first of the servants had already left.

The thirty Munich police, commanded by four officers, sent the last of the loyal local police home and barred the castle gate. They cut off the telephone, that newfangled invention with which Ludwig might have telegraphed messages to Füssen. They turned off the warm-air heating system, and forbade the king to go for walks. From this point on Ludwig II was a prisoner.

At midnight I lay down to rest in one of the second-floor servants’ rooms, but I could not sleep properly. I tossed and turned restlessly; in my dreams I saw Maria, who was running away from me as I pursued her. But whenever I had almost caught up, and tried to reach for her, she was several steps ahead again. Suddenly she stopped, turning to me, and her face was the face of a rotting corpse. Her mouth opened, maggots crawled out of it, and I heard her hoarse voice in my mind.

He’ll kill me . . .

Suddenly I was awoken by someone shaking me hard. When I opened my eyes, I saw Count Dürckheim standing over me. He wore his uniform, his coat, and his officer’s cap, as if he were about to leave. Outside, it was nearly dawn.

“We must talk,” he whispered. When I opened my mouth, he put a finger to his lips. “Not here—the walls have ears. The police from Munich are all over the castle. Follow me.”

Drowsily, I pulled myself upright and accompanied him to the stairway, which we climbed in silence. On the fourth floor, the count led me through the various rooms until finally we were outside the door of the king’s bedchamber.

“But . . .” I began as Dürckheim pressed down the door handle.

“Never fear,” he told me. “The king is not here. He is pacing up and down in the Singers’ Hall like one of the undead. At the moment the bedchamber is the safest place. The servants know that the king never spends the night here, only the day. So no one will think of spying on us.”

His Majesty’s adjutant pushed me into the cold room and closed the door behind us. With the gray light of morning falling through the window, the outline of the huge bed with its magnificently carved canopy could just be seen. All around us were imposing murals telling the tragic story of Tristan and Isolde, from the fatal love potion to their union in death. The two ceramic figures above and at the side of the tiled stove also showed the lovers. I could not help thinking of Maria and myself; in one of the paintings the loving couple embraced as closely as the two of us had done a few months earlier at Herrenchiemsee.

Count Dürckheim, exhausted, sat down in one of the armchairs and looked at me with red-rimmed eyes. He did not seem to have had a wink of sleep.

“The counter-proclamation is written and printed,” he said, rubbing his temples. “We have had thirty thousand copies distributed, but, to be honest, I don’t think it is going to work. Presumably the police will confiscate most of the pamphlets before they get into circulation.”

“Then what are we to do?” I asked.

“We?” The count smiled wearily. “You overestimate my powers. I’ve already received orders from the War Ministry, three times, to return to Munich at once, on pain of arraignment for high treason. Now that Luitpold has taken over as regent, I serve another master.” He sighed at length. “The way it looks, Marot, you will soon be the last of our little group of conspirators able to stand by the king.”

“My God, Dürckheim, don’t leave Ludwig now, when he needs you most,” I exclaimed. In desperation, I sat down on the blue damask coverlet and ran my hands through my hair. For a moment I entirely forgot that I was sitting on the king’s bed.

The count raised a hand to soothe me. “Don’t be alarmed. I am going to leave, but before I reach Munich, I’ll make sure a message gets to the equerry Hornig and a few friends to tell them to do all they can to prepare for the king’s flight.”

I frowned. “For that, we’d need to know first where Gudden and Holnstein mean to take His Majesty.”

“Ah, here at least, there’s a glimmer of hope.” For the first time a slight smile passed over Dürckheim’s face. “I still have a few reliable sources of information, and they report interesting news. Dr. Gudden plans to detain Ludwig at Linderhof Castle. They intend to make the place a kind of prison. So we must act fast.” He stood up, smoothing down his uniform jacket. “I have several capable people in the Linderhof area, and they will organize an escape. From the castle, it is not far to the Tyrol. All is not yet lost, Marot.”

Suddenly he put his hand to his breast pocket. “Damn it, I almost forgot. The letter.” He took out the large envelope and the small folded note. “I gave the king my word to hand it over in Linderhof. But now I must go straight to Munich if I don’t want to end up in front of a court martial.”

I thought for a moment and then put out my hand. “Give it to me. I’ll take the letter to Linderhof with me and give it to the recipient there.”

Dürckheim looked at me doubtfully. “I gave my word,” he said. But then a sigh escaped him. “What does it matter? If I can’t trust you anymore, whom can I trust? But remember that the letter is to be given only to the person named in the note. And you are not to open the note until you are at Linderhof.”

I nodded, then took the letter and the note, stowing both safely away in my vest pocket just below my heart.

“I must go.” The count gave me his hand in farewell, and the first pale rays of the morning sun fell on his face. “For God and the king.”

“For God and the king.”

Without another word, Count Dürckheim turned away and hurried down the stairs of the palace to the first floor. A little later I heard a horse neighing, and I looked through the window, where nocturnal drifts of mist were dispersing. Leaning low on his horse, like a miscreant, the count galloped out of the castle gate.

The morning twilight quickly swallowed him up.

A
KNOCK AT THE
door brought Steven out of his reading. It was Albert Zöller, standing in the doorway of the small hotel room that the bookseller shared with Sara.

“Adolf the photographer reporting for duty,” he announced, saluting like a soldier. Around his neck hung an unwieldy camera that he had scrounged up a few hours ago in a photographic equipment store in Schwangau. “Always wanted one of these,” he said, grinning as he waved the old-fashioned camera in front of Steven’s face. “I thought it looks more professional than those newfangled digital cameras.” He looked at his watch. “Eight thirty already. We’d better go up to the castle quickly, if we don’t want to miss our date.”

Steven started in surprise. “So late already?” He packed the diary away in his rucksack and put on his shoes. Then he and Zöller went down the well-worn hotel stairway.

“Anything new?” Uncle Lu asked, pointing to the rucksack with the book in it.