“All the cameras are making me paranoid,” she said softly, pointing to another lens mounted in a corner. “You really do feel you’re under observation the whole time.”
“Any idea how many people go around this place every day?” Zöller said, standing in contemplation of the furniture. Once again, Steven felt that something was troubling him. “It’s sometimes up to ten thousand a day in the summer. Ten thousand idiots who think they can paw everything here. Without security cameras, you might as well shut up shop.”
Zöller went ahead as they finally, by way of the anteroom and the dining room, reached the king’s bedchamber. The magnificent neo-Gothic furnishings were as impressive as the stage set for a Wagnerian opera. In the left-hand corner stood the broad bed with its carved wooden canopy. Next to it was an equally ornate washstand with a silver swan providing water. Two doorways led to the private chapel next door and a small, artificial grotto with a conservatory. The bedroom walls were covered by mural paintings from the legend of Tristan and Isolde, and here again the small cameras made sure that improper behavior by any visitors was immediately detected.
Lost in thought, Steven looked at the bedside table. Its wood looked curiously thin and cheap. Once again, the bookseller thought of what Zöller had said just now.
Most of this stuff is only smoke and mirrors . . .
“So let’s see what we have here,” Uncle Lu said, leafing through a booklet about legends of the Middle Ages. He then scrutinized the paintings and furniture. “The washstand has running water, and there is a flushing toilet,” he lectured. “Ludwig always made use of the latest technology. Nonetheless, the fittings and furnishings were so grotesquely like something out of a fairy tale that only a few weeks after Ludwig’s death, Prince Regent Luitpold threw it open to the public as evidence of the king’s insanity. This bed, for instance . . .”
Suddenly Zöller stopped short. He adjusted his reading glasses and inspected the lavish carvings on the canopy.
“What is it?” Sara asked. “Have you found something?”
“No,” the old man murmured, shaking his head as if waking from a nightmare. “I must be mistaken. Anything else would be . . .”
He chuckled as if he had just heard a bad joke. Then he shrugged and pointed to a mural on the left, showing a pair of lovers in the shade of a broad treetop. “The lady in the white dress there is Isolde,” he said. “So the man embracing her so soulfully must be Tristan. Aha, and over there he is handing her the fatal love potion.”
“Maybe it would be helpful if you could give us a brief summary of the plot,” Sara said. “I’m apparently the only person here who doesn’t know her way around the world of the old Germanic legends.”
Uncle Lu grinned. “You don’t know the most famous love story in Germany? Very well, here’s the short version.” He cleared his throat. “King Rivalon is burning with love for the beautiful Blanchefleur, but their relationship must be kept secret. Just when she becomes pregnant, Rivalon is killed by the wicked King Morgan. Blanchefleur dies of love and grief, and her child grows up without ever knowing his real parents. That child is Tristan.”
“So what about Isolde?” Sara asked.
“Don’t be so impatient.” Uncle Lu raised his hands in a placatory gesture. “Much later, Tristan is to pay court to the Irish princess Isolde on behalf of King Mark of Cornwall. On the crossing to Britain, the two of them accidentally drink the love potion that was really meant for Mark and Isolde. And then fate takes its course.”
Zöller pointed to a mural showing Isolde mourning at the bedside of a mortally sick Tristan. “Tristan loves a woman who is betrothed to another man. A theme popular to this day in romantic novels and soap operas. The handsome young man does marry another girl, who as it happens is also called Isolde, but even his marriage cannot extinguish his love for the true Isolde. In the end they both die after a few complications so unbelievable that no TV producer would allow them to pass. End of story.”
Sara applauded slowly. “Thanks for the lesson, Herr Zöller, even if I still have no idea what the keyword is. My head is positively ringing with all those names instead.” Sighing, she enumerated them. “King Rivalon, Blanchefleur, Morgan, Mark, another Isolde . . .”
“And I’ve left out most of the names, too.” Uncle Lu grinned. “Otherwise it would be a performance to fill a whole evening.”
Suddenly, something clicked inside Steven’s head. It was as if a piece of a jigsaw puzzle that he had spent a long time looking for had finally moved into the right place.