Could it be possible? Steven looked all the way up the tree. It appeared to be old, almost two hundred years, he estimated. The linden must have been standing here when Marot came to Falkenstein in search of a hiding place.
But considerably smaller at the time . . .
Once again, the answer to the puzzle went through Steven’s head.
In the king’s fourth castle a scion shows the dearest of his treasures . . .
Steven felt the blood throbbing in his temples, and all of a sudden his throat seemed as dry as a piece of sandpaper. They had assumed all along that scion meant Leopold, Ludwig’s son. But what if scion meant something different? What if it referred to its horticultural meaning of a little tree, a young shoot that, someday, would grow into a strong trunk?
A mighty linden tree.
Steven dug his hands far into the heap of withered leaves and then the soil beneath them, and his heart began to beat faster. His fingers slipped as if of their own accord over the roots and up to the trunk, until they met with some tiny indentations that must have been carved in it by someone long ago. They were letters, distorted and almost covered by the bark as it grew with every year’s passing, but Steven recognized them without looking.
Maria.
Steven instinctively smiled. The beginning and the end; it all came full circle here in Falkenstein. The journey was over, and the letter . . .
He felt Luise looking at his back as if her gaze were the tip of an arrow. When he slowly turned around, he saw her standing at the entrance to the castle. She was leaning on her pick and giggling wildly.
“I knew you’d lead me to the hiding place, dearest cousin,” she said, pointing to the linden tree. “I really ought to have figured it out myself.” She shook her head, laughing. “A scion that shows us Ludwig’s son. Friend Theodor really was a poet.” Her face transformed into a frozen grotesque. Her lips narrow and bloodless, she turned to her two companions.
“Tristan and Galahad, we need ropes and an ax. And hurry up! We are going to dig my cousin a grave worthy of him.”
Luise Manstein took the pick, and with an ardent cry she drove the implement deep into the bark of the tree.
THEY FOUND THE container about six feet down. It was rusty iron, and so dirty that at first the men thought it was a clod of earth. The beautiful linden tree, felled, lay on the ground, its roots torn apart and shredded as if a bomb had hit it. Luise danced around the wreck of the tree, holding her face up to the drizzling rain.
“Here it is!” she shouted, her voice almost breaking. “Destiny is fulfilled! I have the proof!”
She had the heavily breathing paladins give her the container, and she carefully scratched the layer of mud away. Underneath it was a lid riveted in place and a rusty padlock.
“Quick, a knife!”
Galahad handed her a knife, and, with a well-aimed thrust, Luise Manstein broke the now-brittle padlock open. She reverently put the little container on the ground, knelt down, and lifted the lid.
Inside lay a sealed envelope, damp and sprinkled with spots of mold, but otherwise intact.
Luise took it out and stroked the seal, which showed a swan with its head raised. The knife passed under the seal, which crumbled into small red fragments. With her fingertips, she took the letter out of the envelope and carefully unfolded it. She seemed to be trembling all over.
“I’ve waited so many years for this moment,” she whispered. “Ever since I was a child. And now my dream has come true at last.”
Luise fished a pair of reading glasses out of her breast pocket, put them on, and silently moved her lips, as if incanting a magic spell.
“Thursday, the tenth of June 1886,” she began quietly. “I, King Ludwig the Second of Bavaria, do hereby declare, being in full possession of my intellectual powers, and in the best of health, that . . .”
At that moment the sirens wailed.
43
LUISE LOOKED UP IN irritation. Tristan, Galahad, and Steven also turned around, startled. The bookseller could hardly believe his ears. He was hearing good old police sirens, similar to the fanfare in old Westerns as the cavalry rode to the aid of the beleaguered fort.
But how can this be possible? Steven thought. It must be a dream, a beautiful dream, no more.
However, the sirens were distinctly too loud for a dream. Three green and white Audis and a bus, blue lights flashing, raced up the narrow, winding mountain road to the hotel. A second bus followed. When the pilot down in the parking lot saw this large contingent coming, he ran to the helicopter and started the engine. Soon after that, the rotor blades began to turn faster and faster, until finally the helicopter rose from the ground and disappeared among the clouds.
Only seconds later, the police cars had reached the hotel parking lot. Gray-clad men poured out of the two buses, wearing balaclavas and equipped with MP5 submachine guns and Kevlar bulletproof vests. They took up their positions behind the cars. Some of the officers swarmed out into the woods below the peak. There were clicks of safeties being taken off, and then there was an almost eerie silence.