At last he felt ground beneath his feet, and soon after that Luise was beside him. A narrow path wound its way along the precipitous rock wall to the hotel. There was nothing to be seen now of the chaos raging in the castle above. Only now and then did the sound of shots come down to them.
“Right, keep going,” Luise ordered, pushing her cousin forward. “Who knows how long my faithful paladins up there will hold out.”
Steven staggered along the muddy path that ended, just below the hotel building, at a square, wooden annex. A narrow flight of steps led into a small room made of pale spruce planks with an aromatic scent of resin. Several old etchings showing Falkenstein Castle at an earlier date hung on the wall; there was a model of the castle in a glass display case, and notices provided information about the details of its history.
“The Falkenstein Museum,” Luise explained as she searched the pockets of her suit. “The previous owner of the hotel had it built for his guests, but I have found another use for it.”
She took out a small key and inserted it into a keyhole fitted to the side of the display case. There was a quiet hum, and then the case moved aside to reveal a flight of stairs leading down. They climbed down the stairs until they reached an elevator with doors that slid soundlessly aside.
“Welcome to Hades.”
Luise sketched a slight bow before ushering Steven into the elevator. “This is really only my escape hatch. I would have liked to show you my hotel suite. But the way things seem, I fear we have no time for that now.”
She tapped a combination of several numbers into a keypad, the doors closed, and the elevator, humming, went down.
When the doors opened again, Steven was in the Middle Ages.
A long corridor lined with wood veneer stretched before him, and like the rooms in Neuschwanstein, it was adorned with life-sized murals from the world of the Germanic legends. Chandeliers with white candles in them hung from the ceiling, giving a faint light, and from somewhere came the soft notes of one of Wagner’s overtures. Only when he looked again did he see that small halogen bulbs and not candles were burning, and the music came from tiny loudspeakers mounted everywhere in the corridor. On closer inspection, he found that the corridor itself had a rather temporary appearance: some of the planks under the thick rugs were missing, and the ceiling had not yet been fully plastered.
Like Ludwig’s own building style, Steven thought. A half-finished castle cobbled together from several different periods.
“I have rebuilt large parts of Neuschwanstein,” Luise announced as they walked down the long corridor. “In one or two years I would have finished the work. Only the murals are new. I think they are even more successful than the originals, don’t you agree?”
“Just as gloomy, anyway.”
The corridor suddenly veered left, and they were now walking farther and farther into the mountain, through dimly lit rooms. Luise seemed to have hollowed out the whole Falkenstein like a Swiss cheese. The rooms were carved directly into the rock, and some were shaped like caverns. Instead of windows, there were landscape paintings, one providing a view of a medieval idyll. Behind dusty glass, Steven saw castles on steep peaks, towers, and deep green forests.
In due course, he really did recognize all the furnishings of Neuschwanstein in the countless, labyrinthine series of rooms. They passed the plainly furnished servants’ rooms with their rustic wooden bedsteads, then the magnificent dining room in which, as in the original, there was a table with a marble and gilded bronze centerpiece. They walked through the dressing room, the bedchamber, and the salon with its columns and Byzantine arches; even Ludwig’s bed with its valuable carvings stood here, just as Steven remembered it. Beyond a passage he saw the sparkling red and blue lights of a grotto reflected on the surface of an underground lake.
She really has had all this stuff brought here to realize her own dream of a fairy-tale castle. How long was it in the planning?
“What you see here is the labor of many years,” Luise said proudly, as if she had read his thoughts. “When my husband died, I was able to devote myself entirely to my hobby. A not-inconsiderable part of the resources of the Manstein firm has gone into this project.” She turned in a circle, the Derringer in her hand and her head raised to look at the ceiling. “Our great-great-grandfather would have done just the same. Then he would have been spared seeing half the world trample his heritage underfoot. Ludwig wanted to keep his castles to himself. I am the one who has made that dream come true.”
“Luise, Ludwig is dead,” Steven said wearily. “If anything survives, it is only his idea in people’s minds. He’s one of the best-known figures in German history. Do you think he would have been if his castles were hidden somewhere underground?”