The Ludwig Conspiracy(24)

For the next few hours Steven was entirely immersed in the world of Theodor Marot. Before his mind’s eye, horse-drawn cabs rattled along narrow, dirty alleyways, gentlemen in tails and overcoats raised their top hats in civil greeting, women in corsets and full skirts swayed in time to the music of a Johann Strauss waltz. Steven saw fairy-tale castles, festive banquets, shimmering grottoes; he heard the shrill giggling of a melancholic king and the resounding music of Richard Wagner; he breathed in the aroma of thousands of candles burning in a ballroom; he tasted Bordeaux a hundred and fifty years old.

But above all, Steven sensed that this well-worn little notebook was in the process of telling him an extraordinary story—a mystery that only a small and select circle had known before; a secret written from the heart of the royal physician’s assistant, as if he were making a confession.

The bookseller thought he could still see Theodor Marot’s fears behind the lines of text, like traces of blood not quite washed out of a white vest.





8





Berg, 21 June 1886





QECSOQNZO





My name is Theodor Marot. I am assistant to the royal physician, Dr. Max Schleiss von Loewenfeld, and one of the king’s true friends, of whom His Majesty had far too few. We tried to save him, but we failed. Tears fall on these pages, like sand shaken to blot the ink, but even they cannot undo the fact that the king is dead and his enemies are victorious. May these notes help to bring the truth to light, painful as it is.

As I write this, the great men of the land are gathering for the funeral banquet in the royal residence, where they will fall, like carrion crows, on oxtail soup, saddle of veal, and roast venison. They will wipe their greasy mouths and congratulate one another over coffee on the success of their intrigues. For the king is dead, and he has taken his secret with him to the grave. Only we few know what really happened, and if the ministers should ever learn this, we must all fear a shot delivered without warning. Not until the last of us has followed Ludwig to the grave can they be sure that no word of what happened will reach the general public, that they can go on ruling the country undisturbed. Their puppet, the prince regent, is sent off hunting and hiking while these gentlemen play politics on the grand scale.

They laid the king to rest in the church of St. Michael in Munich on Saturday, two days ago. Although Dr. Loewenfeld is presumably a filthy traitor in the eyes of the ministers of state, we were both permitted to accompany the funeral procession, together with the other doctors. It was probably a final favor, before they force Loewenfeld to retire on the grounds of his age, and leave me free for anyone to gun down.

Briennerstrasse, that magnificent street, was so full of people that day that the hearse, drawn by eight black horses, could hardly make any progress. Many wept, all the shops were closed, and black banners hung from the windows, whipping back and forth in a stormy wind. It was as if, on that day, the people of Munich wanted to give their king all the love that they had withheld from him for the decades of his life. But it was too late now.

What would Ludwig have said if he had been watching it all, as the military men goose-stepped ahead of his casket in their gold-trimmed uniforms? If he had seen all the sycophantic courtiers, civil servants, and lackeys drawn up in rank and file in the funeral procession, faces sad and frowning while inwardly they rejoiced? At that moment I almost wished that the two dozen black-clad Cowled Men would turn on the whole pack of them with their fiery torches, but they walked in silence at the head of the procession, muffled in their ghostly robes, with the king’s coat of arms on their breasts, and the crossbones as a sign of death.

When the casket was carried out of the Residence Palace, the sun briefly broke through the clouds in a last greeting. The people of Munich glanced up at the sky as if Ludwig might wave to them once more from on high. The king had just been laid in his final resting place in the crypt of St. Michael’s when bright lightning struck with such a loud peal of thunder that people fell to their knees, covering their ears with their hands. Many saw it as a sign that Ludwig is still among us, and already there are rumors that he has withdrawn to the depths of the Natternberg near Deggendorf, and will return someday to sit in judgment of his murderers.

But I know that will never happen. The king is dead.





NECAALAI





Sitting down now to describe the events of the last few months, leading to Ludwig’s terrible end, I will begin with his final birthday celebration in August 1885. It was his fortieth. If we had guessed that no other birthday would follow, we would have shed tears and gone on our knees to the king, begging him to see reason at last. As it was, we put up with his whims and joined in his little games, in which each of us had an established part to play.