Early as it was, there were already some servants there, carrying a small table decorated with intarsia work, two chairs, and a silver tray laden with all kinds of delicacies on it. In surprise, I realized that they were approaching the tall old linden tree that stood not far from the basin of the fountain. When I looked at the trunk, I saw that roughly halfway up it was a platform to which a simple wooden ladder led. The servants now hauled the furniture and the tray up to this airy terrace with a block and tackle, and they arranged it all as if the table were not sixteen feet up in the air, but in the royal dining room.
“My supper shall be your breakfast today, Marot,” said Ludwig, pointing with a smile to the platform. “Be so kind as to keep me company in my linden tree. I have the finest bedchamber in the world up there.”
The wooden ladder creaked alarmingly as His Majesty and I climbed it. I clung to the rungs and tried not to look down. As so often, I had to shake my head over Ludwig’s eccentric notions. A king in a tree house! No doubt the servants were already gossiping about this latest whim.
But once I was finally up on the platform, the view before me almost brought tears to my eyes.
The Alps surrounded us, like mighty giants of rock, with the soft green of the forests at their feet. The park with its castle, the pavilions, the Temple of Venus, and the chapel lay below us like a child’s toy landscape. At that very moment, the sun rose behind the mountains in the east, bathing the scene in a warm, almost unreal light. In the shady canopy above our heads, the linden leaves rustled quietly.
“Help yourself, Marot. You must be hungry after that ride.” The king had already taken his place on his chair and was serving himself from a dish of fragrant and particularly tender roast veal. But I couldn’t take my eyes off the magnificent landscape. As if at a secret signal, a mighty jet of water suddenly rose from the middle of the fountain below us, and a cool spray wafted up to me.
“Out here in the mountains, far from the city, I am the king I would like to be,” said Ludwig, wiping his fleshy lips with his napkin. “A law of nature, like the sun and the moon. Do you understand now why I can’t go back to Munich?”
“Majesty, times have changed,” I told him “You are not Arthur in Camelot, but the king of Bavaria. Laws have to be signed . . .”
“Let the ministers bring their paperwork on pilgrimage here to Linderhof!” Ludwig interrupted me, pointing to the landscape around us. “What is real and what is false, Theodor? The dirty city of Munich with its intriguing and politicking, or this fairy-tale world? The people still love their king here, and here I am not a marionette.”
“You need not be a marionette if you . . .” I began. But suddenly the words dried up in my mouth. Down below us, a boy, laughing, approached. Beside him was a young woman, wearing a plain bodice and linen skirt with an apron, such as the simple women of these parts often wear on festive days. Her black hair hung loose, fluttering behind her in the wind. The girl’s face was radiant; her whole appearance seemed designed to drive my gloomy mood away, like the sun dispersing the mists of a cold, damp morning. In his loud, cheerful voice, the child beside her was spurring her on to run a race with him.
“Marot, what’s the matter?” I heard my king’s voice behind me. “Does the view up here take your breath away?”
Dazed, I shook my head and sat down opposite Ludwig. “It’s nothing, Majesty. Probably only the long ride.” Surreptitiously, I looked down and tried to catch another glimpse of the unknown girl, but she had already disappeared from my field of vision. Only her laughter rose to me, clear as a bell.
“Do you hear that?” said Ludwig, heaping another portion of steaming roast veal on a porcelain plate with a pattern of swans. “That laughter is music to my ears! Not the music of Wagner, perhaps, but more beautiful, in any event, than the whistling of locomotives and the ringing of bells in those newfangled horse-drawn streetcars in the city.”
“The . . . the young woman down there,” I asked tentatively, trying to show as little interest as possible. “Is she a governess?”
Ludwig laughed, almost choking on a mouthful of veal. “Governess? Oh God, no! That’s Maria from Oberammergau. Daughter of a peasant woodcarver.” A smile played around his lips. “I like to have her near me. She keeps me company, helps a little in the kitchen, and tells me what the people are thinking. You see, Marot, I am not indifferent to the world.”
“If you are not indifferent to the world, Majesty, then promise that you will come to Munich.”
“What liberties do you think you can take, Marot?” he snapped. “I do not have to promise you anything. Who do you think you are?”