Ashes to ashes, dust to dust . . .
“Is that Neuschwanstein?” he whispered, to take his mind off the memories, looking at the model of a fairy-tale castle set on a plaster rock.
Sara shook her head as she read the plaque affixed to it. “That’s Falkenstein Castle,” she said. “Another castle that Ludwig intended to build near Pfronten. Unfortunately, his death prevented it, although I suspect his ministers would finally have turned off the money tap before that.”
In the dim light, Steven made his way into the next high-ceilinged room, where there were more models. By now he was in control of himself again.
“This is interesting,” he called to Sara, who was still standing in front of the plaster model of Falkenstein Castle. “Here’s a model of a group of statues intended for the Apollo Fountain down by the canal. Exactly where Theodor gave Maria that bunch of flowers.”
Steven looked at the statue of the Greek god on his chariot of the sun. “The sun as a symbol again. I really could have sworn that was the keyword.”
His eyes fell on a decorative vase beside the model. An inscription told him that it, too, came from Herrenchiemsee. Again the sun stood in its glory over the portrait of Louis XIV, which was surrounded by fine porcelain flowers. Farther down was the crest of the Sun King: three golden lilies on a blue field.
Suddenly Steven stopped dead. In his excitement, he almost forgot to breathe.
Three golden lilies . . .
Heart thudding, he remembered the last entry in the diary, the exact passage where Theodor confessed his love to the shy Maria.
The lily has been a symbol of purity and innocence since time immemorial . . .
The royal physician’s assistant had not chosen flowers at random for Maria, but very special flowers. They had been lilies, white lilies. Could that be mere coincidence?
And Steven also recollected where he had already seen the same flowers—in the council chamber, more precisely on the picture of the Sun King. His cloak had been plastered all over with lilies. He simply hadn’t recognized them as flowers.
I’m sure that guy up there is trying to tell us something. Something that’s hidden and obvious at the same time . . .
“Sara!” he cried as his heart beat faster and faster. “I . . . I think I know what the keyword is.”
“What?” Sara hurried over to him. “You found it? Here?”
Laughing, Steven shook his head. “It was around us the whole time. Do you remember what flowers Marot picked for Maria? They were lilies. The lily is the crest of the Bourbon rulers, the sign of the Sun King.” He pointed to the flowers on the decorative vase. “See for yourself. Three golden lilies on a blue field!”
“My God,” Sara groaned. “It really was all over the place on the second floor. I even saw it on the benches in the Great Hall of Mirrors.”
“And on the painting in the council chamber,” Steven added excitedly. “The Sun King’s coronation cloak. It was covered with golden lilies. Marot was practically rubbing our noses in it. He built lilies into his story on purpose. Those remarks about innocence and purity should have tipped me off. And what’s more, lilies flower in midsummer, not in October.”
“Three big wet kisses if you’re right.” Frantically, Sara dug her laptop out of the bag, put it on one of the glass cases, and typed the word Lilies into the decoding program. A few seconds later disappointment clouded her face.
“Damn!” she swore quietly, turning the screen so that Steven could take a look at it. “Just another jumble of letters.”
Steven stared at the Input and Output fields.
XVI . . .
Input IDT
Key LILIES
Output XVI
The bookseller stopped. “Just a moment,” he said finally. “That’s not a tangle of letters—it’s a Roman numeral. Sixteen. Suppose XVI stands for Louis the Sixteenth? After all, he was the Sun King’s grandson, and another Bourbon.”
“You mean . . .” Sara typed the next coded words in the puzzle into her computer, and a row of figures appeared on the screen.
V, XVI, CXIII, LXXXXIII, XV, LXXXXVIII
LIX, VII, XXVIII, LXI, XXX, XII
“You’re right,” she said. “Roman numerals, thirteen of them in all.”
“I wonder whether they’re for some royal dynasty?” said Steven, baffled. “German or French rulers?”
“No idea.” At top speed, Sara entered a few more words from Marot’s diary into the laptop. “All I know is that this can’t be the whole solution to the puzzle. The last third of the diary contains coded letters that can’t be deciphered, with LILIES as the keyword.” She smiled. “I assume you know the next word in Marot’s account written in capitals?”