The Ludwig Conspiracy (36 page)

When I arrived in Allmannshausen around eight that evening, in torrents of rain, the other conspirators were already sitting around a card table in the smoking room, looking grave. Through the haze of cigar smoke, I saw Dr. Loewenfeld, on whose face the last few months had engraved deep lines of anxiety, as well as Hermann Kaulbach, the painter, and Richard Hornig, the equerry. Only Count Dürckheim was missing.

“Where’s the count?” I asked, bewildered. “Has he been held up?”

Loewenfeld shook his head sadly. “Sycophantic courtiers have suspended him from his post and sent him to his estate in Steingaden,” he said. “Because they know that he is the king’s most faithful friend. We tried to send him warning, but obviously someone intercepted our messenger.”

I let myself drop into one of the upholstered armchairs by the fireplace. “My God, what’s happened?” I said. “Is Dr. Gudden really going to certify the king insane?”

“He’ll do it today,” replied Kaulbach, flicking the ash off his cigarette into the glowing logs. “At the latest tomorrow. All is lost.”

“Today?” I leaped up. “But . . . but why haven’t we heard anything about it before?”

“The operation was planned well in advance,” growled Richard Hornig, who was slumped in his chair like a clod of earth. “The Black Cabinet took care that no one would get wind of it too soon.”

I nodded, and thought, with a shudder, of the department of the police authority in Munich that must have helped to hatch the plot on orders from the ministers. Count Dürckheim had often told me about those police officers who operated in secret. This so-called Black Cabinet had been intercepting all letters to Ludwig for months, including a communication from Bavarian bankers who wanted to offer him credit. Only selected newspaper articles were laid before the king, and apart from Count Dürckheim, he was surrounded exclusively by officials and lackeys in league with the ministers, who had been instructed by Johann Lutz, president of the ministerial council, to lull Ludwig into a sense of false security.

“Damn it all, we should have known!” Dr. Loewenfeld banged on the floor with his walking stick. “Ever since Ludwig planned to turn to parliament for the money back in April, they’ve all been in turmoil. Just think, the opposition would have granted the king millions, gaining ministerial posts in return. Lutz
had
to react, or it would have cost him his head. If only we had made a move earlier.”

We were all silent, and for a while there was nothing to be heard but the ticking of the tall grandfather clock in the corner.

“What are the ministers planning to do?” I finally asked, breaking the silence. It seemed as if the others had already resigned themselves to Ludwig’s fate.

“A delegation of officials, led by that scoundrel Count von Holnstein, set off for Neuschwanstein this afternoon, along with Dr. Gudden and several asylum attendants,” replied Loewenfeld, his face pale. “They intend to present Ludwig with Gudden’s medical report and then depose him. And tomorrow Prince Luitpold will take over as regent in Munich.”

I bit my lip. The situation did indeed seem hopeless. Yet I still pursued the point. “Does Bismarck know of this? Maybe, if the Prussian chancellor were to stand firm against them . . .”

“Good God, you know better than any of us that Bismarck will approve of this operation,” Richard Hornig interrupted me. His eyes blazed with anger. “Clearly his agent Carl von Strelitz had more meetings with Lutz. All this was rigged in advance.”

Carl von Strelitz.

When Hornig mentioned the Prussian agent’s name, I closed my eyes for a moment. I was still sometimes plagued by nightmares in which Strelitz attacked me with his swordstick and ran me through the chest. In my dreams, bright blood spurted from the wound like the jet of a fountain, and I always woke up screaming. So far I had been unable to find out why Bismarck’s agent had been on the island at the end of September, let alone why, just before his appearance, Maria had uttered those remarkable words.

He’ll kill me.

I was soon to find out.

“We must warn the king!” I cried now to the company around the table. “Let us telegraph to Füssen at once.”

“Do you suppose we didn’t think of that?” barked Kaulbach, the painter. He had lit himself another cigarette and was nervously drawing on his long, ivory cigarette holder. “We have to assume that the Black Cabinet has also taken over the telegraph office in Füssen, and if those dogs intercept any message of ours, all is lost.”

Loewenfeld nodded his agreement. “If I were Lutz, I’d keep the castle under observation, station some of my own men in the telegraph office, and make sure the king thinks himself safe. The minister may be a traitor, but he’s no fool.”

I said nothing for a moment, while the smoke from the men’s cigars and cigarettes hovered like a dark cloud above our heads.

“Then we must find some other way to warn the king,” I finally said. “Hornig, do you have any horses here?”

The equerry raised his right eyebrow. “You’re thinking of sending a mounted messenger? It’s a good fifty miles to Füssen. In the weather out there, he’d need at least four hours to cover the distance. And the delegation, with Gudden, will be arriving there in . . .” He took out his gold pocket watch. “In exactly two hours’ time. So you can forget that idea. In any event, it’s useless. The king is too obstinate to listen to any of us. He’s dismissed me from his service, he’s fallen out with Kaulbach over the sketches for the picture of the ruins of Falkenstein Castle, the doctor here is too old, and Dürckheim has been suspended and sent away. So which of us could go?”

“I could,” I said firmly.

“You?” Hermann Kaulbach looked at me skeptically. “As far as I’m aware, the king banished you from his circle of friends forever after that wretched business at Herrenchiemsee. When I last saw him, he spoke of having you horsewhipped and transported to the Antilles.”

“I must try, nonetheless,” I replied. “I am sure that Ludwig still has some fondness for me. And when he hears the news I bring, he will forgive me.”

“Or chop your head off,” growled Richard Hornig. “Anything is possible with him.” He sighed and then rose to his feet. “Be that as it may, I can see that we have no other option. Come with me, and I’ll see if I can find a horse in my stable that won’t throw you at the first crossroads it comes to.”

W
E DECIDED ON
two fast young black horses. I was to ride them alternately, and in that way I could cover the whole distance to Neuschwanstein at full gallop.

In the past, I had accompanied Ludwig on many a nocturnal ride, and I considered myself a reasonably good horseman, yet the next few hours were hell on earth. Torrential rain was falling, the roads were softened and muddy, and I could hardly see my own hand before my eyes. Raindrops whipped into my face like hailstones, and after a few minutes my clothes were already clinging to my body. Beyond Hohenpeissenberg, the rain finally slackened, but it was still difficult for me to see the right way to go in the darkness.

Shortly after midnight, a few lights showed ahead of me at last, telling me that I had reached Füssen. A little later, I approached Hohenschwangau Castle, where Ludwig had spent much of his childhood. On a height opposite it, Neuschwanstein Castle stood, faintly illuminated. Large parts of that imposing building were still surrounded by scaffolding.

I reined in my horse and looked around me. What now? So far I had thought only of reaching Neuschwanstein. Now that the castle lay ahead at last, I hesitated. Suppose Gudden, Holnstein, and the others were already up there with the king? Suppose soldiers were already stationed on guard around the castle? All at once this whole venture seemed pointless. I was freezing, as if shaken by a fever. Hunger gnawed at me, and I felt more exhausted than ever before in my life.

At that moment I saw a large man walk unsteadily through the entrance to Hohenschwangau Castle and down to the valley. For a brief moment I thought I was looking at the king, but then I recognized the massive figure as that of Count Holnstein, once a close friend of the king. He seemed to have been drinking heavily. He swayed as he approached the stable, where a coachman was just leading two horses out by their reins. I quickly slipped behind a nearby shed with my two mounts and watched what happened next from there.

“Hail, my man!” bellowed Holnstein, twirling his mustache. “What are you doing here?”

“I . . . I’m to get the carriage ready for the king,” stammered the coachman. “His nightly drive . . .”

“Unharness those horses at once,” the count snapped at him. “We have a different carriage ready for the king.”

The coachman looked at Holnstein’s gigantic figure, baffled. “But the king gave me orders to—”

“The king is giving no more orders!” barked Holnstein. “His Royal Highness Prince Luitpold has assumed the regency. So you can go to the devil!”

The wiry little man’s mouth dropped open. At first he seemed about to say something; then he bowed and took the horses back into the stable. Holnstein looked grimly after him, and then, treading heavily, went back into the castle, where I could now see, in outline, a large company seated around a table on the other side of several lighted windows. My heart was racing; I hadn’t arrived too late! Obviously the distinguished gentlemen were amusing themselves over supper before going to tell the king the bad news.

Leaving one of my horses behind the shed, I galloped the other up the steep hill to Neuschwanstein. Fortunately, there were no soldiers to be seen. After I had knocked hard on the castle gate several times, the sleepy castellan opened it to me. I knew the man from my earlier visits. After a brief exchange of words, I was let in, and I stormed into the lower courtyard and from there up the steps to the palace to take the king the news.

I found him high up in the Singers’ Hall.

Ludwig was an even more pitiful sight than I remembered from our last meeting. He was so fat that I feared the buttons of his coat might come off at any moment. His face was pale and bloated, and there were food stains on his shirtsleeves and vest. As I came in, he was holding a small book in his greasy fingers, silently declaiming some lines of verse. His lip movements were reminiscent of a pale carp’s. Although I had made a lot of noise as I raced into the hall, he did not seem to notice me.

“Your Majesty!” I cried. “You are in great danger!”

At last he turned his mighty head my way, but he obviously did not recognize me.

“Kainz?” he asked. “Did I summon you to give a performance?”

I grimaced. The king obviously took me for one of his actors. Had Ludwig lost his wits after all? Had his critics been right? In the magnificent Singers’ Hall, with its high ceiling, its mural paintings from
Parsifal,
and its gilded chandeliers, his desolate figure looked like that of a beggar in a fairy-tale castle. He was standing on the small stage at the end of the vaulted room, in front of a roughly painted backdrop showing a wood with trees, bushes, and deer. Suddenly his expression changed, and his eyes narrowed to small slits.

“Marot!” he exclaimed when at last he recognized me. “I thought I had made myself clear. I do not want you anywhere near me now. Your conduct was
dégoutant.
”

Although the king went on roundly abusing me for some time, I was immensely relieved. At least Ludwig seemed to know who I was and had not entirely fallen prey to delusions.

When the worst of his rage was spent, I hurried to the stage and bowed like a knight to his ruler. And in that castle, I really did feel like a character from the world of the sagas, like Parsifal
or Tristan, reporting to his king before going away in search of the Holy Grail.

“Your Majesty,” I began quietly. “I know that I have failed you. Nonetheless I come to you in this dark hour because I must warn you. Count Holnstein, Dr. von Gudden, and several officials and madhouse attendants are on the way here to have you certified insane and depose you. You must flee at once!”

Ludwig looked at me in astonishment. “Nonsense. If any danger threatened, Hoppe my barber would long ago have . . .”

“Forget your lackeys,” I interrupted him. “Most of them are already working for the ministers. Your Master of the Stables, Holnstein, has been inciting them.”

“I can believe it of him, corrupt as he is.” The king put his head on one side and scrutinized me curiously. All at once he seemed to me as reasonable as in his younger years.

“Marot, it is to your credit that you have come to warn me. A king can forgive. Stand up.” He called to his faithful servant, Weber, who had been waiting behind the door. “Lock the castle gates and let no one in,” he commanded in a firm voice. “Fetch the local gendarmes from Füssen and the firefighting forces from the countryside around. We’ll see if those fine gentlemen can lay hands on me without so much as a by your leave.”

My heart leaped for joy. This was the king as I had known him in the old days! The king for whom I was ready to die. His eyes, no longer vacant, fixed on me with an alert and friendly expression. He went down the few steps from the stage and clapped me on the shoulder so hard that I almost fell over.

“It’s good to have you back with me again, Theodor,” he said, smiling. “Now, find something dry to wear before I lose the best of my knights to a chill. That, truly, would be ridiculous.”

JT, W

The next few hours passed in tense expectation. The castle was barred, and several of the country gendarmes from Füssen had taken up their position outside the main entrance. In spite of the rain and the early-morning hour, a number of people had already gathered, having learned of the shameful intentions of the Munich officials.

From one of the tower windows, I watched several peasants standing together, arguing wildly. Many of them had brought scythes and flails with them, and torches lit up the dark scene. In spite of the menace in the air, I could not help smiling. Once again, it was clear that Ludwig was still venerated like a saint in these rural areas. The men and women out there would let themselves be torn to pieces rather than have anyone hurt a hair on their king’s head.