Page 36 of The Last Kingdom

The figures were huddled together in seeming conversation, but he caught only the faintest burble of voices. It seemed a friendly exchange of words, most muted by the wind. He huddled in a copse of birch trees, obscured by the dark foliage. The fire continued to rage, confined to its circular stone hearth, crackling with life. The cold air was clearing his head of the chloroform.

He’d been brought here for a reason.

Time to find out what that might be.

The six figures left the fire and headed off into the darkness. He slipped from the woods and followed, finding a path that wound through the trees and up another short incline. Snow lined its edges. Tree limbs rattled overhead, jiggling in the cold wind and raining bits of snow down on him. He passed an intersection for another route and concluded that it probably led back to the wine cave. Ahead, he spotted lights and realized they were headed for a house.

No. Not a house.

A castle.

Round towers. A portcullis and drawbridge over a dry moat. The crenellated walls battlemented with arrow slits, all visible from floodlights that illuminated towering stone walls. Once, long ago, a retainer’s village would have clustered to them like barnacles, dependent on the castle for protection in time of invasion. The six robed figures disappeared through the open main gate. He stayed back and followed, crossing the stone bridge, keeping to the shadows, careful with the crunch of his own footfalls on the snow.

He entered a courtyard.

A battery of spotlights lit the pavement. Cantilevered galleries and wall-walks encircled, all with neat and orderly woodwork. The figures entered the main building through a lighted doorway. Soft lights twinkled in many of the windows. He decided it best not to follow them there. So he scampered off to the right, down a short alley between the outer walls and inner buildings where firewood was piled high in tight rows. Tarnished copper downspouts and gutters fit right in with the ancient slates and dark dormers of the steep roof.

He was unsure as to any of this, but decided that he had no choice but to investigate. Whoevertheywere could have simply taken the envelope and left him in the parking lot back at the Chiemsee. Instead, they’d gone to the trouble of bringing him along. He also had to admit he was curious about those black-robed figures. So he kept moving down the darkened alley, his eyes surveying everything around him, until he spotted a door.

He tested the latch. Open.

He stepped inside to warm air and a lit corridor that led straight into a roomy kitchen. At its middle, below an iron ceiling rack of copper pots and pans, stood a large butcher’s block. An array of knives protruded from a chunk of hardwood. He selected the largest, satisfied that its edges were more than amply sharp, and kept moving.

Back toward the front of the castle he noticed the luxury of space, along with the high ceilings, old-world chandeliers, rich floorings. The pale yellow walls were covered in old-style German paintings along with coats of arms and figures from legendary times. If not for the circumstances, he would have been captivated by the ambience. He loved the Middle Ages. Perhaps his favorite time in history. Not a period in which he would have wanted to live, but definitely interesting to study. He wondered where the six robed men had gone. No sign of them anywhere among the many doors, passageways, and niches. Not a sound disturbed the troubling silence. He stopped at a junction of two dim hallways. One led farther back into the ground floor, the other to a set of double doors where shadows played across the light that leaked out from beneath.

Finally.

People.

He approached the doors, careful with his steps, but the stone floor did not reveal his presence. Now what? Nothing ventured, nothing gained. So he readied the knife, turned the lever, and pushed the paneled door inward.

A sole man occupied the room.

“Please, come in, Herr Malone. I’ve been waiting. We need to speak.”

* * *

LUKE RETURNED TO HIS BEER, BRATWURST, AND SAUERKRAUT. HEalso found his phone and searched the wordGuglmänner.

Like Blondie had said, it meant “hooded mourners.” Famous in the Middle Ages for accompanying funerals. The latest incarnation seemed nothing more than a bunch of young men obsessed by the reputation of Ludwig II, builder of fairy-tale castles, patron of Richard Wagner, and one of the last kings of an independent Bavaria. The Guglmänner were convinced that Ludwig had been murdered in 1886, according to them shot twice in the back by Otto von Bismarck’s secret agents.

He had to admit, it had a Hollywoodesque vibe to it.

As their story went, Ludwig never wanted to be part of Bismarck’s newly formed German Empire. Instead, in 1871, he was forced into the union because of the war Bavaria lost against Austria. Supposedly, at the time of his death, Ludwig was working against the empire, secretly negotiating with France to set Bavaria free again. So Bismarck ordered his death. Of course, no proof was offered to back up any of those claims. But fanatics had never required much in the way of evidence.

Blind faith was their mantra.

The Guglmänner also seemed to know how to stage a good publicity stunt. He found more pictures of them, from a few years back, marching through Munich carrying flaming torches. Once they sank balloons into Lake Starnberg printed with the slogan “It Was Murder.” They also actively lobbied for a Bavarian euro coin featuring Ludwig, rather than Germany’s eagle, saying the current coins were far too Prussian. Recently, they went high-tech on YouTube and released a fifteen-minute documentary that supposedly explained the true circumstances of Ludwig’s death. The thing had over a half million views. To the GuglmännerBavaria remained independent, outside of Germany, blessed with its own parliament, and it should be allowed to go its own way.

Seemed like a bunch of nuts.

Except for the fact that one of their own now possessed the book and they’d known all about both its existence and its whereabouts.

Prince Stefan would not be happy.

He enjoyed more of his food and beer.

And mulled over his options.

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