For a young king barely into his reign, it was a careless mistake.
A mistake he would repeat again and again until he was marked for death.
Payne stared at the black swan symbol on the back of the lid and wondered how it had led to the king’s death. ‘Ludwig was murdered?’
Ulster answered. ‘Officially, no. But logically, yes.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘It means there was a cover-up of the grandest proportion.’
Payne glanced at his watch. He sensed a long story coming on. ‘Explain.’
Ulster beamed. He loved sharing his knowledge. ‘Ludwig was killed in Berg, less than a hundred miles from here. Though I don’t remember an exact date, I’m fairly certain the year was 1886. Obviously, back then, forensic science was far from sophisticated. Still, the conclusions that the police reached on that night were downright laughable.’
‘In what way?’ Jones asked.
‘Allow me to paint the scene. Ludwig, who wasn’t officially the king at the time of his death since he had been deposed a few days before, decided to take a stroll with his psychiatrist along the shore of Lake Starnberg. When they didn’t return for supper, palace guards conducted a search and found them dead, floating in the nearby shallows. Now, as far as I’m concerned, it doesn’t take a trained criminologist to examine these facts and presume the possibility of foul play. Nevertheless, the authorities ruled otherwise. With nothing but a cursory investigation, conducted under a cloak of darkness, Ludwig’s death was officially ruled as suicide. Furthermore, the doctor’s death was labelled an accidental drowning. They claimed the doctor went into the lake to save Ludwig and lost his life in the process.’
‘How deep was the water?’ Payne asked.
‘Roughly knee high.’
Jones laughed. ‘Were they hobbits? If not, how do you drown in two feet of water?’
‘Good question. Which is why the coroner decided to perform an autopsy – even though the new regime had no intention of changing their official ruling.’
‘And what did he find?’ Jones asked.
‘There was no water in Ludwig’s lungs, so the odds are pretty good he didn’t drown. Meanwhile, the doctor – I believe his name was Gudden – wasn’t so lucky. He had a fractured skull and several scratches on his face, possibly the result of a struggle. But unlike Ludwig, the doctor’s lungs were filled with water. That means he probably did drown.’
Payne scratched his head. ‘If Ludwig didn’t drown, how did he die?’
Ulster shrugged. ‘Poison is a possibility since no injuries were found, but no one knows for sure because the proper tests weren’t allowed. The new regime wanted to distance itself from Ludwig, and the quickest way to accomplish that would be a convenient suicide.’
‘So they killed the king?’ Jones asked.
‘As I mentioned, Ludwig wasn’t officially the king at the time of his death. A few days prior, the Bavarian government had organized a medical commission to declare Ludwig insane. This gave them the authority to remove him from power. Amazingly, the doctor who had the final say in the matter had never met Ludwig before his ruling. Instead, he based his decision on conjecture and hearsay, not a personal examination.’
‘I’m not positive,’ Jones cracked, ‘but I think that goes against the Hippocratic oath.’
‘Don’t worry, David. The doctor ultimately got punished for his sins.’
‘How? Did they revoke his license?’
‘Actually, they revoked his life. He was murdered next to Ludwig.’
Jones smirked. ‘Really? It was the same doctor?’
Kaiser laughed at the irony. ‘Karma’s a bitch, ain’t it?’
‘More importantly,’ Ulster concluded, ‘it was the perfect way for the new regime to tie up loose ends. What’s that expression: killing two birds with one stone. Not only did they kill the rightful king, but they murdered the man who had effectively ended his reign.’
Payne rubbed his neck in thought, trying to remember how they had got onto this topic to begin with. That was the trouble with Petr Ulster. He knew so much and his stories were filled with so many details that it was tough to separate the wheat from the chaff. Thankfully, on this occasion, Ulster’s ‘bird’ metaphor helped to jumpstart Payne’s memory.
‘Speaking of birds, what does the black swan have to do with this?’
Ulster grinned, as if he suddenly remembered the point he had been trying to make. ‘During the course of his twenty-two-year reign, Ludwig quickly went through his family’s fortune. Whether donating large sums of money to the arts or giving lavish gifts to peasants he had met during his travels, Ludwig lived an extravagant life, one filled with luxury and indulgence. After a while, his spending was so out of control – particularly in the realm of architecture – that his advisors begged him to stop. They feared personal bankruptcy. But the eccentric king lived in a dream world, one in which his wishes were granted. As I mentioned earlier, Neuschwanstein is Ludwig’s most famous castle, a Romanesque fortress that looks like it was pulled off the pages of a fairytale, yet it was far from his most ambitious project. During a ten-year span, Ludwig built or planned over a dozen castles, including a few that would have made Neuschwanstein look like a cottage.’
‘Go on,’ Payne said, still waiting for his answer.
‘Towards the end of his reign, Ludwig started borrowing money from royal families across Europe. Not to pay back the fourteen million marks that he already owed, but to continue moving forward with his personal projects. Dreading the reaction of his finance ministers, Ludwig considered firing his entire cabinet and replacing them with yes-men. Ultimately he decided a mass firing would be attacked by the media, and the last thing he wanted to do was to lose the adulation of his citizens. So he opted to go in a different direction. Desperately broke but unwilling to stop his spending, he hatched a plan to find money from other sources. And let me assure you, it was crazier than Ludwig himself.’
Payne arched an eyebrow. ‘What was the plan?’
Ulster grinned. ‘He created the black swan.’
19
To this day, Ludwig is beloved throughout Bavaria. They still refer to him as unser kini, which means ‘our king’ in the Bavarian dialect. Ironically, Ludwig wasn’t a people person. He was a borderline recluse who spent most of his time in seclusion, whether at his home in the Alps or at one of his many palaces.
By most accounts, Ludwig was a strange man whose odd behaviour slowly worsened over time. Whether he was insane or eccentric at the time of his death depended on who was asked. Early in his reign, his conduct was considered peculiar but relatively harmless. For instance, his hair had to be curled every morning, or he wouldn’t eat his food – even if his favourite meal was served. A lover of animals, Ludwig once invited his favourite grey mare to dinner and insisted her food be served in the dining hall on the palace’s finest crockery. Not surprisingly, the horse ate the meal, then proceeded to smash everything to bits.
As early as 1868 – less than five years into his reign – Ludwig had become nocturnal. This wouldn’t have been an issue if he had worked the late shift at a factory, but it was problematic as king. On most days, he woke up at 7 p.m., had lunch at midnight, and enjoyed dinner around daybreak. When he was in Munich – a city he despised because he hated politics and felt as though he was under a microscope at all time – he spent many nights riding in circles at the court riding school. He picked a random city where he would rather be (for example, Berlin), then he calculated how many laps he had to ride in order to cover the equivalent distance. While imagining the journey, he would often stop at the halfway point to enjoy a picnic. Then he would pack everything up and continue riding until he reached his imaginary destination.