Schloss Hohenschwangau
1868
Dreams kept Niels up half the night after their swim in the Alpsee. In some, he was buoyed by warm, gentle waves. In others, he was half-drowned in a cataclysmic storm. In all of them, there was a steady background of screams, both screams of pleasure and screams of pain, with no order or sense to either. After each one, he awakened and paced his room in the castle, disturbed and afraid to go back to sleep. Then, when he was too exhausted to remain upright, he’d stagger to his bed, only to be roused again by another nocturnal disruption. He longed to see the rosy light of dawn, soft against the mountains, knowing he’d suffer no more watery images, at least not until night fell again.
Unlike Niels, Ludwig was in fine form at breakfast. His face glowed from the previous day’s sun, and he had dressed with even more care than usual. His hair was perfectly smoothed and he was humming a melody from Tannhäuser as he smeared mustard on a large pretzel, a deviation from his standard breakfast fare. “Today we shall picnic at the site of my new castle.”
“Not me,” Elisabet said. “I need time in the studio if I’m ever going to finish my wretched sculpture of you. Profligate kings don’t have to be concerned with such things, but it’s not so easy for the working class.”
“I’ll pay you double if you abandon the project,” Ludwig said.
“I wouldn’t want to deprive the world of this eternal image of such a beautiful monarch in the prime of his youth only to benefit my own financial gain.”
He tore off a hunk of the pretzel and threw it at her. “You should do as I ask. I’m your king.”
“You’re a king, but as to whether you’re mine is debatable.” She picked up the improvised projectile from the table and popped it in her mouth. “You’ll have to soldier on without me. I’m staying here to work. There’s nothing more to be said on the subject.”
“What about you, young Lohengrin? You look half dead. I do hope that doesn’t mean you, too, intend to abandon me?”
Niels yawned. “I didn’t sleep well.”
“Is that to be your excuse?” The king’s tone took a dark turn.
“Don’t be absurd. If I were to make an excuse, it would be something far more fantastical. I’d claim that someone had stolen my ring and that I’d have no time for picnics until I’d recovered it.”
As quickly as Ludwig had started to anger, the mood passed. He grinned. “You’re a good man. We’ll leave in half an hour. I want plenty of time for us to explore the ruins before luncheon.”
Niels didn’t relish the thought of another bumpy drive to the building site, nor the steep climb that they’d have to make on foot to cover the final distance, but he wasn’t about to deny his friend any pleasure. Without Ludwig, he’d be back in Munich, daily disappointing his parents. No life could be entirely without strife, and if his was limited to exhausting himself trekking through the mountains, his plight was not so bad.
Once they’d made the climb and the servants had lugged the baskets of food to the shaded spot the king had selected, Ludwig ordered them to go back down to the bottom of the mountain and wait until he summoned them.
“I can’t stand having them lurking around,” he said, watching them wind down the narrow path. “I’ve so little privacy and it’s all I crave. Well, nearly all I crave. One can’t do without staff, of course, but they’re always there. Listening. Judging.”
“I doubt they judge,” Niels said, lowering himself onto a rock. “You treat them well enough, most of the time.”
“You’re still cross with me for getting rid of the ugly one last week. I’m exceedingly sensitive. The world should be beautiful, all of it. Every place, every person.”
“It never shall be.”
“Unfortunately, you’re correct, but as king, I have control over my immediate environs. Is it so wrong that I choose to be surrounded by beauty? It’s not as if I sent the man off with nothing. He’ll be paid for the rest of the month and my housekeeper will help him secure another position with a less discerning employer.”
“There’s so much good in you, so much light, and then you go and say things like that and I wonder how I can tolerate your company for more than half an hour.” He kept his tone light, so Ludwig would consider this a jest, but it wasn’t, and knowing that made Niels uneasy. He abhorred dishonesty. He rose, walked toward the king, who was leaning against a tree, and stood directly in front of him.
“That’s a rather serious expression,” Ludwig said.
“You’ve plucked me from a life of diffuse misery. I was comfortable enough, but never happy. I felt I couldn’t speak my mind or pursue any of my own interests. I wanted nothing to do with my mother’s society friends—”
“Who include my own wretched mother.”
“Indeed.” Niels smiled. “We’ve quite a bit in common, don’t we? Being in the presence of my father means suffering a constant barrage of criticism. I want to sing, but he’d prefer that I concern myself with increasing the family fortune and finding a wife.”
“You don’t need a wife.”
“I agree, but that’s not what I’m driving at. You, Ludwig, let me sing. You let me wander aimlessly through your magnificent grounds in search of swans, and you ask nothing in return but honest friendship. That’s why I shall always tell you when your actions make me cringe. Watching you get rid of a servant because his looks don’t please you sits uneasily with me. You’re a better man than that.”
The king stiffened and took a few steps away from Niels. “I don’t like your tone or your words. You’ve no right to speak to me that way, especially after all I’ve done for you.”
“You’re correct on that count, but I shall say it anyway, because I care for you so much that I’d rather put my own happiness at risk than sit back and let you take actions that lead people to see you as someone you’re not.”
“What if they’re seeing me as I am? You may not agree with my methods, but I cannot tolerate ugliness. If the world wants to cast aspersions on me as a result, so be it. I’m a king and can ignore them.”
“Yes, that’s true, but…” He bit his lower lip, frustrated. “I’m not explaining myself well. I suppose it’s that I want people to know you the way I do. To see the good as well as the flaws.”
“I’m not like other people, Niels. I think differently. If you consider that as a flaw—” He stopped and looked away. “I value your friendship, but if you can’t accept me as I am, there can be nothing between us.”
Niels looked at him, at his handsome face, normally full of youthful vigor, but now clouded with doubt. “Friendship requires acceptance. Acceptance of everything, good and bad. I may tell you when I don’t agree with you, but I’ll never hold it against you when you choose a course of action I wouldn’t.”
“Do you mean that?”
“I do.”
A broad smile softened Ludwig’s face. “Then kneel and pledge your loyalty to me, like a knight in days of old.” He threw back his head and laughed. “If only I had a sword, I’d make you a knight. Christen you Lohengrin.”
“And order me to save a desperate duchess?”
“No, I’ve very little interest in duchesses, desperate or otherwise.” He drew his brows together and reached for Niels’s hand. “I’m grateful for your words. I shall hold them in my soul, always, even when you infuriate me.”
Niels was vaguely aware of a surge of emotion in his body, but could feel nothing but the king’s hand, warm and smooth, on his. He met Ludwig’s gaze and his heart pounded. He couldn’t move, couldn’t speak.
“There’s nothing more important than acceptance, especially when it comes from someone who knows you fully, who doesn’t reject you because of the bad or the inconvenient. I shall always be the same with you,” Ludwig said. “From today, you’re my brother. You must never leave me.”
That broke the strange spell; Niels was no longer paralyzed. He threw back his head and laughed. “Leave you and go where? Back to Munich?”
“Back to your family’s house near Füssen. You were happy enough there before you met me.”
“I was bored beyond measure, unsure of what to do with myself. Now, all I want is to help you plan this magnificent castle.” He started to sing.
In fernem Land, unnahbar euren Schritten,
Liegt eine Burg, die Monsalvat genannt;
Ein lichter Tempel stehet dort inmitten,
So kostbar als auf Erden nichts bekannt.
[Far and away, unapproachable to your steps,
There is a castle called Montsalvat;
In the middle there stands a luminous temple,
As precious as nothing else on earth is known.]
Ludwig closed his eyes as he listened. “Ah, your voice is divine, but I’ve mixed feelings about your choice of song. It’s the beginning of the end, after all, when Elsa has asked the forbidden question and betrayed Lohengrin.”
“Today we shall let ourselves take it out of context, while we stand here on the site of another castle, unapproachable and luminous, as precious as nothing else on earth is known.”
“You understand me like no one else ever has,” Ludwig said. They looked out from the promontory, taking in the view of the lakes far below and the circle of mountains around them. They were standing so close together that for a moment—only a moment—their hands brushed together and another something charged through Niels, something he could not begin to understand, except to know that his life had profoundly changed once again.