‘How so?’ Payne asked.
‘Weren’t you listening?’
‘Barely.’
Normally Payne was the serious one, and Jones was the jester. All it took was one story about a ballet for their roles to be reversed.
Jones smiled at the irony. ‘Don’t you get it? The sorcerer behind the deception drowned in the same lake as the prince – just like the doctor behind the deception drowned in the same lake as Ludwig. That can’t be a coincidence.’
Payne grunted. ‘You’re right; it does seem suspicious.’
Ulster shrugged his broad shoulders. ‘Honestly, I don’t know if Ludwig’s murder was staged to mimic the ballet or not, but the story of Siegfried and Odette helped establish Ludwig’s nickname as the Swan King.’
‘How so?’ Payne asked.
‘If they hadn’t been killed, Siegfried and the Swan Queen would have been married, which would have made him the Swan King. And as I mentioned, the character of Siegfried was based on Ludwig, so …’
Payne nodded in understanding. ‘Throw in Ludwig’s obsessions with swans and that Swan Knight character you told us about earlier, and the nickname stuck.’
‘He was also called the Dream King, the Fairytale King and Mad King Ludwig, but the Swan King is used most often.’
Payne paused for a moment to consider everything he had learned. Swan Lake, one of the most famous ballets in history, was connected to Ludwig. The black swan logo had been designed by Ludwig. And the riddle about the swan had been written by Ludwig. Yet as far as Payne could tell, they still had no idea where a swan would go on his journey home.
Or what they would find if they figured it out.
25
From a distance, the King’s House on Schachen resembled a hunting lodge on top of a scenic crest. Painted beige and dark brown, the wooden post-and-infill structure was two storeys in the centre but only half as tall on the left and right, as if additional rooms had been added at the last minute. To Payne, the house looked like two capital ‘L’s, stapled back to back. It certainly wasn’t the worst design he had ever seen, yet it seemed out of place in the dream world that Ludwig had created for himself. Why build a house instead of a castle?
‘Remember,’ Ulster said as if reading Payne’s mind, ‘the interior is far more luxurious than the exterior. Don’t be fooled by the outside.’
‘Your friend is correct,’ said a feminine voice from the top of the hill. ‘The rough outer shell protects the pearl within.’
‘Petr,’ said Jones as he searched for the source, ‘the house is talking.’
‘And listening,’ she replied, her voice slightly tinged with a German accent.
Jones grabbed Ulster’s arm. ‘Petr, I’m scared … Hold me.’
Payne laughed and pointed out the speaker’s location. A series of decorative wooden beams ran from the top of the sharply peaked roof to the banister of the second-floor veranda. The mystery woman was standing underneath the overhang, partially hidden in the shadows. Though he couldn’t see her face, her naturally blonde hair and fair complexion had given her away.
‘How often do you scare tourists?’ he called out as he walked up the hillside.
‘Only when they scare us first. We thought there was an avalanche,’ she said.
Payne kept walking, still unable to see her face because of the shadows. ‘Why did you think that?’
‘Why?’ she said sharply. ‘Because most people walk here.’
‘Uh-oh,’ Jones whispered. ‘We pissed off the house.’
Payne told Jones and Ulster to stay put, then focused his attention on her. ‘Sorry about the helicopter. We parked down below to minimize the noise. I hope you can forgive us.’
‘That depends.’
‘On what?’
‘On the reason you didn’t hike here like everyone else.’
When Payne reached the top of the hill, he could finally see who he was talking to. Dressed in jeans and a dark sweater, the pretty blonde stared at him, her emotions partially concealed by the long hair that danced across her face in the crisp mountain breeze. In a well-practised move, she casually grabbed her hair with one hand and slid a band off her wrist with the other. A few seconds later, a blonde ponytail dangled back and forth behind her head.
‘I’m still waiting,’ she said impatiently.
As Payne walked closer, he noticed several small things about her – the freckles on her nose, the way her jeans hugged her hips, the curves underneath her sweater. But most importantly, he noticed a twinkle in her light blue eyes. It let him know that she was sassy, not angry.
‘I’m waiting, too,’ he shot back.
She stared at him. ‘For what?’
‘For you to say hello. Or isn’t that ritual observed up here?’
‘Hello,’ she said sarcastically. ‘Now answer my question. Why didn’t you hike here?’
‘Hello to you, too,’ he said, ignoring her question. ‘My name’s Jon. What’s yours?’
She sighed. ‘Heidi.’
He stuck out his hand. ‘Nice to meet you, Heidi. I like what you’ve done with the place. When did you move in?’
But instead of shaking his hand, she stared at it coldly. ‘Sorry, Jon. No more kindness from me until you answer my question. Why didn’t you hike here like everyone else?’
He lowered his voice to a whisper. ‘Can you keep a secret?’
‘Depends on the secret.’
Payne pointed back towards Jones and Ulster. ‘I’m not going to name any names, but one of my friends is slightly out of shape. To be perfectly blunt, we didn’t know if his heart could handle a four-hour hike, so we convinced him to fly instead.’
She peeked round Payne – since he was too tall to glance over – and studied his friends. It didn’t take long to figure out which one he was talking about. ‘What if he wasn’t here?’
‘You mean, if he was dead?’
‘No!’ she gasped. ‘If he wasn’t with you, would you have made the hike?’
‘Come on, Heidi. What do you think?’
Now it was her turn to check him out.