The Pleasure Quartet (31 page)

I woke as we pulled into the steel jaws of an immense station. I rubbed my eyes clean. ‘Koln Hauptbahnhof’. Clarissa had risen from her seat and was smoothing out her linen
jacket.

‘Where are we?’

‘Germany. This is Cologne.’

The others began to jostle in the aisle, pulling their bags from the overhead racks. I joined them. Somehow since London our group had trebled in size.

‘Is this it?’

‘Not quite,’ Clarissa declared. ‘We have some way to go yet, and another boat to catch.’

There was a small dark-blue van waiting for our party below the station steps, its engine already running. Beyond it the city thrummed, industrial smells lingering unpleasantly in the air from
distant factories or foundries. We all climbed in. A matching-coloured van was initially parked alongside it; peering at us through its windows were another bunch of seemingly weary passengers, who
had likely travelled there from different origins. As our vehicle drove off, the other followed us.

Through narrow streets buried in shadows we moved east, weaving in and out of traffic, traversing what felt like a ghost town, until the buildings appeared to part before our wake and the sky
appeared, bright blue and vast. And below it the river, wide, calm, majestic.

We arrived where our boat was moored. Squat and low in the water, one extended deck interrupted by a platform, open to the elements, with a flat roof. Painted white, with a band of red circling
its prow. We alighted from the van, which had parked by the quay and walked up the gangplank to the boat’s bridge where a couple of dozen strangers were already parked, their faces in turn
joyous, apprehensive, expectant. Further guests for the Ball. I wondered briefly where they had come from. How long they had travelled. I hoped this was to be the final leg of our journey.

The river narrowed as we entered the Rhine Gorge, the shores growing closer on both decks of the embarkation as it deceptively appeared to drift down the heavy stream.
We’d waited patiently back at the Cologne dock for a score of further vehicles to arrive, and the cruise boat was now packed with Ball guests from all corners of the globe, a melting pot of
different accents, languages and attire. There was little conversation or bonding between us as each successive group of arrivals stuck to their own. Like us, they carried little luggage. To any
onlooker, it would have seemed like just another cruise boat ferrying tourists, but the buzz of anticipation that ran through the passengers was unmistakable. And the fact that none of us happened
to wield cameras as one would expect of the average river tourist. We were no ordinary travellers.

Clarissa and Edward appeared familiar with some of the other passengers on board and flitted amiably from group to group shaking hands or pecking people on the cheek, but failed to introduce the
rest of our party to the assembled strangers.

The shores of the river imperceptibly grew into hills, at first gentle in their inclination and then fiercer until we suddenly found ourselves as if at the bottom of a deep reservoir with steep
cliffs on either side looking down at us, peaks distant and high in the clouds, dominating us.

We drifted slowly for what seemed like hours. I felt as though time had become irrelevant, powerless against the current of the river. Iris shook my shoulder and pulled me over to the other side
of the boat and pointed at an uncommon collection of rock formations on the nearer shores, overlooking our boat as if blessing us as we continued our steady passage downstream. Light was beginning
to fail, so I couldn’t get a clear view of them.

‘I think it’s the famous Rhine maidens,’ she said. ‘Wasn’t one of them called Lorelei?’

‘Wagner?’ I vaguely recalled some of the legends we had been taught back home. And how I hated Wagner’s music.

Thomas joined us, and wrapped his arms around us. We both dozed off briefly, lullabied by his warmth.

When we awoke, the boat was threading its way through a wider stretch of the river bordered by eternal dark forests that seemed to reach for the sky and loomed ominously over our fragile cargo
of sleepy, weary wanderers.

Dawn was breaking, tentative shards of light winding their way through thick, low-flung clouds.

Mist was rising from the river, evanescent, shape-shifting with all the fluidity of ghosts. I peered out through the gloom. On the shore to our right, a jagged tower emerged from the treetops,
stark orange, much like an ancient fortress rising from primeval depths. The turret of a castle, like a blot on the landscape of tall trees, breaking through the canopy.

Clarissa had stepped over to our huddled group.

‘Is that where we’re headed?’ I asked her. ‘The castle?’

‘We are headed to a castle, but not that one. We’re off to one of the Mad King’s palaces,’ she said. ‘King Ludwig of Bavaria built all these crazy retreats in the
wilderness of the hills and forests. They’re actually quite beautiful.’

My throat went dry.

A premonition.

Edward, who’d by now reached her side, continued the conversation.

‘Ludwig created three extravagant as well as elaborate constructions, romanesque and rococo in style. But only Neuschwanstein is truly suitable for the Ball, it was felt. It translates as
the Swan on the Rock. Apparently it took the Ball organisers months of negotiating to lease it. It’s all terribly hush-hush and everyone is sworn to secrecy; the Germans would be shocked to
learn that some sinister organisation had managed to hire the place for a week or so, and forbidden its access to the general public for the duration.’

‘I hear the place is divine,’ Patch interjected. ‘Crazy but unique. Like a fairy tale streaked with madness. Quite bizarre. I read somewhere that Visconti is planning a movie
about the king and its construction.’

‘Who’s Visconti?’ I had to ask.

‘An Italian film director,’ Thomas answered.

‘Are we close?’ Iris asked.

‘Patience, little one,’ Clarissa said.

‘We have another stage of the journey yet, from Frankfurt,’ Edward added. ‘We’ll veer off the Rhine soon, and continue up the Main. I know it seems roundabout. But the
Ball organisers prefer that guests travel indirectly. All part of the secrecy, you know, and it adds to the romance of the whole thing, doesn’t it? And others will be joining us
there.’

It was quiet up on the top deck, besides our small group, gathered close together and chatting under the stars. Most of the other guests had repaired to their cabins to sleep, or were freshening
up in the cruise ship’s luxurious bathrooms.

Clarissa wandered away again and returned with a bundle of blankets and pillows.

‘You’ll need your sleep,’ she said, laying a soft coverlet over me and placing a cushion beneath my neck. I curled up on my seat and drifted off, taking advantage of the few
remaining hours of darkness.

By the time I stirred, we had nearly reached Frankfurt. Dawn was breaking, tentative shards of light winding their way through thick, low-flung clouds. The mist over the waters of the Main had
cleared.

Boat staff were distributing small hampers to the passengers. The wicker baskets were light, and once the knotted cloth holding them sealed had been untied we had access to a selection of
sandwiches, cheese, ham, egg mayonnaise, evenly sliced portions of dry sausage, and pine and cashew nuts to nibble on. Under the boat’s central canopy, hot tea was being served from a line of
towering wood-burning copper samovars set up on a wooden table, alongside squat glasses with metal handles.

I looked around but there was no coffee available. I would have to do without.

We collected a further contingent of Ball guests in Frankfurt, all of them fresh-faced and visibly excited by our arrival. By now, we were a crowd, and a whole series of coaches and liveried
drivers awaited us at the dock to transport us and our luggage to the Mad King’s castle.

It was dusk when we arrived at the sleepy town of Hohenschwangau and pulled into a parking lot at the base of what seemed to me like an insurmountably craggy mountain, on which the palace
balanced precariously.

‘There’s no road to the castle?’ I asked Edward, as we filed off the coaches and lined up to collect our bags.

‘Not for us,’ he said, laughing at my reluctance to embark on the short climb that constituted the final part of our journey. ‘The walk will do us good, after so long sitting
down.’

For reasons of discretion we wouldn’t be reaching the famed castle by the track normally used by the thousands of tourists who visited the place.

We began our slow trek up the steep hill, threading our way through a labyrinth of tall trees that obscured the sky.

Edward, Clarissa, Patch, Iris, Thomas and I all stuck closely together as we advanced. There was a characteristic freshness about the evening air in these hills that struck me as singularly
unpolluted, lusty even. It felt as if London had been left far behind and, step by cautious step through the forest’s cushioned undergrowth, I was entering a whole new world.

Ahead of me, the other guests had come to a halt, standing, leaning against tree trunks or just sitting on the ledge, all eyes on the vision that lay ahead.

We reached their level. Patch was panting, unsuited to any form of exercise it appeared.

Separated from us by a shallow man-made ditch stood Neuschwanstein Castle, a totally mad edifice of towers, turrets and ochre stones, exploding outwards from the fabric of the rugged hills, like
a vision out of a twisted semi-medieval legend. It looked so solid that I disbelieved it was only just over a century old – Edward had told me a little of its story during our walk.

‘Onwards,’ someone said, and we moved forward towards the madness of King Ludwig’s folly.

There was a flutter of velvet darkness, as if I was treading among ghosts.

I was wandering the corridors of the castle, having been separated from my travelling companions shortly after our arrival. I felt lost in a maze, unsettled by the inner geography of the place
which appeared to follow no ordinary logic.

I had expected to be offered an outlandish if elegant costume for the festivities once we had all gathered, but instead, after first bathing in the elaborate washing facilities set-up just for
the Ball’s guests, Iris and I were handed simple, near-transparent, white cotton nightdresses bordering on the utilitarian. Clarissa and Patch had moved on to other quarters and more
sophisticated attire, I guessed, as anything but newcomers to the event, and the men, Edward and Thomas, had been separated from us. We had stepped out of the large hall where the nightshirts were
being dispensed to some of us to go and seek out the others and travelled down a long corridor whose walls were festooned by a series of small, rectangular framed paintings of hunt scenes, but when
I turned round, Iris was gone.

I ventured on.

This was so unlike the Ball I was expecting from our experience at Cape Reinga and the tales in Joan’s diaries.

Maybe I had built things up too much in my imagination.

The narrow corridor opened up and a vast banqueting hall came into focus ahead of me. A mass of people were dancing slowly to a Viennese waltz, all clad – men as well as women – in
the desultory old-fashioned nightshirts that had been dispensed to us. I peered at the crowd, but recognised none of my acquaintances. There was no jewellery or make-up anywhere to be seen. It felt
as if I were intruding into an austerity version of the Ball, a budget-sized one where simplicity took on the mantle of poverty. Edward had told us that the interior of the palace had been totally
transformed from its usual décor for the purpose of the event, so I could not be sure whether the now stark white walls of the hall hid a far more elaborate backdrop that would be reinstated
when the Ball departed. I recognised the music – it was something well-known and classical whose name escaped me, even though it had once been used as a background to the finale of a play at
the Princess Empire. A tall man whose nightshirt only reached down to his knees and displayed particularly skinny, bony ankles nodded at me, inviting me to join the dance on his arm, but I shook my
head. I was in no mood for dancing, not that I had ever been much of a dancer. Even less so in this formal style with male partners.

I stepped back into the corridor and retraced my path, hoping to find the changing area where we had all parted.

But this time, everything seemed different and I was soon dizzy with anxiety and disappointment. And stranded.

I discovered a half-opened door, with further echoes of music coming from its direction.

I gave it a nudge with my unshod foot and the door swung wide open to reveal a deep low-ceilinged room, its walls festooned with hundreds of sets of antlers. I shuddered at the mere thought of
the herds of animals slaughtered to achieve this dubiously decorated jungle. The trophies hung among dark-coloured drapes in shades of fuchsia and purple, the effect suffocating.

I couldn’t see where the music was coming from. It was ethereal, blending the sheer delicacy of an army of violins in flight and the sounds of distant wind, washing over me like an eerie
wave of sound.

I was still getting my bearings when I heard a voice behind me, someone standing on the threshold of the hunting trophy room, who must have approached silently and surprised me as I stood there
still absorbing the rather sinister spectacle.

‘Welcome to our Ball,’ she said.

With a knot forming in the pit of my stomach, I slowly turned round to face the visitor.

She was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen.

She was of medium height, her hair a sombre honey shade of auburn, her eyes a vibrant dark green that caught the reflections of the simmering fires of the candelabras I had just noticed casting
a hint of light throughout the oppressive, windowless room. Her posture was straight and regal, although nothing like the imperious style of Clarissa; humble but supremely self-assured as she
looked down at me, her lips forming the delicate arch of a half smile.

I couldn’t help staring at her, no doubt wide-eyed.