Page 25 of The Last Kingdom

“I’m not.”

His brother’s indifference and complacency irked him. It always had. And he’d always found it difficult to fathom much past that inscrutable reserve.

“Now that you know the tomb is empty, do you care?” he asked Albert.

“My curiosity is satisfied.”

Albert crouched back over the desk, seemingly lost in the nostalgia of another time, admiring his stamps.

Enough.

Stefan stormed across the room and upended the table, sending the stamps, magnifying glass, and lamp to the floor. The bulb exploded and the glass shade shattered into pieces. His brother never moved from the chair, head down at the carnage.

“Your temper will be your ruin,” Albert said. “Father believed the same thing.”

“Like I care what that beleaguered old fool thought of me. Like you, he, too, was content to be a duke.”

An atmosphere of hate seeped into the room. Like a record stuck in a groovethey were going around all of the old sounds. As brothers they’d never been close. Differences in age, lifestyle, and beliefs had long kept them estranged. He’d married young and fathered three children, all daughters, his wife the kind of woman who asked few questions and cared little, so long as everyone was discreet. He and his brother had different friends. Different interests. Different ambitions.

“Leave this be,” Albert quietly said. “It has remained hidden for a long time and it should stay hidden. We owe that to Ludwig II and Ludwig III. You, my dear brother, will soon be Duke of Bavaria. Be happy with that title.”

His natural dignity shook with agitation. “It means nothing without the titleKing.”

“It means everything.”

For the first time, Albert’s voice went brittle.

Someone once said thathow a person mastered their fate was more important than what that fate was.

He believed that. With all his heart.

“Let it go, Stefan,” Albert said again. “Let the past stay in the past.”

His resolve only solidified.

“Never.”

Chapter 14

LUKE LOVED MUNICH’S BEER HALLS. SURELY THE MOST FAMOUSwas the Hofbräuhaus, which definitely catered to tourists. But he favored the ones farther away from Old Town, where the locals hung out.

He’d visited several. This one tonight was full of Bavarian charm, complete with a spacious traditional interior, amber ceilings, and a stylish bar adorned with shiny copper and dark wood. Folk music shook the room. People bounced, jiggled, and whirled to the beat of an oompah band, the warm air bustling with loud conversations. A sweet waft of hops filled his nostrils and reminded him he was thirsty.

He’d walked over from the church with Lexi.

Christophe met them there.

A young maître d’, wearing a green frock coat and sporting a winged collar, showed them to a long table near a stage adorned with rows of hunting trophies. A buxom, dark-haired woman in traditional German garb left menus that featured baked pretzels, roasted ribs, and local Augustiner brews. Everybody seemed at ease, relaxed, their job complete. The fact that Ludwig’s tomb had been empty was not their problem. The prince had seemed concerned, but he quickly fled the church and told them they were done for the day. So they’d retreated to the beer hall. He’d acted disinterested when the prince handed the book over to Christophe and told him todeliver this to Ertl.

Christine Ertl.

Who’d appeared a few times, in person, meeting with the prince.

Luke had managed to follow her back to her Munich apartment and learned that she was an academic at Ludwig Maximilian University. A professor of European studies andauthor of six books on German history. So when Christophe appeared at the beer hall without the book, he assumed the delivery had been made.

He was here to gather intelligence. Most times that meant just keeping your eyes and ears open. But sometimes you had to track it down. So after ninety minutes of letting off steam, gulping beer, and eating ribs, they all decided to call it a night. Christophe and Lexi headed off in one direction—he’d come to the conclusion that they were an item—and he in another.

A cold, snowy drizzle drifted across the city in a gray wash. He stuffed his gloved hands into the pockets of his leather jacket and started walking. Knots of people clung together under umbrellas made shiny by the moisture. Soles rang loud off the cobbles. Streetlights glowed with halos in the misty air. A series of shops lined the way, increasing in price and prestige the farther he walked. He passed the former royal Residenz, closed for the night, its elegant facade heavy with the crestfallen look stone took on in the rain. He assumed it was Ertl who’d aimed the prince toward Herrenchiemsee. Some of the conversations he’d managed to overhear had been on that subject.