(This story is fiction and resemblance to anyone living or dead is coincidental)

There were seven hills and on the highest of these stood an imposing castle.

In this castle in Bavaria, lived Baron Franz Glick, with his beautiful young wife and his teenage son. The Baron was in love with his wife and couldn’t do enough to fulfil her every whim. He also doted on his son and the three lived in the height of luxury with many servants.

To the people living in the shadow of these seven hills the Baron was a good and kindly lord. He owned them all body and soul. He provided all their accommodation and work in the villages, fields and farms.

He treated them all with the greatest respect and kept taxation down to the barest minimum. In short he was the perfect governor, gracious and kind, until that dreadful day when his wife had her tragic fall while riding her favourite horse. The accident proved fatal as the Lady broke her neck and the horse had to be destroyed.

The Baron was beside himself with grief as his perfect world was instantly shattered. In order to comply with her wishes he’d built a tower adjacent to the castle from which she could sketch and paint her renowned landscapes. The castle was landlocked and had been built by the good Baron’s ancestor’s centuries ago, enjoying Royal Patronage.

However since a boy on holiday, Franz Glick had always admired the great lighthouses of Europe that cast their warning light far out to sea as a warning to mariners. When his wife had asked for a separate tower from which to obtain the very best panoramic views of their surrounding countryside he saw this as his opportunity to fulfil his own wish and to build the tower in the shape and style of a lighthouse. This is exactly what he did and the happy couple were delighted with the result, as it stood much higher than their castle home. Now his wife was dead and he couldn’t bear to look at the tower. Shortly after the lavish, horse driven funeral, a second tragedy was to befall the house of Glick. A poacher was out one night with his shotgun. What he didn’t know was that two young boys were also passing through the woods. They were very close as he opened fire and missed his target but hit one of the boys instead. The victim was none other than young Leopold Glick, son of the Baron. He was killed instantly. The poacher dropped his weapon and fled, but not before the other boy had seen his face and recognised him as one of the local villagers. This double blow was more than the Baron could take. He became bitter and twisted and vowed to have his revenge. The Baron had always been a keen inventor and the castle was ample testimony to his clever innovations. Now he studied the tower with renewed interest. He had a plan and set to work in the top studio. The view from behind the wide panoramic glasses showed the surrounding hills in all their glory and these views were to be key to his creativity. First he got his builders to change the structure of the domed and leaded roof and to install a plain view glass one instead. He then installed a system of giant, silver coated, refractive mirror lens all around the centre of the room, just as he’d seen with the lighthouse prisms. He angled them to harness the moonlight and to reflect a powerful beam across to the nearby hills.