The Devil's Pawn

by Oliver Pötzsch

  “We were down in the crypt at Tiffauges,” continued Karl hesitantly. “You wanted to meet Gilles de Rais. We drank the black potion.”

  Johann nodded hastily. “That’s what must have erased your memory.” His eyes became empty and he took another long sip. “Lucky you.”

  “What happened to John Reed? Did he also come to Tiffauges?”

  “He . . . he died fighting Hagen and the other mercenaries in the crypt. God rest his soul.” The doctor lowered his gaze, and Karl was surprised at Faust’s apparent grief over the death of the red-haired man. Karl, too, felt grief, even though he had half expected that John was dead.

  “But at least you managed to escape,” Karl went on. “And me?”

  “Lahnstein and his men stormed the castle. They had no use for you,” suggested Johann. “So they probably left you for dead.”

  “But then how did I get to Nantes, to the Benedictines? Someone must have cared for me and brought me there.”

  Karl clasped the small amulet on his neck as if it might give him the answer. Once again it was as warm as if it was made of flesh and blood. Johann noticed the alabaster angel for the first time, and his eyes narrowed.

  “Where did you get that?” he asked quietly.

  “I don’t know,” replied Karl. “I remember so much now, but not that part. Can you tell me?”

  Johann said nothing for a while, and then he answered. “It . . . it was Greta’s. An old midwife in Brittany gave it to her.”

  Until then they hadn’t spoken about what had become of Greta, as if they both feared that there would be no return. Karl saw Johann’s face darken, and in the same moment he felt a stab in his heart. He thought of the image he had drawn many times, the crying young woman reaching out for him. It was Greta. She had visited him once after he was poisoned, and she gave him the amulet. Karl focused, allowing the memories to return. In his mind’s eye he saw a dungeon, at Tiffauges. Then he remembered a phrase that had been spoken there.

  I’m going to Rome, Karl.

  “I don’t want to talk about Greta,” said Johann in a defeated voice as he waved his empty cup at the tavern keeper. “I’ve said everything there is to say. It will be for the best if we go our separate—”

  “So you already know that she went to Rome?” asked Karl abruptly.

  “What did you say?”

  “I think I remember now. She wanted to go to Rome—she told me so herself.”

  “To . . . to Rome?” The cup slipped from Johann’s hands and banged loudly on the ground. “Greta is dead. She burned with the others at Tiffauges—there couldn’t have been another way. I . . . I had nothing to bargain with, and so she had to burn with the other heretics.”

  “She went to Rome.” Karl closed his eyes, thinking hard. “I remember now. Lahnstein must have offered her a deal. He needed her alive. I don’t know why . . .” He broke off. There was something else Greta had told him down in the dungeons, but Karl couldn’t remember for the life of him. Now he clearly saw Greta before him again, extending her arms to him and giving him one last kiss on the forehead.

  I’m going to Rome, Karl.

  “Greta isn’t dead,” whispered Johann, more to himself. He gave Karl a pleading look. “Are you certain?”

  Karl nodded. “That was what she told me. She was going to Rome, that much I remember. I’m guessing it must have been she who brought me to the Benedictines—”

  He stopped when he noticed the doctor was crying.

  Tears streamed down his face as he muttered the same words over and over. “Greta is alive. My daughter is alive. I had given up hope.”

  For the first time, Karl thought he could see the old Johann Georg Faustus behind the shaggy beard.

  The man he still loved.

  Hundreds of miles away, a solitary man was standing on a terrace high above the city the people called Urbs Aeterna.

  The Eternal City.

  He gazed down on houses several stories high, on churches, crumbling temples, ruins, and newly erected palaces, spreading in all directions. In the haze beyond lay fields, villages, and the Alban Hills; the stinking brown Tiber cut through the city like a knife. In one place the river took a sharp turn to the west, and that was where the man stood atop a mighty round building. Up in this lofty terrace the air was fresh, despite the muggy summer heat, and a light breeze carried the scents of mistletoe and chestnut. The man sniffed and thought he could smell a thunderstorm.

  He loved thunderstorms.

  The man raised his arms and let the energy flow through his body, the crackling atmosphere that preceded every great storm. The place upon which the building stood was old, ancient; from before the first Roman emperors, yes, even before the shepherds led their goats across the seven hills, this place had been a powerful one, drenched with blood and filled with screams. Perhaps that was why Emperor Hadrian chose it as the site for his tomb. Later, the building was besieged by barbarians, who were struck down by the statues of Roman gods that were flung at them. Now the building served the pope as a place of retreat and domicile. The man chuckled softly when he thought about the name of the building.

  Castel Sant’Angelo.

  The castle of angels.

  A name had never been better chosen.

  The man bared his teeth like a wolf, pointing his nose into the wind. Everything was going basically to plan, even if it went much slower than originally anticipated. But what did a few years matter when one could think in eons? They had thrown him from the heavens, but he would come back. Stronger and more powerful than ever, as a ruler over a burning world that had doomed itself. Chaos, not order, was the mother of all that was.

  Because everything that is deserves to perish.

  Yes, there had been setbacks. Faust hadn’t come to him, and the doctor hadn’t given him that which he longed for so desperately. But he sensed that the final word hadn’t been spoken.

  They always had to come voluntarily.

  One of them was nearly ready, and Faust, too, would soon return to him. The disease had been nothing but a gentle kiss, a reminder that their pact was still valid. And little Faustus had paid—at least a first installment.

  The man on the terrace only had to wait.

  Because he had in his control that which the doctor loved the most. And love had always been man’s greatest weakness.

  Lightning flashed across the sky, and then the first drops of rain fell on the face of the master. He leaned back his head and opened his mouth wide, and there was a hissing noise like from a giant snake.

  The bells in the many churches of town chimed for eventide.

  During the next few days, Johann was torn by impatience and insecurity. He felt like he had been sleeping for years and needed to make up for lost time quickly. How could he have believed that Greta was dead?

  He was riding an old donkey because the money hadn’t been enough for a horse. Karl Wagner, his former assistant, was walking beside him, occasionally smacking the stubborn beast across the backside with a stick. Both men were freshly shaved and wore new, if poor, clothes and wide-brimmed pilgrims’ hats. They looked determined and somewhat transfigured, their faces haggard. The people who passed them thought they were ascetics, pious pilgrims on their way to Rome in search of enlightenment.

  And they weren’t entirely wrong.

  Three days ago Johann and Karl had left Toulouse and headed east. For the first time in a long time Johann felt the wind, the rain, and the sun on his skin. The news that Greta might still be alive had rejuvenated him. The old thirst for action was back, the perpetual restlessness, the eternal dissatisfaction. He needed to get to Rome as fast as humanly possible. Rome was where his daughter’s trail had ended, but he would pick it up again. He needed to beg Greta’s forgiveness, explain everything to her. Maybe then they could be together again.

  For two years Johann had wandered aimlessly through France, like Karl. But while Karl had strived to regain his memory, Johann had tried to forget everything with home
made theriac, potent brandy, wine in copious quantities. Working under false names and with cheap magic tricks, he had earned a little money and drunk like a fish. It had been the only way to keep the nightmares at bay for a little while, the only way to suppress the guilt he had laden upon himself. Johann didn’t know if he could ever bring himself to tell Karl what had really happened at Tiffauges. He had said nothing about almost killing Karl, and had not mentioned brutally stabbing John to death nor that his disease appeared to have vanished because of this horrific sacrifice. Nor had he told Karl about the secret he had been hoarding since then.

  The secret of the silver globe.

  Johann always carried with him the tiny pendant he had found inside Leonardo da Vinci’s stomach. Not around his neck, as he was too afraid it might get stolen from there, but well hidden inside a leather satchel upon which he slept at night and which was now tied to the donkey’s neck. Inside the pendant was still the thin tissue paper that Leonardo had hidden so well and that Tonio del Moravia would have loved to possess. In the first few weeks Johann had daily considered destroying the paper, simply burning it and watching the ashes float to the ground. It would have made the world a better place. And yet he didn’t do it. He didn’t do it for the very same reason that had made him seek the secret in the first place.

  It was his pawn in the game with the devil.

  Greta or the world? Which is more important?

  Johann had pondered this question over and over, but as he had become convinced that Greta was dead, he had kept the globe. And now, it would seem, its contents could still be of use to him.

  Greta or the world?

  The swaying of the donkey made him slightly seasick; he felt as though he was on a ship far out on a stormy ocean. Johann closed his eyes. In the last two years, he had researched at several libraries and monasteries, had leafed through ancient books and studied pages of brittle parchment and papyrus. And his fears had been confirmed. In the wrong hands, what was written on the tissue paper had the power to throw the world into chaos.

  “Do you remember how we escaped from that horrible Hagen at Chinon by a hair’s breadth?” asked Karl, tearing Johann from his thoughts.

  They were traveling along the Via Tolosana, an old pilgrimage route between Arles and Santiago de Compostela, where the apostle Saint James lay buried. The snow-covered peaks of the Pyrenees lined the horizon behind them. They were passing through a shadowy forest of oaks, offering some shelter from the sun, which burned mercilessly this far south. The air was unbearably muggy. There wasn’t a breath of wind, and the woods stood in silence, except for the perpetual chirping of cicadas.

  Karl shook his head. “I still can’t believe the pope really thought you could make gold.” He laughed out loud, which sounded strange in the stillness of the forest. “Did you ever hear from Viktor von Lahnstein or Hagen again? Or the French king? Seems like they gave up chasing after you.”

  “Seems like it,” said Johann.

  “Do you think that might have been the reason why Lahnstein took Greta to Rome? Because he was hoping to lure you there?”

  Johann said nothing. It wasn’t a wholly implausible thought, and it had crossed his mind, too. But then why had Lahnstein never tried to get in contact with him? As far as Johann knew, no one had ever searched for him again—a circumstance he’d found puzzling for a long time. It was as if the papal representative had suddenly lost all interest in him.

  “The past no longer matters,” he said to Karl eventually. “All that counts is the future. And our future is called Rome.”

  Johann kicked his heels hard into the donkey’s sides. The animal bucked grumpily and then took off at a fast trot toward the sea that lay somewhere ahead of them.

  Their journey led them to Carcassonne, the ancient fortress by the river Aude where, three hundred years earlier, the bloody Albigensian Crusade against the Cathars had taken place. Then, many followers of the Cathari beliefs managed to escape, but a few decades later, hundreds of them burned on an enormous pyre at the fortress of Montségur. Johann involuntarily thought of the mass immolation at Tiffauges. There, true heretics had been burned, followers of the devil who, with the aid of gruesome rituals, had somehow managed to prolong their lives. Johann had witnessed the deaths of or killed their most important leaders: Poitou, Henriet, Prelati the priest, and the horrible La Meffraye. But their former master was still somewhere out there. A shiver ran down Johann’s spine despite the heat.

  Where are you, Tonio?

  The many people walking toward them in the lanes beneath the fortress, laughing, chatting, on their way to their business or their loved ones, suddenly appeared unreal to Johann. His eyes turned to the battlements above them, where several ravens and crows circled in the sky. Were Tonio’s messengers among them? Sooner or later Johann would have to face up to his old enemy, he didn’t doubt it. But not now. He wasn’t going to make the same mistake as before.

  The only thing that mattered now was his daughter.

  From Carcassonne they traveled to Montpellier, where they could already smell the sea, and from there to Arles. Here, the pilgrimage routes to Santiago de Compostela in the west and to Rome in the east met, and consequently, the streets in and around town were bustling with pilgrims. They all wore the typical garb of brown woolen coats and wide hats, so Johann and Karl blended right in. Between the houses stood remains of old Roman palaces and theaters, which the locals used as quarries. Inside the Cathedral of Saint Trophime, the pilgrims knelt before the grave of a former archbishop where several miracles had reportedly occurred. Karl joined the long line in front of the tomb, while Johann waited for him in the shade outside. He hadn’t prayed in years. He had forgotten how to, while now his assistant didn’t miss any opportunity.

  Johann had noticed that Karl was no longer the sensible rationalist he used to be. It seemed as if the years of madness had led him to God. Thankfully, Karl still couldn’t remember everything that had happened at Tiffauges, but Johann suspected that somewhere, deep down inside Karl, still resided the images of the horned one, the creature whose presence they had both felt in the well below the church.

  The black potion will lead you to him, little Faustus. You are his favorite.

  Back then he would have sacrificed Karl without batting an eyelid. Now Johann was glad to have Karl by his side, even if he’d been reluctant at first. He had been alone for so long that he no longer knew what company meant. Johann sensed that Karl loved and needed him more, but the younger man’s presence gave him the feeling of leading a seminormal life again. Yes, he was glad Karl was with him. Karl reminded him of the time before Tiffauges, and also a little bit of himself a long time ago.

  Something cawed, and Johann looked up. A crow flew past his head and landed on a stone step outside the cathedral.

  Johann picked up a stone and threw it at the bird, which rose into the air with a caw and flew away. In the last two years he hadn’t paid much attention to ravens and crows—he’d been too busy trying to stay on his feet or sleeping off the booze. But since he’d quit drinking, he noticed the birds again. They seemed to follow him.

  Or was he following them, like in the Loire Valley and on their journey to Tiffauges?

  Johann had a hunch that Tonio was still closer to him than he’d thought.

  When Karl emerged from the cathedral, he gazed pensively at Johann. “I can tell that you’re brooding. It’s about Tonio again, isn’t it? He won’t let you go. You’re afraid that he is in Rome. With Greta.”

  “It’s nothing,” replied Johann, shaking his head, trying to smile. “The sun is burning too hotly, that’s all.”

  It was one of the many small lies he used to once again build up a wall between himself and the world.

  20

  NEARLY TWO MONTHS LATER THEY FINALLY REACHED THE outskirts of Rome.

  Their beards had grown back, the blisters on their feet had healed into hard calluses, and their skin was as brown as tanned leather. Even though their wi
de-brimmed hats scarcely shielded them from the hot September sun, Johann strode ahead vigorously. They had sold the stubborn donkey a while ago because Johann no longer needed it. His old strength returned with every mile they drew nearer to Rome. The city was surrounded by fields, though many of them were barren and abandoned. Decrepit villas told of wealthy landowners from long ago. Shepherds pushed their goats across the overgrown roads, which used to be wide enough for two carts to pass one another. Now thistles, mint, and rosemary grew in the gaps of the pavers, and the Roman milestones stood crookedly in the ground.

  The closer they got to the city, the more ruins they saw in the hills. Some of them looked like ancient heathen temples or mausoleums, while others used to be magnificent summer residences. The houses still seemed to be occupied—not, however, by rich patricians. Women in threadbare, dirty clothing peered out from behind animal hides covering the windows, their men dragging plows across dry, karstic fields where once upon a time luscious gardens and olive groves had flourished. Rising into the sky beyond, like plague boils on the body of an incurably sick man, were the hills of Rome.

  Johann tried to imagine how splendid this city must have been once. Urbs Aeterna. The center of the world! But centuries had passed since, many different armies had assaulted the city with sword and fire, and not much was left of its former glory. Still, the sight of the city filled Johann with a deep longing, as if he were returning to a place he’d left behind many lives ago.