The Devil's Pawn

by Oliver Pötzsch

  Johann slowly made his way down the line, giving advice, gazing into toothless mouths, and palpating broken limbs. He was no physician, but he had read widely and watched plenty of itinerant surgeons in the German Empire. He also knew that sometimes patience and a few kind words achieved more than expensive medicine. Eventually he stopped in front of a small, pale girl who was pressing herself against her mother fearfully. The girl was about five years old and bore dark rings around her eyes. Johann knelt down and looked at her.

  “How are you, little one?”

  Instead of the girl, the gaunt woman, who could have been the child’s mother or grandmother, replied. “She hasn’t been eating or drinking. And she sleeps a lot. We can’t afford a doctor—the hospital is our last hope!”

  “Hmm . . .” Johann hesitated, then he picked up the girl’s tiny hand and stroked it gently. He had an inkling, but he wanted to know for certain. And so he did something he hadn’t done in years.

  He closed his eyes and bent over the hand. He felt a warm throbbing, and dark lines showed on the insides of his eyelids.

  The black wings.

  And he knew that he hadn’t been mistaken.

  He took a deep breath before rising with a smile on his face. “I believe your daughter is going to feel much better soon. And about eating.” He rubbed his fingers together, snapped them once—and suddenly held a small, wrinkled apple in his hand, and then another one and another. “The food should be sweet, the way children like it. Then they’ll eat.” Accompanied by the laughter of the girl and the onlookers, he juggled the apples before handing them to the girl with a bow.

  “Grazie,” breathed the mother, tears of joy in her eyes. “It has been a long time since Clara laughed.”

  The mother superior came closer. She tried to maintain her stern expression, but Johann could tell that she was touched. “What are you, a physician or a fairground magician?” she asked in an imperious tone.

  Johann grinned. “A bit of both, I believe. Aren’t good physicians something like magicians?”

  “I honestly don’t know what to make of you, signore,” replied the mother superior with a sigh. “Your show hasn’t entirely convinced me, but I am favorably disposed toward you. You may lend a hand to the sisters. Help them wash patients, empty chamber pots, apply dressings, but drop the tricks and juggling. This is a serious place.”

  “Then . . . then I may work here?” asked Johann.

  “Not as a physician, but as a nurse. But beware.” The older woman wagged a finger. “If Greta really is your niece—which I doubt—then I don’t want you to distract her from her work. We need her here, understood? She gives strength and solace to the sick, which is sometimes more important than medicine.”

  “You have my word—I won’t bother her.” Johann nodded. “One more thing, venerable mother.” He turned serious and lowered his voice so that no one else could overhear. “The little girl . . .” He faltered. “I’m so sorry, but she . . . she hasn’t got long to live. The only thing we can still do for her is to give her a little joy. Please allow me to juggle for her—only for her. I beg you.”

  “How do you know the Lord will take her soon?” asked the mother superior with a frown.

  “I just do. Trust me.” Johann smiled sadly. “Like I said—physicians sometimes are magicians.”

  The following days and weeks were hard. Each morning, Johann left the inn by the old racecourse and walked to the hospital. Karl would often be up already, sitting by the window upstairs, bent over a drawing. Their relationship wasn’t the same since Karl had learned what had really happened at Tiffauges. And yet he waited for Johann to decide whether they would stay or leave town.

  In the beginning, Karl had shaken his head at Johann’s medical ambition. “Why do you do it to yourself?” he had asked. “I know you want to be near your daughter. But do you really believe you’re going to win her back like this?”

  “I don’t know, Karl. All I know is that I thought only of myself for far too long—for my whole life, really.” Johann was gazing into the distance, where the Alban Hills were vanishing behind the haze. “I can help people, and that is what I’m doing now.”

  “And what if Hagen or Lahnstein finds you?” asked Karl. “The hospital isn’t far from the papal palaces and Castel Sant’Angelo.”

  Johann winked at him. “I am nothing, just a nobody who empties latrines and watches at the bedside of the dying. I am just old Johann, not the learned Faustus.”

  “You will always be Faustus, no matter how hard you try,” Karl had replied, and Johann had heard both mockery and pain in his voice.

  It was true—Johann did his best to remain in the background at the hospital. He helped wherever necessary, and even though he knew much, he avoided showing off his knowledge. He soon realized how modern the hospital was. There was a hatch for unwanted infants and a foundling wing, a poorhouse, and fresh water from wells and pipes in every hall. The spezieria, the hospital pharmacy, housed any known medicines and even some herbs and spices from the New World. Its wealth of drawers contained small brown beans from overseas that were ground up and served with hot water and ginger, and dried leaves that eased hunger and tiredness. Watching over the spezieria were physicians who didn’t often show their faces in the treatment halls of the poor.

  Most of the diseases the patients suffered from Johann had seen before. But one particular ailment was new to him; the monks called it morbo gallico, the French disease, allegedly because it had first appeared during the siege of Naples under King Charles VIII. Since then it had spread right across Italy. The victims suffered from fever and rashes, and later extremely painful knots and ulcers appeared, and some patients grew insane and ran screaming through the treatment rooms. They were treated with quicksilver and also with a concoction of a very hard wood from the New World. All that was completely new to Johann, and he was amazed at the vast knowledge in Italy compared to the backward German Empire. Whenever his work permitted, he secretly studied the writs the physicians left on their lecterns.

  But most of the time he helped the sisters, occasionally offering some whispered advice. He washed the old people, fed them, carried away their buckets, and cleaned them. Strangely enough, he found this kind of menial work rather satisfying. He barely saw Greta. Whenever he did see her, his heart skipped a beat. She always turned away quickly and continued to go about her work as if she didn’t know him. But at least she hadn’t asked the mother superior to remove him.

  Almost daily Johann sat by the bed of little Clara, juggling for her or showing her some of his magic tricks like he used to do for Greta. The little girl laughed and clapped, but Johann saw she was fading away. She lost weight and grew paler by the day. Her nose bled often, and the knots on her neck were swollen. Johann had no idea what the disease was called, but he knew there was no cure.

  He had seen it in Clara’s hand. He hadn’t used this eerie gift in a long time, the same gift Greta appeared to have inherited from him. Johann could tell when people were going to die. But unlike years ago, the realization no longer upset him as deeply. Everyone had to die, some later and some sooner. Dying was as much a part of life as birth. And so he gave Clara some of the most wonderful hours in her much-too-short life while she steadily grew weaker.

  “I dreamed of the dear God,” she told him quietly one evening, as if she was sharing a secret. “And of the big black wings. The big black wings will carry me to Him. That’s what He said.”

  “He did?” Johann shaped the corner of the sheet and with soot painted two black eyes on it. “And what about little Hans here? Is he allowed to fly with you?”

  Clara smiled as Johann marched the tip of the sheet up and down the edge of the bed like a little soldier. “Yes, little Hans can come. If he is good.” Then she turned serious. “Uncle Johann? Does the dear God know how to do magic and juggle like you?”

  “Of course He can! He is the best magician there is. You won’t believe your eyes when you see what He will c
onjure up for you. The sweetest fruits, a doll with a head made of cherrywood, a spinning top, and a whole mountain of glass marbles like only the wealthy children have.”

  Clara fell asleep with a smile on her lips.

  The next morning, when Johann saw her again, she was as cold and stiff as a puppet. He had known this day would come, but still he was filled with profound grief—grief like he hadn’t felt in a long time.

  “I hope the dear Lord performs tricks for you now, little Clara,” he murmured. “If God really exists, then He can do magic.”

  Johann held the hand of the dead girl for a long while. He was squatting beside the bed, quiet and unmoving, when he suddenly heard steps behind him. He knew those steps; they were as familiar to him as the rattling of a juggler’s wagon or the drumming of the rain on the canvas.

  “Greta,” he said softly without turning.

  “We need to talk,” she said.

  “That’s what I’ve wanted all along.”

  She pulled a stool up to the bed and sat down next to him and the body of Clara. Johann saw her close-up for the first time. She was still his daughter, but her face had become harder. Underneath the white bonnet of the sisters’ habit was a grown woman. She seemed much more mature.

  And much sadder.

  “I’ve been watching you,” she began. “And the other sisters have been telling me about you. They say you’re a good man even if they struggle to figure you out. You look after the sick, and apparently you made little Clara very happy, God rest her poor soul.” Greta looked at the dead girl with pity and brushed her hand over Clara’s face, closing her eyes for good. “Now the worst is behind her and she’s in a better place.”

  “I knew she would die,” said Johann. “And so did you, am I right? The black wings . . . That’s how we found you. You ought to be more careful with your gift, Greta.”

  “I am careful. Death can also come as a relief, as suffering finally coming to an end. I give people certainty, but only when they really want to know. You can use this gift for good or bad, and I decided to use it for good.” Greta was still looking at the pale, silent child, but suddenly she turned and looked straight at Johann. Her voice was low and decisive. “But I know you’re not good, Johann Georg Faustus. You are merely acting, just like you have always acted. Your heart is as black as the walls of hell.”

  Johann swallowed heavily. “Greta, what happened at Tiffauges—that wasn’t me. I was drugged—”

  “I know. Karl told me.”

  “Karl?” Johann looked up with surprise. “You’ve been speaking with Karl?”

  “Yes, we have met several times since you first came here. And I know why you came to Rome. But I will never go with you. Never! My new home is here—a home like you were never able to give me.”

  It hurt Johann a little to hear that Greta had been meeting Karl.

  “I can understand you, Greta. All that has happened can’t be undone. I only want . . .” He paused. “I just want you to not think of me as evil. Because I’m not.”

  “Oh yes, you are.” Greta narrowed her eyes. “Lahnstein told me everything.”

  “Lahnstein?” Johann’s knees suddenly felt weak. “You . . . you meet with the papal representative?”

  Greta nodded grimly. “Over the last two years, he has been more of a father to me than you ever were. Yes, we used to think Lahnstein was our enemy. But it isn’t true. The enemy is you.” From beneath her habit she pulled a key ring that hung on a thin leather string around her neck. “Do you see this? Those are the keys to a whole lot of chambers in Castel Sant’Angelo. Viktor von Lahnstein trusts me, and I see him regularly for confession. He led me onto the right path and told me all about you. You are in cahoots with Tonio—with the devil himself. You are but a devil yourself, even if you don’t want to know. And I won’t allow my child to fall into your hands.”

  Johann froze. Everything around him suddenly turned blurry.

  “Child?” he breathed. “You . . . you have a child?”

  Greta frowned. “Karl hasn’t told you? I wasn’t planning on telling him, but he sensed there was something else. He remembered that I said something along those lines when we’d said goodbye.”

  Johann felt jealousy flare up again. But he pulled himself together. “Go on,” he said through clenched teeth.

  “Yes, I have a child, and he is John’s son. Little Sebastian is nearly two years old now, and he is growing up somewhere safe. He is doing very well.”

  Johann closed his eyes. Not only had he taken the man she loved from Greta, but also the father of her child. No wonder she hated him so.

  “Where . . . where is your son?” he asked eventually. “Why isn’t he with you? Or did you give him to the foundling house?”

  “Why do you think he isn’t here?” Greta gave a small laugh. “I am leading the life of a nun. I have so much to atone for, do you understand? As much as I try to forget it, I am still your daughter. The daughter of a sorcerer and devil worshipper, cursed with your gifts. Your bad blood flows through my veins, too.” She made the sign of the cross. “I don’t want my son to grow up like this. I visit him several times a week. In the beginning it was hard to not see him more often, but now I know that it is for the best. He is better off there than here among all the suffering, and better off than at the foundling house, too.”

  “Where is he, Greta?” urged Johann. “Where?”

  “Where do you think?” Greta smiled thinly, and her next words stabbed Johann right in the heart.

  “Your grandson is where he is safest from you, at Castel Sant’Angelo. And Viktor von Lahnstein does everything in his power to keep him safe.”

  23

  THE DOOR CRASHED OPEN AND JOHANN STORMED INTO THE small, shabby attic room. Karl looked up, startled. He had been sitting by the window, working on the silhouette of the city in the autumn fog, but now his hand had jerked and an ugly black streak went right across the page.

  “You knew!”

  “I knew what?”

  Johann glowered at him furiously. His whole body was quivering, and he seemed poised to strike Karl. “You knew that Greta had a child by John Reed and that this child lives here in Rome. At Castel Sant’Angelo, with Lahnstein!”

  Karl sighed and put the pen aside. “So she told you. I advised her against it. But it seems your daughter wants to hurt you.”

  He had met up with Greta a few times at a tavern outside the monastery. As canoness, Greta was free to leave Santo Spirito whenever she wanted, but she hardly ever made use of that privilege. The hospital had become her home. Their conversations had been like those of siblings who hadn’t seen one another in a long time and who found now that they had become estranged. Greta helped Karl to fill in his remaining memory gaps and told him everything that had happened at Tiffauges. Unlike Greta, Karl didn’t consider the doctor an envoy from hell, but Karl’s boundless admiration for him was crumbling. Perhaps because, for the first time, Karl saw the man behind the legend.

  “I asked Greta not to tell you.” Karl raised his hands apologetically. “I knew it would pain you, and it doesn’t change anything.”

  “It changes everything,” screamed Johann, his face red with anger. Exhausted, he dropped onto the flea-ridden, moldy bed. “Don’t you understand?” he asked, running his hands through his hair. “She trusts him! And Viktor von Lahnstein is holding my grandson hostage, like a pawn!”

  “A pawn for what?”

  “For . . . for . . .” Faust broke off and waved his hand. “Another time. Believe me—I know that Lahnstein has plans for that child. Or do you really believe he is raising the boy at Castel Sant’Angelo out of the goodness of his heart?”

  “Admittedly, it is unusual,” said Karl with a shrug. “It’s possible that it is some kind of belated revenge on you. And it would be a particularly sweet revenge. Lahnstein couldn’t get you, so he takes your daughter and grandson. Instead of hurting Greta, he turns her into a tool of the church. And then he raises her son like hi
s own.”

  “So you admit that Greta is but a tool?”

  Karl sighed deeply. “She has changed, it’s true. But the most important thing is that your daughter is well—she and her son, your grandchild. Greta found a new home. You might not like it, but that’s the way it is. I beg you: let your daughter go!”

  “I know he’s got plans for the boy,” muttered Johann. “I just know it. Tonio still holds me in his clutches. The pact still stands.”

  “Tonio? You seriously believe Tonio del Moravia is behind all this?” Karl shook his head. “You were talking about Lahnstein a moment ago and now it’s about Tonio?”

  “You didn’t see what I saw at Tiffauges and thereafter. Evil truly exists. And I can feel that we’re very close to it.”

  “Now you sound like your daughter.” Karl gave a tired smile. “Except she believes you are this evil.”

  Johann closed his eyes as if he was thinking hard. When he started to speak again, he was very calm. “I know you want to leave me, Karl. And you have every reason to. In all these years I’ve brought you nothing but misfortune.”

  “That’s not true, Doctor,” said Karl in protest. “I’ve learned so much from you.”

  And I still love you, he added in his mind. Even if my love is growing weaker by the day.

  Karl had indeed decided to soon part ways with Johann. Their common story had reached its end. Greta would stay here in Rome with her son, and Karl would try to start another course of study. He wanted to travel the empire as an itinerant scholar, sketching, exploring, forever learning. Life as a juggler and quack was over for him. But first he wanted to say farewell to Greta.

  “I would only ask you one last favor,” said Johann as if reading Karl’s mind. “One very last one. Maybe you’re right and my grandson is safe. But I have a strong sense of foreboding. Something . . .” He hesitated. “Something is going to happen. Very soon. I can feel it like an impending thunderstorm. Give me one more week. I want us to observe Castel Sant’Angelo for one week. I can’t do it on my own—I need your help.”