The learned Doctor Faustus had reached his wit’s end.
“It is possible that someone followed us,” said John into the silence. “The French, that Swiss giant, or perhaps the Habsburgs. It’s not inconceivable that they learned of our destination and are lying in wait here, ready to snatch the doctor.” He nodded at Karl. “The young scholar and I will go into town with our ears peeled. I think the two of us are the least conspicuous.”
Johann nodded reluctantly. It was a sensible suggestion. Viktor von Lahnstein might have a hunch where Johann was headed. Just like the French king, the papal delegate assumed that Johann knew how to make gold and that he had learned the secret from Gilles de Rais. Johann scanned the sky for any sign of the old raven but saw nothing.
Either way, the master knows I’m coming.
“Be careful,” he said to John and Karl. “At the slightest sign that someone might be following you, you must throw them off the scent and return here. We can’t take any risks.”
“Don’t worry, old man.” John grinned. “This isn’t the first time I’m scouting.”
Johann inhaled sharply and glowered at John in silence.
I’m only glad he doesn’t call me father-in-law yet.
Once John and Karl had left, father and daughter sat down in a meadow that was humming with bees. Greta chewed on a blade of straw and gazed at the castle towering above them.
“Doesn’t look very evil,” she said after a while.
Johann smiled. “The castle isn’t evil, but the man living inside it is. Maybe those old walls will see better times one day.”
“After everything that happened there?” Greta shook her head. “I wouldn’t think so. Those walls are drenched with the blood of many innocent children. And now . . .” She broke off. “Well, what now? I still don’t understand what exactly you intend on doing. If Tonio really is the devil, then you can’t defeat him. The devil is invincible.”
Johann nodded. “That is true. But you can barter with him, or perhaps even play a trick on him. Maybe a healthy Doctor Faustus is much more useful to him than a mortally ill one. Maybe there is a secret that I know and that he is interested in.”
“Well, we know it’s not the secret of how to make gold.” Greta gave a little laugh. “I wonder who fed the pope such nonsense?”
“I’d love to know that, too.”
No one said anything for a while, and Johann moved a little closer to Greta. The sun shone down warmly on his cold limbs, but something else warmed him from the inside. Greta was his daughter, and he sensed it and smelled it with every breath. She was the only creature in the world he truly loved. Of course, he used to love Little Satan’s company, and also that of Karl, who had been at his side for many years. But those feelings were nothing compared to the love he felt for his daughter. He had never read her palms. Too great was his fear of foreseeing her death in them, the fear she might die before him and leave him behind. Johann opened his own creased hands and stared at them. He had done so repeatedly in the last few weeks, but to no avail. He couldn’t make out anything in his own palms.
Only Greta could read them.
“I haven’t looked at them in a long time,” she said gently, as if she had heard his thoughts. “I no longer want to know. God alone should know when a person’s end arrives.”
“God or the devil.”
He looked up and studied his daughter’s face. She was so beautiful. He remembered the first time he saw her, back in the prison below Nuremberg. She had only been fourteen then, still a child, so dainty and fragile. And now she would go her own way, and he would be left behind. Whether dead or alive—he would be left behind.
“I should never have brought you here,” he said. “It was pure selfishness. I wasn’t ready to say goodbye. I wanted to hang on to you until the last moment.”
“What are you talking about?” Greta gave a sad smile. “You’re Doctor Faustus, remember? You’ve cheated the devil once before and you will do so again. And then the four of us will go back to the German Empire. You, me, Karl—”
“And John.” Johann sighed. “You really do love him.”
“More than that.” Greta’s face turned serious. “He is the man I will . . .” She gave a wave as if she’d changed her mind. “One thing after the other. First we confront whoever is living inside that castle.”
When Johann looked at the castle again, he noticed that the fortress wasn’t as imposing as he’d first thought. Some of the battlements had crumbled like rotten teeth, some of the windows were boarded shut, and ivy and gorse climbed up the walls like poisonous snakes. A cloud pushed in front of the sun, and the air grew chilly.
Up in one of the towers, a light flared up. To Johann it looked like a huge, watchful eye that gazed down at him hungrily.
Meanwhile, Karl and John were walking through a ghost town.
It had taken Karl a while to figure out what it was that gave Tiffauges such an eerie atmosphere. It was a small place with no wall or gates, and so they had been able to walk into town without causing a stir. Low half-timbered houses huddled along the edges of the few shady lanes. There were two churches, one enclosed market hall, and a square where several aging market wives sat behind their stalls like brooding hens.
