Are you finally ready to pay your price, Doctor Faustus?
“And I wouldn’t forgive myself if anything were to happen to you.” Greta squeezed his hand. “Good night, Uncle.” She gave him one last nod and left the chamber.
The room immediately seemed much darker. The candle flickered, and then a gust of wind blew it out. The redoubtable Doctor Johann Georg Faustus was alone with his books and his fears.
2
THE MAN FLAILED HIS ARMS AS HE TUMBLED. FOR A BRIEF moment he seemed to be suspended in the air, then he screamed as he fell off the scaffolding onto the cobblestones, where he shattered like a puppet. The dozens of Roman citizens who’d gathered among the blocks of stone and sacks of lime on Saint Peter’s Square groaned and whispered among themselves. It wasn’t long before a handful of guards appeared to take away the lifeless body, and so people turned their attention to more exciting things. Only a puddle of blood remained, which soon dried in the late-autumn sun.
Pope Leo X turned away with disgust. Such accidents reflected badly on the construction of Saint Peter’s Basilica, especially on the day he visited the site personally. Servants had set down his litter opposite the cathedral so that he might watch the progress. Standing to his right was his personal architect and painter, the young master builder Raffaello Santi, who had just launched into a monologue about his new plans for the barrel vault. The laborer’s fatal accident—he appeared to have slipped and tumbled to his demise—had cut Raffaello off midsentence.
“An unfortunate accident,” muttered Raffaello. “The fellow was probably drunk.”
“Not the first accident of its kind,” Leo remarked smugly. He was in a bad mood because he had been in pain for days. Not even the plentiful silk cushions and fur rugs could change the fact that he was once more tortured by his old familiar affliction, which sometimes drove him to the brink of madness. Leo restlessly shuffled his broad rear end back and forth in an attempt to find a more comfortable sitting position; the inflamed fistulas flared up like the fires of hell. “By the devil! You truly ought to pick your workers more carefully, Raffaello.”
The master builder, a fine-boned, somewhat feminine-looking man, was considered the best painter in Rome, if not in the whole world—but even he wasn’t safe from Leo’s fits of temper. Raffaello had already decorated the papal apartments for Leo’s predecessor, Julius II, and created unforgettable masterpieces. He was one of the few people who dared to contradict Leo publicly.
“With all due respect, Holy Father,” he said coolly, “we have to work our men extremely hard if we want to complete the construction within the time frame. And now that payments are in arrears again, morale is down.”
“You’ll get your money,” hissed Leo. “Don’t you worry about that. You’ve been paid well so far, haven’t you, Master Raffaello? So you’d better focus on speeding up this building!”
The rebuilding of Saint Peter’s Basilica was Leo’s most ambitious project. The previous pope had started it, and construction had already been going for fifteen years. The dome was going to be the biggest and most beautiful in Christendom, no matter the cost. After all, the disciple Saint Peter himself had been buried here, following his martyr’s death head-down on the cross—the first pope in a long succession whose most recent member was now Leo.
And I will be the one who leads the church back to its former glory. A second Saint Peter!
Every year, thousands of pilgrims from all over the world came to Saint Peter’s. To finance the construction, money from sales of indulgences was brought to Rome, collected by Leo’s loyal assistant Johann Tetzel and many other helpers, from Naples in the south up to the Hanse region in the north. Basically, it was a trade from which everyone benefited. The good Christians shortened their time in purgatory, and the church shone in a new, brighter light. The trade in indulgences financed not only the rebuilding of Saint Peter’s but also the wealth of paintings, altars, and frescoes that prettied the face of the old whore that was Rome. Leo thought back to the day he had ascended the papal throne. The procession alone had cost a hundred thousand ducats—a seventh of the pope’s possessions. But it had been worth it.
The pope sat up in his litter, with its red velvet canopy, and gritted his teeth as another wave of pain rolled through him. His plan was to enter history as the regenerator of the church, and now, of all times, some silly little monk from a German backwater had to pop up and interfere with his life, railing against the letters of indulgence, writing provocative theses, and nailing them most theatrically onto a church door. The last part was probably nothing but gossip to make the story sound more interesting. Whatever the case, the stream of money was becoming noticeably thinner, and maybe someday soon it would dry up altogether. It was enough to drive a man up the wall!
But hopefully all that would soon come to an end—very soon.
“Tell me about the progress with the southern columns,” he said to Raffaello.
The master builder nodded dutifully and started another monologue, allowing Leo to let his thoughts drift. Why had he even agreed to this boring site visit? What he needed was distraction! But his favorite jester was ill at the moment, and his cardinals tortured
