Johann couldn’t even recall their names, but they had always been near Leonardo. Just like Tonio’s crows and the raven. They had watched him all along, him and Leonardo.
“La Meffraye and Henriet searched for that which the master has wanted for a long time, but they just couldn’t find it. We thought you two might be able to help—without knowing you were, of course. We hoped he might tell you where he’d hid it. They spied on you the entire time—even at da Vinci’s deathbed.”
Johann’s thoughts were racing. He felt as though a familiar story suddenly took on an entirely new meaning now that he knew its ending. Leonardo had tried to tell him something, and he must have had an inkling that he was being watched. Maybe he had even known that the servants who were with him day and night were in fact Tonio’s, not his own. How long had La Meffraye and Henriet worked for him? Or had they somehow managed to slip into the bodies of the former servants?
But another thought was even more unsettling to Johann.
“Does that mean I only traveled to Cloux because . . . because Tonio wanted me to?” he asked, confused. “The long journey from Bamberg to France—it was his plan? That I visit Leonardo da Vinci and find something for Tonio? That I help him without even knowing?”
Johann thought about the raven and the crows. He had thought they were following him, but it had been the other way around: they had shown him the way—he had followed them! Once again, like in Nuremberg, Johann had walked into Tonio’s trap.
“The lord is everywhere and nowhere,” wheezed Father Jerome. “Everywhere and nowhere! Mark those words.”
Johann remembered that the midwife they’d met on their way to Tiffauges had said something very similar.
Everywhere and nowhere.
“Where is he?” asked Johann. He grabbed Father Jerome and shook him hard until the wounded man seethed with pain. “Speak up! Where is Tonio? Where is Gilles de Rais?”
“You’ll never know. The two of us are going to remain here until the devil comes to fetch us.” Father Jerome laughed like a lunatic. “Ha, until the devil comes to fetch us! There is no way out. Just look around you, Doctor.”
Johann let go of Father Jerome. For the first time he noticed that while the chamber possessed a few thin arrow slits, it was missing something. Something very important.
A door.
How on earth had they gotten in here?
And how was he supposed to get back out?
“I . . . I am going to leave you alone now,” whispered the priest, resting his hand on his robe, thick blood seeping through his fingers. “Alone with all your questions, clever, omniscient Doctor Faustus. You must think quickly. When thirst and, later, hunger plague you, thinking is going to become harder and harder. Until your brain is dried up like an old chestnut and your nails break as you try in vain to dig your way out of here. Fare . . . well, Faustus . . . We will meet again before the master. On the other side.”
With one last malicious chuckle, Father Jerome collapsed fully, twitched once more, and then was still.
Johann had never before felt so alone. Even in the underground room below Nuremberg following the gruesome ceremony, when he had woken up with one finger and one eye missing, he hadn’t been this lonely. His old friend Valentin had stood by him and then Karl had, too. But now he had lost all his friends. He had been tricked into despising Karl and almost stabbed him, fueled by the drugs; he had killed John, and so Greta would now regard him as a murderer, and she would most likely burn at the stake soon. Even his dog was dead.
He had no one left.
The chamber that held him was like an allegory for his life—cold, confined, with no way out. The only company he had was a dead priest loyal to the devil. Johann was naked. The last card had been played.
Johann, stretched out on the cold ground, stared at the smooth squares of stone on the ceiling. He had been so obsessed by the thought of finding Tonio here at Tiffauges that he had been blind to everything else. As usual, he had stormed ahead without considering anyone else, raising the stakes higher and higher.
And then he had lost.
Rien ne va plus.
Tiffauges had been a dead end. Everything Johann had believed until then had collapsed like a house of cards. Could it be true that he had only ever done whatever Tonio wanted him to do? Johann had met him at the cemetery in Knittlingen, and he guessed that Tonio had also been at Altenburg Castle. Then Johann had run from Viktor von Lahnstein, who was supposed to take him to the pope because of this accursed philosopher’s stone whose secret Johann didn’t know. Then, in Metz, his friend Agrippa had finally told him about Leonardo da Vinci.
Agrippa, my old friend, could it be possible?
Agrippa had been the first to tell him about Leonardo’s illness. In hindsight, Johann thought Agrippa’s sudden flash of inspiration had seemed a little forced. His friend had always been a better scholar than actor. Had he played a part in this conspiracy? Had Tonio offered him a pact, too? Anything seemed possible. If Johann could turn murderer, then why not his friend a traitor? Only one question remained.
What was the secret Leonardo possessed and Tonio wanted so badly? Could it perhaps be the art of making gold—the philosopher’s stone? The same secret the pope hoped to learn from Johann? It must have been something extremely valuable if Tonio sent him halfway across Europe for it. Where had Leonardo hidden it?
Where?
For the first time, Johann saw a tiny speck of light in the darkness. Tonio wanted something, urgently. If Johann found it before Tonio, he had something to barter with. The world had always worked this way.
You can’t defeat the devil, but you can offer him a bargain.
Perhaps, if Johann presented Tonio
