Instead the order was to take her to Rome.
Viktor von Lahnstein clenched his teeth. It wasn’t easy being the personal envoy of Pope Leo X. But there were higher goals, and that was why he had to force back his thirst for revenge, as tough as it was.
The Lord will reward me.
“Is the castle in our control?” he asked Hagen.
The tall man nodded. Hagen was the only one who didn’t seem at all uneasy about Lahnstein’s wound. He had probably seen worse on the battlefields. “We found the guards in a banquet hall, drunk and drugged to the brim. We picked them up like lambs. Should we . . . ?”
Lahnstein waved his hand. “Let them live, and that drunkard of a steward, too. We don’t want to risk a war over this. We aren’t carrying a banner, but who knows what rumors folk in the village will spread later. The important thing now is that we get away quickly.”
Hagen cleared his throat. “A horse disappeared from outside the castle.”
“Faust,” hissed Lahnstein. “That fellow is truly in league with the devil. Well, never mind.” He practically squeezed the words through his teeth. “As you know, our mission is a different one now.”
The raven had arrived at first light. It had been the same raven that had been transferring messages between Rome and Lahnstein for a while now. It was a clever old bird; Lahnstein guessed it came from the pope’s famous menagerie. It had carried a tiny folded letter bearing the papal seal, and Lahnstein had wondered how the raven had been able to fly to Tiffauges this fast. If it hadn’t come from the pope, Lahnstein would have thought it was sorcery.
But something else had been even more uncanny. The instructions in the letter had been very clear.
Bring Faust’s daughter to Rome. She is with child.
How on earth could the Holy Father know that Faust’s daughter was pregnant?
Viktor von Lahnstein smiled. At least the girl was eating out of the palm of his hand now. He had been highly convincing, he thought. Faust’s daughter would serve them loyally. Perhaps she might really be of use someday.
“What about the other heretics?” asked Hagen.
“We burn them,” replied Lahnstein curtly, glad he could focus on practical matters again. “The whole lot. Today, here at the castle. Before the drunk steward figures out what’s going on here. We must be far away from Tiffauges before King Francis learns of this. It’s not far to the sea from here. By the time Francis finds out, we’ll be well on our way to Gibraltar.”
“It takes a while to burn more than a dozen people,” said Hagen.
“Use dry wood and douse the bastards in oil.”
Lahnstein strode away with his head held high. He couldn’t satisfy his longing for revenge on Faust, not yet, at least, but those heretics would feel the collective power of his hatred. Oh yes, they would!
And yet he wasn’t entirely certain just then if he always served the right side.
A few hours later, Greta walked across the courtyard, accompanied by the watchful gaze of Hagen, over to the other tower by the north wall. She still felt a vast emptiness, beyond anger and despair, even beyond grief. But now a small light glowed inside her. She touched the amulet around her neck.
God doesn’t forsake me!
Since she had accepted Lahnstein’s offer to travel to Rome with him, she was permitted to move freely within the castle, though Hagen always hovered nearby. Farther back, the Swiss mercenaries stacked up wood and bundles of brush for the great spectacle that was supposed to take place that evening. The men laughed and joked about the impending execution. The burning Satanists would make an imposing image beneath the night sky, and their screams would be heard for many miles. Just like the screams that had been coming from the torture chamber all day. Greta felt sick, and she thought about how narrowly she had escaped the same fate. She felt a surge of pity, but then she remembered that those people had probably murdered children. They were followers of the devil and had to pay the price.
She turned away and climbed down the slippery, moss-covered steps that led to the dungeons where the prisoners awaited their deaths. The castle guards had been locked up with their steward in another part of the castle, where they would remain until Lahnstein and his men departed.
Strangely, there was no crying and wailing coming from these prison cells. Greta heard some voices sing strange-sounding chorales while others laughed hysterically; one person hurled themselves against their door, shouting: “The lord awaits us! He will rain fire and brimstone upon you all! Victory is ours! Victory is ours!”
“‘Victory is ours,’ what a joke. Let’s see if they’re still so cocky when the flames lick at them tonight,” growled Hagen, walking down the narrow corridor ahead of Greta. He stopped outside the last door.
“Just until the next stroke of the bell,” he said. “Not a moment more. I don’t feel like listening to that racket for much longer.”
He opened the door with a large key, and Greta entered the cell. A single torch in a bracket on the wall cast some dim light into an unfurnished room with a stone floor strewn with very little straw. A foul-smelling bucket was the only item in the room. Greta was reminded of the similar cell she had been locked in as a young girl in Nuremberg. Johann had saved her back then, but there would be no rescue for the man who sat leaning against the wall in this chamber, not even if he were permitted to leave this cell.
He was his own prisoner.
Behind her, the door banged shut.
“Karl,” said Greta softly. “Can you hear me?”
When she had asked Lahnstein permission to visit Karl, he had been unsure at first but eventually granted it. “Maybe you will get him to speak,” he’d said. “Although I doubt it.
