The Devil's Pawn

But while Karl had strived to regain his memory, Johann had tried to forget everything with homemade theriac, potent brandy, wine in copious quantities. Working under false names and with cheap magic tricks, he had earned a little money and drunk like a fish. It had been the only way to keep the nightmares at bay for a little while, the only way to suppress the guilt he had laden upon himself. Johann didn’t know if he could ever bring himself to tell Karl what had really happened at Tiffauges. He had said nothing about almost killing Karl, and had not mentioned brutally stabbing John to death nor that his disease appeared to have vanished because of this horrific sacrifice. Nor had he told Karl about the secret he had been hoarding since then.

The secret of the silver globe.

Johann always carried with him the tiny pendant he had found inside Leonardo da Vinci’s stomach. Not around his neck, as he was too afraid it might get stolen from there, but well hidden inside a leather satchel upon which he slept at night and which was now tied to the donkey’s neck. Inside the pendant was still the thin tissue paper that Leonardo had hidden so well and that Tonio del Moravia would have loved to possess. In the first few weeks Johann had daily considered destroying the paper, simply burning it and watching the ashes float to the ground. It would have made the world a better place. And yet he didn’t do it. He didn’t do it for the very same reason that had made him seek the secret in the first place.

It was his pawn in the game with the devil.

Greta or the world? Which is more important?

Johann had pondered this question over and over, but as he had become convinced that Greta was dead, he had kept the globe. And now, it would seem, its contents could still be of use to him.

Greta or the world?

The swaying of the donkey made him slightly seasick; he felt as though he was on a ship far out on a stormy ocean. Johann closed his eyes. In the last two years, he had researched at several libraries and monasteries, had leafed through ancient books and studied pages of brittle parchment and papyrus. And his fears had been confirmed. In the wrong hands, what was written on the tissue paper had the power to throw the world into chaos.

“Do you remember how we escaped from that horrible Hagen at Chinon by a hair’s breadth?” asked Karl, tearing Johann from his thoughts.

They were traveling along the Via Tolosana, an old pilgrimage route between Arles and Santiago de Compostela, where the apostle Saint James lay buried. The snow-covered peaks of the Pyrenees lined the horizon behind them. They were passing through a shadowy forest of oaks, offering some shelter from the sun, which burned mercilessly this far south. The air was unbearably muggy. There wasn’t a breath of wind, and the woods stood in silence, except for the perpetual chirping of cicadas.

Karl shook his head. “I still can’t believe the pope really thought you could make gold.” He laughed out loud, which sounded strange in the stillness of the forest. “Did you ever hear from Viktor von Lahnstein or Hagen again? Or the French king? Seems like they gave up chasing after you.”

“Seems like it,” said Johann.

“Do you think that might have been the reason why Lahnstein took Greta to Rome? Because he was hoping to lure you there?”

Johann said nothing. It wasn’t a wholly implausible thought, and it had crossed his mind, too. But then why had Lahnstein never tried to get in contact with him? As far as Johann knew, no one had ever searched for him again—a circumstance he’d found puzzling for a long time. It was as if the papal representative had suddenly lost all interest in him.

“The past no longer matters,” he said to Karl eventually. “All that counts is the future. And our future is called Rome.”

Johann kicked his heels hard into the donkey’s sides. The animal bucked grumpily and then took off at a fast trot toward the sea that lay somewhere ahead of them.

Their journey led them to Carcassonne, the ancient fortress by the river Aude where, three hundred years earlier, the bloody Albigensian Crusade against the Cathars had taken place. Then, many followers of the Cathari beliefs managed to escape, but a few decades later, hundreds of them burned on an enormous pyre at the fortress of Montségur. Johann involuntarily thought of the mass immolation at Tiffauges. There, true heretics had been burned, followers of the devil who, with the aid of gruesome rituals, had somehow managed to prolong their lives. Johann had witnessed the deaths of or killed their most important leaders: Poitou, Henriet, Prelati the priest, and the horrible La Meffraye. But their former master was still somewhere out there. A shiver ran down Johann’s spine despite the heat.

Where are you, Tonio?

The many people walking toward them in the lanes beneath the fortress, laughing, chatting, on their way to their business or their loved ones, suddenly appeared unreal to Johann. His eyes turned to the battlements above them, where several ravens and crows circled in the sky. Were Tonio’s messengers among them? Sooner or later Johann would have to face up to his old enemy, he didn’t doubt it. But not now. He wasn’t going to make the same mistake as before.

The only thing that mattered now was his daughter.

From Carcassonne they traveled to Montpellier, where they could already smell the sea, and from there to Arles. Here, the pilgrimage routes to Santiago de Compostela in the west and to Rome in the east met, and consequently, the streets in and around town were bustling with pilgrims. They all wore the typical garb of brown woolen coats and wide hats, so Johann and Karl blended right in. Between the houses stood remains of old Roman palaces and theaters, which the locals used