“Ah! May I introduce you to a very special guest, my dear doctor?” said the bishop. He only seemed to notice now that Johann was still on his knees and waved impatiently for him to get up. Then he gestured at the clergyman beside him. “This is Viktor von Lahnstein, papal representative. He was at Augsburg with Cardinal Cajetan, trying to convince Luther to abandon his heretical theses.”
Lahnstein nodded gravely. “For three days the cardinal tried, imploring Luther like a stubborn mule. In the end, the conceited monk evaded further discussions by running away. Luther appears to believe he can hide behind the Saxon elector Friedrich, but he won’t succeed. Rome’s arm reaches far—very far!” Johann felt as though Lahnstein was looking at him especially hard during those last words.
“His Reverence came straight from Augsburg with me,” Limpurg explained. “The meeting at Altenburg Castle was his idea.” He smirked. “And it was also he who suggested I ask you for a horoscope.”
Johann’s expression froze. His eyes turned to Viktor von Lahnstein, who smiled ominously. If calling him to Altenburg Castle had been Lahnstein’s idea, Johann had to expect the worst. Someone might have reported him as a sorcerer in Rome, and now he was in danger of landing on the pyre, just like that Luther. What was it Lahnstein just said?
Rome’s arm reaches far—very far.
Johann involuntarily looked around for Karl and Greta but couldn’t see them anywhere.
“Oh, if you’re looking for your retinue, the assistant and the girl, they have already been taken to their chambers,” said Limpurg, guessing the meaning of his searching glance. “For you, Doctor, we have prepared a very special room.” With a smile he pointed upward, to the top of the donjon. “The tower room of Altenburg. You’ll be entirely undisturbed up there, and it offers the best view of the stars—and I assume you’re going to need those for the horoscope. I wish you all the best for your work, Doctor Faustus.”
With the unpleasant feeling of having walked straight into a trap, Johann allowed two soldiers to walk him to the tower. And with every step he took, he thought he could feel the eyes of the papal representative on his back.
With his head held high and slow, measured steps, Karl Wagner strode through the rooms and halls of Altenburg Castle and studied the delegates whispering to each other in the window bays and by the many fireplaces. They all wore warm, precious fur coats over beautifully dyed clothes made of fustian. There were a few handsome young men among them. Karl had also donned his best clothes, a tight-fitting black tunic and a slightly stained but still reasonably good coat, giving him the air of a young, ambitious cleric.
I could almost be one of them. A delegate from some small bishopric, a talented theologian who could make it all the way to cardinal in Rome.
He wondered how his life would have passed if he had completed his studies at Leipzig. Perhaps he would be a doctor or an advocate by now, working in an elevated position as adviser for a baron or count. Karl knew that he was intelligent and educated, blessed with more knowledge than most men in this room. But he also knew where this knowledge had come from. No university on earth could have taught him as much as the nearly ten years he’d spent with Doctor Johann Georg Faustus. But still, the sight of all these elegant, beautifully dressed men who laughed together, drank wine from paper-thin Venetian glasses, and debated politics filled him with longing. These men led a life not granted to Karl. He was an outcast, twice over: first as assistant to a magician and astrologer, and second as a clandestine sodomite.
Karl loved men. He knew it was a deadly sin, but he couldn’t change it. Years ago, the doctor had saved him from execution at the very last moment, and since then Karl had traveled the empire with Johann. He had tried to subdue his affliction, but unsuccessfully. He’d been discovered more than once and narrowly escaped arrest, leaving the doctor furious each time because Karl had put all their lives in danger.
Occasionally Karl wondered whether Faust even knew why he stayed despite the temper tantrums, despite Faust’s frequently condescending ways, and despite their differing opinions in scientific matters. Sometimes the doctor treated Karl as if he was still the same naive young student from Leipzig he had been ten years ago. But Karl hadn’t even told Greta the real reason; his shame ran too deeply.
Because I love someone who will never return my love.
Karl missed Greta acutely just then, thinking she must have stayed in her room. They had grown very close in recent years, almost like brother and sister. Greta had become Karl’s closest confidante, even if he couldn’t reveal all his secrets to her. It pained him that he wasn’t permitted to tell Greta more about the incidents back in Nuremberg, but the doctor had made his wishes very clear. Still, perhaps it was for the best. Whatever had happened in the underground passages of that city had been so profoundly evil that Greta’s consciousness had good reason to suppress the memories.
The bishop’s servants had assigned them two drafty, damp rooms in an adjoining building where the footmen of the delegates were housed. Karl hadn’t tarried long before leaving that hole to mingle with the higher-ranking guests. No one had stopped him at the door to the palas—possibly thanks to his pompous demeanor.
“Apparently there’s even a delegate from England,” said a
