Johann swiftly wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, hoping the others wouldn’t notice. How many times had he been gruff with his assistant; how often had he been impatient and stern? Karl’s words touched him more deeply than he cared to admit. And Karl would always be of use to him, with his clever mind and many talents, even if Johann would never say so. Then he slowly turned to Greta.
“And . . . what about you?”
Greta sighed, then she stepped toward him and hugged him tightly. Johann felt certain that this was a hug goodbye, the farewell from his daughter whom he’d always tried to protect from all the evil in the world. And whom he still hadn’t told the truth. They remained standing like this for a long moment while the rain pattered onto the few leaves left in the trees. Somewhere in the darkness a nightingale called.
“I’m going with you,” said Greta eventually. “But only if you share your plan with me.”
Johann was shaking, and he struggled to speak. He hadn’t expected Greta to stay with him. Her decision to remain by his side was almost more than he could bear. He knew she would most likely be safer without him, but he couldn’t bring himself to turn down her offer. Greta was the person he loved most in the world, even more than himself.
“Thank you” was all he managed to say.
Greta loosened her embrace and looked at him expectantly. “So? Where are we going?”
“You . . . you’ve seen that I’m ill,” Johann started slowly. “The fits, the shaking, loss of control . . . They call me a scholar, wise—omniscient, even. But I don’t know what ails me or how much time I have left. And that is why I want to visit someone who might be able to help. He resides quite far from here—we’ll be on the road for a long time.”
Karl nodded. “I’m guessing you want to head to the university in Paris. Or to Córdoba, where even after the defeat of the Ottomans the best physicians practice. Or—”
“No. I’m afraid not even the best physicians can help me now. We are going to travel to where the most intelligent man I know lives—probably the most intelligent and educated man in the world.” Johann smiled thinly. “And you know I don’t say such a thing lightly. After all, I consider myself rather well read.”
Then he told them the name of the man.
4
THAT DARK AND STARLESS NIGHT, THE THREE OF THEM SET off together on another new journey. They walked along narrow game paths, the only light coming from a flickering lantern. They had left the wagon behind as well as the old gray; Faust had given it a slap on the backside and it had trotted off. Greta hoped it would find a new home somewhere and not fall prey to wild animals; the aging horse had grown on her in the last few years. Little Satan sniffed at the trees and lifted a leg here and there. Greta thought how happy he seemed compared to his humans.
She still wasn’t entirely sure why she had decided to stick with the doctor and Karl. She liked Johann, adored him, even, and since she’d read his palm, she worried about him. But there had also always been something about Johann that frightened her. Somewhat like fire—it warms and attracts but can also burn if you get too close. Greta had been thinking about leaving Karl and the doctor for months, and she guessed she still hadn’t done it because Johann had told her about her mother. Greta wanted to find out more—she had a hunch that he was keeping something from her. If she left now, she would never find out what happened to her parents and what had gone on in Nuremberg all those years ago.
They paused to listen every time they heard a noise, and they took many detours, but they didn’t see the bishop’s soldiers again—not even when they reached the market town of Hallstadt early the next morning. At the inn, Faust bought three horses and plain pilgrims’ clothing for far too much money. Wearing a skirt the color of ashes and a simple woolen coat, Greta looked like a girl from the country. She buried the colorful juggler’s costume she had worn at Bamberg in a dunghill. The innkeeper watched them suspiciously, and Faust gave him another ducat as hush money. It was possible that the innkeeper had already heard of yesterday’s events at Altenburg Castle.
They wolfed down a hasty meal before galloping off into the frosty November day. The sky hung low above the woods, the clouds heavy with rain. Faust kept his eyes on the road while Little Satan ran ahead of them, following the highway through forests and swamps. Behind him, Greta and Karl galloped on their horses, the rapid clattering of hooves the only sound on the empty road heading to the west.
Meanwhile, Johann had told them more about their journey ahead. Many years ago, before the time with Greta, he and Karl had met a learned man with whom he had become close friends. The man and Faust hadn’t seen much of each other since then, but they wrote to one another regularly. It was a correspondence between two of the empire’s most intelligent men, but probably also the vainest.
Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim was a few years younger than Johann and, unlike him, came from a good family. At thirty-two years old, Agrippa was already one of the most famous scholars of Europe, being a doctor of medicine, theology, and jurisprudence and possessing vast, self-taught knowledge in the fields of astrology, mechanics, optics, the Jewish kabbalah, and, most of all, magic. His early work De Occulta
