So many memories.
Johann felt a stab in his chest. He hadn’t been back in Knittlingen for almost a quarter century. He had avoided the place because it reminded him of how everything had begun. Neither Karl nor Greta knew that this was where he came from; really, they knew nothing about him. No one did. He had grown up just a stone’s throw away, with three brothers—of which the elder two had been blockheaded peasants—and a stepfather who had always hated him. Johann still didn’t know who his real father was. Just like Greta had no idea who her father was.
I must tell her before it’s too late.
The old familiar Lion Inn appeared to his left, muffled voices humming inside. A handful of horses were tied to the hitching rail outside the door, and an old cart was parked in an open shed next to the building.
Johann involuntarily stopped his own horse and listened. Knittlingen sat on the post road that led from the Netherlands all the way to Innsbruck in the Alps and beyond. The elderly emperor Maximilian had had it built in his younger years so that he could better control his huge empire. Because of this road, travelers from faraway countries frequently stayed at the Lion. Countless times as a small boy Johann had sat underneath the tables, listening to their tales. Afterward, back at home, he would tell those tales to his sick mother.
The Lion Inn had been his window to the world—a world he would see far more of than he’d ever imagined. Johann had sworn to himself that he wouldn’t return until he was a learned and successful man. And that was what he had become—although in a completely different way than expected.
Little loudmouthed Johann Gerlach from Knittlingen had become the famous Doctor Johann Georg Faustus, the greatest magician in the empire, an astrologer, chiromancer, and alchemist, much admired and much scorned.
Johann hesitated before climbing off his horse and tying it beside the others. He had come to Knittlingen for something else, but the inn drew him in almost magically, like a sweet, nostalgic call from the past.
“You wait outside. Sit!” he commanded Little Satan, who obeyed instantly. Johann’s heart beat wildly as he entered the tavern. He pulled his fur-lined cap down over his face, even though he thought it highly unlikely that anyone would recognize him after all these years. Johann knew that his brothers and stepfather had died of a fever years ago. His family no longer existed; the house had been sold. Johann hadn’t felt any grief.
Because I’ve always been a stranger.
The moment Johann entered the familiar taproom, all conversation stopped. He guessed the men at the tables were a mix of travelers and Knittlingers, but he knew none of them, and no one seemed to recognize him. People soon turned back to their cups of wine. He was just another traveler. The young innkeeper came to his table.
“What can I get you, sir?” asked the man, bowing his head. Instead of his famous star cape, Johann was wearing a wide coat made of silk and fustian, along with a fur-lined cap in the style of wealthy merchants and patricians.
“Is old Hans Harschauber still around?” asked Johann with a foreign accent to avoid any unnecessary risks. “The old innkeeper. I came through this town years ago and met him. A good man. Knew much of the world.”
“Oh, him.” The innkeeper gave an apologetic wave. “He died a long time ago. There was a nasty fever.”
Johann nodded. It was probably the same fever that had taken his family. He had liked old Harschauber, one of the few people in the village who had treated Johann with respect even though Johann had always been a little different from other Knittlingers. But it was probably for the best. The fewer people who knew him from back then, the smaller the chances of being recognized.
“Bring wine,” he said. “But not the swill from the local vineyards. I want something better.”
The innkeeper scurried off and soon returned with a jug of red wine. Johann filled his mug, trying to suppress the shaking that rolled through his body like a wave. It had become worse again recently, and sometimes he thought he’d lose control over it—the shaking and the stiffness in his joints that came over him like a thief in the night. He sincerely hoped no one had noticed yet. Slowly, he set the mug back down and took a deep breath.
Whenever the shaking grew particularly bad, he retreated into his wagon, telling Karl and Greta that he was plagued by terrible headaches. It wasn’t even a lie—the expensive glass eye he’d had a Venetian glassmaker produce for him sometimes pinched and stung. Johann had lost his left eye and a finger on his right hand during those eerie events in Nuremberg six years ago. But he knew that wasn’t the source of the shaking.
He suspected a different cause, something far worse. If only he could—
“I . . . I . . . know you . . .”
Johann was so lost in thought that he hadn’t noticed the man approaching his table. He was very old, with white hair and a bent back as if he’d spent his entire life carrying heavy baskets full of ripe grapes. He looked emaciated, as from a long illness, and his fingers trembled as he pointed at Johann.
“I . . . know you,” he repeated quietly.
Johann
