Greta and the doctor had vanished.
Their furs and blankets were still by the fire, and one of the books lay on Johann’s bed, the pages moving in the breeze. It looked as though the two of them had just left for a moment, but Karl knew they weren’t coming back.
Someone or something had taken them.
Just then Karl heard a noise behind him, a soft hissing as from a snake. A leather string was thrown around his neck and tightened, suffocating him.
Then everything went black.
Johann slowed his breathing.
Panic welled up inside him in tall waves, each new surge making it harder to breathe. He thought he would suffocate, mostly due to the dirty rag someone had stuffed into his mouth. Another rag had been tied around his eyes and nose, so that Johann was gliding through a sea of darkness. But worst of all, he couldn’t move.
This is what it’s going to be like, he thought. Very soon. As if I’m buried alive.
He jerked back and forth wildly, like a fish on dry land. Someone hit him over the head. He was almost grateful for the blow, because it reminded him that he wasn’t wholly paralyzed but merely bound and gagged. He was tied belly down to the back of a horse, and the steady rocking and occasional snorting calmed him down. His breathing was becoming more regular. The rag over his nose didn’t let much air through, but enough to prevent him from passing out. How long had they been riding? Minutes, hours? He had lost any sense of time.
The last thing he remembered was the sound of a branch snapping behind him. He had just risen to fetch Karl back from the forest when someone placed a strap around his neck and pulled tight with brutal force, and then he must have lost consciousness. Whoever was behind this abduction knew what they were doing. They didn’t want to kill him, just immobilize him. He had awoken on the back of the horse, tied up like a bale of cloth.
He heard soft whimpering from beside him and breathed a sigh of relief. It sounded like Greta. They’d probably done the same thing to her. Johann thought frantically about who their abductors might be. The most likely candidate was Viktor von Lahnstein. Was he planning on taking him all the way to Rome like this? Or could it be Tonio and his henchmen? But somehow this attack didn’t feel like Tonio’s handiwork. It had been too rough and, at the same time, not malicious enough.
Johann occasionally heard the muffled voices of men. They conversed in French, but Johann couldn’t make out much. He hung across the animal’s back like a sack of flour with his head down, the blood collecting in his legs, which grew increasingly numb. It felt like the paralysis was finally spreading through the rest of his body. Johann was overcome by profound fear. He felt like a dead lump of wood with eyes and a mouth, rigid and lifeless yet conscious.
That’s how it’s going to be soon.
He tried to think of something nice. Of his daughter, the most precious thing on earth to him, even if she had taken to that braggart of a Scotsman. Was John Reed still alive? Or had their kidnappers gotten rid of him, and Karl, too? To his horror, Johann realized that he wasn’t feeling grief at the thought.
My heart is also turning numb. Or has it always been that way?
After what felt like an eternity the sounds changed, the clatter of the hooves becoming brighter, as if the horses were walking on cobblestones now, then timber. Then they stopped. Someone shouted something, there was a creaking and rattling, and they moved on. A chilly wind tugged at Johann’s clothes. His back ached as if someone had hit him with a cudgel.
Finally his horse stopped again. Men laughed as they dismounted, then someone grabbed him and dragged him off the saddle. He caught a brief glimpse through a slit in the rag covering his eyes and made out a dark courtyard lit by torches. The chilly breeze gave him the impression they were atop a hill. Someone cut the ropes around his feet, pulled him up, and gave him a slap on the back, as if encouraging an old mule to walk. Johann’s legs caved in, so the men carried him up many steps, cursing profusely in French. His hands were still tied and he couldn’t see.
After a while they seemed to arrive at a chamber. It was cold and echoey. They sat Johann down on a stone bench, and then nothing happened for a while. He could tell by the groaning to his left and right that he wasn’t the only prisoner. He thought he could make out at least two other people and prayed that they were Greta and Karl.
Finally a door opened somewhere and footsteps approached.
“Retirez-lui le bandeau des yeux,” ordered a soft voice.
Rough fingers removed his gag and ripped the cloth off his eyes. The light from the torches blinded his good eye like the sun so that Johann couldn’t make out much for a while. Men clad in polished armor walked away and a door slammed shut. Johann blinked and rubbed his eye. A figure as large as a bear blocked his field of vision. He lifted his head and blinked again to make sure he wasn’t dreaming. But it was no dream.
Standing in front of Johann was the king of France.
12
THERE COULD BE NO DOUBT.
Johann knew King Francis I from countless paintings. The young French ruler had an interesting face with a particularly large nose, which the ladies considered an expression of his manliness. His black beard was cropped short, according to the latest fashion, and his eyes looked somewhat sleepy underneath heavy lids. Francis was a giant of more than six feet, with a mighty chest and a muscular build. And then there was the royal
