The Devil's Pawn

by Oliver Pötzsch

  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 gave a strained smile. “That may well be. I’ve come through this town before, so perhaps—”

  “Johann,” whispered the old man, and the small eyes flashed between the wrinkles. “Little Johann, it’s you, isn’t it? Of course it’s you!”

  Johann flinched. Could this old man really have recognized him? He studied the eyes—and then he recognized the man. His eyes hadn’t changed; they held an unspeakable sadness, a pain originating from over twenty years ago. A wrong that couldn’t be righted. Johann thought of a dark forest, a devil’s face on a rock, and whispering unseen voices.

  Who’s afraid of the boogeyman?

  He suddenly felt as cold as if he were in an ice cellar.

  My God.

  “What did you do to my Margarethe back then?” asked the old man softly. “My daughter . . . the apple of my eye.”

  “I . . . You’re confusing me with someone else.” Johann rose abruptly. Coming here had been a mistake. He dropped a coin on the table and turned to leave. “I don’t know you.”

  The old man’s trembling hand grasped him by the shoulder. “What did you do to my daughter?” he repeated, louder this time. A few patrons turned their heads. “What devil did you see in the woods back then?”

  “I really don’t know what you’re talking about,” replied Johann. “Now let go of me. My horse needs to be fed.”

  He rushed to the door, the old man’s voice echoing through his head.

  What did you do to my daughter? What devil did you see in the woods back then?

  Outside, he looked behind him once more and thought he could see the lined face through the crown-glass window. It was the face of the old Knittlingen prefect, the man whose heart he’d broken all those years ago. The last twenty years had not been kind to him, Margarethe’s father.

  What did you do to my daughter?

  The face behind the window vanished, and in the same instant a mighty thunderclap crashed.

  One moment later, the rain set in.

  Johann didn’t look up again until he arrived at the cemetery. In a daze he had untied his horse and galloped off. The rain was so heavy that he could hardly see the houses anymore.

  He never should have entered the inn. Of all Knittlingers still living, the old prefect had been the one he’d been most afraid to see. Terrible things had happened back then. In the Schillingswald Forest, not far from Knittlingen, Johann had lost his innocence—but moreover, he’d also lost his little brother, Martin, and the girl that he loved more than anything. That he still loved today.

  Margarethe.

  He had tried to forget what happened that day, but it wasn’t possible. The past always came back to haunt him in his dreams.

  What devil did you see in the woods?

  It was a question that tortured him to this day, too—although he suspected he knew the answer. The devil had entered his life back then, had brought him money and fame, had turned him into what he was today. But at what cost?

  Johann held his face into the rain, letting the drops wash away the memories, including those of the old prefect. The cold wetness felt good, extinguishing the flames inside him. The cemetery had been the reason for his visit to Knittlingen; he’d been wanting to return here for many years.

  He tied his horse to the gate and walked into the graveyard, where several crooked tombstones stood in the darkness. There wasn’t another soul here at this hour. The rain beat down relentlessly, sounding like pebbles on a drum. />
  Johann impatiently spun around to the large black wolfhound following him at a distance.

  “Come on now, Little Satan! I must say farewell to someone. I promise it won’t take long.”

  The dog hesitated, as if he could smell that death was at home here. Then he trotted after his master. Johann’s coat was drenched by now, and water ran in streams from the brim of his hat. His fine leather boots were covered in muck. But Johann didn’t notice any of it. He strode across the graveyard with his head down and stopped eventually in front of a small, unremarkable tombstone right beside the cemetery wall. The stone was crooked and overgrown with moss and ivy. No one had cared for the grave in a long time. Johann bent down and scraped away dirt and branches until the inscription was legible: Elisabeth Gerlach, died on 12 July in the year of the Lord 1494.

  Twenty-four years.

  Johann could hardly believe how much had come to pass since then. He had been a boy of sixteen back then, his head full of nonsense, full of hopes and dreams, the pride of his mother. He had come to say goodbye to her one last time. He used to love a girl from Knittlingen and play with his brother in the vineyards west of town. And now? The girl and the brother were just as dead as his mother, and his hopes and dreams blown away like leaves in the fall. His beloved mother, lying here in front of him, had foretold him a great future—a future someone once read in the stars for her. She had also been the first to call him Faustus.

  Faustus, the lucky one.

  Johann gave a sad laugh as he gazed upon his mother’s grave. He had paid a heavy price for his luck.

  And for a few months now he thought the price might become much heavier yet.

  “For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever, amen.”

  Johann struggled to his feet. Praying had never come easily to him—he didn’t really believe in it. And the accursed shaking was returning. But he felt better nonetheless; the visit had done him good.

  The dog’s growling roused Johann from his thoughts.

  “Hush, Little Satan!” He looked around suspiciously and noticed movement behind one of the gravestones a little farther away. He could discern the outline of a figure and thought he could hear a scraping noise over the sound of the rain. After a few moments he recognized the noise as a shovel scraping over soil and rocks.

  “Who is there?” he shouted into the wind. “Whoever you are—I’ve got a dog with me. A very large dog who doesn’t like surprises!”

  A man straightened up behind the gravestone. He was holding a small, flickering lantern, so Johann could see his thin outline against the dark background. The man wore a floppy hat with a red rooster’s feather, his face remaining in the shadow below the brim. A shovel leaned against the gravestone beside him.

  Just the grave digger, thought Johann with relief. People die in any weather.

  “Greetings,” he said and raised his hand.

  The man did nothing for a moment, then he started to walk toward Johann with the lantern. He was as skinny as a scarecrow and walked slightly hunched over, as if he had a crooked back. A filthy eye patch covered the right side of his face.

  “Not a good time for a visit to the graveyard,” the man said. His voice was soft and pleasant, and Johann noticed that he didn’t have a Kraichgau accent.

  “A . . . an old friend of mine is buried here,” replied Johann, gesturing vaguely to the gravestones in front of him. “I was passing through town and stopped to say a quick prayer.”

  The man nodded without looking at the stones, scrutinizing Johann instead.

  “You’re not from around here, then,” he said eventually.

  “That’s right.” Johann shrugged. “But I used to . . .” He paused. “I used to know a few people in Knittlingen.”

  Once more he saw the wrinkled face of the prefect in his mind’s eye and heard his voice.

  What did you do to my daughter? What devil did you see in the woods back then?

  Oh yes, he had laden a profound guilt upon himself.

  “Are you all right, sir?” The grave digger took another step toward him, and Little Satan growled like he always did when strangers approached his master.

  But then something strange happened: the grave digger leaned down to Little Satan and patted his head as if he were a cute lapdog, and to Johann’s astonishment, the dog didn’t seem to mind. Johann had never before seen Little Satan tolerate the touch of anyone but himself or Greta.

  “This . . . old friend of yours—you must have been very close?” asked the man as he scratched the dog behind an ear.

  “Closer than anyone else,” Johann said reluctantly.

  The man issued a quick laugh and grinned, showing his surprisingly white and complete set of teeth. “And yet he’s nothing but a pile of rotting bones now. Isn’t it sad what becomes of us? God created us in His image, and at the end we’re nothing but stinking bags of maggots. No matter if we’re the emperor, the pope, or a beggar.” The grave digger sighed and straightened back up. He truly did look frightfully gaunt—not much more than a pile of bones himself.

  “I’ve lowered so many people into the hole—old ones, young ones, grandparents, and children. Children are the worst.” He shrugged. “I mean, why does God allow it? Why hasn’t He shown us how to stop death? From the day we are born we start to rot and die. Can you feel it, too? We’re dying all the time—a little more every day.”

  Johann said nothing and studied the man. He was no longer certain the man with the eye patch was the Knittlingen grave digger. He spoke far too well—more like a priest, even though a man of God would never have spoken about the Lord thus. The man came a little closer and Johann thought he could smell a faint whiff of sulfur.

  “Do you know what?” whispered the stranger into Johann’s ear, his breath as damp and sticky as a dirty rag. “I think death is the price we all have to pay. The price for living. Everything has its price, and everyone must pay someday. Someday—but pay they must. Do you understand what I mean?”

  “I . . . I think I do,” said Johann hoarsely. He shuddered. This conversation was becoming stranger by the moment. Johann nervously looked around for Little Satan and saw that he was hiding behind a gravestone, seeming afraid. What the hell was going on with the dog?

  The man took a step back and smiled. His teeth looked pointed and reminded Johann of a wolf.

  “Ha! I knew it. There aren’t many who understand me. Not many who are willing to go further than the others, who want to see more, who never rest.” He lowered his voice. “Are you finally ready to pay your price, Doctor Faustus? Are you ready?”

  Without waiting for a reply, the man turned away and trudged off through the rain with the lantern in his hand.

  Johann was too astounded to say anything for a few moments. Then he shouted, “Hey! How do you know my name? Who . . . who are you?”

  But right then, the light of the lantern went out, and the stranger disappeared as suddenly as he had arrived. Johann listened. Through the rain he thought he heard a faint melody. The sound of a flute drifted over to him from beyond the cemetery wall; perhaps it came from the inn. It was the tune of a children’s song.

  Susie, dear Susie, what’s rustling in the straw? ’Tis the little goslings, they don’t have any shoes.

  Johann stood, frozen, at his mother’s grave. After a few moments he startled as if waking from a bad dream and hurried toward the gate. He jumped on his horse and rode through the storm, dashing past the stunned watchman at the gate as if the devil were after him. The dog raced behind him. Only much later did Johann realize that he couldn’t remember the man’s face.

  It was as if the rain had washed it away.

  High up between hail clouds and billows of rain, three birds glided in circles. They were two crows and a large old raven with tattered feathers and a scuffed beak. When they heard the soft tune somewhere below, they cawed and returned to their master. The skinny man was still standing between the gravestones at the farthest edge of the cemetery,
as far away from the church as possible. He didn’t like churches. With his long, insect-like fingers he played the gentle tune his raven and the crows had been forced to follow for so many years.

  “He’s changed, hasn’t he?” said the master as the birds searched for worms and maggots on a fresh, steaming grave mound. “To me he’s still the same impertinent brat, even if everyone craps their pants nowadays when they talk about the great, oh-so-famous Doctor Faustus. Shuddering is man’s best quality.” He chuckled. “My little Faustus! When will you finally learn that the die has long been cast? The stars don’t lie.”

  He put the flute in his pocket, took off the floppy hat that had been keeping his face in the dark, removed the eye patch, and started to wipe away the makeup. He had played so many roles by now—magician, juggler, mercenary, quack, count, baron, and beggar. And now grave digger. It was a role that suited him.

  He who takes my hand will be dragged belowground. Sooner or later. And someday I will knock on your door, Johann.

  The master licked his pale lips.

  The devil is always that which you fear the most.

  “Azazel, Baphomet, Belial,” called the master to his three servants. “Quit picking for worms—let’s go find something better.”

  That night, Johann stayed up for a long time, bent over his books by the light of a candle. He, Greta, and Karl were renting three spacious rooms at the Bretten Crown Inn at the market square. It was the best house in town; even the emperor had stayed there. The walls in Johann’s chamber were hung with soft rugs and furs, and the room had its own fireplace and a four-poster bed strewn with fragrant lavender. The landlord had been happy to give his best room to the widely known astrologer, who had shown his appreciation with an especially favorable horoscope. But no amount of luxury could restore Johann’s inner peace. He couldn’t stop thinking about the strange grave digger.

  The way the man had spoken, the softness in his voice, had sounded as if he came from west of the Rhine. The haggard stature, the wolfish teeth that looked like they’d been sharpened. And he had called Johann by his name, even though he hadn’t introduced himself.