Faust waved impatiently. “He’s got better things to do than stick up for a quack suspected of meddling in black magic and necromancy.” He counted on his fingers. “There’s Luther, an emperor on his deathbed, rebellious peasants . . . There’s trouble brewing in every corner of the empire. No, we’re on our own, damn it.”
He fell silent and bit his lips. Greta knew her uncle was thinking hard when he looked like that.
“We’d have to escape,” he mumbled. “If only I could get out of here, I know someone who could help me. If not he, who else?”
“But how do you propose to get out of here?” asked Greta, looking around. “This is a tower room high above the ground.” She nodded at the narrow, barred window; deep down below a few torches flickered in the courtyard. “The door is bolted from the outside, and that awful fellow in front of it ensures you can’t leave your chamber. You’ll definitely remain locked up until you’ve finished the horoscope and then—”
“Say that again!” Faust grabbed Greta by the hand and she started with alarm. Was he having another fit? She gave the doctor a close look.
“What do you mean?” she asked cautiously.
Faust had a grim smile on his face, and his eyes flashed with renewed determination. “Ha! You said I’ll remain locked up in here until the horoscope is finished. That is correct. But at some stage I am going to have to present the horoscope to the bishop, even if it’s just for pretense. The bishop is vain, I could tell, and so he expects something grandiose from me. I’m certain the presentation won’t take place in this barren tower room but most likely in the palas, in front of all those noblemen. The bishop won’t pass up the opportunity to put on a show.”
“That doesn’t help us,” said Karl dejectedly. “I’m afraid they will continue to guard you closely, especially in the palas. How can we escape with all those papal mercenaries at Lahnstein’s disposal?”
“By distracting them.” Faust nodded. “By distracting them with a very particular apparatus.” He rose to his feet, still shaking a little, and walked over to some books on the floor. There he knelt down and started to rummage. “Darn it, it has to be somewhere. I saw it earlier . . . Here!” He held up a book triumphantly and placed it on the table that Greta and Karl had stood back on its legs.
“We are going to build a new laterna magica!” he declared.
“The laterna.” Karl sighed. “I thought we’d never use that devilish machine again. Do you really think that—?”
“Oh yes, I do.” Faust grinned and gestured at the window. “The entire German Empire is gathered down there, and I think it’s time I did my reputation justice.” He opened the book and leafed until he found the page he was looking for—the page with the drawing of a box, a tube, and the outline of a devilish creature against a wall. He tapped his finger on it and jutted out his chin like he always did when he wanted to prove something to the world.
“One thing is for certain,” he growled. “The bishop and the delegates are going to witness the greatest and most breathtaking spectacle the empire has ever seen. No one toys with Doctor Faustus!”
The idea had come to Johann the moment he spotted the book on the floor. Just like Leonardo da Vinci, he jotted down his thoughts and ideas on pieces of parchment that he later had bound. Some of his notes dated back to his student days in Heidelberg. Back then he had constructed a laterna magica with his friend Valentin. He had been blind with ambition, and in the end the apparatus had led to the arrest and execution of his one true love. The thought of it made him tremble, and he breathed deeply.
Margarethe, my everything.
Nonetheless, he had used the laterna magica again during his early shows with Karl, until it was destroyed in the underground passages beneath Nuremberg. The apparatus could transfer images painted on glass plates so that they were displayed against a wall, where they appeared larger than life. It created a true spectacle, and Johann and Karl used to fill rooms and halls across the empire. Johann had kept the plans. It might take a while and cost a fair bit to get all the parts together, but they were guests of the Bamberg prince-bishop, after all. He was working on the horoscope of Georg III Schenk von Limpurg, and the bishop wouldn’t expect it to come cheap.
As soon as he’d finished explaining his plan to Karl and Greta, Johann had begun to put it into action. It was the morning of the following day now, and he had worked through the night, spending only the smallest part on the actual horoscope. He was sitting at the table, fine-tuning drawings and calculations like he always used to do. They would need a hollow mirror and lenses—he could borrow the ones from the stargazing tube—but most importantly, they needed glass plates for Karl to paint on, as he had before. Johann still thought the young man was very talented. Karl had soon overcome his initial reservations and liked the idea more and more; it would allow him to paint, and something more challenging than the pictures they had used for their shows.
Johann nodded with determination as he added more details to the drawing on the table. The delegates would never forget these images.
Johann had explained his idea to the bishop first thing in the morning. Georg von Limpurg had climbed all the way up to his tower room, apparently curious to see what sort of books the learned Doctor Faustus carried with him. Following a stimulating conversation about Aristotle, Roger Bacon, and Albertus Magnus, Johann broached the topic he really wanted to discuss.
“Your Excellency, I am planning on presenting your horoscope in a very special manner,” he said, after gifting to the bishop a poem by Dante handwritten by the artist himself.
The bishop lowered the pince-nez he had used to check the poem’s authenticity. “And what manner is that?”
“I’ve discovered a way to make my presentation of horoscopes a little more . . . entertaining. I use an apparatus that conjures up colorful images that everyone can understand.” Johann rocked his head from side to side. “Reading out horoscopes is tedious business, a bunch of complicated numbers and tables. With my method, many people can take part in the presentation. Everyone will enjoy hearing firsthand what the stars hold in store for you and your church—and also for that Luther monk,” Johann added ominously.
“Colorful images, you say.” The bishop smiled and put down his pince-nez. He studied Johann with amusement from his small, reddened eyes. “Times are changing faster than I ever could have imagined as a young man. You’re not wrong, Doctor—those monk’s theses aren’t all bad, but they’re coming at a very inconvenient time. The empire can’t afford any more unrest, and so we’re going to have to take drastic measures. It would be helpful if your horoscope hinted at something like that.” He raised one finger. “But I can only allow your presentation if it doesn’t involve any kind of sorcery. If the horoscope predicts what I need, I would be willing to pay more. I hope you understand what I mean.”
“My current calculations indeed suggest an epochal event,” Johann replied earnestly. “And I can assure you that my apparatus has nothing to do with sorcery and is purely mechanical.”
“I’m so glad we understand each other.” The bishop rose with a soft groan; he was no longer the youngest. “You shall have everything you need, Doctor, no matter the cost.” He paused. “If, however, you were hoping I could spare you from your trip to Rome, I must disappoint you. The papal representative has made the pontiff’s wishes clear. The Holy Father is determined to make your acquaintance, and, as you know, I’m answerable to no one except . . .” He gave an apologetic shrug.
“The pope,” said Johann. “Yes, I know. Well, my conscience is clear, and therefore I have nothing to fear.”
Georg patted Johann’s shoulder with his fleshy fingers. “Spoken like our savior himself. I’m pleased to hear it.”
The bishop made sure Johann received glass, the hollow mirror, and everything else he needed. He worked in the tower room for five days and five nights while Karl and Greta started on the images. The screwing, filing, and fiddling on the copper housing, the tube, and the
oil lamp helped Johann calm his mind. He was following a clear goal: he would get out of here with one last big bang. He wanted the empire to remember him for a long time.
And he knew exactly where he would go once he made it out.
Johann felt relief at not having to hide his illness from Greta and Karl any longer. He wouldn’t have been able to for much longer, anyhow. He still started to shake every now and then while bending over the lenses or the hollow mirror in the dull candlelight, but it was never as bad again as the night Viktor von Lahnstein had spoken to him about Gilles de Rais. Johann had been racking his brains ever since, wondering what the pope could mean by his claim that Johann shared a secret with the insane knight. Why might the church be interested in a heretic and mass murderer like Gilles de Rais? And what did Viktor von Lahnstein mean when he said that others were also interested in Johann’s knowledge?
But there was one question that bothered him more than any other.
How did the pope know about his connection to Gilles de Rais in the first place? Johann had never told anyone about it, not even Greta and Karl.
Viktor von Lahnstein had visited him twice since then. The papal representative wasn’t overly thrilled that Johann was taking so long to compile the horoscope; he seemed to sense that something was up. But Lahnstein didn’t dare to defy the bishop’s wishes, and Hagen the mercenary remained at his post outside the door.
Until the sixth day, when the laterna magica was completed and the show ready to begin.
3
KARL PEEKED THROUGH THE CURTAIN AT THE CROWD waiting in rows of chairs in the darkened great hall of the palas. At the end of the long room a small stage had been set up, divided in half by a damask tapestry suspended from the ceiling. The three of them waited together in the darkness behind the curtain for the last of the bishop’s guests to arrive. The doctor was perfectly calm as he stood next to Greta, who was holding Little Satan by a leash, waiting for the signal they had agreed upon.
Karl could not understand for the life of him how the other two managed to be so composed, while his own heart seemed to be beating in his throat. He guessed it was the poise of jugglers, which he would always lack. He still couldn’t bring himself to believe their plan might actually work. But if it didn’t, they would probably all get boiled alive and broken on the wheel—the usual punishment for black magicians and necromancers.
I never should have agreed to this, thought Karl. But he hadn’t been able to resist the temptation of once more putting on a great show with the laterna magica, featuring images painted by him. He liked this kind of magic—magic that had a scientific explanation. And painting was Karl’s passion.
Once upon a time, he’d dreamed of becoming a painter like the famous Albrecht Dürer, but his father had intended a medical career for Karl—and then he’d been forced to quit his studies. Since then, Karl was painting not holy virgins or saints but backdrops and canvases. Sometimes he secretly drew pictures of naked young men, but when he was finished he burned them immediately.
Most of the powerful men of the Holy Roman Empire, along with several delegates from foreign countries and men of the church, seemed to be gathered in this great hall decorated with expensive damask and shining armor. Karl recognized the magnificent regalia of abbots and canons, saw representatives and patricians who had traveled a long way from the free imperial cities, clad in velvet jerkins and fur-collared coats. In among them sat aging swashbucklers and knights in polished cuirasses with swords on their belts, like emblems of a bygone era. But Karl couldn’t spot the French delegate Louis Cifre anywhere. The Bamberg prince-bishop was sitting in the first row on a wooden throne, surrounded by guards who were holding a kind of canopy above the clergyman’s head. Beside the bishop, in an equally imposing chair, sat the papal representative Viktor von Lahnstein with a sullen expression. The enormous Swiss mercenary stood behind him like a statue, his hands leaning on the hilt of his two-handed sword.
Karl’s excited anticipation caused him to sweat, and he struggled to breathe. They had given so many shows before, including performances in front of counts, barons, and bishops, but this here was something else. All delegates had arrived at Altenburg Castle by now, and deliberations had begun. The bishop had invited his guests into the great hall this evening as part of the entertainment, featuring the famous Doctor Faustus presenting the horoscope. Georg Schenk von Limpurg had promised a surprise, and so every pair of eyes in the room stared expectantly toward the stage. A few torches along the walls and one big chandelier dangling from the center of the ceiling illuminated the hall sufficiently for the audience to see.
“Are you ready?” whispered Johann to his companions. Karl and Greta nodded.
The murmuring stopped abruptly when Doctor Faustus pushed the tapestry curtain aside and strode to the front of the stage with his head held high. At the doors, Karl noticed, were posted additional guards, evidently belonging to Lahnstein’s men. He felt certain that it would take only a wave of Lahnstein’s hand to stop the show if even the faintest suspicion of escape arose. Karl entered the stage, pushing a table on wheels holding a copper box with a tube protruding from its front. Another tube stuck out the top of the strange apparatus.
Faust scanned the audience slowly. Karl knew that the dark, piercing eyes of the doctor always did the trick. And horoscopes were the latest fashion—even the pope had had one compiled, and allegedly, it wasn’t entirely in his favor.
“Your Eminent Highness the prince-bishop, Honorable Excellencies, venerable papal representative, it is a great honor to be received in such illustrious circles at Altenburg Castle,” began Johann loudly, his voice sounding much deeper and more menacing than usual. “My name is Doctor Faustus, and I presume one or two of you have heard of me before.” The audience whispered excitedly, and several church dignitaries made the sign of the cross. Karl tried to suppress a grin; the doctor knew what the audience expected of him.
“We all look with eager anticipation toward the coming year of 1519—a year that the great Albertus Magnus and the omniscient Hermes Trismegistus described as a fateful one. A year that will decide where God leads humanity. And it is my honor to tell you that the scholars were right! At the behest of the highly venerable prince-bishop, I compiled an extremely interesting horoscope.” With a theatrical gesture, he produced the horoscope from underneath his black-and-blue star cape.
Karl had earlier copied it in blood-red ink onto a scroll of parchment.
“Jupiter and Saturn are in the third house together, and Venus, too, inclines to the east, which suggests the occurrence of fateful events,” explained Johann with a grim voice. Then he listed a number of star constellations and Latin terms, which mainly served to impress the audience.
Meanwhile, Karl had pushed the laterna magica to the edge of the stage and placed it so that the tube at the front was aimed at the curtain. Faust pointed upward, and the eyes of the audience followed.
“Until now, the only way to see looming events was in the stars. We received the answers hidden inside complicated formulas and tables, wherefore the interpretation of the stars remained a mystery to laymen.” With a sweeping gesture, Johann pointed at the copper casing next to him, which glinted like a thing of magic in the light of the torches and chandelier. “With the help of this apparatus I’ve manufactured, it is now finally possible to display future events in a way that everyone can understand. We are bringing the stars down to earth!”
With those words, Johann tossed a handful of sulfur and a pinch of blackpowder into the brazier at the edge of the stage. There was puffing, cracking, and smoking, eliciting murmurs and cries of excitement from the audience. Hidden behind the fumes, Karl inserted the first glass plate and lit the oil lamp concealed inside the casing. They used to perform shows like this all the time, and each movement felt as familiar to Karl as if the last show had been only the day before. On Faust’s signal, the guards put out the torches in the hall, leaving the chandelier as the only source of light.
A murmur went through the crowd when, as if by magic, a flickering image appeared on the tapestry behind the doctor, pale and translucent as if from another world. The image showed four riders on scrawny horses. The first one was a tottery old man, two carried swords and bows, and the fourth carried scales. Karl had copied Dürer’s horsemen of the apocalypse only the day before. He loved this image and would have liked to have created it himself, but he’d accepted the fact that he was a better copyist than painter.
“See here the four plagues that will befall the empire next year if we don’t rise up to fight them,” intoned Johann. Standing in a cloud of sulfur smoke with his star-spangled cape, his long black hair streaked with gray and his arms spread wide, he looked like a true wizard. The performance achieved the desired effect: the guests gasped and moaned, and the prince-bishop and Viktor von Lahnstein couldn’t take their eyes off the image hovering on the tapestry. Karl grinned to himself. The apparatus was really quite simple. Bundled light streaming through a tube, making images appear larger than life against a wall. But, as always, someone had to come up with the idea first.
“War, pestilence, famine, and death!” shouted Johann. “That is what’s in store for us if we don’t gain control of the unrest in the empire. But we oughtn’t requite blood with blood and war with war. The stars promise unity if it is achieved peacefully.” He raised an admonishing finger. “If we all come together under the protective roof of the holy Roman church. ‘Unity and not separation’ must be our motto!”
The bishop nodded enthusiastically, and Karl swallowed back another grin. The doctor had his audience hooked now.
“Our enemy is not the peasants, but one man who stirs them up with his heretical speeches. He calls himself a Christian and a monk—when in truth he is nothing but a pig wallowing in the troughs of the church.”
The doctor signaled to Karl, who inserted a new glass plate. The four riders were replaced by the monk Luther, wearing the robe of the Augustinians, but he was adorned with a pig’s snout and a pig’s tail, his face twisted into a grimace of hatred and greed.
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