The Devil's Pawn
Page 42
“Leonardo might have told me where the recipe is hidden,” said Johann. “But why would I tell you?”
“Because the master loves you, Faustus! More than anyone else. And you, deep down inside, love him, too. He wants you by his side—we can still take you to him.”
“That’s not enough. I want two lives in exchange for mine. Two lives in exchange for my knowledge and me. That’s a fair price!”
“Which two lives are you speaking of?” asked Henriet, still nothing but a vague shape in the darkness.
“Those of my assistant and my daughter,” replied Johann. “Ensure that nothing happens to them and I will be at your master’s service.”
More than a week had passed since his escape from Tiffauges. Johann didn’t know if Karl and Greta were still alive or if they had fallen victim to Lahnstein and the Inquisition. But he wasn’t ready to give up hope. Perhaps this way he would learn something about Karl’s and Greta’s fates.
Henriet snorted like an ox and then gave a laugh. “You still haven’t learned to let go, Faustus. That is the first lesson: free yourself from everything that restricts you—love, first and foremost. We don’t care about your assistant, but the master has other plans for your daughter.”
Johann caught his breath.
Other plans.
He had thought Greta had fallen into the clutches of the Inquisition at Tiffauges, but could his daughter be with Tonio? Was that what Henriet was trying to say?
“Where is she?” he asked with a trembling voice. “What . . . what have you done with her?”
“Think of the first lesson, Doctor.” Henriet laughed mockingly. “Free yourself from love. Your daughter isn’t important, just—”
Those words were too much for Johann. With an angry cry he hurled himself at the dark shadow in the corridor. The attack came as a surprise to Henriet. Johann felt a hard and astonishingly muscular body beneath him. On the outside, Henriet looked like a frail old servant, but he possessed the strength of a bull. He twisted his body underneath Johann and soon managed to break out of his grip. The two men grappled in the darkness, Henriet using his stick as a weapon. Johann couldn’t see much of his opponent, and Henriet was much stronger than him, but Johann’s punches were fueled by boundless fury and hatred.
“What have you done with Greta?” he yelled between blows. “What . . . have . . . you . . . done with her?”
“Easy, Doctor, easy.” Henriet laughed and rammed the tip of his walking stick into Johann’s stomach, causing Johann to double over and gasp. “I don’t want to kill you. The master will tear my head off if I do. You are his favorite, after all. Even if we don’t really need you any longer. I will beat you black and blue, bind you like a rabbit, and bring you to the master. Let him decide what to do with you.”
Another blow from Henriet’s stick sent Johann flying against the wall of the corridor. How could any man be this strong? The devil himself must have given him the power. Johann sat leaning against the wall, blood streaming down his forehead and into his eyes, and he struggled to breathe. When Henriet moved toward him with the stick again, Johann’s hand went to his belt. It was a motion he used to be able to do in his sleep, but now it felt awfully slow. Still, he managed to pull out one of his knives.
“Good night, Doctor. Sweet dreams,” said Henriet, raising the stick.
Johann threw his knife.
He hit his opponent somewhere in the stomach. Henriet staggered and grunted, the wound not bad enough to make him fall. But at least the stick missed its target. Johann kicked at Henriet’s legs, causing the man to trip and fall straight onto Johann. The stick clattered to the ground.
With his last strength, Johann grasped the handle of the blade stuck in Henriet’s stomach and pulled it hard from left to right. Henriet groaned and Johann felt warm liquid on his fingers. Then he managed to roll out from underneath the man.
Henriet coughed and spluttered beside him, lying on the floor like a black rock. His voice was but a whisper now.
“You . . . you are so . . . stupid, Faustus! So damned stupid, even though you call yourself wise. The master loves you, and you act like an unruly child. My death changes nothing—nothing! All is prepared.” He laughed, but his laugh turned into a rattling gargle. “We . . . we don’t really need the recipe, anyhow. It would have been but the crowning stroke in a match that is already won. It . . . it’s not crucial. To hell with you . . . With me . . .”
“What have you done with my daughter?” asked Johann. “Where is she?”
But there was no reply.
When he kicked Henriet’s body, it tipped to the side. The ensuing silence nearly suffocated Johann. He wasn’t sorry about Henriet, but his silence meant that Johann would get no more answers from him. Had Henriet known where Greta was? What had happened to Karl? Or had he been bluffing, just like Johann?
On hands and knees, Johann searched for his lantern and the tinderbox. Once he’d found both items, he lit the lantern with shaking hands. He glanced at Henriet, whose face was wrinkled and hair was gray. He looked like an ancient old man, but underneath the servant’s wide clothes had been an incredibly powerful body. Even in death his small black eyes gleamed with evil. The knife still stuck in Henriet’s abdomen, and a pool of blood had spread around his body, soaking some of the scraps of paper on the ground.
Johann was about to rush back to the cellar of the manor house when he stepped on something. It was the page with the anatomical sketch he had carried earlier. He leaned down and picked it up. The bloody print of his shoe formed a ghostly frame around the opened torso.
And suddenly Johann knew where the recipe was hidden.
How could I have missed it?
A hoarse laughing fit overcame him. It was so simple! Leonardo had told him on his deathbed. Johann just hadn’t listened.
But it wouldn’t be easy to retrieve the treasure.
A short while later, Johann stood outside the closed city gate of Amboise. He had ridden as fast as he could in his condition—Henriet had beaten him half to death. He had briefly considered climbing the city wall somewhere, but he was too exhausted and weak. He felt paralyzed, as if Tonio’s curse had struck him once more. And so he had tied up his horse near town and now knocked against the small one-man door that was a part of the larger city gate facing the river. After a few moments, a hatch opened and the night watchman stared at him from tired eyes.
“Je suis fatigué et saoul comme un cochon,” garbled Johann, trying to appear drunk. He had pulled the hood over his head, hoping the watchman wouldn’t notice his beat-up face.
“Vous avez de l’argent?” grumbled the watchman.
Johann pulled out his purse and handed the man a few coins. The man grinned as he pocketed the money, then unlocked the door with a key. Johann walked hunched over and staggered as he entered. It wasn’t an act—his whole body ached from Henriet’s beating. He knew that drunken men were often allowed in late at night, so long as they had enough money.
“Merci,” he mumbled, then vanished into the next alleyway. His destination wasn’t far away. Faust would have expected Leonardo to be interred up at the castle, but the old man himself had once told Johann that he didn’t wish for a fancy funeral. Henriet had unwittingly told Johann where Leonardo had found his final resting place.
And now his body lies cold and stiff at Notre-Dame-en-Grève, even more stubbornly silent than when he was alive.
Notre-Dame-en-Grève was the small municipal church of Amboise, situated by the city wall. At its rear lay a fenced-in cemetery with a chapel. The church itself was a squat building that looked like it was part of the fortifications. Johann couldn’t see a soul around, only a solitary light burned up in the spire. He walked around the church and entered the cemetery, which reminded him of the graveyard in the town where he grew up. The tombstones and wooden crosses, many of them crooked, stood in rows, and at first glance Johann couldn’t see any fresh-looking graves.
Where are you, Leonardo?
The day’s first lark chirped somewhere, and a faint pink veil covered the horizon. Johann guessed that he had less than two hours until sunrise. He walked to the door in the chapel and found that it was unlocked. Inside was a small altar adorned with flowers; a plain wooden cross hung above it, and candles burned on the windowsills.
On a slab of rock in the center sat a sarcophagus.
Johann could tell immediately that it was the sarcophagus of Leonardo da Vinci. Evidently, the old man had chiseled it himself from a block of marble during the last few months of his life. Leonardo’s image was carved into the rock, looking so vivid that Johann briefly thought the great artist was merely asleep. The statue wore a wide coat just like the one da Vinci used to wear when he was alive. Each fold in the fabric, each seam, was perfectly worked into the stone. Hair and beard gleamed white in the light of the candles, every strand and every individual hair chiseled to perfection. The hands were folded in prayer, the fingers studded with marble rings. Johann had never before seen such a beautiful and perfect gravestone.
And now he had to defile it.
He guessed the sarcophagus would remain in this chapel until the king returned to Amboise. Francis I would want to give his mentor a worthy send-off, but the difficulties around the election of the German king had kept him away so far.
Lucky for me.
Johann remembered seeing the grave digger’s pickaxe and handsaw outside the door. He fetched them and returned to the chapel, forcing the tip of the pick into the slit beneath the grave slab, trying to lever the slab aside. There was a crunching sound and the stone moved backward a tiny bit. Johann walked to the foot end of the slab and pulled with all his might. The marble slab was heavy. Sweat ran down his forehead, and the muscles of his arms felt as though he were being quartered, but eventually he had moved the slab enough to expose roughly a third of the opening. In the light of the candles he saw a plain wooden coffin underneath. It was made of thin spruce planks that would be easy to smash. Johann took a deep breath, preparing himself for the unavoidable stench of decay, and raised the pick.
Forgive me, Leonardo. But it was what you wanted, right? You told me yourself.
The wood splintered loudly—Johann hoped it wasn’t too loud. He placed the pieces of wood aside and gazed at the corpse.
What in God’s name?
How was this possible?
Leonardo had been dead for nearly two months. Johann had expected to find a stinking, decomposing corpse, but the body lying in this coffin looked fresh and barely smelled. Leonardo’s cheeks and lips were full and rosy as if he wore makeup. His eyes were closed, and he was dressed in a snow-white shirt with ruffles and lace.
He looked as if he was sleeping.
Johann had heard of saints whose bodies were perfectly intact even hundreds of years after their deaths. Was it the same with people who’d made a pact with the devil? But perhaps there was another reason for this state. Leonardo had been vain. If he had hoped that Johann would turn up one day to desecrate his corpse, he would have done anything to avoid presenting an image of horror.
Johann bent over the corpse and studied it closely. Now he could make out tiny incisions and stitches on its neck, drops of an acrid-smelling liquid bulging out from the cuts. Leonardo had been a genius unto his death. Somehow he had managed to stop the decomposition process, or at least slow it down.
That only left the question of what the body would look like on the inside.
Johann tried to calm himself. When his hands no longer trembled quite as badly, he pulled one of the sharp knives from his belt. Gently, he unbuttoned Leonardo’s shirt, exposing the narrow, sunken chest.
Then he took the knife and placed it on the skin, which parted like parchment.
Johann focused on his work, trying to ignore the thought that he was cutting open the greatest genius of mankind like a common thief. Then he picked up the saw and cut through the ribs until the torso lay in front of him like an open treasure chest.
You clever old man.
When Johann had gazed at the bloodstained parchment with the anatomical sketch down in the tunnel earlier, realization had hit him harder than Henriet’s blows. Leonardo da Vinci had practically pushed his nose right up to it, but Johann still hadn’t seen. Now he understood why they had conducted this strange dissection on the dead stable boy in the shed of the manor house. Leonardo had shown Johann what he expected of him. And it had been a test to see whether Johann was even capable of performing a dissection in his state. Karl had helped him then, and Leonardo couldn’t have foreseen that the younger man would not be with Johann now. Then, on his deathbed, the dying Leonardo da Vinci had told Johann the secret of the hiding place, speaking in riddles in case Henriet overheard them. What had his final words been?
The greatest secrets lie at the innermost core. The innermost.
La Meffraye and Henriet had searched everywhere—expect for one place.
Inside Leonardo.
Johann closed his eyes for a moment and cleared his mind so he could continue to concentrate. Just like Karl had done in the shed, he removed the lung flaps. They were gray and a little mushy, but still intact. The acrid smell he had noticed earlier was very pungent now. He saw Leonardo’s heart, which had stopped beating for good, and below, the stomach sack, which was surprisingly small. Like the rest of the intestines, it was swimming in the sharp-smelling liquid that filled the torso.
It took only a tiny cut to open the stomach.
Something glimmered inside.
Johann placed the knife aside and carefully removed the item. It was the small silver globe, about the size of a marble, that Leonardo had always carried around his neck. The dying man had probably rubbed it with butter or oil and then swallowed it—surely a painful thing to do. But that way Leonardo had managed to literally take his secret to the grave. He had feasted with the devil and outdanced him in the end. Despite the eerie surroundings, Johann couldn’t help but smile. What was it Leonardo had said?
He who dances with the devil needs good shoes.
Wherever Leonardo’s soul was now, Tonio had not received what he had wanted so badly. The old man had made sure that only Johann learned of the hiding place.
And now he would finally reveal the secret.
With the sleeve of his shirt Johann wiped the blood from the globe.
Just then a cry rang out behind him, sounding like that of a giant bird of prey, and then something was placed around his neck.
A demonic creature pounced on him, screaming shrilly.
Johann reached to his throat and felt a thin leather strap that was tightening relentlessly. Sharp fingernails dug into his skin. He had been so consumed by finally solving the mystery that he had forgotten all about Henriet’s words from earlier.
Maybe La Meffraye will still find it. She had another idea.
Johann’s eyes bulged as he gasped for air. He went to his knees. It was the same technique the French soldiers had employed in the woods near Chinon—an ancient method of strangulation, simple and effective.
“Little Faustusss,” hissed a voice behind him. “You always were a clever boy. But not as clever as La Meffraye!” The creature giggled.
Johann wondered how many children La Meffraye, the barn owl, had murdered in this way, or perhaps only knocked out until Gilles de Rais had his way with them. He felt his strength wane and a blackness spread from the edges of his field of vision. Finally he managed to force a finger between his throat and the strap; he pulled at it an
d delicious air streamed into his lungs. He rolled to the side, the strap loosened, and La Meffraye now straddled him like an angry harpy.
It was amazing how much the old cook had changed. She still resembled Leonardo’s mute servant Matturina, but her true face was showing now. Flashing eyes filled with hatred, a beak-shaped nose, and an insane grin. But within seconds this face could change into a mask of gentleness and motherliness—which had been the downfall of so many children.
Suddenly Johann recognized her.
When he first drank the black potion in the woods near Nördlingen, many years ago, Tonio and Poitou had taken him to a clearing. Many wet tongues had licked him, many greedy fingers had stroked him, and at the end a woman had lowered herself onto him, a creature with long, straggly hair, stinking of sulfur and soil as if she had just emerged from a swamp. She had ridden him like a young stallion, and Tonio had urged her on.
He is yours, Meffraye.
Meffraye’s fingers clutched his throat, and toxic saliva dripped onto his face.
“Do you remember, little Faustusss?” she asked. “Why did you run away so soon, back then? The two of us had so much fun together. So much fun!”
Johann was still weakened from the fight with Henriet and the exertion of opening the sarcophagus. He tried to reach his belt with a shaking hand, but Meffraye was sitting right on top of him. She licked her lips and moved her hips back and forth as if making passionate love to him, all the while strangling him like a puppy.
“So much fun,” she purred. “Come to La Meffraye, my little one. Let us ride to the master together.”
It wasn’t even so much La Meffraye’s force that nailed Johann to the floor but his horror. Old memories rose up in him, memories from that night near Nördlingen.
Small, twitching bundles in the trees.
Panicked, his hand searched for anything that might serve him as a weapon. Dust, stones, splinters. Suddenly his fingers clasped the handle of the pickaxe. Above him, La Meffraye was grinning and he smelled her rotten breath, breath that came straight from an endlessly deep swamp.