“You want to spy on Lahnstein?” asked Karl, puzzled. “But isn’t he the one looking for you?”
Johann smiled. “It’s just like chess. Always make the move your opponent least expects. We used to play a lot of chess together. Remember, Karl? Those were good times.”
“I almost always lost.”
Karl had planned to depart within the next few days. But now that the doctor was sitting there, pleading, he couldn’t bring himself to refuse.
“Just this one last favor,” said Johann.
Karl nodded. “One week. Not a day longer. If you promise me that afterward, you will finally leave your daughter and her son in peace.”
“I promise.”
Karl gave him a serious look. “You still talk about your pact with Tonio and about a curse. I never really believed in it, but I’ve changed my mind.”
“So you also believe that Tonio still persecutes me?”
“Oh yes, he does. In here,” Karl said, tapping his forehead. “Trust me, Doctor, if you want to vanquish this curse, you have to let go. Of Tonio, of your daughter, of your grandson. As long as you don’t learn to forget, Tonio del Moravia will always remain a part of you.”
The screams of a child echoed through the labyrinthine corridors, long hallways, and remote chambers of Castel Sant’Angelo.
It was the kind of persistent, never-ending screaming that filled one’s head and left no room for any other thoughts. The screaming became shriller, like a saw cutting through bone—it sounded like the screams of someone being tortured.
At least, that’s how Viktor von Lahnstein perceived it.
He hurried along the corridor, past the guards who grinned furtively. Many of them were fathers and used to such clamor. Unlike a papal representative, who had spent the larger part of his life in monastic austerity.
The screaming came from a room in the eastern wing of the castle, a wing that was reserved for higher-ranking servants and, occasionally, for legates. Lahnstein opened the door just as the noise behind it stopped abruptly. The chamber was clad with silk tapestries but was otherwise rather bare. On a stool in its center sat a plump young woman with healthy red cheeks. Sitting on her lap like a little prince was a baby boy getting spoon-fed. His face was smeared, and porridge was dripping onto the ground. He ate ravenously, as if he hadn’t eaten in days, but he looked quite strong. Despite his young age, his hair was full and red.
Like a kobold child, thought Lahnstein with disgust as he averted his eyes.
“What in God’s name is going on here?” he thundered. “Is the boy in pain? You know that you vouch with your life for the child’s well-being!”
The nursemaid smiled as she pushed another spoonful of porridge into the boy’s mouth. After the many months she’d worked here, she was used to the sight of Lahnstein’s monstrous face, just as little Sebastian was; the boy gazed at Lahnstein rather blankly, opening his mouth wide. “He is hungry, Your Reverence. That’s all.”
“And that’s why he’s making such a racket?”
“That’s what children do. Though I must admit that Sebastian has powerful lungs. He’s going to be a big and strong man, I’m sure.” She brushed the boy’s red curls with her hand. “And a handsome one to boot.”
Children would always remain a mystery to Lahnstein, partly because he didn’t remember much of his own childhood. Since he was a second-born son, his father had placed him at a monastery very early. Small children had only ever struck him as a nuisance, and now he was personally responsible for the life of this squawking brat. Several times a week Lahnstein checked on the boy’s well-being, ordering clothing for him and even the occasional toy. He always felt sick in the lead-up to his visits, remembering the smell of baby shit that hit him every time, and the sight of full diapers and spilled porridge on the floor. At first he had found the thought of raising the grandson of the famous Doctor Faustus at Castel Sant’Angelo enticing. He had arranged for the mother to work at the Hospital Santo Spirito—a position she evidently excelled at—and employed a nursemaid whose silence he had bought with a pile of money. He was proud of the fact that Greta believed her father to be the devil incarnate. During long, empathetic conversations he had succeeded in winning over Greta. In the beginning he had thought it was the perfect revenge, but now he found the whole affair abhorrent. Especially now that Faust was in town.
And yet Lahnstein wasn’t allowed to arrest the doctor, but instead was forced to look after this screaming child at the express command of the pope. Until now, Leo’s intentions had been a mystery to him, though he’d been harboring a growing suspicion. And the previous night, everything had changed.
Down in the dungeons below Castel Sant’Angelo, where only a few select people were allowed to go, the pope had given Lahnstein several very specific orders. And he had put two and two together. The result hadn’t been particularly satisfying—rather, deeply frightening.
But at least he thought he understood now why the boy was still here. Lahnstein knew what sort of books were stacked next to the pope’s enormous four-poster bed. And he also knew what Leo was doing down in the dungeons at night. Could it be madness or divine providence?
At least we’ll soon be rid of the brat.
Lahnstein gazed pensively at little Sebastian, who had stopped eating to defiantly stare at the gaunt man with the maimed face. His eyes were as black as pitch and reminded Lahnstein of the person he loathed the most.
“Man away. Play with Martha,” Sebastian said surprisingly loudly as he threw his sticky spoon at the representative’s gown. “Man away!”
“Truly a vigorous lad,” said Lahnstein with a forced smile. Repulsed, he brushed the splattered porridge off his gown. “With a strong mind and healthy, firm flesh. Make sure he doesn’t lose weight.”
Then he turned around and left the room.
Only a little more patience.
He would send Hagen right away to fetch the necessary items.
“God in heaven!”
With a small cry Greta shot up and paused in her task. The gray-haired man whose stump of a leg she was rebandaging gave her a quizzical look.
“Is everything all right, Sister?” he asked.
“Yes, yes.” She tried to smile. “A quick prayer, that’s all. I think I’m working too much.”
“You certainly are, Sister.” The old man grinned with his toothless mouth. “I don’t know any other sister in the hospital who cares for the sick as much as you do. Nor do I know a prettier one. I’m sure God will reward you plentifully.”
“God already rewards me by lending me comfort and strength every day. You ought to pray for both, too.” Greta wrung out the cloth and soaked it in the bowl of warm water. Carefully she dabbed the stump, which was overgrown with blackened flesh and pus. Recently, it happened increasingly often that she was struck by something in the middle of working, as if an invisible force was touching her, trying to shake her awake.
The old man watched her as she went about her task. At least his fever had gone down, which meant the worst days following the operation were probably over. A cart had run over the beggar’s leg, and an amputation had been unavoidable. Greta had poured brandy down the wounded man’s throat and uttered words of reassurance as the doctor placed the bone saw. Whether the old man would survive the procedure remained to be seen.
Or I could find out right now, thought Greta.
“May I ask you something?” asked the old man, waking Greta from her thoughts.
“What would you like to know?”
“You are young and beautiful. The men lie at your feet, even here at the hospital. Why are you doing this work? I know canonesses usually come from wealthy families. You could long be happily married, to a cloth merchant, a patrician—”
“I am married to God.”
“And there never was a man in your life?”
“There . . . there was one. He died too soon. Terrible things happened. God gave me the strength to forget, and that is why I’m
here.”
The old man nodded, scrutinizing Greta as if he could see right through her bonnet and read what was truly going on inside her. Sometimes she didn’t know that herself. More than two years ago she had traveled to Rome with Viktor von Lahnstein. It had been a time of consolation and reflection. Lahnstein had visited her from time to time, speaking with her like a fatherly friend. They had talked about Johann and the fact that he was involved with the devil, that the sin had been transferred onto her and she had to atone for it. When her child had finally been born, his hair had been as red as John’s.
But the boy’s eyes were those of his grandfather.
Sebastian also carried Johann’s burden, the same as she did. The curse had spread across the entire family.
For a few weeks after the birth, Greta had nursed Sebastian, cuddled and kissed him. But Lahnstein had made it clear that her work was elsewhere, and so little Sebastian had moved into Castel Sant’Angelo. He was doing well there; he had a friendly nurse, plenty of toys, and a warm, cozy cradle. Greta was allowed to visit him as often as her duties permitted. Sometimes she felt a pang in her heart, a deep longing, but those moments always passed, and prayer, chanting, and the daily liturgies never failed to calm her. Life had gone on, quiet and peaceful.
Until her father had found her.
Hatred had returned along with Johann, and also the memories of her former life. It had been nice to talk about the old times with Karl, but the appearance of the two men had brought everything back to the surface. Perhaps that was where the strange feeling of being shaken awake was coming from. But Greta didn’t want to be awakened.
She sensed that if she did wake, a terrible reality would descend upon her.
“Is it true what they say?” asked the old man after having watched her work for quite some time. “That you can see in someone’s hands if they are going to die?”
“Folks talk a lot of nonsense,” said Greta, harsher than she had intended. It was true, she had used her gift from time to time. She wanted to give people the opportunity to ready themselves for death, for their last rites. But it had been a mistake, and she had stopped doing so months ago.
“I don’t want to know,” said the old man. “What sort of a life is it if one waits for death? Counting each day, each breath? I want to enjoy every day as if it were my last. Only God ought to know when we see our loved ones here on earth for the last time.”
Greta smiled. “You’re right.”
She dressed the wound with a fresh bandage and covered the man with a blanket. Suddenly she paused. There it was again, the shaking. This time it was softer, more like a gentle nudge.
Our loved ones.
She stood up and wiped her hands on her apron.
“Where are you off to?” asked the old man.
“I am going to visit someone,” said Greta. “I want to make sure he is well.”
Longing for her child flooded her heart.
The days following the conversation at the inn were the most boring and contemplative in a long time for Karl.
They were also damned cold.
He and Johann had been watching the entrance to Castel Sant’Angelo in turns, hoping for Lahnstein to show, or for anything else to happen that would confirm Johann’s hunch. But nothing happened, except that Karl’s fingers and toes nearly froze off. It was almost December, and a damp chill had crept into the city and burrowed underneath any layers of clothing. Karl could feel a cold nesting inside him, his nose dripping and his throat scratching. He cursed himself for making Faust a promise instead of leaving as planned.
Castel Sant’Angelo stood opposite Sant’Angelo Bridge, which was one of just two bridges in Rome and accordingly busy. A steady stream of people, wagons and carts, oxen, and horses traveled across it, and so it was easy for Karl to hide in the crowd. He’d heard that years ago the bridge had collapsed, killing hundreds of people. Even now it didn’t look particularly stable. Karl had picked a spot at the start of the bridge from where he had the best view of the castle. Yet he knew that their chances were slim. Faust had watched from here all morning and had then rushed over to the papal palaces in the hope of finding Lahnstein there. Karl spent the frosty hours of waiting sitting on a low wall, drawing, eating nuts, and mentally bidding farewell to a time that would soon lie behind him.
His time with the doctor.
Sometimes Karl wondered whether his love for Faust had anything to do with the rejection of his own father. Franz Josef Wagner, renowned chirurgeon from Leipzig, had probably always suspected his son to be a sodomite and had treated him accordingly. Faust, on the other hand, had accepted Karl for who he was right from the beginning, even if he wasn’t thrilled about it. But Karl’s love had something in common with the obsession that tied the doctor to the creepy Tonio del Moravia.
Karl’s eyes turned to Castel Sant’Angelo, a gloomy structure from pre-Christian times that used to serve as a tomb for Roman emperors. Now that winter was moving into town and fog hung above the river, the castle looked even eerier than usual. A tall, square wall with four corner bastions enclosed a towering cylinder. The fortress had nothing airy or angelic about it. A former pope had named it when, during a plague epidemic, he had seen Archangel Michael hovering above it, whereupon the plague vanished from the city like a miracle. Since those times, the castle had been serving as a place of retreat and residence to the popes. Since Leo’s reign, regular fireworks took place on the upper terrace. Karl had heard that another such display was scheduled to happen in just a few days. It was part of a three-day-long festival to mark Milan being liberated from the French.
His hands shaking, Karl was about to pull out one of the cheap pieces of paper he had bought off a dealer when he saw someone he knew well meandering along the river toward the castle.
Greta wore her black-and-white habit and kept her eyes lowered. Karl had seen her enter the fortress before in the last few days, and Johann had also spotted his daughter during his watch. But they hadn’t spoken to her and made sure she didn’t notice them. Karl knew why Greta was visiting Castel Sant’Angelo. It was to see her little son. Greta had found comfort in faith, but her faith was obsessive.
Obsessed by God or by the devil, thought Karl. By love or by hatred. What is the difference?
He ducked behind a few passersby so that Greta wouldn’t see him. She walked past him without looking up and exchanged a few words with the guards at the gate, who let her through right away. Clearly the men were used to her visits.
More uneventful waiting stretched on. Every now and then an ecclesiastic dignitary would come or go, though Lahnstein wasn’t among them.
But someone else appeared.
Karl started from his daydreaming when out of the gate stepped a man who couldn’t be overlooked: Hagen.
He towered over the guards by almost two heads. Karl shuddered at the sight of the giant, who was carrying not his longsword but, dangling from his belt, a hunting dagger as long as his forearm. Instead of the colorful garb of the Swiss guard, he was clad in a long brown coat with a hood, making him look like a caricature of an itinerant preacher. Karl remembered with horror how Hagen had hunted them back in France at Chinon Castle. He was a bloodhound who never gave up once he had caught a scent. Karl had been surprised that Hagen hadn’t routed them out at their new lodgings near Circus Maximus yet. Was he on his way to find them now?
Karl decided to turn the tables and follow Hagen. That at least seemed more promising than sitting here and freezing his backside off. He might be able to determine how close Hagen was to finding them.
It was easy to keep track of the hulk. He plowed through the crowds on the bridge, and people readily gave way to him. Karl kept a good ten paces between him and Hagen, but this didn’t seem necessary, as the tall man didn’t look back once. Karl followed him to the east, past the Pantheon, a heathen temple that was now used as a church, and past the crumbling Colosseum, where loud traveling merchants hawked their goods. Then their surroundings became q
uieter and more sparsely populated. An icy wind swept through the lanes covered in trash and debris. Increasingly often there were overgrown fields between the houses, where poor people tried to find a few last turnips even now, at the end of November. Karl sought cover behind broken remains of walls and ruins, hoping he wouldn’t lose Hagen in the thickening evening fog.
After a while they came to an expansive area that seemed to serve as a quarry. Walls and buildings rose in between rectangular holes in the ground lined with Roman cement. It took Karl a few moments to figure out that the holes must have been basins. He was probably looking at one of the former thermal baths Faust had told him about. In ancient times, there must have been enough room here for several hundred people. Now leaves were drifting on foul-smelling puddles. Frogs croaked, and water lilies and swamp plants covered the steps and the fading mosaics in the basins.
What in God’s name was Hagen doing here?
For the first time the giant turned around, as if he had heard Karl’s thoughts. Karl ducked behind a wall. When he peered back over it, Hagen had vanished.
Damn!
Cursing under his breath, Karl hurried to the spot where he’d last seen Hagen. Dusk had set in, and in the twilight Karl could make out some steps that led down between two crumbling walls. He could hear the echo of voices from below.
Karl hesitated only for a moment before climbing down. At the bottom of the steps was a walkway whose walls were covered in soot and saltpeter—probably part of the old heating system. It ended after just a few steps in front of a rusty iron door that stood ajar. Light streamed from inside, and now Karl could hear the voices clearly. They belonged to Hagen and another man.
“Porca miseria! It wasn’t easy to find all these things,” moaned the other man in Italian. “Especially the bezoar.”
“My master pays you well,” growled Hagen. “And what about the mandragora? Is it truly from a gallows hill?”
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