The Devil's Pawn

  OTHER TITLES BY OLIVER PÖTZSCH

  The Faust Series

  The Master’s Apprentice

  The Hangman’s Daughter Series

  The Hangman’s Daughter

  The Dark Monk

  The Beggar King

  The Poisoned Pilgrim

  The Werewolf of Bamberg

  The Play of Death

  The Council of Twelve

  The Black Musketeers Series

  Book of the Night

  Sword of Power

  Knight Kyle and the Magic Silver Lance

  Holy Rage

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2019 by Oliver Pötzsch

  Translation copyright © 2021 by Lisa Reinhardt

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Previously published as Der Lehrmeister: Die Geschichte des Johann Georg Faustus II by Ullstein Buchverlage GmbH in Germany in 2019. Translated from German by Lisa Reinhardt. First published in English by Amazon Crossing in 2021.

  Published by Amazon Crossing, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Amazon Crossing are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781542014595

  ISBN-10: 154201459X

  Cover design by M.S. Corley

  For my children, Niklas and Lily.

  To love sometimes means to let go.

  Contents

  Prologue

  Act I

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  Act II

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  Act III

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  Act IV

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  Act V

  28

  29

  Epilogue

  Afterword

  Faust for Beginners

  About the Author

  About the Translator

  Prologue

  ROME, INSIDE THE DUNGEONS OF CASTEL SANT’ANGELO

  15 SEPTEMBER, AD 1518

  THE HOLY FATHER FOLLOWED THE SCREAMS THAT DIRECTED him through the catacombs. The shrill sound told Pope Leo X that the time had come.

  Hunched over, he hurried through the low passages, his red velvet cap brushing against the dirty ceiling from time to time. Leo panted, trembling with anticipation as he always did when he came down here to conduct the final interrogation. Built on the banks of the Tiber River more than a thousand years ago as a mausoleum for Roman emperors, Castel Sant’Angelo, the castle of the holy angel, was a maze of cells, grand halls, and corridors, filled with escape tunnels, hidden doors, and burial chambers. The castle was the grave of many known and unknown prisoners, while also serving as papal fortress and refuge—Sant’Angelo was considered impregnable.

  The pope’s chambers, in the upper stories, were lordly rooms, every inch of the walls covered with oil paintings by the most famous artists. Bronze taps spouted cold or warm water on demand; servants carried trays of candied fruit and ice, which had been carved from the distant mountains north of the Apennines and sweetened with outrageously expensive sugar that was shipped from the newly discovered lands beyond the sea and was as precious as gold. The upstairs halls smelled of violets and perfume, forcing out the stink of the Roman gutters, and the stone walls breathed the spirit of God.

  But deep down in the catacombs, death and perdition reigned.

  Pope Leo X paused when another scream rang out, even shriller this time, almost as if from a child. He was definitely on the right track. His heart thumping with excitement, he walked faster and turned right, to where another set of steps led even farther down. Leo was fat, weighing more than two hundred pounds; he’d been putting on weight since the day he’d ascended the throne. He was troubled by shortness of breath and recurring, painful fistulas in his behind. He dreaded climbing all those stairs back up, but his growing sense of anticipation spurred him on.

  Perhaps I will learn the truth today!

  Smoking torches illuminated a narrow, soot-stained corridor. The pope occasionally passed a Swiss guard, each one bowing low before the pontiff. Leo didn’t deign to look at them. He didn’t like being seen down here, but every now and then it was simply unavoidable.

  Especially when a secret must not make its way to the surface.

  More stairs went even deeper down into the darkness. At the bottom, two guards became visible in the gloom of the corridor, positioned to the left and right of a heavily reinforced door with a small, barred window at eye level. That was where the screams were coming from, growing louder once more, as if the person behind the door wanted to give the Holy Father a special welcome.

  Leo scowled; the howling was barely tolerable. Thankfully, it ended as abruptly as it had begun.

  The pope, out of breath, signaled for the guards to open the heavy door. The room on the other side was dimly lit by a torch, and a sweetish, smoky smell oozed into the corridor. Glowing braziers stood in the corners of the almost perfectly square chamber built from rough-hewn blocks of stone. Leaning against the walls were pincers and other utensils whose purpose Leo merely guessed at, though he had seen some of them before—in Florence, for example, where he came from. Leo nodded appreciatively. He bore the plump face and stubborn temperament of a peasant, but his wit was that of a scholar. And he was as ruthless and cunning as everyone in his family.

  We hid the truth well, he thought. In the lowest spot of Rome.

  Giovanni (as he was named at birth) was a descendant of the Medici family, the same wealthy dynasty that had been ruling the fate of Florence—of all northern Italy, even—for more than a hundred years. His father was Lorenzo de’ Medici, called il Magnifico, the Magnificent. As second-born son, Giovanni had been destined for a career within the church; at the age of seven he was named canon of Florence, then cardinal at fourteen. Following the death of his elder brother, Piero, he became ruler of Tuscany. All things considered, it took surprisingly long before Giovanni’s ambition, his hunger for power, and, most of all, his family’s influence made him pope. For five years now he had been holding the position that he and his family had been longing for since his childhood.

  He was the most powerful and richest man in Christendom.

  Leo intended to enjoy every single day of his hopefully very long tenure. He wanted to enter the history books as the pope who led Rome into a new golden era by completing the enormous Saint Peter’s Basilica. The monuments celebrating him would be forged from gold and silver.

  In pursuit of his goals, Leo had resorted to measures that brought sweat to his forehead at night and robbed him of his sleep. He had done things so unspeakably cruel that he hoped God would look the other way and condone them tacitly.

  It’s all for the benefit of the church! For the church’s benefit and my own, of course. But is there even a difference?

  The pope wrinkled his nose in preparation for the foul smell and entered the dungeon, gathering up his red robe so it would
n’t drag across the ashes and blood on the stone floor. The stench in the chamber nearly knocked him off his feet; it was the fetid reek of blood, feces, and vomit.

  The stench of fear—of fear and of the truth.

  Leo’s eyes turned to the rack in the center of the room. Lying on top was a seemingly lifeless, scrawny man clad in nothing but a torn loincloth. His arms and legs were covered in burn marks from the previous interrogations, and his bearded face was twisted in a grimace of pain. Images of the suffering of Christ came to Leo’s mind, but he quickly forced the thought aside.

  “So?” he asked the beefy, bullnecked man with the bloodstained apron standing next to the rack with a poker in his hand. “Did you get anything out of him?” Leo tried to suppress his excitement.

  “Unfortunately not, Holy Father,” the jailer said, shaking his head.

  Leo knew the jailer from other tortures; he came from the Marches, where he’d served the infamous Cesare Borgia. The man was considered one of the best in his field and was as silent as the grave, but it would appear that even he was at his wit’s end.

  “He only jabbers and doesn’t make any sense,” the torturer explained with a shrug. “To be honest, I don’t believe he ever knew anything of value. He’s a fraud, just like all the others.”

  “A fraud, you say? Nothing but a filthy fraud?”

  The pope strained to hide his disappointment. He took a step closer and studied the prisoner’s bruised face, covered with festering wounds. The man’s teeth had been pulled out, one by one, just like the nails on his fingers and toes. He no longer bore any resemblance to the imperious, loudmouthed fellow who until recently had advertised his skills on the squares of Rome. With trembling lips he started to garble something, a thin rivulet of bloody saliva running from a corner of his mouth.

  “For . . . forgive me, Father,” he struggled to say. “Forgive me . . .”

  Leo turned away with disgust. He would have liked to kick the pathetic creature, but that would have been inappropriate for the most powerful man in the Christian world. He should have known that this attempt would be nothing but a dead end, just like so many others before. But the sources had been promising, and he’d wanted to make sure. He had to follow any possible lead.

  Leo breathed deeply, trying to ignore the stench. Well, at least there was hope. Only a few days ago a new path had opened, and it was a particularly promising one. Despite the defeat just now, Leo felt deep in his heart that he was very close to his goal. It was as if God had spoken to him in his dreams. Yes, soon he would learn the secret—he had it on very good authority, after all. And now that this last path had turned out to be an error, there was no other option left. Leo could only hope that no one else would beat him to finding the man he so desperately sought.

  The man who was probably the only person on earth to know the well-guarded secret.

  Only a little longer, the pope thought wistfully. The Lord is testing my patience.

  “Get that away from here,” ordered Leo, gesturing at the quivering bundle on the rack. “And make sure no one ever finds him.”

  “Mercy!” screamed the prisoner, yanking at his chains. He tried to sit up and cried out with pain. “Mercy! I . . . I know it! By God, I swear I know it! Please—”

  “You had your chance,” muttered Leo as he walked away. At the same time, he thought that he couldn’t afford to take any risks, not even the smallest. This was too important—to him, to the Holy Mother church, to the entire world. As he passed the guards, he beckoned to one of them.

  Leo gave a small nod in the direction of the burly jailer, who was just placing the poker back into one of the braziers.

  “His service is finished,” he said quietly to the soldier. “For good. Take care of it and you shall be handsomely rewarded. Throw his body into the Tiber together with the other one, understood? Sewn into a sack with stones. It must be as if he never existed.”

  The guard nodded silently, and Leo placed a shiny gold coin into his hand. Then the father climbed the many stairs, panting and sweating, to where bright lights, the beguiling scent of violets, and God’s grace awaited him.

  Oh yes, there was much left to do.

  Act I

  The Beast’s Breath

  1

  BRETTEN, IN THE KRAICHGAU

  20 OCTOBER, AD 1518

  THE FLAMING ARROW SHOT INTO THE EVENING SKY, WHIStling as it released its orange-yellow load. Accompanied by the cries of the audience, it dragged a tail of fire across the clouds, like the handwriting of an angry god. Up high, way above the roofs of the town and the spire of the church, the arrow exploded with a deafening crack, glittering sparks raining down like falling stars. The citizens of Bretten moaned with fright and pleasant horror.

  Greta watched the faces of the spectators from her hiding place behind the stage. She estimated that a few hundred people had gathered around the well on the Bretten market square. Gaping in disbelief at the spectacle above, some of them even covered their eyes with their hands. Greta couldn’t help but smile. The flaming arrow was a sensation every time; it marked the beginning of their evening show and instantly caught everyone’s attention. The doctor built each of the arrows by hand, and not even Greta knew the precise ingredients used to fill the tubes made of glue and cloth. She guessed it was blackpowder mixed with various secret concoctions. These so-called rockets were the latest craze at the courts of nobility throughout the empire as well as in Italy and France; few were privy to the details of their manufacture, which allegedly stemmed from a country far to the east. It was marvels like these that made the doctor’s shows so successful that even counts and bishops begged to see them. Along with the wealthy citizens of Bretten. Everyone in the audience now turned back to the stage beside the well, watching amid reverent murmurs as a lone figure stepped out from behind the curtain.

  “That’s him,” whispered an excited elderly woman in a bonnet, clasping her hand to her mouth. “God protect us! They say his black dog is the devil himself. The doctor charmed him with a pentagram, and now Satan must serve him!”

  “How creepy that man looks!” groaned a girl next to her, shuddering. “Almost as if he were a demon, too. In Erfurt he made the beautiful Helen appear, and then the students all ran after her, right out into the street. And he turned the hunchbacked old deacon young again.”

  “I wish he’d do that to my Hans,” sighed the older woman, fidgeting with her blouse. She turned her gaze back to the man, who had just reached the front of the stage.

  The doctor was tall and haggard, wearing a black-and-blue cape embroidered with stars that glistened in the light of the torches. He was no longer young, his pronounced cheekbones shaded by a floppy hat. Two piercing black eyes shone from the dark, the left one especially menacing. His hands were covered in smooth leather gloves, making them look somewhat clawlike. Now the man raised both arms, like a priest during the holy Communion. A loud voice that didn’t belong to him rang out from somewhere in the background.

  “Watch and be amazed, honorable citizens, because no lesser man than the world-famous Doctor Johann Georg Faustus has arrived!” declared the speaker. “He traveled the hot lands on the other side of the vast ocean, studied with Avicenna and the great Albertus Magnus, escaped the hellish breath of the Sphinx, and was graced with the honor of foretelling our beloved emperor Maximilian a long and healthy life. And now he is here in Bretten to share with you his skills. If anyone would like to know their fate, please step forward. The doctor will cast your horoscope for just two hellers! Upon my soul—the stars don’t lie!”

  On the signal, Greta struck a piece of tin with one hand, creating a loud thunderclap, and with the other hand she swung a ratchet. The stage consisted of several crates pushed together; panels of dark-blue fabric adorned with pentagrams and mythical creatures formed the backdrop on three sides.

  For almost a whole week they had been staying in Bretten, about thirty miles south of Heidelberg, and each of their shows had filled the market
square to capacity. No one saw Greta behind the walls of fabric as she used tin, ratchet, cymbals, and a bagpipe to provide the sound effects for the speech delivered by Karl Wagner, Faust’s young assistant.

  “Step forward, brave men and women!” Karl continued, moving out onto the stage. “He who hesitates will regret his mistake!”

  The doctor’s loyal assistant was in his midtwenties, with straight hair that reached down to his shoulders. He was shaved smoothly and was so handsome that several young women in the audience were starting to whisper. Perhaps they could smell the perfume made from essence of violets that Karl always used a little too heavy-handedly.

  “The first brave candidates receive a bottle of Doctor Faustus’s Original Theriac for free, and a glowing prophecy on top of that,” shouted Karl, winking at the blushing ladies. “Who knows—maybe one or two of you will meet your future husband before the year’s out.”

  Some spectators now climbed the stage and had their palms read by the famous Doctor Faustus, who was sitting on a stool.

  Greta set down the sheet of tin and the ratchet and prepared for her act. She smoothed her skirt, which was sewn together from colored patches of fabric, as was typical for jugglers; then she laced up her tight bodice and tied back her stubborn blonde hair with a scarf. Her costume was like armor to her, shielding what was inside. Just last spring she had turned twenty. Sometimes, when no one was watching, Greta studied her reflection in the polished piece of tin and wondered what to think of that young woman in front of her. She couldn’t stand the freckles that covered her skin like specks of muck, especially in the summer, but she liked the curve of her lips and her small nose. The bodice she wore for the shows made her look more feminine than she felt. The doctor often told her that he loved her laughter, and then he’d gaze into the distance as if remembering something from a long time ago.

  “I see a significant change approaching in your life,” Faust was just telling a trembling girl, clutching her hand tightly in his clawlike grip. “Stay away from the wrong fellows. The right one will come, and soon!” He drew her close to him. “Try to avoid the barns in the fields—their walls are thinner than you think.” Faust gave her a wink, and the girl shrank back as if she’d been caught red handed.