The Devil's Pawn Read online

  He draped the warm fur around his shoulders. Then he flicked the reins, and the large horse headed toward the gate at a leisurely pace.

  From Seuilly, they followed the trading route that led toward Fontevrault Abbey. Fontevrault was one of the largest monasteries in France, led by nuns and answerable only to the king. Several famous personalities lay buried there, including King Richard the Lionheart. The abbey was situated south of the river Vienne in a dip in the land, and its white towers could be seen from far away.

  As they passed the abbey with its busy outbuildings, hostels, and stables, Johann thought about what it would be like to leave everything behind and live here as a monk in quiet seclusion, far away from all desires and passions. He had always been a driven man, even in his youth. Johann remembered the kind Father Antonius who lent him books at Maulbronn Monastery. Back then Johann had wanted to become a librarian, but life had other plans for him. And now he would once more tempt fate—maybe for the last time.

  From Fontevrault they followed the road west. The forests became sparser, and fresh clearings and charcoal piles showed that here, too, people were wresting the land from the wilderness. Ears of grain swayed in the gentle breeze of early summer, and they traveled past several inns and small villages. Almost hourly now they passed someone on the road, a group of pilgrims or a merchant who would doff their hat to Johann and his companions. Only sometimes, when they looked closer, would people notice that something was wrong with the older man on the big horse. They would eye Johann furtively and make the sign of the cross. Johann knew that paralyzed people and those stricken by the falling sickness were sometimes considered to be specially chosen by God—or specially cursed. Judging by the looks passing travelers were giving him, they considered him to be the latter. At least no soldiers seemed to be following them, and Lahnstein and that huge Swiss mercenary also appeared to have lost their prey.

  After three more days they came to a large crossroads where a weathered old border stone indicated that they were entering Brittany. Slowly, scarcely noticeable at first, the landscape changed. The trees seemed to be older here, gnarled oaks with moss hanging down like beards of giant trolls. Several times they passed huge rocks with etchings, ancient symbols that no one knew how to decipher. Sometimes those boulders were arranged in a circle, and others seemed to form tables for giants.

  “There are even more of those rocks farther north, on the Breton Peninsula,” explained John, who was completely recovered and often whistled a merry tune despite the eerie goal of their journey. His good mood increasingly irritated Johann. “They’re called menhirs. No one knows what they were used for. Apparently they were made by an ancient tribe that used to live here. Later on, migrants from the British coasts settled here, having fled from hostilities in their homeland. They brought with them their throaty language and some strange customs.”

  A howling rang out, and the four of them exchanged dubious looks. The woods weren’t far—the road headed straight into them. Fiery red, the sun disappeared behind the trees in the west.

  “Our friends are back,” said Karl bitterly. “Albert said the wolves came from Brittany. I’m glad he gave us a hand cannon.”

  Since they’d entered Brittany, the woods had started to become thicker. Swampy landscapes interspersed with deeply rutted roads and infested with mosquitoes took turns with a densely vegetated wilderness that made it hard not to lose orientation. They met few travelers now. Occasionally they’d pass a solitary farmer pulling a plow, with a bent back and casting dark glances at the group. Compared to the lovely Loire Valley, this area seemed harsh and forbidding, as if it didn’t want people to settle here. Greta prayed both morning and night now, and even Johann stopped mocking her for it.

  “Brittany is a wild old land,” said John, swatting a fat mosquito sucking blood from his hairy forearm. “The current French king’s mother-in-law, Anne of Brittany, has always fought for the region’s independence. That has changed since her daughter, Claude, became the queen. But the Bretons don’t consider themselves French and will probably always speak their own language. The area farther to the west is called Finistère—the end of the world. The name is very fitting. You could also call it the ass of the world.” John laughed. “My Breton isn’t very good, but hopefully it’ll suffice to order a roast hare and a jug of wine.”

  He gestured at a light in the dusk ahead, indicating an inn. The travelers were glad to find a roof over their heads for the night instead of sleeping out in the woods.

  “Gilles de Rais chose his home well,” remarked Johann glumly, looking up at some crows circling in the sky. “I couldn’t imagine a more eerie place. Brittany truly is the land of the devil.”

  As if to lend support to his comment, wolves began howling from several directions, and a cool wind brought the first drops of rain.

  As the rain beat against the sooty parchment in the windows, the group heard firsthand reports of missing or murdered children. They were no longer rumors of things that occurred somewhere faraway—they were gruesome facts. The other patrons led hushed conversations, huddled closely together as they eyed the strangers distrustfully. The atmosphere was muted, as if a dark cloud hung over the country, smothering all happiness.

  The four travelers learned that Duke Louis de Vendôme, who ruled over vast parts of Brittany including Tiffauges, still resided in Italy. No one wanted to comment on the steward who reigned over the castle in the duke’s absence. Whenever the steward was mentioned, people made the sign of the cross and turned away. John returned from the tavern keeper with a sad look on his face, carrying a jug of sour wine.

  “It’s true what we’ve heard,” he said, sitting down. “Two children got killed at once in the last few days. They were siblings, a boy and a girl, no older than eight, from a village not far from here. Something sucked the blood out of them to the last drop. Their bodies were found in a clearing in the woods along with a dried toad. And they certainly weren’t the only murdered children in recent years.”

  “Just like in Nuremberg,” whispered Johann, exchanging a look with Karl. “Remember?”

  Karl nodded. “Tonio was leading an order then. Those people wanted to use the children’s blood to invoke the devil. Perhaps there are similar madmen in this area, too.”

  “Madmen?” Johann gave a laugh. “I wish they were. But I’m afraid they are disciples who truly believe in the return of Satan. Don’t forget what Agrippa told us. Tonio, alias Gilles de Rais, is just a shell. The true devil is still waiting to take over the world.”

  Karl sighed and raised both hands. “I’ve long given up trying to talk you out of this theory.”

  “Come to Tiffauges with me and I’ll show you that I’m right,” replied Johann.

  Suddenly he felt cold despite the blazing fire, and he tightened Little Satan’s fur around his shoulders. The musty and slightly rancid smell reminded him of happier times.

  “I feel certain that Gilles de Rais resides at the castle again, just like he used to. He is probably the priest Albert MacSully spoke about.” Johann nodded toward the window. “I saw the old raven again and the crows. They’re his messengers, just like the wolves. Gilles, or Tonio, knows that we’re coming.” He paused. “I should go there by myself. This is between Tonio and me alone.”

  “We all go,” said Greta decisively. “Then we’ll finally gain certainty.”

  She looked first at John and then at her father, but Johann avoided her gaze. He still wasn’t sure if he could trust John Reed. His daughter, on the other hand, seemed head over heels in love with the Scotsman. The small gestures and touches between the young couple pained Johann more than he cared to admit.

  A tight bond had grown between Greta and John, much tighter than the one he himself had managed to build with his daughter over the last few years.

  Two days later they came across the first dead children.

  It was in the same village the folks at the tavern had spoken of. They could hear chanting from far away
, which turned out to be a Breton chorale from ancient times. It blew over to them from the cemetery that, together with a small derelict church, stood on the outskirts of the village. A low drystone wall surrounded the patch of crooked tombstones. The road led right past it.

  From atop his horse, Johann watched a group of about two dozen peasants carrying two small coffins, not much bigger than dowry chests. Even though the coffins must have been very light, the pallbearers’ shoulders were bent as if their burdens were unbearably heavy. At the front, right behind the priest, walked a woman and a man who clung to each other. The woman let out mournful wails from time to time, shook her fist at the heavens, and screamed incomprehensible words. She couldn’t have been very old, yet her hair was gray and her face seemed to have aged before her time. The man, too—presumably the father of the dead children—was marked by grief, stiffly placing one foot in front of the other. At the end of the congregation limped an old woman with a cane. She was the only one to notice the travelers behind the wall. She stopped to look at them, and when her gaze caught Johann’s, she made the sign of the cross.

  “An diaoul!” she shouted, waving her cane at Johann. “Ha prest out evit ober un taol gouren gant an diaoul?”

  The other funeral guests also stopped, and the procession came to a halt. Everyone was looking at the strangers now.

  “Diaoul!” shouted the old woman again.

  “What’s she saying?” asked Johann, who didn’t know a word of Breton.

  “I’m not sure.” John frowned. “If I understand correctly, she thinks you’re the devil. Perhaps because of your paralysis.”

  Lately, Johann’s spine had become a little bent, making him look hunchbacked. Johann had to agree with John—he truly could be mistaken for the devil.

  The people in the cemetery stared at him as if he were an evil foreign being. The priest addressed the funeral party in an annoyed tone, whereupon the mourners reluctantly turned away from Johann. The pallbearers with the two small coffins started to move again toward a hole in the center of the cemetery, the women cried and wailed, and the church bells tolled. Only the old woman stayed where she was and pointed at Johann.

  “Diaoul!” she called out again. “C’hwi zo o c’h en em bilet gant an diaoul!”

  Johann was about to urge his horse onward when something strange happened. The old woman limped to a small gate in the cemetery wall, hobbled out onto the road, and, in a childlike gesture, dropped to her knees before Johann and the horse.

  “What is she doing?” asked Johann, astounded.

  John raised an eyebrow. “I don’t know.” He walked over to the woman and lifted her by her arms; tears stood in her eyes, which were framed by deep wrinkles. She started to speak very fast to John, pointing at Johann again and again.

  “I’m not understanding much,” said John eventually when the old woman paused for a moment. “But I think I was wrong. She thinks the doctor is not the devil but the one who can vanquish the devil. This woman is the village midwife. She . . .” John frowned and looked at Johann. “She said she dreamed of you. Of your arrival. Sorceles . . . yes, that’s the word.” John nodded. “Sorceles. She believes you’re a wizard.”

  Johann smiled. “She isn’t the only one.” He hesitated briefly before he continued. “Tell her to lead us to her house. I’d like to speak with her—without the priest and half the village watching.”

  The old woman hobbled ahead. She turned off the road onto a narrow path that led through marshland and a grove of birch trees before ending outside a tiny hut surrounded by reeds. They could still hear the church bells in the distance; a flock of birds traveled across the hazy sky. The crooked hut was built of mud and branches in the way people used to build in older times. It was so low that Johann almost knocked his head when he entered.

  “What are we doing here?” asked Karl skeptically. “Do you really believe this woman can help us in any way? If you ask me, she’s nothing but a befuddled old hag who—”

  “She saw me in her dreams,” said Johann. “And now I’m standing in front of her. I find that warrants at least listening to her.”

  The walls inside the hut were so blackened by smoke that Johann felt like he was entering hell. The room stank of soot, feces, and sulfur, the only vent being a tiny hole in the middle of the roof. The red embers of a small fire below were the only source of light. There was no table and no chair but a wealth of crucibles, old sacks, and colorful wooden boxes stacked along the walls. Some pelts on the hard dirt floor served as a seating and sleeping place. The old woman signaled for them to sit down on the skins. Johann saw how hordes of lice crawled through her matted hair. Her entire appearance was so delicate and wrinkled that he couldn’t help but think of an ancient earth fairy.

  “I only hope she doesn’t offer us anything to eat or drink,” muttered John. “Brr! I shudder to think what’s in those jars.” His eyes went from dried bunches of herbs to snakeskins and finally to a mummified newt dangling from the ceiling on a leather string.

  The old woman looked around warily, as if she was afraid someone invisible was in the room. She walked to the entrance and used her cane to draw a pentagram onto the dirt floor, then she sat down among them. She started to speak in her throaty language again, and John listened intently, his expression growing darker the longer she spoke.

  “What’s she saying?” asked Greta, who sat beside John with her legs crossed, holding his hand.

  “My Breton really isn’t very good,” said John. “But she seems to believe that the devil is haunting these lands again, like he did a long time ago.”

  “Gilles de Rais,” whispered Johann.

  John nodded. “It sounds unbelievable, but apparently this woman is the daughter of a girl who, at just ten years of age, managed to escape from the clutches of Gilles de Rais and his henchmen. The name of that girl was Marie, and this woman’s name is Étienne. Marie often told her daughter about the terrible events from back then so they wouldn’t be forgotten.”

  “Gilles de Rais died in the year of the Lord 1440 at Nantes—about eighty years ago,” said Karl. “That means Étienne here would have to be very old for this story to be true.”

  “But it’s possible.” Increasingly agitated, Johann turned back to John. “What else is she saying?”

  “Étienne’s mother, Marie, watched some of Gilles’s helpers back then, and the midwife believes that those helpers—just like Gilles de Rais—never died.” John lowered his voice. “The devil made them live on—the devil and the children’s blood they’ve been drinking. They lived in the woods with the wolves for several decades, but for a few years now they’ve been more active again in this part of Brittany. Étienne calls them ‘the wild hunt.’”

  “Chasseal loened gouez!” said the old woman, nodding vigorously. “Chasseal loened gouez!”

  “The wild hunt.” Johann shuddered. He rubbed his eyes, reddened from the smokiness of the hut. “It’s a term that often appears in myths. Ancient, evil gods who chase through the air or the woods hunting humans. They say that he who beholds them is doomed to die.” A thought struck him. “Does she know the names of any of the helpers?”

  John turned to Étienne, who listened and nodded. With her face twisted into a grimace of disgust, she counted the names on her fingers.

  “Poitou, Henriet, La Meffraye, and Prelati, the priest,” translated John. “She said everyone around here knows those names. They are like monsters, like the ogres folks use to frighten small children. Although Poitou hasn’t been seen in a long time.”

  “Poitou?” Johann flinched. “I know him!” He looked at Karl. “Do you remember the big fellow in Nuremberg, Tonio’s helper? I met him at Nördlingen for the first time when I was still traveling with Tonio. He made me drink the black potion back then!”

  “Poitou . . . yes, I suppose you’re right.” Karl nodded slowly as he remembered. “You killed him in Nuremberg. You really think she’s talking about the same man?”

  “Apparentl
y, La Meffraye is the worst of that sinister bunch,” said John, concentrating to understand the old woman’s words. “No one knows what her real name is. Her nickname stems from l’effraie, the barn owl. She would use sweets to lure small children into the woods, where Poitou and Henriet would capture them with nets and take them to Tiffauges and other castles in the area—Champtocé and Machecoul.” John shuddered. “The most gruesome scenes must have unfolded there. I’m glad I don’t understand everything. And it seems like it’s all starting again from the beginning.”

  “What about that priest?” asked Johann. “That Prelati?”

  The old woman made the sign of the cross when she heard the name. Then she continued to talk.

  “He . . . he must have helped Gilles de Rais invoke the devil at Tiffauges,” said John after he listened for a while. “The two of them were something like a . . .” He shook his head in disgust. “A couple. Étienne believes that Prelati is back there now.”

  “The steward’s new priest,” breathed Greta. “Albert spoke of a priest.”

  “And Gilles de Rais?” Johann’s voice was trembling now, his facial muscles twitching uncontrollably. “Does she know if Gilles de Rais is also at Tiffauges?”

  The old woman nodded as if she’d understood the question. “An diaoul zo e pep lec’h ha neblec’h,” she said intently. “Lec’h ha neblec’h!”

  “The devil is everywhere and nowhere,” translated John with a shrug. “No idea what that’s supposed to mean. But she believes that you are the only one who can put a stop to the devil. She saw it in her dreams, and her mother, too, once said that a great wizard would come someday to vanquish evil.” He grinned. “It’s possible she’s getting you mixed up with tousled old Merlin. He is considered a powerful wizard around here and used to serve a king named Arthur. Good old Merlin is a few hundred years old, however, and is buried in Brocéliande Forest.”

  Johann said nothing. He wondered what was meant by those words: The devil is everywhere and nowhere.

  The old woman leaned forward and brushed her hand over Johann’s hair as if he were a child. She uttered soothing words in Breton.