The Master's Apprentice Read online

  Johann let go of Margarethe’s hand and made his way toward the stage. Margarethe was focused on the acrobats and didn’t even notice him leaving. He turned left and walked around the church. It was much quieter away from Market Street. A blind beggar tapped his stick along the dirty cobblestones; a drunken man vomited in a corner. No one else was in sight. Gray autumn fog seeped through the lanes. It almost seemed to Johann it was thicker here than on the other, busier side of the church. Viscous.

  Then he saw the wagon.

  It stood a little off to the side, next to the empty town hall, and was covered with a dirty canvas embroidered with strange symbols and runes Johann couldn’t read. A tired-looking old horse was munching on barley from a bucket tied around its neck. On the wagon’s outside wall above the box seat hung a large, rusty cage that held two crows and a raven. The cage creaked and swayed when the birds moved.

  How did he do it? How did he make the raven appear?

  Entranced, Johann walked toward the birds as they flapped their wings restlessly. What if they were enchanted? He tiptoed quietly toward the cage, reached out his hand—

  “If you’re hungry, let me warn you: those birds are tough. And they dissolve in your stomach and return to me, their creator. You wouldn’t find them very satisfying.”

  Johann spun around and looked into the face of the pale magician, who was standing right behind him, looking down at him. How could he not have noticed the man approaching? Was that another spell?

  The man frowned at first, then his lips twisted into a smile. Johann saw small, sharp teeth, like those of a predator.

  “Oh, it’s the boy from the front row.” The man’s eyes twinkled with amusement. “I could have fitted a barn inside your gaping mouth.” He leaned down to Johann, who thought he could smell a faint waft of sulfur. “How old are you, boy?”

  “I . . . I’m eight,” Johann said hoarsely, feeling very uncomfortable. He thought the air suddenly grew much colder; it felt like the middle of winter. The music and noise from the fair seemed to come from far away, as if from the other side of a heavy door.

  “Hmm . . .” The man tilted his head to one side, just like the birds in the cage beside him. Then, after what felt like an eternity, he straightened up to his full height.

  “And what’s your name?” he asked abruptly.

  “I . . . My name is Johann Georg, son of Jörg Gerlach, the farmer,” replied Johann. “But my mother calls me Faustus.”

  “Faustus, I see . . . What a beautiful yet strange name.” The man gave a quick smile. For a moment Johann thought the stranger’s black eyes flashed, like sheet lightning behind storm clouds. “Then I’m sure you know the meaning of this Latin word?”

  “It means ‘the lucky one,’” Johann replied eagerly. “Or ‘the bearer of luck,’ ‘the blessed one.’ My mother always says I was born under a lucky star. She believes fate has great plans for me.” He shrugged. “Though I don’t really know what she means by that. She says I’m of noble blood.”

  “Of noble blood? That’s a good one! You’d have to wash more often to pass as a nobleman.” The man laughed. “In any case, your mother seems to be a wise and ambitious woman. Our names can shape our destinies.”

  He suddenly grabbed Johann by his arm and pulled him very close. He opened Johann’s fist and studied his palm. Something about it seemed to irritate him. He brought his face even closer to Johann’s hand. As before onstage, he sniffed it, and for a brief moment Johann thought he felt a rough tongue on his skin, like that of a billy goat.

  “Those lines . . . those lines,” he whispered, as if muttering an ancient incantation. “Indeed . . .” He stared at Johann. “Do you know when you were born, boy?”

  Johann hesitated. He’d always wondered why his mother remembered the exact day of his birth. Most children knew only their saint’s day. “April twenty-three in the year of our Lord 1478—on Saint George’s Day,” he said eventually. “My mother told me to remember the date well.”

  The man tilted his head to the side once more. “The day of the prophet. Hmm . . .” His fingers dug into Johann’s shoulder, stinging like long, sharp talons. “Maybe I should—”

  Right then Johann heard a high-pitched wail that frightened him to the core. It sounded like someone was being strangled to death. He spun around in panic. At first he thought it had been the crows or the raven, but then he realized it had come from inside the wagon. Now he heard soft whimpering and whining from the same direction. The stranger heard it, too.

  “Cats,” he said with a smile. “My old Selena just had a litter of five. I’ll have to drown them all if they keep up the noise.”

  The whining stopped abruptly.

  “Forget what you heard! Trust me—it’s better for you.”

  The magician let go of Johann. He took the cage off its hook, turned, and climbed onto the box seat. He set down the cage beside him and picked up the reins. The black birds watched Johann from small, evil-looking eyes.

  “I must be off,” the magician said impatiently. “I want to be in Bruchsal by sundown. Work to do. So much work, and I’m not getting any younger!” He gave a cackling laugh, then turned serious.

  “Those lines,” he muttered again. “Born on the day of the prophet . . .” He shook his head in disbelief. “Well, young Faustus, we might meet again one day. The stars don’t lie!”

  He cracked his reins, and the wagon jerked forward.

  As the carriage slowly rolled toward the lower gate and into the late autumn fog, Johann heard the high-pitched wailing sound once more. Just before the wagon disappeared behind one of the last houses, the canopy suddenly trembled, then stretched and bulged as if someone was desperately pushing against it from the inside. Then the fog closed in like a white curtain.

  Johann remained standing in the middle of the lane, unable to move. He thought he was in a dream. What was magic, what was real? At last he shook himself and walked back around the church with trembling knees, back to the noisy fair, where the masses soon swallowed him up. The musicians played, jugs were handed around, and as the sun slowly disappeared behind the city wall, the Knittlingers celebrated the day of Saints Simon and Jude, on what might have been the last warm day of the season. One thing Johann knew for certain: no matter how many years went by, he’d never forget the magician.

  Act I

  The Man from the West

  1

  AD 1494, EIGHT YEARS LATER

  THE SUN BLAZED as if it wanted to set fire to the world.

  Johann lay on his back with his eyes closed, feeling the warmth bake into his body. The last winter had been long and was replaced by a wet, cold spring. The first sowing had been washed away during a massive thunderstorm, like so often in recent years here in the Kraichgau region, north of the Black Forest. It wasn’t until now, in July, that summer seemed to have fully arrived. The grain on the fields around Knittlingen stood tall and offered the ideal hiding place for snoozing, daydreaming, and avoiding work.

  Or for a first stealthy kiss.

  Johann squinted, turned his head almost imperceptibly, and saw that Margarethe was lying just as still as he was, soaking up the warmth. They’d been lying next to each other in silence for a while now, listening to the wind and the chirping of the swallows. It was the Lord’s day, and most Knittlingen farmers stayed at home or frequented one of the many taverns; hardly anyone worked the fields. An ancient, weathered stone cross in the middle of a rye field formed the center of their hiding place. Johann had flattened the stalks with his feet. As long as they were close to the ground, nobody could see them.

  It was the perfect love nest.

  It had taken all of Johann’s courage to ask Margarethe to meet him here. For days he’d hung around her, unable to open his mouth. In the end he wrote her an encrypted letter. They’d had their secret code for a few years now: with a needle Johann pierced tiny holes in individual letters, and put together, those letters spelled a message.

  This time the message ha
d read that he wanted her to meet him here and that he would show her a new trick. He hadn’t said what kind of trick.

  Johann had often visited Margarethe at the Knittlingen prefecture in recent years. It was only a stone’s throw away from his parents’ house. For as long as he could remember, he’d made Margarethe laugh with his tricks and entertained her with Aesop’s animal stories or one of the funny Greek comedies he’d found at the library of the Maulbronn monastery. When they’d been younger, they used to play in the hay or hide in the prefecture’s huge storehouse. But they were no longer children. A fuzz of black hair was sprouting on Johann’s face. He’d turned sixteen a few months ago, just like Margarethe. The Knittlingen lads had been making eyes at her for a while now.

  The unkempt, sassy, flaxen-haired girl with the dirty dress had grown into a bright young woman. Her skin wasn’t tanned from the sun like that of the other girls her age but was almost as white as marble, like the skin of a highborn princess, and covered with freckles. She had also been graced with an ample bosom. Most importantly, Margarethe was the daughter of the Knittlingen prefect and was the best catch in town. And he, Johann Georg Gerlach, second-youngest son of farmer Jörg Gerlach, had managed to meet her in the fields.

  Only question was, What next?

  Johann stretched awkwardly and gave a loud yawn. Margarethe turned to look at him. Her eyes were as blue as the cornflowers growing in the rye field. She also stretched and sat up.

  “Didn’t you say you were going to show me a new trick?” she said, giving him a half-curious, half-challenging look. “That’s why we came here. Or did you have other plans for a poor, innocent girl like me, Herr Johann Georg Faustus?” Like so many others in town, she used his nickname with a mocking undertone. But he didn’t mind.

  “No, no.” Johann sat up hastily and fished a tattered pack of cards from under his jerkin. “This is . . .” He faltered when he saw the disappointment in Margarethe’s face.

  “You asked me here because you want to play cards? That’s for the boys at the tavern.” She wagged one finger. “If they don’t arrest you first!” The game with cards was still relatively new and frowned upon by the authorities. The church called playing cards “the devil’s prayer book.”

  “Wait and see!” Johann fanned out the cards in his hand. “Here, pick one card. Any card. And think about your sweetheart.”

  “How dare you, you cocky devil!” Margarethe giggled and reached for a card. She passed it to Johann, who flipped it over with a dramatic gesture.

  It was the jack of hearts with a rose in his hand.

  Johann returned the card to the deck with a triumphant smile. “So you did think of your sweetheart after all.”

  “Pure coincidence. Let me try again.” Margarethe picked out another card, and it was the jack of hearts once more. When the trick worked a third time, she clapped her hands excitedly, like she used to as a child. “How did you do it?” she demanded impatiently. “Go on, tell me!”

  Johann grinned. It was this innocence and her readiness to be amazed that had always fascinated him about Margarethe. She never seemed sad, never brooded like he did. Her laugh was high and clear, and when he heard it ringing out across the church square, the gloomy thoughts that often buzzed around him like fat moths dispersed.

  “It is magic,” he declared theatrically.

  “Magic? Bah! You’re nothing but a charlatan. Just you wait!”

  Margarethe jerked the cards from his hand and sent them flying through the air. Shrieking with laughter, she threw herself on him, and soon they tussled like a pair of young dogs. A pleasant shiver ran down Johann’s spine. They had scuffled in play many times before, but the sensation he experienced now with Margarethe’s thighs pressing against his was new.

  New and very, very nice.

  “What is this?” asked Margarethe with a chuckle, placing her hand on his crotch. “Another deck of cards?”

  Johann had been in love with Margarethe for as long as he could remember. There were a few girls in Knittlingen who gave him suggestive looks, but she was the only one who interested him. Still, he struggled to show it. Usually, he was considered quick-witted and scathingly sarcastic, and many Knittlingers called him insolent or a know-it-all. But with Margarethe he found himself tongue-tied, just like when he was a little boy. He couldn’t come up with a reply to her coquettish question.

  “It’s . . . it’s nothing,” he replied lamely.

  “Nothing? Let me see if there’s nothing in the pants of Herr Faustus, Knittlingen’s greatest trickster and braggart!”

  Margarethe tried to pin him to the ground, but Johann was quicker and rolled on top of her.

  “Braggart,” she gasped, her eyes blazing with a mix of fear and desire. “You’re nothing but a braggart. Admit it!”

  Johann had hoped the card trick would impress her. Ever since seeing the eerie magician at the fair eight years ago, he’d been fascinated by conjuring tricks—much to the dismay of his father, who considered such things heretical nonsense. Johann made coins appear from ears; put live mice in his pockets, whereupon they reappeared from beneath Margarethe’s skirts, accompanied by her screams; juggled with balls, knives, and torches; and turned sour wine into sweet wine just by blowing across the cup. Every time jugglers and magicians came through town, Johann studied their tricks. Sometimes they’d explain one to him, and he’d practice secretly in the stable behind the house. Rehearsing magic tricks hadn’t helped his reputation among the Knittlingers. Folks believed sleight of hand to be the work of the devil—as much as they enjoyed watching the traveling artists in their bright garments.

  As he and Margarethe chased each other across the field, Johann felt the small leather satchel he’d put in his trouser pocket that morning. It contained a strange powder he’d bought off a traveling juggler for a slice of ham and two eggs the week before. When lit with a flame, the powder smoked, flashed, and cracked loudly. Johann had hoped to impress Margarethe with the show.

  But perhaps he no longer needed the powder.

  “Ha! Got you!”

  Shrieking, Margarethe hurled herself at him again. She pinned Johann’s arms to the ground, which he didn’t mind at all. Her face was so close to his that he could smell her warm breath and her hair, which carried a wonderful scent of honey, hay, and sunshine. They pressed their hips against one another, and Johann felt Margarethe’s hot, damp skin beneath her thin dress. He’d waited for this moment for so long.

  His whole life, really.

  “You . . . you charlatan,” Margarethe gasped. “Johann Georg Gerlach, you’re nothing but a charlatan. But a very likable charlatan, admittedly.”

  A dreamy look entered her eyes and she brought her face even closer, until their lips almost touched.

  “You’re special,” she whispered and brushed a strand of his raven-black hair from his forehead. “So different from the other boys. What’s your secret, Johann Faustus? Tell me, what’s your secret?”

  Johann was sweating. It was as hot as a baker’s oven, and his mouth felt completely dry.

  “Margarethe, I—” he whispered.

  Fingers dug into his upper arm and yanked him to his feet. Margarethe cried out with surprise when she was also pulled up by a hand. Between them stood Johann’s father, a burly, bullnecked man with a sunburned face. He shook the young lovers like a pair of kittens. Then he let go of Margarethe and slapped Johann across the face so hard that he fell backward into the rye.

  “What do you think you’re doing, God damn it?” shouted Jörg Gerlach. “The prefect’s daughter! Are you insane? Pray that her father doesn’t hear of this, or he’ll thrash you from one end of town to the other.”

  “But we didn’t do anything!” protested Margarethe.

  Gerlach raised his finger, trembling with fury. “I ain’t stupid, girl! I know what I saw. You’re not children anymore. Don’t try to fool me!” He shot a look of disgust at his son, who was still lying amid the stalks and wiping a trickle of blood from
his chin. Then he turned back to Margarethe. “I’ve put up with my son making eyes at you for too long. He’s put a spell on you with his accursed tricks, and you fall for them like a silly goose!”

  “But, Father,” Johann said, holding his burning cheek. He tried to curb his anger. If he provoked his father even more, he’d be forbidden from seeing Margarethe again. “Nothing happened—honestly.”

  “Nothing happened?” Gerlach spun around. “Don’t you see what damage you’re causing with your wanton behavior? Margarethe is promised to a merchant’s son from Bretten! He won’t marry a girl who’s been touched by another. And then the prefect will raise my interest out of spite. I’m already the town’s laughingstock, thanks to you. You won’t ruin my reputation any longer. Not you!” He stamped on the playing cards. The jack with the rose in his hand was lying under the farmer’s heel, smeared with muck and dirt.

  “Stuff of the devil,” he snarled.

  Johann moved backward. Until now, Margarethe being promised to a merchant’s son had been nothing but idle gossip. Margarethe had never mentioned anything. But his father’s words had turned rumor to reality—and Johann’s dream of a future with Margarethe burst like a bubble. This blow hurt so much more than his father’s slap.

  “Stuff of the devil!” shouted Jörg Gerlach again and ripped the jack of hearts into small shreds. “Accursed, heretic stuff of the devil! Made for jugglers, scoundrels, and fraudsters!”

  Johann had never seen his father this angry before. His face was scarlet with rage. It seemed like he was letting out everything that had long been stewing in him. They had never been close, but lately they’d grown even further apart. Johann’s elder brothers, Karl and Lothar, were his father’s favorites. He took them out on the horse, asked them along on trips to neighboring markets—and Karl, the eldest, was even allowed to join their father at the tavern and drink wine at the same table. The Gerlachs were a respected family with a large farm. Their house was right by the Knittlingen church. Everyone knew that Karl would inherit the farm, and Lothar, who was apprenticed to the blacksmith, would take over the smithy one day. The two youngest sons, Johann and seven-year-old Martin, would go empty handed.