The Master's Apprentice - Oliver Potzsch Page 0,11

Antonius will know a remedy. He’s helped us before.”

But his mother didn’t reply; she seemed to have fallen asleep. Her breathing was shallow but calm. Johann squeezed her hand.

“I’m going to see Father Antonius at Maulbronn,” he whispered. “I’ll be back in a few hours. Promise.”

He stroked her cheek one last time. Then, quietly, he left her chamber.

His mother gazed after him for a long while. Her eyes rested on the worm-eaten, knotty pinewood door her son had closed behind him. As a child, Elisabeth Gerlach had always dreamed of a prince, a man who would carry her to faraway lands on his white steed. But all she’d gotten was a drunk Knittlingen farmer. The other girls had said Jörg Gerlach was a good catch, a bear of a man and rich to boot. But his mind was narrow and his soul didn’t want to soar; to him happiness was a steaming field, a good harvest, a folk dance on the fiddle, and a mug full of brown ale or wine.

Elisabeth had known soon after their wedding that she’d never be happy with Jörg Gerlach. But who cared? No one ever said joy and happiness played a role in marriage. People married to have children and to share the workload of the house and the fields. So every time Jörg had climbed atop Elisabeth and heaved and groaned, she’d closed her eyes and dreamed of distant lands and her prince on his white horse.

She gave birth to four live sons and became ill and weak. Two were like their thick father and one, the youngest, was a lovable cripple who’d always be dependent on others.

Only Johann was different.

She had sensed it when he lay in her arms as a newborn. Those alert eyes that seemed to take in everything, absorbing the world like a sponge. She had always known that fate had great plans for him.

And the man from the west had said it, too, and smiled strangely. The beautiful young man with raven-black hair as soft as silk.

Her prince.

Elisabeth closed her eyes and dreamed the man would return and take her away on his white horse, far away to a land with no disease and no pain.

Born on the day of the prophet . . .

“My Faustus,” she whispered. She coughed again and spat blood into the rushes on the floor. Then she drifted off to sleep, a small, frail body, withered by the little bit of life she had been granted.

Outside the house, Johann ran into his little brother, Martin. The younger boy seemed to have been waiting for him and broke into a happy smile when Johann came out the door.

“H . . . h . . . here you are!” he called out. “Margarethe told me I’d find you at home.” Johann just kept walking, and Martin struggled to keep up with his older brother. He jogged alongside Johann in his crudely carved clogs. Martin was small and scrawny, with a crooked back, and he stuttered—especially when he was excited. Sometimes, when Johann wasn’t around, the other children called him a dimwit or a dwarf.

“Wh . . . wh . . . what’s the matter?” asked Martin. “Wh . . . wh . . . where are you going?” He gave him a conspiratorial wink. “Are you going to make m . . . m . . . magic again? I won’t tell!”

Johann sighed. Seven-year-old Martin stuck to him like a burr. Karl and Lothar were too old to play with their pitiful little brother, and they were ashamed of him. Martin often followed along when Johann wanted to practice his tricks alone in the woods. The younger boy would jump up and down like an eager puppy, would climb trees by the wayside, would pester Johann with questions, and wouldn’t be persuaded to turn back. Nonetheless, Johann loved his little brother very much. Martin was so much more like him than like Karl and Lothar. Despite the stammer and the hunchback, Martin was smart and thirsty for knowledge, and just like Johann, he was closer to their mother than to their father, who didn’t have much attention for the small latecomer.

“I don’t have time for you right now,” Johann said, rushing ahead with long strides. “Mother is very ill. I’m on my way to the monastery to get some medicine.”

“B . . . bring me with you!”

“It’ll take too long,” Johann replied with a shake of his head. “I want to return to Mother as