The Master's Apprentice - Oliver Potzsch Page 0,170

She threw herself into his arms, and Johann once again inhaled the scent of her hair. Her bonnet slipped backward, and he covered her face with kisses. He thought he could see her cornflower-blue eyes beam in the dark.

He was so happy! There was nothing stopping them now. They would move to Vienna as part of Conrad Celtis’s household, he would study, and at some point they’d marry and—

There was a jangling sound followed by the stomping of many boots.

Johann spun around with fright and saw the glow of several torches approaching from the cave entrance. Margarethe screamed. She clung to him, but Johann was paralyzed by shock. He knew right away that this was the end.

A troop of men had entered the cave.

At its front strode Hans Altmayer and Jakob Kohlschreiber, Margarethe’s husband.

“Damned witch!” shouted Kohlschreiber, his bloated face glowing red in the light of the torch. “What do you think you’re doing? Wallowing in the dirt like a sow with her paramour. But we saw right through you!”

“It’s just like I told you,” said Hans next to him. He tried to sound calm, but his voice trembled with malicious glee. “I’ve been watching them for a long time. They always meet in this cave. The devil knows what they’re doing in here.”

“Look!” cried one of the men behind them. Like the others, he was carrying a short pike and was clad in the garb of a city guard. Evidently Kohlschreiber had gathered support from the Heidelberg city watch before making his way to the cave. With a shaking hand, the guard pointed at the wall behind the altar, where the quivering image of Archangel Michael was still displayed. “By all the saints . . . an angel!”

The others also cried out in surprise. Only Hans remained calm.

“Don’t worry, it’s not an angel. I’m certain the apparition is somehow connected to the devilish apparatus Faustus always lugs here. He built some sort of thing with Valentin Brander. The image is a deception!”

Hans searched the cave with his torch until he discovered the hidden box beneath the blanket. “Ha! There it is, the devilish machine!”

Hans gave the laterna magica a kick, and with an ugly sound of cracking and shattering, the image of the angel disappeared forever.

Margarethe screamed again. This time the scream was high pitched and mournful, as if it came from a fallen angel.

“What were you up to with that thing, huh?” snarled Jakob Kohlschreiber, stepping toward Johann and Margarethe. “Were you trying to invoke the devil? Is it Lucifer you’re praying to in this cave?”

“It . . . it’s just an apparatus,” replied Johann quietly. Each word came out slowly and with great difficulty, as if he’d forgotten how to speak. “Nothing but an apparatus.”

“The Inquisition must learn of this,” said Kohlschreiber. Trembling with fury, he pointed at Margarethe, who was covering her face with her hands. Johann wrapped his arms around her and noticed that she was as cold as the cave’s rock wall. He didn’t know whether she understood what he’d just said.

Nothing but an apparatus . . .

“I never trusted that woman. Cursed be the day her father gave her to me as a wife!” cried Kohlschreiber, nodding grimly. “She’s possessed by the devil—he spoke from her mouth every night she lay with me. By God, I tried everything. I found her a place at a nunnery, but clearly, evil can’t be driven from her. Only the fire can purge her now.”

“And concerning you . . .” Jakob Kohlschreiber glared at Johann, who was still holding Margarethe tightly, as if he could protect her from all evil. “I know you! You sounded me out that time at the tavern. Tried to find out about my wife, you lecherous bastard!”

Hans grinned. “Our rector will be extremely interested to learn what kind of devilish apparatuses his favorite student has been working on—and what kind of a girl he’s been dallying with. A nun!” He shook his head in mock sadness. “I believe this is the end of your time at the university, Faustus—at the very least. What did you tell me once? Many an itinerant scholar ends up in the gutter, where he dies like a mangy dog.”

“Enough talk,” growled Kohlschreiber. “Take them!”

The last words had been addressed to the guards, who stepped toward Johann and Margarethe with lowered pikes. Two of them grabbed Margarethe, who didn’t seem to notice what was going on around her. She had started to hum a soft tune. Johann winced