The Master's Apprentice - Oliver Potzsch Page 0,185
Until a few years ago, Erfurt had been a wealthy city, but the duties the citizens had to pay the Saxon elector and the Mainz bishopric had brought the city to the brink of ruin. When they’d tried to raise the taxes again the year before, the people had rebelled and hanged one of its aldermen.
Erfurt wasn’t the only place where the common people had begun to rise against the high and mighty. Johann had seen many rebellions. A few years ago, thousands of farmers had rebelled in the bishopric of Speyer, and their leader, a certain Joß Fritz, had escaped and had been busy riling up people in other regions ever since. The whole country was seething, and Johann waited for the spark that would set off the powder keg.
It couldn’t be much longer.
Winter came over Erfurt with icy temperatures and snow, which piled up knee deep in the lanes. Beggars froze beneath bridges, and the poorer households struggled for firewood. The honorable and widely traveled Doctor Faustus and his assistant lodged at one of the better inns on Michaelsgasse Lane, not far from the university. In the evenings, when the musicians struck up a tune and harlots visited the tables with big smiles and low-cut dresses, Johann mostly sat in a corner by himself, while Karl—under the disapproving looks of his master—drank with the younger fellows.
Johann loved his quiet time after the shows and lectures; he despised idle gossip. He enjoyed the fact that while people respected him, they basically feared him and avoided his company—partly, of course, because of the calf-sized dog lying under his table and growling at any unwanted intruder.
Over the years, several women had tried to get close to Doctor Faustus, the mysterious man with raven-black hair and equally black eyes. He had pushed them all away. A few times, when the urge became too strong, he’d visited whores, but the moaning and sighing, the rubbing together of naked bodies, soon repulsed him. When he closed his eyes he saw Margarethe—and then he felt sick. And so he gave up on whores. He lived like a restless monk. Karl’s presence didn’t change that, even though the young man tried occasionally to encourage Johann to have a little fun.
In Erfurt, Johann decided to be a little nicer to his assistant. The boy was doing a decent job, and even though Karl’s endless questions got on his nerves, at least he didn’t feel quite as lonely.
One evening, when they sat together at a table at the back—avoided and yet watched by the locals—dining on roast meat and enjoying a jug of wine after a particularly successful show, Johann raised his goblet.
“To your latest paintings,” he said to Karl with a smile. “I particularly like the hell-dragon. Three women fainted today. You’re doing well!” He threw Satan a bone, which the dog caught in the air and snapped in half with one bite. Johann patted the beast’s head lovingly before turning back to Karl. “But we must work on your performance as a blind soldier. People may be dumb, but they are not as stupid as sheep.” He shook his head. “No one buys how easily you saunter across the stage as a blind man.”
“I’m a student of medicine, not a dishonorable juggler, remember?”
“Don’t mock jugglers,” replied Johann with sudden coldness in his voice. “They enchant people just like we do.”
He emptied his goblet in one gulp and brought it down so hard that several other guests turned their heads and whispered to one another. Karl’s remark had woken memories in Johann—memories from his time in Venice, of Salome, Emilio, and Peter the fiddler, whose death he’d foreseen a long time ago. Every now and then this strange gift had befallen him again, but he had learned to handle it. He still struggled when it was young adults and children, but he never told them the truth.
He wondered if he would have foreseen Margarethe’s death.
“May I ask you something?” said Karl hesitantly.
Johann forced himself to shake off the memories. When he nodded, Karl cleared his throat. It seemed something had been bothering the young man for a while.
“Why do you do it? I mean, you’re a highly educated man. In the last few months, I’ve heard you speak about Plato and Plutarch. You know about philosophy as well as mechanics. You know Archimedes’s formulas by heart as well as those of Pythagoras—even medicine isn’t unknown territory to you. You could be a widely respected doctor—rector, even—at any