The Master's Apprentice - Oliver Potzsch Page 0,22

was standing behind him with a whole gang, all of them eyeing him with loathing. In his excitement at seeing Margarethe again, Johann hadn’t even heard them approach.

“Ludwig, don’t!” pleaded Margarethe.

But her brother ignored her. He shoved Johann deeper into the alleyway. “Didn’t I tell you to stay away from my sister?” he snarled. “Haven’t you had enough? You just wait. When I’m finished with you this time, you won’t be able to sit down until Christmas. You’ll wish you’d never been born!” He leaned down and grabbed a nail-studded length of timber from a pile of rotten boards.

Johann clenched his fists. There were too many of them to fight back. Should he run? Call for help? But who would help him—the village smart aleck and good-for-nothing? People would say he had it coming.

Then Johann remembered the knife.

His fingers went to his pocket. The handle felt cool and pleasant. But he hesitated. If he stabbed Ludwig now, he’d be a murderer and branded forever. He couldn’t do it! The price was too high. So he merely stood as still as a rabbit that smells the hunter but doesn’t flee.

“Leave him!” shouted Margarethe, trying to run up to him. “Johann!” But two of the young men held her.

“Pull down his pants!” snarled Ludwig. “I’m going to teach him a lesson he won’t forget for the rest of his life.”

Johann thought of the knife again. It throbbed in his pocket like a small, breathing animal. How he’d enjoy cutting Ludwig’s plump cheek open!

Ludwig raised the plank and was about to strike when a voice rang out from the street.

“There you are, you lazy layabout! Have you forgotten? You were supposed to take care of my horse! What did I give you a kreuzer for?”

Johann started. The foreigner stood in the alley and waved at him as if they’d known each other for a long time. In the dim light of night, only his outline with the wide coat was visible, resembling a scarecrow in the fields.

“Is that your new friend?” jeered Ludwig. “A skinny, dishonorable juggler? Ha! He can’t help you now.”

He raised his length of timber once more when the stranger spoke again.

“If you don’t come right now, boy, I see great misfortune. Very great misfortune, for everyone here. The stars don’t lie, and they shine wanly upon you boys. Do you understand me?”

It was the same voice the stranger had used earlier to threaten Ludwig’s father inside the Lion. Low and cold, like a wind from the far north sweeping through the lanes. His last words had been clipped and as sharp as the blade of a butcher’s knife. Ludwig lowered his arm slowly, as though someone were forcing it down.

“Damn it . . . All right, I’ll let you get away this time,” he said uncertainly to Johann. “But next time, you’re done. I will get you—if not today, then tomorrow or next week. You mangy bastard! That’s what you are. A bastard!”

He turned around and signaled for his friends to follow. Margarethe managed to break away and rushed over to Johann. “Tomorrow morning by the Trottenkelter press at the prefecture!” she whispered. “When the bells chime six o’clock, before morning mass. I—”

Ludwig dragged her away before she could finish.

“Your mother is a dead whore!” he shouted at Johann as he walked away. “D’you hear me? A dead whore!” Then the gang disappeared around a corner, Margarethe in tow.

Torn between fear, anger, and the hope of seeing Margarethe again the next day, Johann staggered into the street, where the magician waited for him with a smile.

“I believe you owe me a favor,” he said when Johann stood in front of him. “It looks like I just saved you from a good beating. The least you can do is tell me what those boys wanted from you.” He grinned a wolfish grin. “Let me guess: something to do with that freckled girl.”

“One . . . one of them is her brother,” Johann replied haltingly. He was still shaking. “He doesn’t want us to see each other. He beat me up before and threw me into an anthill with my hands and feet tied.”

“Into an anthill? Wow, that’s nasty.”

For a few moments neither of them spoke, and Johann’s breathing gradually slowed. They could hear music and the laughter of men coming from the inn. Then Johann remembered the knife in his pocket. The cold metal he’d admired earlier suddenly repulsed him. He pulled the weapon from his jerkin and held it