The Master's Apprentice - Oliver Potzsch Page 0,5

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 had 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