The Master's Apprentice - Oliver Potzsch Page 0,73

were those two men going to do with him?

“And you really believe he’s the right one?” asked Poitou. “I have an uneasy feeling about this. We could pay the midwife here a visit. A different child, born around the same—”

“It’s him,” Tonio said so quietly that Johann struggled to understand. “If we go about this the right way, he will change the world. But we must act now! If we miss the moment, it won’t return anytime soon. You know how long we’d have to wait.”

He stood up and signaled to Johann to follow. “Let us go.” The master gave him a cheerful wink. “All this might seem strange to you now, young Faustus. But trust me. You’ll soon know more. I arranged for your ordination to take place here, so we don’t have to wait until Krakow. We have enough friends around here—by now, we have friends everywhere.”

“Ordination?” Johann was confused. “What ordination?”

“You’ll find out soon enough. And now come, before the moon disappears behind the hills again.”

A short while later, they set off. Tonio had sent Johann up to his room to pack his few belongings. The master’s crates and the birdcage had already been taken to the wagon. Night had fallen outside, but a full moon bathed the lanes of Nördlingen in a pale light. Tonio and Poitou sat on the box seat while Johann found a place among the chests and sacks under the canvas. They tied Poitou’s exhausted horse to the back of the wagon, where it plodded along leisurely.

They drove toward the closed city gate. The road beyond led back to Augsburg; it was the road they’d come from the day before. Poitou whistled, and the gate opened with a soft squeak. Johann guessed the man had bribed the guards earlier. Outside the gate, they turned right. When they passed where Freudenreich the minstrel had been burned to death that morning, Tonio whispered something to Poitou in French and the man laughed out loud. The air still smelled faintly of smoke and roast meat.

The moon was high in the sky as the wagon rolled past fields and small patches of forest. No one else was on the road at this time of night. It was as quiet as if the whole world were asleep—except for once, when Johann heard wolves howling in the distance.

They turned onto an unmarked, narrow track. Their surroundings became increasingly rough and overgrown. Moss-covered boulders were scattered among the trees, looking as if they’d fallen from the sky in ancient times. Johann thought about the giant throwing the huge rock into an ancient sea. Were these boulders remnants of that rock? Had God been the giant?

The master repeatedly looked up at the sky and the pale stars. Each time, he nodded with satisfaction, as if confirming an observation. After about two hours, Poitou asked Tonio to stop. He gave a whistle that imitated the call of a nightingale. Then he waited, and after a short while, an owl hooted three times. “We have arrived,” said Poitou, looking around searchingly. “It’s not far from here. I suggest we leave the wagon hidden among the trees over there. And then we walk.”

The three birds in the cage flapped their wings excitedly and cawed, as if they sensed that someone was nearby. Tonio gave the cage a shove.

“Be quiet, God damn it!” he barked. “I know you’re hungry. Not long now.” He turned back to Poitou. “Did you bring what I asked you for?”

Poitou grinned. “It wasn’t easy at such short notice.” He opened his wide coat and pulled out a clear vial with a cork, containing a liquid the color of swamp. “The black potion. La Meffraye herself brewed it.”

“Well done.” Tonio climbed down from the wagon and led the horses a little deeper into the forest. Then he waved for Johann to follow him. The three of them sat down on a rock that gleamed pale in the moonlight, as if it had been covered with a white sheet. Poitou handed the vial to Tonio, who raised it toward the moon with both hands.

“The black potion,” he announced solemnly. “He who drinks it is close to Pan.”

“So be it,” Poitou murmured as if praying. “Now and forever.”

The master removed the cork from the vial and handed it to Johann. “You must empty it in one go,” he commanded. “It doesn’t taste particularly good, but it acts fast.”

“What . . . what is it?” asked Johann. He still didn’t have the faintest