The Master's Apprentice - Oliver Potzsch Page 0,79

defend himself. But at least he looked like a human again.

Which way should he turn? He had nothing left but the clothes he was wearing, and even those were stolen.

Quo vadis, Faustus?

The choice was made easier when a squeaking horse-drawn cart appeared from the right. At first Johann thought it was the master’s wagon, and he was about to jump into the ditch, but then he saw it was just a cart driven by a portly old man—a wealthy farmer or a merchant, he guessed. The man was wearing a fur vest and a warm, woolen coat that was clasped together at the front with a silver pin. Upon seeing the shivering boy in the thin shirt that was much too big for him, and whose face was covered with nasty scratches, the man gave him a look of pity.

“Where are you headed, lad?” he asked, pulling a stalk of straw from between his few remaining teeth. “You don’t look like you’ll get very far.”

Johann hesitated. Then he named the first city that came to his mind. It was the city he would have liked to visit a few days ago, but Tonio had steered clear of it—another reason that it seemed like a good choice. Hopefully, he’d be safe from Tonio and Poitou there. There was a good chance they were still searching for him.

“Augsburg,” he said.

The old man grinned. “You’re in luck, boy. That’s just where I’m taking my wine.” He gestured at the load of barrels behind himself. “Jump on up. But don’t you dare sample my wine—or I’ll drown you in it like a rat!”

And so Johann went to Augsburg—the biggest, loudest, and wealthiest city he’d ever seen.

They had reached the imperial city in two days, arriving around noon.

Like the last time, Johann couldn’t get enough of gazing at the countless rooftops and towers rising up behind the battlements of the city wall. Tallest of all was the grand cathedral tower. By comparison, Knittlingen’s Saint Leonhard’s Church looked like a dirty stable.

“Close your mouth before the flies crawl in, sleepyhead,” said the old man with a laugh. “This is golden Augsburg—the wealthiest city in the world. That’s what the late, great Pope Pius II called it, and, as God is my witness, it has only grown wealthier since.”

The corpulent old man turned out to be a stroke of luck for Johann. He was a wine merchant from Würzburg whose only grandson had been taken by fever a few months prior. Apparently, Johann reminded the man of his beloved boy, who’d died far too young. Therefore, the merchant had bought Johann a bowlful of steaming stew on both nights of their journey, helping to dispel the cold from Johann’s limbs. The rest of the time, Johann had slept between the barrels on the wagon like a log. His shoulder still hurt, and the many scratches on his skin were still healing, but he felt strong enough to continue his journey on his own now.

Only where this journey was supposed to lead, Johann didn’t know.

He had decided not to think about that terrible night near Nördlingen. God only knew what sort of heathen ritual Tonio and Poitou had been trying to achieve there. Ancient ceremonies that used to serve some nameless god and that the church hadn’t entirely managed to exterminate. Tonio called himself a magician, so what did Johann expect? The whole thing had been nothing but cheap hocus-pocus, just like the pentagrams, the black potion, and all the rest. Something unspeakably evil had happened that night. No magic tricks, nothing that had actually invoked the devil—and yet it had been something devilish for which Tonio would someday burn in the deepest depths of hell.

There was a great hustle and bustle outside the gates of Augsburg. Johann and the merchant circled around the city and eventually entered it through the Red Gate, a massive fortification on the Via Claudia Augusta, which led south toward the Alps. The wine merchant had told Johann that Augsburg had been founded by a Roman emperor—and not just any emperor, but the famous Emperor Augustus, who had lived at the time of the savior. Johann reverently gazed at the worn cobblestones in the streets, imagining Roman soldiers marching across them long ago.

From the Red Gate they came to a busy avenue that was so wide that there were even houses in its center. The street, which led all the way to the cathedral, was lined with huge patrician palaces several stories high