The Master's Apprentice - Oliver Potzsch Page 0,9

the middle of the chamber. There were a crude chest, a cross on the wall, and a bed, where his mother lay under a thin woolen blanket, pale and with her eyes closed. For a brief moment Johann thought she had died. But then her eyelids fluttered and she smiled.

“Ah, my Faustus,” she said hoarsely. “Are you back from your walk?”

Johann hadn’t told her that he was going to meet Margarethe, but she might have guessed something. He merely nodded and brushed her sweat-dampened hair from her forehead.

His mother’s face was small and wrinkly, like that of a baby bird fallen from its nest. Her hair was thin and gray. Once upon a time she’d been a stunning beauty with blonde curls, but giving birth to four children, suffering several stillbirths, and being struck by disease had turned her into an old woman before she’d seen forty summers. Only her eyes still burned with a fire that must have bewitched Jörg Gerlach all those years ago. That and the large dowry. Johann’s mother came from a wealthy family. Her grandfather used to be a goldsmith in Mainz.

“Please, do me a favor and open the shutters,” she asked Johann. “I want to see the sunshine.”

“But the barber—” Johann started.

“He is a miserable quack,” said his mother with a cough. “Please open them before I wither like a flower in the dark.”

Johann pushed open the shutters, and light flooded into the room. Dust shimmered in the rays of sunshine, and the fresh air smelled of summer and hay.

“That’s better. Come, sit with me.” She patted her mattress. Johann sat down beside her and let his mother stroke his hair. “Your hair is as beautiful and black as the feathers of a young raven,” she whispered.

“F . . . Father said you were feeling worse,” Johann said softly.

Instead of a reply, his mother started to cough again. Johann handed her a filthy old rag. She spat into it and then dropped it, her hand limp. Johann noticed with a fright that there was blood on the rag again. But he didn’t say anything, not least to keep his own fear at bay.

“Tell me what you’ve heard from travelers in the taverns,” his mother asked eventually.

Johann hesitated briefly. Then he began to talk, his voice growing steadier. When he was a child, she used to tell him stories about the big, wide world, and now he was her window to the outside. He had been for years now.

“They broke a robber on the wheel in Speyer—he’d been operating on the imperial road with his gang,” he said. “Allegedly, he cut the throats of five merchants. Hans Harschauber from the Lion Inn was at the execution. He said it was a huge spectacle with hundreds of people watching.”

“What else?” asked his mother with her eyes closed, breathing calmly now.

“The farmers in Württemberg are unhappy because of the cold spring, the poor harvest, and the high taxes. Many starved to death last winter or went into the woods. Apparently, Count Eberhard is a harsh ruler. Oh, and near Venice, a huge fish washed ashore. It’s supposed to be as big as the Cologne Cathedral!”

His mother laughed, triggering another coughing fit. “Sounds like a fairy tale to me,” she said, gasping for breath. “Do you believe it?”

“I heard it from a Venetian merchant staying at the Lion.”

For a few years now, a new post road that led from the Netherlands to Tirol and from there across the Alps had run right past Knittlingen. Many travelers came to town along with the mounted messengers. Whenever he got a chance, Johann sat in a hiding place at the Lion Inn and listened to their tales. His mother used to do the same before she got too ill. The strangers told stories about a world so much bigger, more colorful and beautiful than Johann ever dared to dream.

“Give me your hand, my boy,” his mother suddenly demanded.

Johann moved closer and held out his arm. She squeezed his hand so hard that it almost hurt. Johann hadn’t known his mother still possessed such strength.

“My little Johann,” she whispered. “My Faustus, my lucky child.”

She called him that only when they were alone. One time his older brothers had heard the nickname and teased him with it for weeks. They knew their mother indulged him, and they were jealous.

“Why do you call me your lucky child when I’m not lucky at all?” he asked. “No one likes me, and Father calls me lazybones