The Master's Apprentice, page 3
part #1 of Faust Series
“I don’t want that pimply Bretten boy for a husband,” said Margarethe angrily. She had jumped to her feet and stood with her hands on her hips. “I’ve only seen him twice, but that was enough. Adalbert Schmeltzle is as dumb as an ox, with teeth like a horse. I’d rather enter a nunnery!”
Jörg Gerlach’s face twisted into a sneer. “You’ve got no say in the matter, girl. That’s between fathers. Now run along before word gets out that you’re rolling in the field with my son. And you . . .” He turned back to Johann. “Go home as fast as you can. Mother is worse, and she’s been calling for you.” He shook his head. “Aren’t you ashamed? While you’re out playing silly games in the field, your mother is coughing her lungs out! You promised to look after her—seeing as you’re no good for anything else.”
Johann, back on his feet, doubled up as if he’d been struck. His father knew he’d hit a sore point, and dealt the next blow.
“The priest said after mass that he’d soon have to administer the last rites. Who knows how many days she’s got left.” He nodded grimly. “Perhaps it’s better for everyone if she leaves us sooner rather than later.”
“How can you speak about Mother that way? You . . . you . . .”
Johann raised his arm, caught himself, and lowered it again. He spun around and started to run. He raced through the tall stalks of grain toward town, almost blind and deaf with grief. He didn’t hear Margarethe’s desperate cries and stumbled toward the city gate, his eyes swimming with tears of anger and despair. While he realized that his father just wanted to hurt him, he also knew in his heart that he was right.
His mother was dying.
With clenched teeth, Johann kept running, through the open gate, past the dozing guard. It was noon, and the lanes of Knittlingen lay deserted. It was unbearably hot, even in the shade, and it hadn’t rained more than a few drops for weeks. Regardless of the heat, Johann ran up toward the church, which was situated atop a low, slanting ridge. Laughter could be heard from the taverns and inns, where farmers and tradesmen had gathered for their traditional pint following Sunday mass. Someone called out to Johann but he didn’t stop. He could still hear his father’s cruel words in his head.
Who knows how many days she’s got left . . .
He shouldn’t have left his mother’s side—not for this long. His father always knew where it hurt the most. His mother had been sickly for years, but for the last few months, she hadn’t been able to leave her bed at all. Johann would sit with her for long hours, reading from books he’d borrowed from the Maulbronn monastery or telling her stories he’d picked up from travelers at the taverns. Today had been the first day in a long time he hadn’t sat by her bedside.
Instead he’d gone into the fields to meet a girl for a first kiss. A girl who was promised to another.
His mother’s cough had been bad this morning, her phlegm streaked with red. Johann couldn’t remember a time when his mother hadn’t been ill. And his father had always treated his mother’s illness with a cold indifference that frightened Johann. Sometimes he thought his father would be glad if she died. If she were an old horse, he’d probably put her down and look for a younger horse. But as it was, he left the task of caring for his sick wife to Johann.
Over the years, Johann had learned much from his frequent visits to the Knittlingen barber-surgeon and to the nearby monastery library, where he’d read countless books about healing—though he’d found many of the books rather strange. A lot of them spoke of the breath of hell, witches’ brimstone, and pious invocations, but there weren’t many useful recipes. Books were often like that: whenever he reached a point where he wanted to know more, they called upon God or blamed the devil.
Running out of breath, Johann climbed the last few steps to his home. The house of the Gerlach family sat on the hillside between Saint Leonhard’s Church and the prefecture, which served as an administrative center and housed the town’s wine and fruit presses. Johann’s house was large, several stories high and with an attached barn and several stables for cows, horses, and smaller livestock. Jörg Gerlach owned more than sixty acres of land around Knittlingen, making him one of the wealthiest farmers in town. He employed a dozen maids and farmhands.
Johann rushed through the doors and past the hunchbacked old maidservant who was lighting the stove in the hallway. His two older brothers, Karl and Lothar, were there, sitting at the large table in the kitchen, shoveling stew into their mouths. Johann guessed they’d just arrived back from the fields. The strong young men had to work even on a Sunday. Johann was still short and slight and hardly any use in the fields. The two brothers looked up angrily when they heard Johann arrive.
“So Father finally found you, you slug,” grumbled Karl, the eldest brother. “If you don’t help in the fields, you could at least look after Mother.” He gestured at the door to her chamber. “Hurry up and go inside before she soils her bed again.”
Johann bit his lip. Neither Karl nor Lothar had ever cared for their mother. They’d lost interest in her the day she could no longer breastfeed them. They had literally sucked her dry. The older brothers considered the weak, sickly woman in the back room a burden.
“Go on!” growled Lothar. “Get a move on, midget! We worked our asses off while you were probably lying in the sunshine.”
The smoke of the open fire didn’t vent well through the opening in the ceiling, and Johann’s eyes stung as he walked down the low hallway braced by sooty beams. He knocked softy at his mother’s door but got no reply. He entered.
The chamber smelled of herbs, vomit, and moldy rushes. It was dark because the shutters were closed. The barber-surgeon was of the opinion that sunlight was bad for his mother, that even plain daylight could kill her in the long run. A sliver of fatwood was burning on the table in 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 and a weakling. He says I’ve nothing but nonsense in my head.”
“Oh, your father. Just let him talk. Who cares?” She smiled, and for an instant Johann saw in her eyes the lively girl with blonde curls from long ago. Young and beautiful like Margarethe, and her laughter just as clear and cheerful.
“I know there’s more in you,” she said, patting his hand. “You ask too many questions, and people don’t like that. They only believe what they see, and they don’t want anything to change. But you look further and dig deeper. You always have, even as a small boy.” She raised her head a bit. “How is school going for you?”
“Good. Very good, even.” Johann nodded. The thought of school brightened his mood a little.
A few months ago, his mother had asserted her wish that he be allowed to attend the higher Latin School, even though he’d completed his time at school. His father had been against it, especially because Latin School was expensive and usually reserved for the sons of wealthy patricians. But Jörg Gerlach had soon realized that this was very important to his wife and she’d never leave him in peace until he agreed. Since then, Johann had been learning Latin, grammar, arithmetic, and even a little astronomy. Along with his trips to the nearby Maulbronn monastery, his hours at Latin School were Johann’s small escapes from the bleakness of everyday life in town. Sometimes he dreamed of studying at a university, like the one in Heidelberg, or even farther away. But he knew his father would never let him.
“Father Bernhard taught us about the heavenly bodies and star constellations,” he continued. “He said there are scholars who claim that the sun, not the Earth, is the center of the universe.”
“Heresy!” His mother smiled. “Don’t let the priest hear you say that.”
“Next Sunday night, the father wants to show us the stars from the steeple. He even has an astrolabe! He’ll use it to show us the constellations the seafaring folk use to find their way on their journeys. Cassiopeia, the Great Bear, Pisces, Scorpius . . .” Johann hesitated.
“What is it?” asked his mother.
“You’ve often said that I was born under a lucky star. That’s why I know the date of my birth. But what star was it?”
“Well, which one do you think, silly?” His mother winked at him, and he caught yet another glimpse of the young girl from long ago. “Jupiter, of course, the lucky planet! God has great plans for anyone born under Jupiter. He who is born under the lucky star is possessed by a deep longing for freedom and knowledge. He is never content but forever trying to get to the bottom of things. He is a prospector in the mine of knowledge, always searching for the truth. And he is someone who can lead people.”
“How do you know all that?”
She paused. “A . . . a wise man once told me. A very wise and widely traveled man. He was a sage despite his young age. He told me fate would smile especially upon you. That’s why I named you Faustus. It was his idea. Born on the day of the prophet, he said.”
Johann frowned. His mother had never spoken to him like this before. He vaguely remembered someone else talking about a prophet—the magician he’d met on that memorable day at the fair years ago.
“Who was that man?” he demanded.
His mother hesitated. “He went away long ago. He . . . he came from the west . . .” Another coughing fit gripped her. It got so bad that Johann feared she’d suffocate. When she handed him the dirty cloth with a weak gesture, he saw that it was saturated with blood. Johann sprang to his feet.
“You need medicine,” he said. “I’ll go to the barber-surgeon right away.”
His mother closed her eyes and breathed heavily. “Forget the barber. I’ve told you many times he’s a quack. No better than all those charlatans at the fairs. All I need is rest. Rest and the stories you tell me.”
The Knittlingen barber-surgeon was a drunkard who firmly believed he could heal any disease with bloodletting and purging. He thought any new findings in the art of healing were nonsense, just like the ancient knowledge of the monks and Arabic scholars. But there was no doctor in Knittlingen, and the physician in nearby Bretten was much too expensive.
“Then . . . then I’ll go to the Maulbronn monastery,” Johann said. “Father Antonius will know a remedy. He’s helped us before.”
But his mother didn’t reply; she seemed to have fallen asleep. Her breathing was shallow but calm. Johann squeezed her hand.
“I’m going to see Father Antonius at Maulbronn,” he whispered. “I’ll be back in a few hours. Promise.”
He stroked her cheek one last time. Then, quietly, he left her chamber.
His mother gazed after him for a long while. Her eyes rested on the worm-eaten, knotty pinewood door her son had closed behind him. As a child, Elisabeth Gerlach had always dreamed of a prince, a man who would carry her to faraway lands on his white steed. But all she’d gotten was a drunk Knittlingen farmer. The other girls had said Jörg Gerlach was a good catch, a bear of a man and rich to boot. But his mind was narrow and his soul didn’t want to soar; to him happiness was a steaming field, a good harvest, a folk dance on the fiddle, and a mug full of brown ale or wine.
Elisabeth had known soon after their wedding that she’d never be happy with Jörg Gerlach. But who cared? No one ever said joy and happiness played a role in marriage. People married to have children and to share the workload of the house and the fields. So every time Jörg had climbed atop Elisabeth and heaved and groaned, she’d closed her eyes and dreamed of distant lands and her prince on his white horse.
She gave birth to four live sons and became ill and weak. Two were like their thick father and one, the youngest, was a lovable cripple who’d always be dependent on others.
Only Johann was different.
She had sensed it when he lay in her arms as a newborn. Those alert eyes that seemed to take in everything, absorbing the world like a sponge. She had always known that fate had great plans for him.
And the man from the west had said it, too, and smiled strangely. The beautiful young man with raven-black hair as soft as silk.
Her prince.
Elisabeth closed her eyes and dreamed the man would return and take her away on his white horse, far away to a land with no disease and no pain.
Born on the day of the prophet . . .
“My Faustus,” she whispered. She coughed again and spat blood into the rushes on the floor. Then she drifted off to sleep, a small, frail body, withered by the little bit of life she had been granted.
Outside the house, Johann ran into his little brother, Martin. The younger boy seemed to have been waiting for him and broke into a happy smile when Johann came out the door.
“H . . . h . . . here you are!” he called out. “Margarethe told me I’d find you at home.” Johann just kept walking, and Martin struggled to keep up with his older brother. He jogged alongside Johann in his crudely carved clogs. Martin was small and scrawny, with a crooked back, and he stuttered—especially when he was excited. Sometimes, when Johann wasn’t around, the other children called him a dimwit or a dwarf.
“Wh . . . wh . . . what’s the matter?” asked Martin. “Wh . . . wh . . . where are you going?” He gave him a conspiratorial wink. “Are you going to make m . . . m . . . magic again? I won’t tell!”
Johann sighed. Seven-year-old Martin stuck to him like a burr. Karl and Lothar were too old to play with their pitiful little brother, and they were ashamed of him. Martin often followed along when Johann wanted to practice his tricks alone in the woods. The younger boy would jump up and down like an eager puppy, would climb trees by the wayside, would pester Johann with questions, and wouldn’t be persuaded to turn back. Nonetheless, Johann loved his little brother very much. Martin was so much more like him than like Karl and Lothar. Despite the stammer and the hunchback, Martin was smart and thirsty for knowledge, and just like Johann, he was closer to their mother than to their father, who didn’t have much attention for the small latecomer.
