The Master's Apprentice, page 34
part #1 of Faust Series
Johann nodded with determination. He’d found the right place. He walked to a crumbling old wall and took the quill, inkwell, and paper from his bag and wrote down the letter he’d composed in his mind on the way. Then he pinched tiny holes with a needle in certain places. He folded the document and sealed it with the wax print of a Venetian coin that showed some kind of old crest. The sisters wouldn’t be able to place the coat of arms, but that didn’t matter—it was just about making an impression. He patted down his clothes, brushed his fingers through his hair, picked up his sealed letter, and approached the convent gate.
He pulled the bell three times before the small hatch in the door finally opened. The small, wrinkled face of a very old nun appeared. Like all Benedictine nuns, she wore a black bonnet.
“God bless you,” she croaked in a bored tone. “What do you want?”
“I’m here to deliver a letter,” replied Johann and held up the folded paper for the nun to see.
“A letter, you say? Who for?”
Johann pretended he struggled to remember the name. “Um, I think it was for a certain Margarethe . . .”
“All sisters give up their worldly names in here, you fool,” snarled the nun. “Didn’t you know that? There is no Sister Margarethe here.”
Johann rubbed his nose. “Well, then, I don’t know . . .”
“Who sent the letter?”
“Her husband, Jakob Kohlschreiber.”
The old nun’s face lit up. “Oh! Why didn’t you say so right away? And I thought the old miser had forgotten all about his former wife. He’s behind with his payments.” She held out her hand. “Give it here! I’ll take it to Sister Agatha in person.”
“Sister Agatha?”
The nun sighed. “That’s what Kohlschreiber’s wife is called now. Saint Agatha defended her virginity despite being put in a whorehouse and having her breasts cut off by her enemies. And the girl who used to be called Margarethe also pledged her virginity to God, just like all of us here.”
I bet it wasn’t a difficult decision in your case, thought Johann.
He handed the letter to the old crone. She turned her back to him, but he could tell by the sound that she broke the seal and read the letter. He was glad he’d chosen to use the secret code he and Margarethe had used as children. The nun didn’t seem to find anything suspicious. She turned back to him after a while with a look of impatience. “What else do you want?”
“Well, Master Kohlschreiber reckoned you’d give me a kreuzer for my troubles,” said Johann.
“Bah, the old penny-pincher can give you a kreuzer himself. Tell him we’re waiting for the money he promised. He should count himself lucky we accepted his wife as a novice at all—considering what’s happened. And now go with God. Go!”
She slammed the hatch shut in his face, and Johann heard her hurried footsteps moving away. Now all he could do was hope the old woman would deliver his letter.
With quick steps he walked back to the rowboat.
In his excitement, he didn’t notice he was being followed.
“You did what?”
Valentin gaped at his friend. Johann hadn’t lasted through the evening—he was bursting with excitement and needed to share his joy with someone. And so he told Valentin that Margarethe was at the convent with the Benedictine nuns and that he was trying to get in touch with her.
“I wrote her a letter,” said Johann. “At first glance, it’s just a letter from a husband inquiring about his wife’s well-being. But there’s a hidden message, and if Margarethe still has some of her wits about her, she’ll remember our secret code. I put a few things in the text that only the two of us know about—she’ll realize the letter’s from me.”
Valentin shook his head. “You’re insane! If this gets out, you’ll be thrown out of the university. A student arranging a liaison with a nun!”
“It’s not a liaison,” retorted Johann. “And she’s not a nun yet—she’s a novice, so she hasn’t taken her vows. I just need to know how she’s doing.”
“You said that before. And once you know—then what?” Valentin pointed a finger at him. “Don’t fool yourself, Faustus! You won’t leave her alone. Do you want to free her from the nunnery by force? Her husband will do anything to keep her there—first and foremost to protect his own reputation.”
“Who knows?” Johann pressed his lips together. “Either way—two Sundays from now I’ll be standing below that window like I promised in the letter. Then we’ll see.”
Valentin laughed. “It’s madness. But I can tell you’ve made your decision. Love is blind. But perhaps I can offer some distraction.”
“What do you mean?”
Valentin grinned and pulled out some papers full of notes. “Take a look at this. I found it in a book at the library of the college of arts. The notes are by a certain Leonardo da Vinci. Apparently, he’s a court painter and scholar in Milan. Have you heard of him?”
“I . . . I might have.” Johann’s curiosity was immediately kindled. He leafed through the pages with trembling fingers. He saw drawings of a box with a tube coming out of one of its walls and rays of light shining out of the tube. A roaring lion was displayed on a wall—the wall of a room, it would appear. Other drawings showed a lit candle and something that seemed to be a mirror. “What in God’s name is that supposed to be?” asked Johann after a while.
“Well, it’s something that Leonardo da Vinci calls a ‘laterna magica,’ a magic lantern. It’s an apparatus that’s supposed to make it possible to transfer small images from the inside of the box onto a wall.”
“That does indeed sound like magic,” whispered Johann.
“And yet it isn’t. I read the notes. Da Vinci bases his work on the ideas of someone called Giovanni Fontana, a medicus and magician from Venice. Fontana’s thoughts make sense to me. If we could get our hands on the materials, we might be able to build the apparatus.”
“Images appearing on a wall like magic?” Johann gave a laugh. “That would be so much better than the same old lectures day in, day out. Just imagine if we made pictures appear on the wall of Saint Mary’s Chapel while old Spangel drones on. Wouldn’t that be a laugh?”
“So—you will help me?” asked Valentin.
Johann winked at him. “Matter of honor among fellow students.”
He didn’t tell Valentin that he’d already read numerous manuscripts by da Vinci—probably more than were good for him. He had never seen any of the great thinker’s notes about this device before, but he knew that there was much of Leonardo da Vinci he hadn’t read. Deep down inside, Johann could feel the old fever waking up: the urge to explore, to dig deeper than all the dusty scholars before him. The motto of the uncanny old Signore Barbarese came to his mind.
Aude sapere. Dare to know.
The man may have been a devil worshipper, but the motto held true for Johann, too. And what was so bad about those words? They ought to have been written above the gates of Heidelberg University. But in the few months he’d been here, Johann had realized that even at Heidelberg, only long-established truths were rehashed—nothing new was being discussed, and original thoughts and ideas were frowned upon.
For the first time in days, Johann felt like a human being again. There was the prospect of seeing Margarethe once more, and Valentin had invited him to build this magical apparatus with him. Maybe love and science could be united after all.
The laterna magica helped Johann pass the time until he could see Margarethe again. Every night following their sparse supper, he and Valentin would sit up together in their room and study da Vinci’s notes. They also borrowed a book by Giovanni Fontana from the library; it was entitled Bellicorum Instrumentorum Liber and was about war machines just like those Leonardo da Vinci had drawn up for the duke of Milan. One image showed a fire-spitting witch with wings—evidently a puppet that moved along tracks, designed to frighten off enemies; another showed in more detail the strange laterna da Vinci had described.
“We need a box that can hold a source of light,” said Valentin as he pointed at one of the sketches. “The light is intensified by the mirror and pours out through a hole. If we then place a painted glass plate in front of the hole, the picture appears enlarged on a wall.”
“Hmm. We can build the box ourselves,” said Johann. “But where do we get the mirror? Something like that is expensive.”
“Perhaps Rector Gallus could help us,” suggested Valentin. “The old fellow thinks highly of you, and he’s got friends up at the castle. They have mirrors there. And I’m sure he’ll know someone who can make one of those glass plates for us. It doesn’t need to be big. Can you ask him?”
Johann gave a shrug and grinned. “You’re right—he seems to like me. But does that mean he’ll give me a mirror?”
“Ask him, at least,” said Valentin.
Jodocus Gallus had become a kind of mentor to Johann. The rector was much more approachable now than during their first encounter, and several times already he had let Johann have books that other students weren’t permitted to borrow. And he asked the stern Magister Partschneider about Johann regularly.
“I can try,” said Johann. “But I’d have to tell him something about our doings.”
“Just tell him you want to study the sun without spoiling your eyesight,” suggested Valentin. “Old Gengen was talking about it in his lecture on astronomy, remember? He uses a camera obscura for his studies, and that’s similar to what we’re trying to build.”
Johann nodded. The camera obscura had been around since the time of Aristotle. If light fell through a tiny hole in a box, an image of the world in front of the box appeared on the inside, but upside down. The camera was accepted at universities as a teaching aid. Astronomers used it so they didn’t have to look directly at the sun.
“It might just work,” said Johann reluctantly. “That leaves only the painted glass plates. I think getting glass won’t be a problem—I’ve got some savings, and perhaps Gallus will lend me the rest. But who’s going to paint the images? If it’s an outsider, he’s bound to ask questions.”
“Um, I could do it,” replied Valentin.
“You?” Johann looked at him with surprise. Painting was now considered a trade in its own right, like carpentry, butchery, or masonry. There were entire workshops that produced paintings for churches or wealthy citizens, just like carpenters made tables. Johann had seen many such paintings in Barbarese’s house, and he knew how difficult it must be to learn this trade.
“You can paint?” he asked Valentin.
“Not particularly well, but it’ll do for our purposes. Look.” Valentin shyly pulled out a few tattered pieces of paper from under his bed. They were pages from old books with drawings in their margins. The images showed animals and men with bushy tails or donkey ears, a fat man with a pig’s nose, and even a rumpled raven wearing a gown. Johann laughed out loud.
“Why, those are our magisters and doctors! I recognize them all. There is our Partschneider, stern old Gengen, fat Spangel, and scrawny Rentz . . . Ha, and the one with the raven wings is Gallus in his stained gown!”
Valentin grinned. “Exactly right. So you did recognize him?”
“As if he were standing right before me.” Johann clapped his hands together. “Valentin, these are great. I had no idea you were so talented.”
Valentin shrugged. “Just a few silly sketches. I always hide them under the bed so Partschneider won’t find them—I doubt he’d be too pleased.”
“Hardly.” Johann grinned. “I’m afraid he wouldn’t appreciate your talents as they deserve. I do, however.” He gave Valentin a pat on the shoulder. “Maybe you should draw a few harmless pictures for our laterna magica to begin with.”
Every evening after lectures they worked on their project, studying plans and building the box in the shed next to their hostel. They told Magister Partschneider they were building an apparatus for their astronomy class that would allow them to watch the heavenly bodies more easily.
After two weeks elapsed, the eagerly anticipated Sunday arrived.
Johann had asked Margarethe in his letter that she show herself in one of the windows at the rear of the nunnery at noon. He hired the boat at the crack of dawn, rowed up the Neckar, and, like last time, moored near the small village by the mill. Then he roamed the nearby vineyards and woods, feeling nervous and impatient. It was the middle of September; on the mowed fields sat rows of dried hay, which the farmers hurled onto their oxcarts with pitchforks. The sky was still blue, but dark thunderclouds had started to pile up in the west. Johann guessed it would rain later that day.
When the sun stood high in the sky, Johann walked down the vineyards toward the monastery wall. The vines reached almost right up to the wall, so Johann was able to remain practically invisible in their shadows. When the bells rang the noon hour, he whistled on two fingers and waited. Nothing stirred.
Johann’s heart pounded like mad. Had he come too early? Perhaps the nun hadn’t even delivered the letter? Or worse: the sisters had found out about the secret code and questioned Margarethe?
Another thought was so horrible that he pushed it aside instantly: What if Margarethe had read the letter but decided not to show?
Johann whistled again, but still there was nothing. He picked up some small pebbles and threw them against the shutters.
The next few moments felt like an eternity. Then something squeaked, and the right-hand shutter of the outermost window of the second floor opened.
Johann froze. The face of a young woman appeared in the window. She held her hand to her forehead to shield her eyes against the sun, but he had no trouble recognizing her pale, freckled face. A few curly strands of flaxen hair peered out from under the black Benedictine bonnet. Her lips were full and sensual, but her cheeks were hollower than he remembered. Her eyes gleamed with a sadness, an emptiness that was new, and yet she was just as beautiful as on the day he’d left her two years ago.
Up there in the window stood Margarethe.
She looked around searchingly. She hadn’t seen him yet, and Johann relished the moment, like a hunter watching a flighty deer in a clearing early in the morning. After a few moments he softly called her name.
“Margarethe, I’m here!”
Only then did she spot him among the vines. Her mouth twisted into a happy smile, but her eyes remained empty.
“Johann!” she whispered. “My God, Johann . . . It . . . it wasn’t a dream, then. The letter . . .” Her voice sounded hoarse, rusty.
“I wrote the letter,” said Johann, trembling with joy. To see her again after all these years was almost more than he could bear. Memories and images flooded his mind.
“Margarethe,” he began. “I . . . I’ve been searching for you for so long. I . . .” He broke off. The sight of her was too much for him.
“Where have you been?” she asked. “So much time has passed.”
Johann realized that Margarethe was talking again. The spell seemed broken, but she was changed. She was a little too far away for him to make out details, but Johann thought he could see wrinkles around her eyes. Could it be true? She was only eighteen, the same as him. He felt like an eternity had gone by since their last encounter.
“Much has happened,” he said awkwardly. “I . . . I was forced to leave Knittlingen. My father no longer wanted me in the house, and Martin wasn’t found. They blamed me for everything. And you . . . you didn’t speak . . .”
“I know.” She paused for a long moment and sighed. “Sometimes I remember, but it’s just scraps, like wafts of mist. Schillingswald Forest, the boulder with the picture of the devil in the clearing, your naked shoulder in the cave. And then that man . . .”
“What man?” asked Johann.
“The man in the woods . . .” She looked around anxiously, as if someone might sneak up from behind. “Listen, Johann—what’s done is done. I’ve got a new life here. My husband—”
“I know what your so-called husband did,” said Johann gruffly.
“Johann, you don’t understand. I’m grateful. I feel safe here at the convent.”
“Safe from what?” asked Johann.
Margarethe said nothing. The silence tortured Johann. Some pigeons flew up from the roof. Eventually, after what felt like an eternity, Margarethe spoke so quietly that Johann struggled to understand.
“I have dreams, Johann, terrible dreams. In my dreams I see what happened that day in the woods. And I also see what’s yet to come. The beast will return! It will rise from the depths and devour the earth. The man told me.”
“What beast?”
“We can’t see each other again, Johann.” Margarethe was crying now. He saw the tears roll down her cheeks. Her words came out like hard lumps. “I’m so terribly afraid . . . Not just for me, but for you, too, and for all of mankind . . . A new age is dawning, the man said. And sometimes I think I’m the only one who knows. That he told only me.”
Johann clenched his fists. What was Margarethe talking about? Had she gone crazy after all? Could her drunken husband be right?
“Margarethe, I’m begging you!” he pleaded. “I traveled through so many countries just to see you again. Don’t send me away. I want to at least understand what you mean. And I want to tell you what I’ve been doing for the last couple of years.”
Margarethe hesitated, visibly grappling with herself. “On the feast day of Saint Michael the archangel,” she said eventually. “I’m scheduled to help with the grape harvest.” She gave a sad smile. “Like back in Knittlingen, remember? We used to work in the vineyards together. I’ll try to get away from the other sisters so we can meet again. But I beg you, Johann, you must—” She broke off and turned her head. “Someone’s coming. I have to go. Go with God!”
She closed the shutters and Johann was alone. Trembling all over, he shut his eyes and saw her face once more, like he’d just seen it in the window. Saw her face and heard the laughter that had saved him twice already.
He had found Margarethe.
And he’d see her again. He would touch her and inhale her scent. And all would be well. What she’d told him of her dreams was nothing but unhappy memories that came back in her sleep—nothing but nightmares like he also suffered from time to time.
