The masters apprentice, p.23
The Master's Apprentice, page 23
part #1 of Faust Series
“He’s going to drink himself to his grave,” said Emilio.
“Let’s hope that won’t happen before Venice,” Peter replied grumpily. “He’s the key to our winter quarters. Now let’s get to bed—tomorrow is going to be a long day. And don’t forget to pray to Saint Peter to chase away the clouds.”
Peter didn’t play his fiddle that night, and the others also went to bed early. In the middle of the night, Johann got up and sneaked over to the chamber where Salome and Emilio slept. He paused for a while outside their door, listening to the calm breathing of the sleeping people inside. Then he called himself a fool and went back to bed.
But he still couldn’t sleep.
The next morning, the sky was overcast and there was a light drizzle as cold as snow. Johann thought about how beautiful the last few days had been—and now it seemed winter wanted to wield its power one more time. Peter scrutinized the mountains, which were enveloped in a gray haze. Clouds stuck to their peaks like poisonous mushrooms. The leader of their troupe spoke with other travelers, and they decided to wait until the weather improved.
They stayed at Füssen for three more days. The mood and the wine worsened, but the weather remained unchanged. It seemed like the snow and hail were lurking in the mountains—waiting for the travelers to start their journey. On the morning of the fourth day, Peter woke the others with loud knocking and ordered them to pack up.
“No one said it was going to be easy,” he growled. “Now let’s go before we all freeze to death in this place.” Archibaldus was about to respond, but Peter silenced him with one stern look.
They joined a group of merchants from Augsburg who also had decided to attempt the crossing. They carried linen, wool, and furs, and they were accompanied by several pilgrims, whose brown woolen coats, wide-brimmed hats, and staffs were a familiar sight on the roads. The pilgrims’ number had grown steadily since Augsburg. They were headed for Rome or Venice and the Holy Land, sang and prayed continuously, and weren’t intimidated by wind and rain. Johann envied the pilgrims’ trust in God, their perpetual smiles and camaraderie. He wondered if he couldn’t be a pilgrim, too. But search as he might, he couldn’t find the voice of God inside him. He felt perhaps Tonio’s black potion had tainted and sealed him from the inside.
The jugglers didn’t have to pay for the protection the train of merchants afforded them—but they promised to brighten the cold mountain evenings with music and dance. Peter was glad they didn’t have to travel alone, because the French under King Charles VIII had been fighting the Italian cities since the year before. Florence, Rome, and Naples had already fallen, and no one could tell how far north the fighting was going to reach. People were telling tales of horrific slaughters, even in the Vinschgau and Tyrol areas.
“At the imperial diet in Worms, the upper classes demanded an everlasting public peace from the emperor so that the knights can’t keep thieving and murdering as they please,” said Archibaldus, sitting in the wagon with Peter. “They even want to found an imperial court of judgment and a council that controls the king.” He gave a laugh. “And all the while the noble lords can’t even keep the lousy French out of Italy. This empire is a joke!”
“The situation is much too serious for a joke,” grumbled Peter. “Now shut your trap, old man. I’m getting sick of your grousing.”
Slowly, like a fat centipede, the caravan of about thirty people and a dozen wagons moved toward the mountain ranges, which formed a natural gateway near Füssen. The narrow, rocky gorge through which the Lech River rushed right behind the city made Johann shudder. It felt like they were crossing an invisible boundary. Behind him lay the lovely fields and rolling hills of the Allgäu region, and in front of him was the inhospitable world of mountains, with its raging rivers, avalanches, and landslides—and, somewhere to the south, far beyond the horizon, the legendary Venice.
The river was their steady companion for the next two days, growing ever narrower and wilder. Wide valleys stretched between the mountains, which seemed to get taller with every mile. The path climbed gently uphill, but so far they’d had no trouble with the wagons and pack animals.
The area they now traveled through belonged to the county of Tyrol; it was heavily wooded and sparsely populated. Johann thought about his winter with Tonio, spent not far from here. He even thought he recognized some peaks. A shiver ran down his spine.
Is he still looking for me? he wondered.
Sometimes he thought he could still feel Tonio’s hand squeezing his as they’d sealed their pact. Peter had also spoken to Salome of an unholy pact. Johann wondered with whom the fiddle player might have made a deal. Another powerful man who’d promised him the world and brought him nothing but misfortune? Johann wiped his hand on his trousers as if it was dirty, but the memory of Tonio stuck to him like a greasy coating. He remembered Tonio’s words to him as his apprentice.
The pact is valid until I dismiss you.
In conversation with the merchants and pilgrims, Johann learned that not many travelers chose the upper route these days. Most took the shorter lower route, which led to Venice via Innsbruck and a pass called Brenner. Apparently, it took a horseman only ten days from Augsburg on that road, although by wagon it took much longer, of course. The Romans had established both routes a long time ago, and they were still the main passageways across the Alps. But the lower route currently suffered from severe flooding. Looking up at the cloudy sky, however, Johann feared the upper route wasn’t much safer.
The path led them higher and higher. They eventually left the Lech behind near a castle called Ehrenberg, which sat enthroned above them like the nest of an eagle. The road became muddy and rough. Potholes as large and deep as ponds slowed their progress. Archibaldus was forced to climb down from the wagon and walk. Sometimes they had to push, but they still fared better than the merchants, who regularly became stuck in the mud with their heavily laden wagons. On some days, they made only a few miles. Mustafa pulled and pushed like an ox, his muscles moving under his skin like fat snakes. Despite the cold, he still wore only his leather vest, and he still hadn’t uttered a word.
“Not long now and we’ll need additional draft animals,” said Emilio, panting as they heaved the wagon across the next pothole. The rain poured down relentlessly, turning the road into a field of mud. “That’ll be expensive. Let’s pray we won’t get caught in a landslide.”
Archibaldus nodded underneath the brim of his hat. “Yes, yes, like I said,” he replied, grumbling. “And this is only the first pass. But no one wants to listen to an experienced old traveler.”
At one point the road had been washed away for over a quarter of a mile. The detour cost them two extra days. Everything around them was gray and shrouded in fog; only rarely did they catch glimpses of jagged peaks stretching to the horizon.
Salome didn’t visit Johann during any of the following nights, either. The weather worsened. Thick snowflakes began to fall from the sky, and a few times it hailed. They still hadn’t reached the highest point of their journey. Green lakes sparkled between the rocks; chamois and ibex leaped along narrow tracks impassable to humans. Eagles circled high above them like messengers from another world.
“They look as if they’re just waiting for one of us to freeze so they can peck out the liver,” said Emilio, shivering in his thin juggler’s garb. Now Johann was grateful for his brightly colored jerkin with the ridiculous hood—at least it kept him warm.
They couldn’t afford the expensive mountain taverns, tempting as they were with their warm rooms and hot mulled wine. Just like the pilgrims, they slept in flea-infested, drafty hostels where monks served watery gruel. When there was no hostel, they slept underneath the wagon, tortured by wind, hail, and Archibaldus’s snoring and farting, which drove Johann to the brink of insanity.
But worse still was the fact that Salome ignored him completely.
Had she only been toying with him? Sometimes, while Johann trudged through the snow and fog, she walked ahead of him like an apparition from another world. He could make out her curves even under her warm coat; her swaying walk, the way she tossed back her hair, and how she shook the snow off her shoulders caused him to think of nothing but her naked body. He became quiet and withdrawn. He felt Peter’s hard looks on him from time to time—the troupe’s leader had noticed his changed mood. Johann held back in the evenings when the other jugglers entertained the travelers, contributing to the shows only when Peter asked him explicitly. He practiced with the knife in silence, throwing it at tree trunks again and again. Sometimes he imagined Tonio’s grinning face in the bark, and other times it was Emilio, his mouth open in a lustful moan.
By now they were following the Inn River, wider than the Lech. They’d been crossing the Alps for nearly two weeks, and the mountains weren’t coming to an end—on the contrary, they seemed to rise up higher than ever. The river roared and twisted in its bed between cliffs as high as cathedral towers. At the narrowest point, when Johann thought the path must have ended, a fortification jutted out from the rock face on the opposite bank like a wart on the nose of a giant. A wooden bridge led across the raging river, and in its middle stood a fortified tower with a bretèche, the water foaming up at the tower’s base. A wall with a walkway ran along the rock face, although Johann struggled to make out details of the river’s far bank through the rain and the sleet.
“Fort Finstermünz,” said Archibaldus glumly. “From here, the path winds its way up to the Reschen Pass. Last year a bunch of wagons fell into the river not far from here.” He gave a dry laugh. “Of course, our dear Peter Nachtigall didn’t tell you that part of the story—nor about the massacres at the hands of Swiss mercenaries nearby.”
In the bridge tower they were received by a group of surly Tyrolean soldiers dressed in tattered clothes and rusty armor, whose job it was to collect the toll. Some wagon hands were also stationed there, ready to offer services like additional draft animals for the pass. They spoke in a language that sounded strangely old, like an ancient precursor to Latin.
“See how low the gate is?” Archibaldus asked Johann, gesturing toward the dark passage in the tower. “Those bastards built it that way on purpose. If a wagon can’t fit through it, smaller wheels must be fitted. The guards charge three kreuzers for the service—per wheel, that is. And on the other side, when the wheels get changed back, they charge as much again. Damn Tyrolean thieves! They’ll never change.”
The water below them gurgled, and the bridge quivered and swayed slightly as the wagons drove across it one by one. A few of them indeed had to change their wheels, and oxen and strong draft horses were hitched in front of the merchants’ own animals on the other bank to help pull their wagons up the pass. The jugglers waited for their turn to cross. Emilio made to wave over one of the wagon hands, but Peter stopped him.
“We don’t need those cutthroats,” he said with a growl.
“But our wagon—” began Emilio.
“Isn’t nearly as heavy as those of the merchants. We’ll get up the pass just fine.” Peter grinned. “And we’ve got Mustafa, remember?”
“If you say so.” Emilio didn’t seem convinced. He looked over to Archibaldus, who was watching the clouds.
“It looks rather dark in the west,” said the old man. “If we don’t take extra draft animals, we should at least wait until tomorrow for the weather to settle.”
“And pay a fortune for accommodation at the fort?” Peter waved dismissively. “That’s precisely what those thieves want us to do. We’re leaving now. Everything going well, we’ll be up the pass in just a few hours.”
“Everything going well,” muttered Archibaldus. But he had given up trying to oppose Peter.
It wouldn’t be the last time his warnings were ignored.
Disaster struck about halfway up the pass.
It had started to rain heavily again, and swollen brown streams flooded across the path in regular intervals, rushing down into the gorge and making progress difficult. Peter and Salome were up in front with the horse, while Emilio, Johann, and Mustafa pushed from behind; Archibaldus followed with his staff. By the time Peter’s cry of warning rang out, it was too late.
There was a low rumble, and then an avalanche of snow and debris came sliding down the mountain and into the caravan. The noise was tremendous, as if the entire mountain were exploding. All around them people screamed, horses neighed, and wood splintered as the avalanche poured across the narrow track. Johann watched in horror as the wagon in front of them, heavily laden with bales and crates, was pushed toward the edge by an enormous force. The driver tried to jump off his seat, but then the wagon plunged into the depths. The man’s piercing scream was cut off abruptly when he hit the raging brown floodwaters of the Inn.
A smaller arm of the landslide struck the troupe’s wagon at the rear. Emilio, Johann, and Mustafa managed to jump aside at the last moment. The wagon’s back axle hovered dangerously above the abyss, the wheels spinning in the air.
“Over here!” shouted Peter. “Help me!”
The horse, trapped in its harness, whinnied in fear and reared up while Peter desperately hung on to the reins. But as much as he pulled on the leather straps, he couldn’t manage to soothe the panicked horse. Inch by inch the wagon slid over the edge while Johann just stood there, unable to move. He watched as Mustafa rushed to the horse, grabbed the reins, and yanked them down hard. The horse regained its footing, and Mustafa and Peter dragged it away from the cliff step by step.
At that moment, a second landslide hit the travelers.
Like the first one, it consisted of mud, rocks, and brown lumps of snow and ice, and it came rushing down the mountainside like a huge tongue, swallowing everything in its way with a hungry and awe-inspiring force. Another wagon not far from the jugglers plunged into the gorge, but this time, the avalanche came to a halt just before the troupe’s wagon.
Johann was standing with his back against the rock wall when he heard a high-pitched scream. Through the veil of rain he spotted Salome clinging desperately to a splintered tree trunk. She had sought shelter a little farther up the path and had been sucked off her feet by the second avalanche. Her legs were already over the edge, and the trunk steadily pushed her down, moved by a mound of mud and debris. Archibaldus and Emilio were closest to her. The young juggler was about to rush to Salome’s aid when another shower of small stones came down the mountainside. Emilio stopped dead in his tracks, his face twisted in a grimace of fear. Then he turned around and sought shelter underneath a ledge.
Johann woke from his daze. He stormed across the mud and debris, fell to his knees, and reached down to Salome, who was struggling to cling to the tree trunk.
“Take my hand!” he shouted, his voice almost completely drowned out by the rain. “Quickly! Take it!”
For a brief moment she looked at him almost defiantly, her lips pinched, her eyes fearless—then she grasped his hand.
Johann immediately felt her weight. He pulled as hard as he could while his feet slipped on the muddy ground. He could feel himself sliding closer to the abyss. Desperately, he dug his toes into the ground and kept pulling, his hands clasped around Salome’s as if they were one. With an angry cry he reared up, fell backward, and caught her body in his arms. Her clothes were soaked with water and mud, and she was panting heavily. He could smell her sweat. For a while they remained there, lying on the ground without moving, while all around them people were screaming, praying, and crying for help.
Eventually, Salome sat up and then tried to stand on her shaking legs.
“Thank you,” she said softly. “Not everyone would have done that for me.”
Visibly shaken, but with her head held high, she walked over to the others. They were standing around the wagon, exhausted but happy to be alive. Archibaldus looked deathly pale leaning against one of the wagon wheels, but none of the jugglers seemed injured.
When Johann stood up from the dirt, he noticed Emilio staring at him with a strange expression.
He couldn’t tell whether it was hatred or relief.
It took more than three hours before the path was cleared sufficiently for the caravan to continue its journey. The Augsburg merchants had lost two wagons and three wagon hands. Two pilgrims had been killed by falling debris. Most of the travelers had suffered scrapes and bruises, and one young pilgrim bore a nasty head wound. Johann thought to himself that not even their boundless love of God had saved the pious men. Today the Almighty had been angry, not merciful.
Three more wagons were too damaged to continue on and needed to be pulled back to Fort Finstermünz for repairs. Many of the costly bales of cloth were torn and filthy—a harsh blow for the merchants.
“I knew this journey wouldn’t end well,” muttered Archibaldus again and again as they made their way up the steep mountain pass in the fading daylight. “I knew it.”
He avoided looking Peter in the eye. The troupe’s leader had checked and fastened their gear in silence, making sure his new fiddle was unharmed. No one dared to address him—not even Salome, who was fine apart from a few minor scratches.
Finally, long after sunset, they reached the village of Nauders, which lay close to the top of the pass. Utterly exhausted, they sought out the local hostel, where a handful of gout-ridden monks took care of the injured. The rain had finally stopped, and the survivors lay down to rest. Some of the pilgrims sang a hymn, which sounded hollow and desolate among these frigid walls. The dead would be buried in the morning.
Shivering with cold and exhaustion, Johann was lying wrapped in a damp woolen blanket. He’d never felt more tired in his life, and yet he struggled to fall asleep. He closed his eyes and was listening to the prayers of the pilgrims when he felt a hand on his cheek.
It was Salome.
“Come,” she whispered.
He got up and quietly followed her past the sleeping travelers, through the gate, out into the fields, until the hostel lay far behind them. A dark castle watched over the plateau, and snow stretched before them like a sea of black pitch.
