The Grave Robber's Apprentice

by Allan Stratton

  “Why, if it isn’t a serving wench,” snickered one with a pig nose.

  What will they do to me? Angela panicked. Her eyes fell on a pool of moonlight that shone through the entrance windows and spilled across the steps below her.

  Angela had an inspiration. She rolled her eyes up into her head, let out a tickle of otherworldly laughter, and slowly descended the staircase. As she floated into the light, the soldiers’ eyes bugged wide. Her hair was wild and matted; her face dripped sweat; her frock was sullied by mud. In the pale moon, the stains on her clothes resembled mold, and her sweat a glistening ooze of decay.

  “That’s no serving wench!” a soldier gulped. “It’s the dead girl! The Little Countess!”

  “We saw you buried!” screamed a second.

  “Her ghost’s returned!” hollered a third.

  The soldiers scrambled over each other to escape. “Haunted!” they shrieked as they raced to their horses and galloped into the night. “The castle’s haunted!”

  Angela flew to her parents’ rooms. They’d been plundered. She dashed to her theater. It, too, was destroyed: the stage smashed, the puppets stolen, the pillow people dismembered. She heard a sound from under the stage curtain crumpled in the corner: a great wheezing snore like a hog at market.

  “Nurse!”

  Nurse lurched awake. At the sight of her Little Countess, she babbled and crossed herself. It took five minutes for Angela to convince her she wasn’t dead, and another five to explain what had happened. “But where are my parents?”

  Nurse wrung her hands. “On the road to the capital. They’ve been arrested.”

  “Mother! Father!” Angela cried out, her mind alive with the wails she’d heard rising from the palace grates. “The Necromancer betrayed us. He was the only one who knew about the potion. And what of the servants?”

  “All fled, save me. I hid under this curtain.”

  “Poor Nurse!”

  “Poor Nurse, nothing,” said she. “Had those ruffians assailed my virtue, I’d have had at them with my knitting needles!” The vigor of her voice surprised her. She crouched in fright. “They’ve all gone?”

  “Yes,” Angela nodded. “But when they tell the archduke they saw a ghost, he’ll know I escaped and return to kill me.”

  “May they never reach him,” Nurse quivered.

  “No, God speed them. News I survived will give my parents hope.”

  “Let’s keep that hope alive,” Nurse said. “We’ll hide you in the village.”

  Angela shook her head. “The village is the first place Arnulf will look. I must flee to the country to plan the rescue of my parents.”

  “The rescue of your parents? It’s impossible.”

  “Nothing is impossible.” Angela ran to the pile of pillow-people stuffing and rummaged about for General Confusion’s coat, boots, breeches, and helmet.

  “This isn’t one of your plays,” Nurse pleaded. “What are you thinking? A rescue? And launched from the country? What do you know of the country?”

  Angela pretended not to hear: If Nurse was flustered by the country, she’d have a heart attack knowing she planned to race all the way to Peter the Hermit’s. Angela swam into the general’s outfit, rolled up the sleeves and breeches, and stuffed the toes of the boots with Mistress Tosspot’s handkerchiefs. The helmet was large enough to conceal her hair, and the coat sufficiently roomy to hide her sack of burial jewels.

  Angela saw Nurse squeezing herself into Lord Forgetful’s velvet pantaloons. “What are you doing?”

  “Donning my own disguise,” Nurse grunted. “You hardly think I’d let my Little Countess wander about by herself, do you? What, while her mind’s beset by wild ideas?”

  Angela gasped: Nurse could no more outrun danger than she could fly. She waited till the good woman’s head was lost in Lord Forgetful’s undershirt, then ran from the turret. “Farewell, Nurse,” she called over her shoulder. “I promise you’ll see me and my parents alive and home again.”

  Chapter 16

  The Road to Adventure

  Angela bolted down Castle Hill. Ahead the open road beckoned to the great forest and the snow-capped mountains beyond. In no time she’d be plotting the rescue of her parents with Peter the Hermit. Angela had no idea how she and a raggedy hermit could penetrate the palace, but stranger things had happened, at least in books.

  Lost in the future, Angela was unprepared for the present. A hooded monk leaped from the ditch wielding a shovel. Angela fell backward, her helmet toppling from her head. The monk stood over her.

  “You’re the old man with Hans, aren’t you?” she said, scrambling to retrieve the sack from beneath her general’s coat. “Here are the burial jewels you wanted. Just spare me.”

  “I don’t want your jewels. I knew the archduke’s men would steal them. I wanted to keep them safe.”

  Angela recognized the voice. “Hans?”

  “Yes.” Hans threw back the hood. “You were right to fear me. I was told to kill you. I refused.”

  Angela glanced fearfully at the bushes. “Where’s the old man?”

  His voice wavered: “I knocked him out.” He sucked in a breath.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “He was my papa. After tonight, he won’t want to see me. Not ever.” He wiped his eyes. “At least with you I won’t be alone. Nor you with me. Wherever we go, we can help each other.”

  Angela shifted uncomfortably. “I’m sorry, Hans, I don’t want your help.”

  “What?”

  “I have to flee to a secret place. There’ll be all sorts of perils: Highwaymen. Wolf packs. And if I survive, even worse. I’ll be on a quest to free my parents from the devil himself: Archduke Arnulf and his necromancer! I need someone I can count on.”

  “That’s me.”

  Angela sighed. “I like you, Hans, but at Potter’s Field and my family’s crypt you ran away.”

  “You’re saying I’m a coward?”

  “Well,” Angela said carefully. “You’re not exactly brave. Anyway, sorry, I have to go.” She grabbed her helmet and took off.

  “Wait.” Hans chased after her. “Take me with you, and I swear on my life, I’ll never run away again.”

  “With a promise like that, you’ll be dead by daybreak.”

  “All right, take me with you and I’ll be your faithful knight.”

  “I wouldn’t count on that either.”

  “What do you want then?” Hans implored.

  “I’m not sure,” Angela said, “but I’ll know when I hear it.”

  Hans ran ahead and threw himself at her feet. “Angela, take me with you, and I’ll do your bidding forever and ever.”

  “That’s more like it,” Angela said brightly. “I could use a servant.”

  “A servant?” Hans leaped up. “You want me to be your servant?”

  “Why, yes,” Angela beamed. “I’ve never been without one.”

  “I’m nobody’s servant.”

  “Well, you are now. Unless you’re a liar. After all, you did say you’d do my bidding forever and ever.”

  “You tricked me!”

  “I most certainly did not. So which are you? A liar or a servant? Make up your mind. I have to go.”

  “Oh!” Hans jumped in the air in frustration. “Fine then! I’m your servant!”

  “I’m so glad!” Angela exclaimed. With that, she adjusted her general’s coat and marched up the road, the grave robber’s apprentice at her heels.

  ACT II

  The Wolf King

  Chapter 17

  Unpleasant News

  It was three in the morning. Arnulf was camped at a royal stables two hours from County Schwanenberg. His troops had enjoyed a feast of wild boar and wine, while he and the Necromancer tormented the count and countess. The soldiers were now passed out in piles, but Arnulf and his new lord high chancellor continued to amuse themselves outside the carriage-prison.

  “Mama, Papa, where are you?” Arnulf squeaked with a h
igh-pitched wail. “Why have you left me to die?”

  The count and countess sobbed into each other’s arms.

  The Necromancer laughed. His crows joined in with a chorus of caws from their perch on the carriage roof.

  Arnulf leered through the window bars. “Tell me, Lord High Chancellor, do you suppose the girl is still living? Is she sucking her final breaths?”

  The Necromancer cocked an ear stump as if transporting himself inside the tomb. “Why, yes, Excellency, she lives,” he rasped. “But I fear the poor thing’s fingers are bloodied from clawing at the coffin lid.”

  “Kill us now,” the countess wept. “Spare us this torture.”

  “And spoil the entertainment?” Arnulf tutted.

  A cry broke the night air: “Haunted! The castle’s haunted!” Arnulf’s soldiers roused as their six terrified comrades galloped into the encampment and collapsed on the ground. “The Little Countess,” gasped one. “She’s come back from the grave.”

  “What?”

  “We saw her in the castle. Gliding down the staircase. Glistening in the moonlight.”

  “It’s true,” said another. “All of us—we saw her ghost!”

  “That was no ghost,” Arnulf shouted. “That was the Little Countess in the flesh.”

  “Your Highness, we were at her funeral. We saw her dead and buried.”

  “She wasn’t dead, you idiot. She was buried alive!”

  Cries of rapture erupted from Angela’s parents. “Our child outfoxed you,” the count taunted.

  Arnulf strode to the carriage and gripped the bars so hard they bent. “Your joy shall be as short-lived as your daughter’s life,” he hissed, and swung back to his troops. “Because of you, I’ve been tricked by a child and mocked by my own captives! Find her or die.”

  “Wh-where would you have us search?” stammered the bravest.

  The Necromancer swept his staff through the air: “Excellency, there’s a local grave robber who lives with his apprentice on the barrens. It’s likely they broke into the crypt, allowing the girl’s escape.”

  “Come with us,” Arnulf ordered his bodyguards. “We’ll find this grave robber and make him talk. As for the rest of you, tie the traitors in sacks, toss them on a wagon, and bounce them to the booby hatch.”

  Chapter 18

  The Road North

  Hans and Angela trekked north by moonlight. The journey was slow. Under the stars, even familiar sights turned into dreamscapes.

  “I wish we had a lantern,” Angela said.

  “Not me,” Hans replied. “The archduke’s soldiers will be questioning farmers for miles around. We don’t want anyone to report us.”

  Angela stopped to remove a stone from her left boot. “I’m tired.”

  “How? You slept all day.”

  “I was drugged in a coffin.”

  “That’s easier than worming along an old tunnel into a crypt. Raising that stone slab off the floor nearly broke my shoulder.”

  “Grave robbing is your job,” Angela sniffed. “You should be used to it. Besides, you don’t have to walk in boots the size of wine barrels.”

  “No,” Hans said. “I don’t get any boots at all. I get bare feet, is what I get.”

  They trudged in silence.

  “So . . . ,” Hans said at last, “what’s your plan?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, where are we going, for one thing?”

  “The hermitage in the far mountains,” Angela said brightly.

  Hans was stunned. “That’s days away and another day climbing. What do you plan for us to eat till we get there? Where do you plan for us to sleep?”

  Angela hadn’t thought of those things. In her plays, journeys were accomplished in a scene change. In life, they were managed by servants. Still, she didn’t want Hans to think she was an idiot. “I trust in Providence.”

  “The kind of Providence that got you buried alive?”

  “Unburied, too, don’t forget.”

  “I’d call that luck.”

  “That’s because you don’t know any better. Read whatever story you like: Something always turns up around the corner.”

  Angela was immediately proven right. Over the hill and around the next bend, torches illuminated a castle she recognized at once: Castle von Hoffen-Toffen, ancestral home of the wretched Georgina. As it had been the nearest titled household, her family had made seasonal visits. What a chore and a snore and a bore. Yet tonight Angela thrilled at the thought of its feather beds. She darted up the drive to the gates.

  “What are you doing?” Hans cried in alarm.

  “Count von Hoffen-Toffen is a friend of my parents,” Angela called over her shoulder. “He’s sure to help us. At the least to give us horses, maps, and a packet of dried mutton.”

  Hans raced to catch up. “Are you out of your mind? Friends of your family are sure to be questioned by the archduke.”

  “Count von Hoffen-Toffen would never betray me.”

  Hans grabbed her by the arm. “Says who?”

  Angela shook him off. “I’ve no idea how you common folk conduct yourselves, but we nobles understand chivalry.”

  A flurry of hooves clattered down the castle drive. A pair of armed sentries confronted them, one with a torch and the other with a musket. “Who goes there?”

  Angela lowered her chin; the rim of her helmet masked her face in shadow. “We have business with your master,” she said in the voice of an old general. “You would do well to take us to him or he shall have you in irons.”

  The sentries eyed Hans and Angela warily.

  “Who has business in the middle of the night?” said the sentry with the musket.

  Angela fumbled in her bag of burial jewels and held up the gold locket with the miniatures of her parents. “Show him this. One look at the portraits and he’ll know us as friends.”

  The sentry with the torch grabbed her by the arm. “How does a general get such delicate hands?”

  The other sentry cocked his musket. “Look into the light, the pair of you.”

  Slowly, Angela raised her head, but the Little Countess familiar to the von Hoffen-Toffen court was unrecognizable in the grubby lass with matted hair.

  “What kind of girl is loose at this hour?” demanded the sentry with the torch. “And what’s a boy doing dressed as a monk?”

  Hans and Angela said nothing.

  The sentries marched them to the castle, where they sat on a stone bench under guard. The chief steward was duly summoned. He examined the jewelry bag and took it to Count von Hoffen-Toffen.

  In short order, the count strode through the main archway in a burgundy dressing gown, lambskin slippers, and a nightcap with a tassel that waggled as freely as his chin. One glance at the creatures who’d woken him from his dream of frolicking milkmaids, and he was in high dudgeon. “I’ve never laid eyes on these ragamuffins.”

  Angela leaped to her feet. “Count von Hoffen-Toffen, you know me well. I’m the girl with the puppet theater in a turret of her family’s castle. And I know one of your secrets: Georgina found mice nesting in your Easter wig.”

  The count rubbed his eyes. “Good heavens.” He turned to Hans and covered his nose with his sleeve. “Who might you be?”

  “A servant and a friend.”

  The count waved at his people. “Leave us.” Once alone, he returned Angela’s bag of jewels. “News arrived that you were dead, Countess, and your parents arrested for treason.”

  “Only half true, and that half barely,” Angela said. “My parents were seized for trying to stop my marriage to the archduke. I’m running for my life to a friend who can help me save them.”

  “If your life is in peril, so are the lives of all who help you. You must leave my castle at once.”

  “What if Georgina had run to my father?” Angela implored him. “Should he have barred the door?”

  The count looked away. “Georgina . . .”

  “Count von Hoffen-Toffen,” Hans s
aid boldly. The count turned to him. Hans wanted to run, but held his ground. He took a deep breath and attempted to speak as nobly as Angela. “Though you could not save your daughter, you can save another. The countess and I have need of food, drink, and two of your horses. I pray you, mercy.”

  Von Hoffen-Toffen blinked at the boy’s bearing. “My horses would be recognized,” he said nervously, “but the kitchen can give you food. I dare not do more.”

  Supplied with a parcel of bread and cheese, Hans and Angela returned to the road. Angela looked at Hans in wonder. “Where did you learn to talk like an aristocrat?”

  “Listening to you, I guess,” Hans said sheepishly. “I sounded so stupid.”

  “Not at all, for a peasant. Court talk is a whole other language. You simply need to practice. It’s lots of fun for playacting and for making good impressions. Grown-ups like it.”

  “None of the grown-ups I’ve ever known.”

  “Yes, well,” Angela said. She decided to leave it at that.

  The night was turning a deep blue.

  “It’ll be dawn soon,” Hans said. “We better hide.”

  “Where?”

  “There’s an abandoned cemetery nearby where Papa used to dig,” Hans said. “I’ll poke around for an empty coffin tunnel.”

  Chapter 19

  The Bounty Box

  When Knobbe came to at Angela’s crypt, he was terrified: The punishment for stealing the property of a corpse was death; surely the punishment for stealing the property of a countess must be four deaths, maybe ten. Knobbe raced home and retrieved his bounty box, then hid in a rocky nook near the top of the cliff path by his cave.

  Now it was nearly dawn. The grave robber ached in places he never knew existed. His body was pinched from the tiny hidey-hole, his joints throbbed from the damp cold of the rock, and his bowels were looser than the time he ate the dead bat from the village bell tower. Worst of all was the throbbing bump on the back of his head.

  Had his boy really whacked him with a shovel, stolen his gear, and left him in his underrags? It was too cruel. Knobbe cradled his bounty box. “It’s you and me,” he said tenderly. “You’s all I got left.”