The Grave Robber's Apprentice

by Allan Stratton

  He looked to the sea. There was enough light to follow the roll of the waves and the murder of crows circling above. He decided to poke his head over the cliff top and look for intruders prowling the barrens.

  Knobbe placed the wooden chest at the back of the nook and gave it a pat. “Never fear, my darling, I shall return.” He hobbled onto the path and climbed up till he was level with the weeds at the summit. He peered between them. Peering back was a dirty twig of a thing, hair dancing with lice.

  “What do you want, Weevil?”

  The Weevil pointed over his shoulder to the grave robber’s cave. Arnulf, the Necromancer, and a dozen soldiers were inspecting the entrance.

  “I’m not here. You haven’t seen me,” Knobbe whispered.

  The Weevil grinned, leaped to his feet, and waved both arms. “Over here.”

  “Shut up,” Knobbe hissed.

  “Over here,” the Weevil hollered again. “I’s found him. I’s found him.”

  Knobbe spun around to escape down the cliff. Eight Weevils blocked his way, each with a reed spear. In his youth, Knobbe could’ve swung an arm and sent the pack flying. Now such a lurch would tumble him to his death.

  “We see’d you at the crypt,” the biggest Weevil snarled. “We followed you in the dark.”

  “Out of my way.”

  “Or what, old man?” The Weevil jabbed him with his spear.

  Knobbe took a step back. “Please. Let me pass.”

  “Not so brave now, is you, old man? Not so fierce without your apprentice.” The Weevil jabbed him again.

  Knobbe fell to the path. The gang laughed. He clawed his way backward. “What have I ever done to you?”

  “It’s not what you’s done. It’s what you’ll fetch us,” snapped a Weevil with broken teeth. “Our master’ll bless us. He’ll feed us treats.”

  The Weevils swarmed, poking and prodding the grave robber to the summit. There they pinned him, while the Necromancer, Arnulf, and the soldiers gathered round.

  “Well done, my pets,” the Necromancer purred. He withdrew a dirty wad of toffee from his shroud and popped the goo into their mouths.

  “You are Knobbe the Bent, grave robber of County Schwanenberg?” Arnulf demanded.

  “I never robbed a grave in my life,” Knobbe protested. “You want that boy of mine—he robbed every grave he could find.”

  “Come now,” the Necromancer said, “we’ve long been neighbors. I know your hobby.”

  “I’m but a victim of lies,” Knobbe cried. “Search my cave. You’ll find no shovel nor bounty box.”

  Arnulf pressed his foot on Knobbe’s throat. “Where is the Little Countess?”

  “Dead in her crypt,” Knobbe gurgled. “Ask the town. She died and was buried, poor thing.”

  “Excellency,” the Necromancer intervened, “perhaps I can tickle his memory.”

  Arnulf stepped back. The Necromancer let forth a series of short, sharp caws. The circling crows landed around Knobbe’s head. The Necromancer knelt beside him. “Listen well, old friend: My birdies prefer dead meat, but who can resist a fresh pair of eyeballs?”

  “Please, no,” Knobbe begged.

  “Then tell us the truth: Where is the Little Countess?”

  “I don’t know. Truly.”

  A crow nipped his forehead.

  Knobbe screamed. “The boy broke into her crypt. She was alive and ran for it. I told him to whack her, but he did me instead.”

  “Where are they?”

  “Run off together, I expect.”

  The Necromancer faced Arnulf and swept his arm to the south. “That way lies the sea and drowning. To the east, bogs and quicksand. To the west, the road we took here. Therefore, our prey must be hidden in the village or fleeing north.”

  “How shall we catch them?”

  “While you take your ease at Castle Schwanenberg, have your soldiers deposit my Weevils in town and along the road,” the Necromancer said. “They’ll hide under washtubs, and in coal bins, sludge pits, and stairwells. By dusk, they’ll know every spot our little friends have stopped for refuge. Then I’ll scoop them up and gut them for my spell pot.”

  Arnulf wiggled his iron digits. “Save me their pelts. I’ll have hers for a pillowcase and his for a footstool.”

  Two Weevils yelped up the cliff path with Knobbe’s bounty box. “Look what we’s found!”

  Arnulf went bone-white. He grabbed the chest in horror and stared at the inlaid teak. “Impossible.” He dropped to the ground and threw open the lid. There before him was a carved crest of an eagle’s head with lightning bolts, unicorns, and the sun. Arnulf trembled. “Her country’s crest! It’s hers indeed.” He grabbed hold of Knobbe. “Where did this come from?”

  “The sea,” Knobbe quaked. “It swept in from the sea.”

  “When?”

  “Twelve, thirteen years ago.”

  “What was in it?” Arnulf demanded.

  “A baby. A little baby.”

  “Describe it.”

  “How?” Knobbe babbled. “It were a baby. It cried. It stank.”

  Arnulf shook him hard. “What marks upon its body?”

  “None,” Knobbe squealed, “save a spot upon its shoulder.”

  “What spot? Which shoulder?”

  “The right,” Knobbe blurted. “A birthmark shaped like an eagle.”

  Arnulf dropped the grave robber. He rose to his feet and staggered in circles. “They told me the child was dead,” he raved. “They told me they killed him with his father.” He whirled back to Knobbe. “What became of the boy?”

  “Why, he’s the lad I raised,” Knobbe said. “The wretch who freed the Little Countess from the crypt.”

  “Aaa!” Arnulf shrieked to the heavens. “A thousand ducats for the skin of the grave robber’s apprentice! And two thousand ducats for his head!”

  Chapter 20

  The Hunt

  Hans and Angela entered the abandoned cemetery.

  “Keep low,” Hans said. “It’s almost dawn.” He led her to an embankment far from the road. “People hereabouts used to put concrete on top of their coffins to ward off grave robbers, so Papa dug across from behind slopes like this. He pulled off the end of the box, and took what he wanted. Then he covered his tracks by plugging the entrance with dirt and sod.”

  “How will you know where to look?”

  “It’s not the sort of thing you forget.” Hans stopped. He pressed his foot against a clump of dried weeds covering a small hole. “This is the spot. It seems some animal’s been here before us.” He scooped away the remains of the plug and peered up the tunnel. Two ribs and a kneecap littered the passage. “I need to do some housecleaning. Close your eyes.”

  Hans took a deep breath, imagined spring meadows, and entered the hole. In a few minutes, he crawled out. “After you, milady.”

  Angela knelt by the entranceway. “It stinks!”

  “True enough,” Hans said. “But after a day in a tomb and a night on the road, you don’t smell so good yourself.”

  The day passed slowly.

  In the village, gossip flowed as freely as the river by the mill; no one took heed of the grubby boys who loitered in the square and outside the shops. But on the road north, farmers paused in their fields and barns, as did their wives at wash pumps and chicken coops. There was a feeling of eyes and ears behind the sheaves, the sheds, the tubs, and the raspberry bushes: a feeling of something that watched what they did, and heard what they said.

  Before the sun began to set, their animals were in their pens, their laundry was off the lines, and they were safe indoors with the shutters barred. Tonight would be a night of prayer; something evil was in the air.

  At Castle von Hoffen-Toffen, the night watchmen took their positions as darkness filled the surrounding valleys, stretched across the count’s fields, and swept up the drive to the castle gate.

  There was a furtive scurry from behind a bank of rosebushes. One of the sentries raised his torch. The other grippe
d his musket. “Who’s there?”

  A tall, thin stranger stepped out of the shadows. His empty eye sockets were packed with gold teeth.

  “I would speak with the count,” the stranger said, holding up a parchment with the royal seal. “I’m told you’ve had visitors.”

  Up the road, Hans and Angela scrambled out of their coffin tunnel. They’d spent a sleepless day. Whenever Angela’s eyes had drifted shut, she’d imagined skeletons stroking her hair. Hans, too, had spent the day alert, gripping his wooden shovel.

  Hans put weeds over the entrance to their hiding place. “We mustn’t leave clues we’ve been here. And we need to avoid the village ahead. Too many eyes in taverns.” He motioned to the fields behind them. “If we stick to where the farmhands have walked, our tracks will be lost in theirs.”

  “That’s clever,” Angela said.

  “I know about escapes,” Hans nodded proudly. “Three final dodges: We’ll walk backward to the fields, so our footprints will look like they’re coming into the cemetery. I’ll step in your tracks so we’ll look like we’re only one person. And we’ll keep our hems high so they don’t bend the grass.”

  By the time the pair had skirted the village and returned to the main road, twilight had given way to night. A wolf howled in the distance. Another answered its call.

  “The great forest must be near,” Hans said. “We can take cover in its trees.”

  “And expose ourselves to those beasts?”

  “Better to beasts with four legs than with two,” Hans replied. “Besides, wolves stay to themselves, except in stories.”

  “It’s more than the wolves. I don’t want to get lost.”

  “We can’t if we keep to the tree line by the road,” Hans said. “Trust me.”

  The Necromancer also heard the wolves as he and his Weevils left Castle von Hoffen-Toffen. He pictured them, too—he who’d been born without eyes—for he saw with his ears, his nose, his tongue, and his mind. What visions they’d brought him tonight.

  The count had been brave, but the Necromancer had seen the terror beneath the calm: heard the rustle of the man’s gown as his knees shook, and tasted the fear in the air from his short, quick breaths. Nor did he need eyes to see when the Weevils set the count’s clothes alight. The smell of burning velvet had painted a picture; so did the splash when the count leaped down the well to douse the flames. It was so dramatic, the Necromancer had burst into applause.

  There’d been other sensations as well: first, the sound of the servants’ tongues as they’d flapped about the castle’s visitors, and now the caws of his crows, as he entered the boneyard. His skin was prickling; the prey was near. For where but in a cemetery—his second home—would a grave robber’s apprentice hide? And where in a cemetery but in a coffin tunnel?

  The Necromancer prowled the back of the graveyard while his Weevils searched for tracks and his crows pecked for toads and other dainties. Soon, he’d found the slope and the entrance, the cover of weeds surrendering to his staff. He inhaled the tunnel’s odor, caught the scent of the Little Countess. He flicked his tongue. They hadn’t gone far. He could taste them in the air.

  The Weevils ran up. “Master, they’s vanished. No footprints leaves the cemetery. The only ones what enter comes from a single pair of boots arriving from the fields.”

  The Necromancer knew the tricks by heart. He lolled his head. “I see our prey walking backward in each other’s steps,” he droned. “I see them racing through the farm fields to the road north of the village.”

  The Weevils gasped.

  The Necromancer chuckled. While he awed the mortal world with his second sight, his secret was plain. Imagination and common sense: What else did one need to see both past and future?

  “Our friends will be nearing the great forest,” the Necromancer said. “They’ll seek cover in its trees. Look to the muddy ditches. You’ll see footprints where the pair has crossed over. Follow the trail of broken twigs and upturned leaves. Move quickly, my pets. Before dawn, they shall be ours.”

  Chapter 21

  The Great Forest

  As Hans and Angela neared the great forest, Hans sang a tavern song about its most famous legend:

  “The Wolf King has a monster horde

  That fears nae mortals nae the Lord.

  It eats fair damsels, slays their knights;

  Such horrors be its true delights.”

  Like everyone else, Angela knew tales of the Wolf King. She’d even done a play about him and his monsters, hanging six ghastly creations from a rod and dragging them toward the Boy, whom she rescued with her Sword of Justice. Angela had been proud of the backdrops she’d painted of the great forest, but they didn’t come close to matching the real thing. From the top of the turret on Castle Hill, she’d seen specks of green stretching along the horizon. What she saw now was a world of trees that towered on either side of the road as far as forever. No wonder there were tavern songs.

  “The Wolf King’s hunger is worst at night,

  His fangs dismember all in sight—”

  “Oh, be quiet,” Angela said. “It’s easy enough to imagine this place a home to trolls and witches.”

  “So you believe in fairy tales?” Hans grinned.

  “Don’t you? Can you imagine a witch worse than the Necromancer? And speaking of trolls, I’ve met your father. We need to be careful, Hans. This is a perfect place for evil to hide.”

  “Are you the same girl who ventured into Potter’s Field alone?”

  “Yes, and I learned my lesson.”

  “Oh?” Hans laughed. “You left alone for the far mountains right after I rescued you from the crypt.”

  “I had no choice,” Angela exclaimed. “And, by the way, you didn’t rescue me. You tried to rob me. I got out of the tomb by myself.”

  “What?” Hans exclaimed. “You’re the most ungrateful person I’ve met!”

  “Me? You’re the one who should be grateful. If I hadn’t let you come along as my servant, you’d be in your cave taking orders from a grave robber.”

  “Better that than taking orders from a spoiled brat who thinks she’s better than everyone.”

  Angela wanted to say something smart, but what? He was right. A breeze whistled down the road between the banks of trees. She dug her hands into her coat and scrunched her shoulders till the stiff military collar covered her ears.

  Hans held up his arm. “Sh.” He cocked his ear. Angela heard something too. The breeze fell. Hans exhaled. “It’s only the rustling of the leaves. Time to head for the trees before it’s something real.” He stepped into the ditch and walked backward. “Come on. What are you waiting for?”

  “Nothing. It’s just . . .” Angela’s voice trailed off.

  “You really are afraid, aren’t you?” Hans laughed.

  “No, I’m not,” Angela lied. She stepped boldly backward into the ditch, slipped on the mud, and fell on her behind. Hans reached out to help her. “Leave me alone,” she sputtered, and scrambled to her feet. “I don’t need your help. I don’t need anyone’s help.” She ran to the nearest tree and pressed her face into her arm.

  Hans waited till her shoulders stopped heaving. “It’s all right,” he said gently. “Everyone gets scared.”

  “Not me,” Angela said. “I’m a countess. It’s not allowed.”

  “Well, I’m a boy. It’s not allowed for me either.”

  Angela smiled despite herself. “Maybe we have something in common after all.” She paused. “Hans, when I ran from the castle, courage was easy: I didn’t have time to think. But now that I do, I am scared. Scared we won’t get away. Scared what Arnulf will do if he gets us.”

  “It’s brave of a countess to tell that to her servant,” Hans said.

  “You’re more than my servant,” she said shyly. “You know that, don’t you?”

  “I was hoping.” He shuffled awkwardly. “I’m sorry I called you a spoiled brat.”

  “Why? It’s the truth. If I’m not allowed t
o be scared, I mustn’t be scared of the truth, either.” Angela swallowed hard. “I’ve always had things given to me. I’ve never had to be nice. From now on, I promise to try and be better.”

  “I promise, too,” Hans said. “I don’t have shining armor, but I’ll really do my best to be your knight.”

  “With a little acting, you could fit the part,” Angela said. “It’s how I imagined you in my plays. In some of them, anyway.”

  Hans didn’t know whether to laugh or blush. So he did both. “Yes. Well.” He adopted a courtly pose. “Shall we proceed, milady?”

  Angela grinned. “Indeed, Sir Knight. Let’s sally forth!”

  Sallying forth was easier said than done. Within ten minutes, Hans had gotten tangled in a vine and Angela had tripped on a rotten stump. “If the Necromancer doesn’t get us, the forest will,” Angela muttered. “We’re making enough noise to wake the dead. Meanwhile our enemies are on the move with torches.”

  “Then we’ll see them coming.” Hans stopped suddenly and pointed through the trees at something large on the road ahead. “Stay here.” Angela didn’t need convincing.

  Hans crept along the side of the ditch as quiet as a moth on an overcoat. I’m a knight, I’m a knight, I’m a knight, he told himself.

  The something was a horse and cart. A canvas cloth was draped over the wagon’s contents. The owner was nowhere to be seen.

  The owner must be sleeping in back with his belongings, Hans thought. If he lived around here, he’d have brought the cart home. So he must be a traveler; someone with food and drink. Hans paused. What if he works for the archduke?

  A twig snapped behind him. Hans imagined the Weevil gang hanging from the branches. He looked over his shoulder. There was nothing but trees and dark.

  Hans slipped across the ditch and crouched at the side of the road. The horse snorted and went back to sleep. Hans tiptoed to the back of the wagon and peeked under the covering. There were baskets of fruit and vegetables, and boxes and bundles of sundries.

  He was about to fill the pockets of his robe when he felt a knife at his throat. The man with the knife leaned in. “Say your prayers.”