The Grave Robber's Apprentice Page 14

  The cage ground to a halt. Through a crack in the sideboards, Hans saw a gloomy cavern lit by a few torches and a fire pit. The flames cast light and shadow over rock walls hung with frightening instruments. Moans drifted in from an archway on the right, while the sound of water dripping into a vast pool echoed out of the dark at the far end of the cavern.

  Hans pictured the map of the dungeon. It showed a torture chamber connected to the cathedral by a prison and catacombs running under Market Square, and to an outside bay by a vast underground lagoon. Surely the moans were coming from a prisoner in the city of bones; the dripping water, from the lagoon—the waterway to freedom.

  Three hellish figures entered through the archway. The first was a brawny man with a whip. He wore an executioner’s hood and a chain mail tunic that hung over black leather trousers and boots. Two monstrous twins lurched behind him. Pale as chalk, with tiny heads and bloodshot eyes, they giggled and yelped through snaggles of rotten teeth.

  The man’s voice reverberated through the charnel house. “Welcome,” he said to the Pandolinis. “I am the archduke’s executioner and dungeon master. These are my assistants, twins from the rankest cells of the asylum.”

  “G’day, g’day,” the twins cackled.

  “Ciao e buonasera,” Pandolini said nervously.

  “Leave us,” the dungeon master said to the troops. They saluted and marched up the ramp out of the cavern. He turned to his assistants and cracked his whip. “Take our visitors to the rack.”

  The twins grabbed the Pandolinis and dragged them to the stretching table. “Stuffing, stuffing,” they giggled as they poked the showman’s belly. “Pretty dolly,” they gurgled at his wife. The dungeon master attached leather bindings to the Pandolinis’ wrists and ankles, and fastened these to the rack’s pulleys, which ran to the rafters above.

  Hans had seen enough. He grabbed the bear pole in the crawl space and pushed against the door in the wagon’s floor. To his horror, it wouldn’t budge.

  “So, my friends,” the dungeon master said, “tell me your children’s plans. Speak, or I’ll crank the great wheel and tear you apart.” The twins clapped their hands with glee.

  The Pandolinis glanced at the bear cage and saw at once why Hans hadn’t sprung to their rescue. Balthazar was sitting on the door to the crawl space.

  Pandolini thought fast. “They didn’t tell us their plans,” he said. “For that, you must ask—BRUNO! BALTHAZAR! AND BIANCA!”

  “Who are Bruno, Balthazar, and Bianca?” the dungeon master thundered.

  Signora Pandolini took her cue. “Who are BRUNO? BALTHAZAR? AND BIANCA?”

  “BRUNO, BALTHAZAR, and BIANCA,” the Pando­linis bellowed together, “are the most terrifying creatures in all the archduchy.”

  “More terrifying than me?” the dungeon master scoffed.

  “See for yourself,” Pandolini grinned. “They’re right behind you.”

  And indeed they were. Roused by their masters’ cries, the bears had flipped the prop padlock from the cage and lumbered out to do battle. Balthazar’s giant claws came down on the dungeon master’s shoulder.

  The dungeon master whirled around and stared straight into Balthazar’s teeth. He screamed. Balthazar swiped him with the back of his paw. The dungeon master flew across the room and dropped senseless to the ground. Bruno and Bianca growled at his assistants. They fainted.

  Hans roared up, wielding the bear pole. “Sorry I’m late.”

  “Never mind,” Pandolini said, “just get us out of these straps.”

  Hans quickly freed the Pandolinis and got the dungeon master’s keys. “Let’s lock these villains out of sight.”

  “No need to lift a finger,” Pandolini said. He barked a command in Italian.

  The bears each grabbed a varlet by a leg and dragged them through the archway into the prison corridor. Skeletons hung from manacles on the walls. Some had been dismantled by rats and littered the hallway with their bones.

  Hans thought of birdsongs and open skies. “An executioner’s disguise may be useful,” he said. He stripped off the dungeon master’s uniform and shackled the rogue to the wall in his underwear. He trussed the twins on either side. “Stay here,” he told the Pandolinis. “I’m off to find my papa, Knobbe.”

  Hans moved swiftly down the lamp-lit corridor. By now, he imagined Angela and the Pandolini children would be escaping from the turret. Once Arnulf found out they were gone, he’d be raging to the dungeon to take his revenge on their parents.

  “Papa?” he called down dark side passageways. Was he too late? Was Knobbe already dead?

  Ahead, the corridor opened onto the catacombs, a labyrinth of floor-to-ceiling shelves stacked with the bones of martyrs and soldiers from centuries past.

  “Please, Papa,” Hans cried. “Let me know you’re alive.”

  There was a moan from a passageway to his left. Through the gloom, he saw Knobbe’s lumpen body hanging from the wall. “Papa?” Hans ran to him.

  The grave robber groaned. “Are you a spirit come to haunt me?”

  “No, Papa, no.”

  Knobbe’s eyes filled with tears. “There once was a boy who called me Papa. A boy who loved me. A boy I abused. That boy is lost to me forever.”

  “No, Papa, he’s not. I’m here.”

  “Pray, do not mock me,” Knobbe wept.

  “Never, upon my soul.” Hans unshackled him from the wall. Knobbe fell to his knees. Hans cradled the old man in his arms. “It’s me, Papa, truly. Hans. Your boy. I’ve come to set you free.”

  Knobbe turned away in shame. “Forgive me, lad. I wronged you.”

  “No wrongs, no wrongs.” He stroked his father’s hair.

  “The things they asked me of your past,” Knobbe whispered. “I know now who you are: A prince. My master. Oh, lad, I shall be your servant, forever and a day, if you’ll have me.”

  Hans gazed tenderly into the grave robber’s eyes. “I shall,” he said, “but not as my servant. Rather, as my papa.”

  Chapter 40

  The Great Escape

  Hans helped Knobbe to his feet. “We’ll talk more, much more,” he said. “But now we must flee.”

  “No need to tell me twice,” Knobbe replied. “But there’s someone else we must take with us.”

  “Who?”

  On the other side of the corridor, a snore erupted as loud as a hog at market.

  “Your friend’s nurse,” Knobbe quaked. “Wake her at your peril. There’s no taming of the shrew!”

  Hans followed the snore to its source. “Wake, Nurse, wake!”

  Nurse roused with a start. “Vermin! Varlets!” She kicked and flailed as much as her chains would allow.

  “I’m neither,” Hans said. “I’m friend to Angela, who’s alive and well beyond these walls.”

  Nurse blinked. “You’re the Boy! Where have you come from, and how?”

  “From the far mountains by avalanche and circus,” he said, unlocking her shackles. “And you?”

  “The soldiers caught me at my sister’s and brought me here to be the dungeon master’s wife. ‘I’d rather marry a bucket of slop,’ said I, for which he chained me to the wall.”

  “You know my father?” Hans asked.

  “By smell only.”

  “Well, here he is in the flesh. Nurse, Knobbe; Knobbe, Nurse.”

  “Howdy-do,” Nurse said, and hightailed it down the corridor. She braked at the sight of the Pandolinis’ bears.

  “Ciao e buonasera,” Pandolini beamed.

  “These are friends, Nurse,” Hans explained, as he and Knobbe caught up.

  “If you say so.” Nurse sniffed. “How do we get out of here?”

  “At the end of the dungeon there’s a lagoon that leads beyond the palace.”

  Knobbe blanched. “I can’t swim.”

  “Neither can I,” said Nurse.

  “Nor any of us,” Pandolini said with bravado. “But our bears can. They’ll ferry us to safety.”

  Knobbe shook
his head in terror. “Leave me here in the catacombs, the land of skulls and bones.”

  “Leave me as well,” Nurse said.

  “No,” Hans said. “You’re coming.”

  Nurse raised her fists. “Make me, boy. There’s fight in me left.”

  Knobbe patted Hans on the back. “Never fear,” he said. “I know my way around a graveyard. As for the dame, I’ll keep her safe at my side.”

  Nurse squared her shoulders. “Yet keep your hands to yourself, and your eyes too, or there’ll be a reckoning.”

  “Never fear,” Knobbe cowered. He squeezed Hans’ shoulders. “Now, truly, you must flee, and quickly too.”

  Hans hesitated, but knew the grave robber was right: Knobbe and Nurse would never dare the water or the bears, and further delay meant death. Hans handed him the executioner’s hood, chain mail, pants, and boots. “Disguise yourself in these. The catacombs connect the dungeon to the cathedral. You can escape from there at night. Nurse can play your prisoner.”

  Pandolini twirled his hand anxiously. “Arrivederci, arrivederci.”

  “Sì. Arrivederci,” Signora Pandolini echoed. She prodded the bears to the lagoon.

  Hans embraced the grave robber one last time. “Fare thee well.”

  “Likewise,” Knobbe said. “If ever I can do a favor, ’twould be an honor.”

  Hans’ eyes lit up with inspiration. “As a matter of fact, you can. The Necromancer has announced three prophecies from the spirit world. You can help me break their power over the people.”

  “How?”

  A tumult was descending from above. Hans whispered frantically in the old man’s ear.

  “I’ll do it,” the grave robber said. He and Nurse scuttled into the catacombs as Hans ran to the lagoon.

  The bears had already lumbered into the water, Pandolini riding Balthazar, Signora Pandolini aboard Bianca. Hans hopped onto Bruno. “Nuotate!” Pandolini commanded, and the bears began to swim. No sooner had they turned a bend in the lagoon than Arnulf and his men stormed into the dungeon. Hans heard the archduke raging in the distance, then all was still, save for the water lapping the grotto’s walls and the whoosh of bats above their heads.

  The bears ferried them through the darkness as through a dreamless sleep. At last, flickers of light rippled over the water. A walkway rose on either side of the channel. The open bay was near.

  Relief turned to horror. An iron grate blocked the exit. Chain pulleys ran up to wheels embedded in the high rock ceiling and looped back down onto hooks on the walkway walls. No wonder guards were only stationed at the front and rear palace gates. Who could raise such a barrier?

  Pandolini smiled at the bears. “Ah, you, the strongest of my babes.”

  The bears snorted.

  Hans and Bruno sloshed their way onto the walkway to the left, and Bianca and Pandolini to that on the right, while Balthazar kept the good signora afloat. The chains were swiftly unhooked from the wall and the bears harnessed.

  “Tirate, miei cari!” Pandolini encouraged them.

  Bruno and Bianca struggled down the walkways. The mighty grate began to rise. Soon it grazed the waterline.

  “Best to hook the chains here to mask our escape,” Hans told Pandolini. “Our friends can swim us underneath.”

  And so they did. Hidden by the mists that rose from the lagoon and the bushes that lined the bay, Hans, the bears, and the Pandolinis crawled onto the muddy bank some distance from the palace. The night air was alive with the peeps and trills of crickets and bullfrogs.

  “Now to our bambini,” Signora Pandolini said. “I hope your friend has kept them safe.”

  “Rest easy,” Hans said. “Angela will have them hidden in the forest where we planned. Nothing can go wrong.”

  The Pandolinis turned around three times and spat over their shoulders. Whenever anyone said nothing could go wrong, it always did.

  ACT V

  Johannes, Prince of Waldland

  Chapter 41

  The Lunatic Asylum

  Angela led the Pandolini children through the fog to the rendezvous, a secluded clearing on the fringes of the great forest, a half mile east of the lunatic asylum. Without pausing for breath, she put Maria and Giuseppe in charge of their younger siblings, and set off to rescue her parents.

  It was an easy job trekking though the huddle of houses between the forest and the asylum. Each shack swam into view, lit by the glow of the moon and the flames in the earthen pits before each door. But Angela grew frightened when these gave way to the wasteland around Asylum Hill. All she could see was the dreaded tower silhouetted against the mist; all she could hear, the ravings of its madmen; all she could smell, the stench of its dung heaps.

  Angela got into character. She dirtied her face, adjusted the sash of her swashbuckler’s costume, and set her broad-brimmed hat at a rakish angle. Next, she scratched herself and imagined manly thoughts. With a prayer to the god of happy endings, she swaggered up to the asylum’s forbidding oak door, determined to play the brashest of daring young men.

  The clapper was a gargoyle’s head. Angela took it by the open mouth and banged three times. The booms of the bronze jaws silenced the cries within.

  The window grate scraped open. “Who goes there?”

  “A hired man come in service of Arnulf, Archduke of Waldland,” Angela said with grim authority. “I’d speak with the keeper.”

  “Would you indeed.” A pause. “Show your papers.”

  “I am about such deeds as need no papers,” Angela declared. “Open this gate and bring me the keeper. Step lively too, if you wish to wake upon the morrow.”

  There was a heavy grunting and rattling of keys; the door creaked open. A man peered out. Hard and grizzled, he wore a dirty smock, fouled and glistening. Hair sprouted from his collar and cuffs, spreading up his neck and over the backs of his hands. Behind him, three grubby attendants held restraints and harnesses.

  “I am the keeper,” the man said. “What is the archduke’s command?”

  “He has sent me to take the Count and Countess von Schwanenberg to the dung heaps, there to slit their throats.”

  The keeper stared at her. “A moment.” He closed the door. Angela heard loud muttering as he conferred with his attendants. The keeper reopened the door. “Enter,” he said. “I’ll lead you to the prisoners. You can save yourself trouble by killing them in their cell. After, my attendants will drag the bodies to the basement for dissection and disposal.”

  “I am grateful for your hospitality, but the archduke’s instructions are clear. I am the one to do the deed, and on the dung heaps.”

  “As you wish,” the keeper shrugged and let her in. Angela tried not to faint in the putrid air.

  The keeper took a torch from the wall and led her up the winding tower stairs. Endless cells emerged from the dark as from a nightmare. Gnarly hands flew between the bars at Angela’s face. She held a hand to her hat, lest a lunatic grab its brim and tear off her disguise.

  At last, they reached the top of the tower.

  “The Count and Countess,” the keeper sneered. He opened the peephole in an iron door. “The archduke’s kept them chained in their finery. Oh, how they struggled when they arrived. They’re not so high and mighty now.”

  Angela peeked through the spy hole. Moonlight shone through slits on the outer wall. She saw her father in shadow, his hands manacled to a beam above his head. Her mother was slumped forward on a stool, her foot cuffed in a leg iron. Angela recognized the back of her wig, and the funeral dress she’d worn on the day of the burial. She struggled not to weep.

  The keeper unlocked the door and handed her the key to her parents’ locks. Angela flew to her mother, dropped to her knees, and felt for the ankle cuff. “Mother,” she whispered, “it’s me. Angela. I’ve come to bring you home.”

  “My darling girl.” Her mother caressed her shoulders.

  Angela froze. The voice and touch were strange. She looked up slowly—into the hollow eye sockets of th
e Necromancer.

  “Did you miss me?” the Necromancer purred.

  Angela screamed. “Father!” The man hanging from the chains swung around—a lunatic with a lantern jaw and bugged eyes. “Dolly, my dolly!” he leered.

  The Necromancer clutched Angela with his bony claws. “I knew you’d come, my sweet. Ah, the love of a child for its parents.” The keeper’s assistants swarmed Angela. “Life may be more fantastic than stories,” the Necromancer continued. “Still, didn’t you wonder how you entered the madhouse so easily?”

  The keeper put a hood over Angela’s head. The Necromancer cinched it tight. “At midday tomorrow, you and your parents will be taken to Market Square to burn as witches,” he gloated. “Your fate will lure the grave robber’s apprentice, and the two of you will roast together.”

  Chapter 42

  At the Clearing

  Hans led Signor and Signora Pandolini through the shantytown by the harbor. They navigated its alleys with ease: Snitches were unknown here, and even the most brutish louts ran in terror from the bears. Hans spirited them from the slums into the forest, and soon they approached the rendezvous.

  The moon hung heavy. At times it shone a path through the canopy; at others, its light disappeared in fog. A thick bank of mist rolled in. The bears stopped in their tracks; the hair on their necks rose; their heads hunched into their shoulders. The Pandolinis crouched beside them. “What is it?” Pandolini whispered into Balthazar’s ear.

  Balthazar replied with a low growl. Hans felt the presence, too: eyes that circled them in the dark.

  “Who’s there?” he called out. Without warning, there was a bounding in the night. Something pounced out of the fog, knocked Hans to the ground, and vanished. Hans scrambled to his knees. The attacker struck again. It hit his knees from the left and toppled him from the right. Other creatures leaped about him. He felt a hot breath at his throat. He flailed wildly.

  “Run,” Hans called to the Pandolinis. “Take the bears and save your children.”