The Grave Robber's Apprentice

by Allan Stratton

  The Countess Angela Gabriela von Schwanenberg had had enough. She stormed from her perch above the puppet stage and marched through the side curtains to confront her audience, the Necromancer marionette swinging from her right hand.

  The usual suspects were in attendance, propped up on a row of mismatched castle chairs: Lord Forgetful, Lady Bottoms-Up, Mistress Tosspot, and General Confusion. Angela knew they were innocent. After all, they were nothing but pillows and cushions sewn together and draped in costume finery, with button eyes and horsehair wigs. The fifth audience member was another matter altogether.

  “Nurse!” Angela exclaimed. “Nurse!”

  Nurse blinked in midsnore. Seeing Angela, she clapped wildly. “Bravo, Little Countess! Bravo!”

  “Stop calling me ‘Little’ Countess. I’m twelve. In barely a month, thirteen!”

  Nurse pursed her lips, adjusted her spectacles, and took up her knitting, an endless gray shawl that had fallen from her ample lap onto her sewing basket. “Oh my!” she muttered, so Angela could hear. “A full grown-up countess still playing with her dollies.”

  Angela flushed. “They aren’t dollies, they’re marionettes. And if you don’t stop ruining this rehearsal, next week’s production will be a disaster. Please, Nurse. Mother and Father will be coming. I need them to like it. I want to make them proud.”

  “Then do a lute duet with the music master. That would be far more ladylike.”

  Angela bristled. “Puppet troupes are serious business. They perform at all the great courts of Europe.”

  Nurse glanced heavenward. “Aren’t we a little big for our petticoats? Here you are in a child’s nursery, talking about the great courts of Europe.”

  “My theater is not a nursery! Father imported it from Venice. The curtains are velvet. The stage is oak.”

  “Indeed,” Nurse mocked. “And the audience is stuffed with goose feathers.” She winked at the pillow-head slumped to her right. “Isn’t that right, Lord Forgetful? You’re not quite up for a ball at the palace, are you?”

  “Be as mean as you like,” Angela said. “Plays matter.”

  Nurse snorted and took a gander at Angela’s newest creation. The marionette’s body was wrapped in a dirty velvet shroud. The arms and legs sticking out from it were goose bones. The head was an owl’s skull, its eye sockets empty.

  “What fiendish thing is this?” Nurse whispered.

  “If you bothered to watch my rehearsals, you’d know,” Angela said, barely hiding her hurt and fury.

  Nurse clutched her chest. “I asked you a question. What have you made? What have you done?”

  “I’ve made the Necromancer, as if it isn’t obvious. See the bits of dried leaves I glued to the bones to look like his scaly skin?”

  “That doll of yours will summon the creature himself,” Nurse trembled. “He’ll sweep up from his lair in Potter’s Field, him and his crows. He’ll enter your dreams. He’ll ruin us.”

  “For heaven’s sake, Nurse,” Angela sighed, “if the Necromancer could really speak to the dead and make evil spells, Father would do something.”

  “Even your father dares not touch him,” Nurse said. “Oh, Angela, his power is real. Ask anyone in the village. Destroy that thing!”

  “No!”

  “Then I shall!” Nurse exclaimed, and grabbed the puppet in both hands. Angela darted about her, screaming to get it back, but Nurse was on a mission. She dashed the owl skull on the stone floor, broke the goose bones across her knee, and wrapped the shards in the velvet shroud.

  “You had no right to destroy my puppet,” Angela cried. “I am the Countess Angela Gabriela von Schwanenberg!” She tossed her golden curls in fury and strode to the turret window, chin up, chest out.

  “A countess doesn’t sulk,” Nurse said.

  “I’m not sulking,” Angela snapped. “This is an intermission.”

  “Is it now?” Nurse removed the crucifix from her neck and tied it tight around the unholy bundle. Then she returned to her chair, placed the broken puppet in the bottom of her sewing basket, and laid her knitting on top.

  Angela gazed out the turret window to the barrens on the horizon. All she cared about was her theater, but Nurse was right. It was a nursery. Despite her titles she was a child, a girl, a nothing. Her future? To marry some stranger and be stuck in his castle far from home. Her only pretending would be pretending to be happy.

  As if she wasn’t pretending to be happy now. I’m all alone, except for my puppets, she thought. Mother and Father haven’t time for me, and who can I play with? No one.

  It was true. An only child of noble birth, she could hardly mingle with the village urchins, and the offspring of other counts lived so far away they might as well be dreams. Except for Georgina von Hoffen-Toffen, who’d been a nightmare. She’d mocked Angela’s theater and called her silly. Then she’d married Archduke Arnulf and drowned in a bath of milk. So now who was silly?

  Angela sniffed and turned her gaze north to the sunny farms that led to the great forest and the far mountains beyond. She thought of the ghost marionette she’d made of Georgina, and of the others. The one of herself, of course, and of the Necromancer, and of the strange, mysterious Boy from the barrens. He starred in all her plays. Sometimes he was a rogue, other times a wretch or a hero who’d save her from the Wolf King, said to live in the great forest with his monster horde. Nurse had noticed Angela’s interest in the Boy. She called it unnatural. Then again, Nurse found everything unnatural except for her Bible and her knitting.

  Still, why did Angela think of the Boy? He was a peasant—a nobody—with hair as brown as dirt and a pale complexion ruddied by clay. He stood alone in ditches when her family’s carriage passed by, or at the edge of the village square on feast days. Angela imagined she’d need a perfumed handkerchief over her nose to get within ten feet of him. Yet when he glanced at her, she always blushed and looked away.

  Angela gasped. No sooner had the Boy crossed her mind than her eyes had drifted to the bulrushes at the foot of Castle Hill—and there he was, asleep. How wonderful to come and go as one pleases, she thought. How wonderful to be free.

  But what was he doing on her estate? Should she call the guards? If he were caught, he’d be in trouble. But if he was up to no good and she did nothing, whatever he did would be her fault. What was he in real life: hero or villain?

  “What are you looking at?” said Nurse.

  “Nothing,” Angela fluttered. “It’s time to get back to the rehearsal.”

  “Not so fast, my girl.” Nurse had a nose for mischief, and it was twitching up a storm. She made her way to the window, propped herself against the casement, and had a good squint. “God spare us!”

  “From what? He hasn’t done anything.”

  “Oh, but he will, my love!” Nurse pointed to the county road.

  It was then that Angela realized Nurse wasn’t frightened of the Boy. She was terrified at the sight of the twenty soldiers galloping toward the castle. In their lead, a team of stallions drew a fearful black carriage. It bore the standard of His Royal Highness Archduke Arnulf, ruler absolute of the Archduchy of Waldland.

  Chapter 4

  Prisoners

  The archduke’s troops tore into the courtyard, leaped from their horses, and stormed the entrance hall. Angela heard a torrent of noise below—her parents’ cries, the servants’ prayers, and a clang of armor bounding up the stairs. She ran to Nurse for protection as four soldiers burst in. One tossed Nurse to the ground. Another, the size of a house, hoisted Angela over his shoulder.

  “Put me down,” she shrieked. “I’m Countess Angela Gabriela von Schwanenberg.”

  The soldier laughed and whisked her to the staircase. Angela pounded his back, bruising her hands on his heavy chain mail. “My father will have you in irons.”

  The soldier knocked her against the wall like a sack of potatoes. Angela tried to bite his ear, but got only a mouthful of helmet and hair. Descending into a blur of confusion, she saw
maids and valets herded into a circle by six of the archduke’s men.

  Next thing she knew, she was being carried across the courtyard to a carriage with bars on the windows. The soldier swung open the door and tossed her inside. She landed hard on a wooden bench. Her parents were seated opposite. Angela wanted to throw herself in their arms, but she was afraid to shame the family.

  “Chin up,” her father said tightly.

  “All will be well,” her mother echoed.

  The driver cracked his whip. The archduke’s horses reared with a fierce bray and flew down Castle Hill. Angela peered between the bars and watched her home disappear in a whirlwind of colors and dust.

  “What’s going on?” she asked, struggling to control her voice. “Where’s the archduke?”

  “He’s with the archduchess at his palace,” her father replied, as if everything was normal. “We’ve been summoned for an audience. The soldiers are escorting us.”

  “Has Nurse been taken too?”

  “I believe we’re His Highness’ only guests,” her mother said.

  “Guests?”

  “Yes,” her mother said discreetly. She fanned herself. “An invitation to the palace is a great honor. Don’t fret. Nurse will attend to things while we’re away.”

  Angela looked from one to the other as if they’d gone crazy. That’s when she saw her father’s knuckles pressing up through his silk gloves and the lines on her mother’s face breaking through her powder, and realized her parents were as frightened as she was. They had no idea what was happening either and, whatever it was, no power to stop it. It was the first time she’d ever seen them helpless, and it scared her to death.

  There followed a hard, three-day ride to the archduke’s palace in the capital. The carriage followed the coast. It stormed up rugged cliffs, hurtled along craggy beaches, and rattled over perilous bridges spanning rivers and steep ravines. Between the window bars on the left, Angela glimpsed the brilliant blues and whitecaps of the sea. To the right, she saw fields and woods sweeping north to the far mountains.

  The soldiers paused to change horses at various of the archduke’s country stables, stationed at intervals along the way. During these stops, they poked a little dry bread and cheese through the bars for food.

  The count and countess wilted faster than cut flowers. By first nightfall, they’d loosened the heavy satin ruffles at their throats. By dawn, they were using the ruffles to wipe their sweat. And then, dear Lord, they took off their wigs. Angela had never seen her mother’s hair before—a close-cropped gray—or known that her father was bald. It was a shocking sight, like seeing them naked.

  She looked away. When she looked back, she caught them staring at her with longing and regret. Her mother inched her fingers forward, and instantly pulled them back.

  “Mother?”

  “I was just wondering . . . ,” her mother said awkwardly. “That is, I wasn’t sure . . . but if it would please you . . . would you like me to hold you?”

  Angela hesitated. “I’m not sure. I’m almost thirteen. Would it be all right?”

  “I think so. Yes,” her mother said. In a heartbeat, Angela was pressed to her chest. She was glad there was no one to see. Especially Nurse.

  Her father cleared his throat. “We could tell stories. That would pass the time.” He stroked a damp ringlet from Angela’s forehead. “You’d planned a puppet play for us, I think. Tell us about it. Your stories are always so good.”

  “Do you mean it?” Angela asked. “You like them?”

  “Of course,” her mother said in wonder. “Didn’t you know?”

  Angela shook her head.

  “Oh, my darling.”

  In no time, Angela was acting out her entire play. Her forefinger shrouded in a handkerchief became the Necromancer. Her little finger, the Boy. The role of Herself was played by a thumb. She thrilled as her parents cheered and applauded and praised her more than they ever had at the castle.

  Angela closed her eyes and for a moment the carriage prison disappeared. She’d always wondered if her parents loved her. Now, she not only knew it, she felt it. And she knew that she loved them back, and always would, more than anything in the world.

  Chapter 5

  The Palace

  Late on the third and final day of the journey, Angela became aware of a strange mist in the air. At first it came in wisps so light and delicate they vanished almost before they were seen. But soon the mist became bold—thick fingers of fog that swirled into tentacles. They wrapped around the carriage and snaked between the window bars. Color and light were smothered in gray.

  In no time, all Angela could see were the ghostly shapes of things floating out of the gloom: trees and barns, then tumbledown buildings as the carriage left the countryside. Now, instead of thundering on dirt roads, the horses’ hooves clattered on city cobblestones.

  “It’s the capital, Nebelstad,” her father said. “Archduke Arnulf’s palace is near.”

  The family fell silent. The count and countess fumbled to restore their wigs and ruffles.

  They passed the port. Angela heard a wash of gulls, foghorns, bells, and tavern songs and saw the silhouettes of ships and wharves and men unloading crates and livestock. When the men saw the archduke’s soldiers, they dropped everything and fled.

  The carriage turned away from the port and entered the city’s Old Town. The narrow streets wound in all directions. Oil lamps lit the way, globes of sooty yellow swimming in the dark. Where are the people? Angela wondered. It was as if the world was hiding.

  At last the street opened into a public square lined with grand buildings. Angela pictured it by day, a farmers’ market filled with stalls overflowing with fruits and vegetables, a place alive with gossip and barter, with minstrels and acrobats. Now it was dead as Potter’s Field. Lamps and torches threw shadows through the mist; they danced and disappeared like spirits.

  “That’s the Cathedral of Saint Simeon,” her father said quietly as they passed a domed edifice to their right. “Its catacombs stretch all the way under Market Square to the palace.”

  “What’s that?” Angela asked, pointing in awe to a majestic pillar. Ornamental steps circled to the top, where three marble coffins lay under an open canopy of wrought iron.

  “It’s the monument to Arnulf’s brother, the good Archduke Fredrick, his wife, and their infant son,” her mother said. “She died in childbirth. Fredrick and his son were killed when pirates attacked their ship. Had they lived, Arnulf would never have been crowned. What a better world it would’ve been.”

  “Hush,” her father whispered. “Do you want us to lose our tongues?”

  The carriage swooped left and came to a sudden halt.

  “We’ve arrived.” Her mother pinched her cheeks, as if a blush could erase the hardship of the journey.

  Soldiers unlocked the doors. Angela crawled out slowly. Her legs wobbled. She gripped a carriage wheel for support. It wasn’t the journey’s jostle and cramp that made her weak, but the sight of the palace. Angela looked up and up and up. Spires, turrets, and parapets soared into the night. From each of them, gargoyles—winged, horned, and clawed—glared down, ready to pounce.

  Angela heard wails rising from the grates at her feet. “Where do those sounds come from?” she whispered to her mother.

  “The dungeon,” her mother murmured.

  The screams gave way to the squeal of the bronze doors of the palace. Twice the height of a man, they swung open, pushed by a dozen servants in dark velvet livery.

  A gnomelike gentleman advanced from the vaulted entry hall. He had a protruding forehead and chin that made his face look like the inside of a spoon. “His Royal Highness Archduke Arnulf is attending to the archduchess,” the Spoon said. “You shall be received in the morning. Now, follow me to your quarters.”

  The Spoon led them up three flights of stairs and along an eternity of corridors. At length they came to a hall lined with suits of armor. Between each suit was a bedchamber locked
with a heavy bolt.

  “This is your room,” the Spoon said to Angela’s parents. “Your daughter shall be down the hall.”

  “Surely you don’t mean to separate us,” her mother pleaded.

  “It’s all right,” Angela said. “I’m perfectly fine.” She wasn’t, of course, but she wanted to spare her parents worry.

  Her room was spacious, if spare: a canopied bed, a desk with a stool and oil lamp, and a rocking chair with broad armrests. A fresh cotton nightdress with embroidered wildflowers and lace trim lay across the goose-down duvet. What a shame to be dirty in such a pretty dress, Angela thought.

  No sooner had the thought of her filth crossed her mind than a big-boned housekeeper rolled in a copper tub full of steaming hot water scented with jasmine, lavender, and rose petals. Angela quickly removed her clothes, except for her underthings. She’d never been shy, but there was something about the room she didn’t trust: the full-length painting of The Devil Greets the Maiden on the far wall. She had the odd feeling that the devil in the painting was staring at her.

  After the bath, the housekeeper wrapped her in a thick towel, wrung her hair, and brushed it. “Shall I prepare you for bed?” she asked, holding up the nightdress.

  Angela gave the painting a suspicious look. “A moment, if you please, Housekeeper.” She took the nightie, got onto her mattress, and drew the canopy curtains shut. Only then did she wriggle out of her wet undergarments and change into her nightdress. Venturing forth, she knelt to say her prayers, taking the opportunity to peek under the bed. There was nothing but three dust balls and a mouse pellet.

  She crawled under the duvet. “Please leave the canopy curtains closed,” she said. “I won’t be able to sleep with the devil watching me.”

  Snug in her tent of draperies, Angela listened as the housekeeper rolled the copper tub out into the corridor and returned for the oil lamp. The light seemed to float through the air. It was all quite magical until the door was bolted shut and the room cast into utter darkness.