The Grave Robber's Apprentice

by Allan Stratton

Roars echoed up from below.

  “It’s Hans and the archduke,” Nurse said. “Who knows how long the lad can survive!”

  Angela dived into the catacombs.

  Chapter 45

  A Fight to the Death

  When Hans had scurried down inside the pillar five minutes earlier, he had had no idea what to do next. In stories, prophecies always came in threes, but Hans had hoped that in real life having the great forest march on the capital and an eagle rise out of stone would be enough to overthrow Arnulf. Apparently not. He’d have to make the archduke’s severed hands sail over a sea of bones. But how?

  Above, the archduke had broken a bigger opening in the stone coffin and was charging down the pillar.

  Hans ran toward the dungeon in search of a weapon. Walls of bones rose above him. He skirted the catacomb lime pit, sprinted past the skeletons on the wall of the central passageway, and burst into the dungeon cavern.

  “Come out, come out, wherever you are,” the archduke taunted from behind.

  Should he hide? No. That might do for a grave robber’s apprentice, but not for a prince of Waldland. He ran to the fire pit and seized a red-hot poker.

  “So there you are,” came a low purr.

  Hans whirled around. Arnulf was framed in the archway.

  The villain unleashed a hideous grin. “You’re trapped.”

  “We’ll see,” Hans said, and waved the poker.

  “It wants to live, does it?” Arnulf advanced, swinging his broadsword like a scythe. Hans moved backward to the left; Arnulf countered. Hans moved backward to the right; Arnulf countered again.

  “You and your father love the people,” Arnulf spat. “Fie on you. The world works on fear, not kindness. Leave goodness to fairy tales.”

  Hans imagined the hermitage pell. He charged at Arnulf with a roar. Arnulf blocked the strike and sent Hans reeling backward to the wall.

  “Here’s how iron hands strike a pell,” Arnulf mocked. He brandished his sword over his head and ran at Hans, swinging hard. Hans dropped and rolled to the side. Arnulf’s sword clanged on the rock face. Hans jabbed Arnulf’s thigh with the red-hot poker. Arnulf howled and punched a fist at the ground. He hit the poker; it broke at the handle.

  Hans leaped up. Arnulf diced the air with his sword. Hans dodged, grabbed a torch from the wall, and ran to the torture rack. He slid underneath. The archduke followed.

  Hans turned and shoved the torch in Arnulf’s face. His greasy hair burst into flames. Arnulf pushed himself out from under the rack, and spun to the lagoon to douse the fire. It was too far to run. In panic, he stuck his head in the dungeon poop bucket.

  Hans laughed and scrambled up the pulleys of the torture rack to the rafters.

  “You’ll pay for this,” Arnulf screamed through a haze of steaming pee. He raised his sword to sever the ropes and send Hans toppling—but a shrill eagle’s cry filled the dungeon.

  Arnulf whirled around. He saw the shadow of a giant bird. It flared its wings and flew across the cavern walls.

  Arnulf shivered, then spotted Angela hiding in a rock crevice by a torch. “Why, it’s a shadow puppet!” he sneered. “You’re here to die too, are you, girl?”

  “No. To see the third prophecy fulfilled!” she tossed back.

  “Arnulf!” Hans called from above.

  Arnulf looked up and around. Hans was holding an iron pulley weight. He pitched it at the archduke’s head. It made a direct hit.

  The archduke doubled over in pain. The reliquary box on the gold chain around his neck swung back and forth.

  Hans grabbed a hooked rope. He tossed it through the loop of the swinging chain and yanked. The hook caught the chain and broke it; the reliquary box crashed across the floor.

  Hans swung from the rafters on the rope. His heels hit the archduke square in the jaw. Arnulf fell to his knees.

  Hans scooted for the reliquary box. He snapped the catch and grabbed the severed hands.

  “Unhand my bones!” Arnulf hollered.

  “Run!” Hans called to Angela. They barreled down the corridor into the catacombs, Arnulf in pursuit. At the lime pit, they split down separate alleys. Arnulf ran to the end of the widening. “The only exit leads by me,” he crowed.

  He saw the shadow of a wolf on a wall of bones. “Ah, the girl who cried wolf,” he laughed. “I’ve seen your puppet tricks before.” A low growl. “I’ve heard your vocal tricks too.”

  Hans popped from an alley. “But this is no trick. Is it, Siegfried?”

  The great wolf appeared. Arnulf swung his sword. The blade shattered against a wall support.

  Hans held up the hand bones, clasped in a mockery of prayer. “Fetch!” he cried, and threw them into the air above the lime pit.

  Arnulf leaped at them blindly. But Siegfried leaped farther and faster. He snatched the bones with his teeth and cleared the pit. Arnulf wasn’t so lucky. He splashed face-first into the lime. He screeched to his feet, flesh bubbling.

  Hans circled the pit. Arnulf raged right through it. He swung at Hans with his iron fists. They hit the wall supports as Hans bobbed and weaved. The beams began to crack and splinter, their shelves to tilt.

  “You can’t escape me!” Arnulf yowled. “One strike is all I need.” He wiped his forehead. It slid right off. “I’M MELTING!” he cried. He hammered the beam by Hans’ head. His fist wedged in the split timber. He yanked it out. There was a terrible sound, like a ship breaking apart at sea.

  The beam buckled. So did the beams around it. Shelves tipped over, spilling their walls of bones in torrential waves. Arnulf was caught in a swell. Arm bones pulled him under. Leg bones held him fast.

  Hans and Angela ran toward the cathedral cellar.

  “Siegfried?” Hans called.

  The great wolf frisked beyond the archduke.

  Hans whistled. “Here, boy!”

  Siegfried made a short bound and a mighty leap. In his powerful mouth, Arnulf’s severed hands sailed over the sea of bones.

  “I believe that’s the third prophecy,” Hans called over his shoulder.

  Arnulf was drowning in skeletons. He tried to swim his way out. No use. The weight of the bones pinned him in the dark.

  All around was scurry and squeak. Rats. Hundreds of rats crawling out of the catacomb skulls to feed.

  Chapter 46

  Just Deserts

  Singing and dancing continued into the night as Waldland’s citizens reveled in the tyrant’s fall and the restoration of Archduke Fredrick. Time alone could right the evils of Arnulf’s reign, but for now Waldland celebrated the beginning of a beginning.

  Under the reviewing stand, the Necromancer lay still as a corpse. The potion was wearing off slowly; though unable to move or speak, his mind had cleared. If I can get out of the city, I can live underground to plot my revenge, he thought. But how to escape unseen when the streets are full of merrymakers?

  It was amid such fears that the Necromancer received an unexpected visit. Two little creatures, the likes of which could hide in dustbins, crept into the shadows of the stand and lifted the bunting from his face.

  “We see’d you come here, Master,” said one. “We waited for you to come out all day. You’s still asleeplike, ain’t you?”

  Are you my Weevils? the Necromancer wondered. How did you escape the castle? Why did you come to the capital?

  The second Weevil read his mind. “You taughts us to hide where none would thinks to search for us,” he said. “That’s what we done. We hid by the palace where you’d never think to look.”

  “Yes, Master, it’s like we got a cloak invisible. An’ now we’s come to spirit you from this place.”

  Oh, clever pets, how I misjudged you, the Necromancer thought. There shall be treats indeed for stealing me from the city.

  Each of the Weevils took a leg and hauled the Necromancer into the square. Under the bunting, he looked like a pile of cloth. No one paid heed as they lugged him down the streets, his head bouncing on the cobblestones, nor as the
y dragged him onto the dirt road leading out of town.

  The Necromancer tried to tell them to take care, that the sticks and stones that littered the way were piercing his flesh; but his lips were mute, his limbs limp.

  Now the most terrible smell. Ah, yes—his mind smiled—they’re taking me to the dumping grounds. What crafty pets. It’s the perfect place from which to plot my revenge.

  But the Weevils dragged him ever onward. Now upward. They stopped. The Necromancer heard the banging of a heavy door knocker and the sound of a window grate sliding open.

  “What do you want?” It was the keeper’s voice. They were at the asylum.

  “We’s got a rare treat worth a few pennies. Come, take a look at our prize.”

  The door creaked open. “What have we here?” the keeper said. “My, how the mighty have fallen.”

  “Him’s dead. All fresh and all,” the Weevils advised. “You’d best cuts him up ’fore he goes bad.”

  But I’m alive, the Necromancer tried to scream. I’m alive.

  “I’ve always wanted to see inside that brain,” the keeper said. “I’ll get to work at once.” He gave the Weevils a handful of coins and called his attendants to ready his knives and pickling jars.

  No! the Necromancer howled silently. I’m alive! I’M ALIVE!

  The keeper whistled a cheerful song, tossed the Necromancer over his shoulder, and carried him to the basement.

  Chapter 47

  All’s Well That Ends Well

  The palace windows were opened wide to clear the air. The harbor helped, sending a breeze that swept away the nightly fog for the first time in memory. In the banquet hall, the Pandolinis and their bears performed their finest circus ever under the light of a thousand lamps and candelabra.

  Archduke Fredrick had ceded the seats of honor to Hans and Angela. They sat together at the center of the great table with all their friends and family. On Hans’ right, his two fathers, Fredrick and Knobbe, chatted together with the former hermits. On his left, Angela reunited with her parents and Nurse in the company of Tomas and his fellows; Nurse moved to Knobbe’s side sometime before dessert. Angela smiled: Nurse had a need to teach the social graces, and in Knobbe she’d have her most challenging pupil yet.

  “You found my son, Johannes, and named him Hans,” Fredrick said to Knobbe. “A different form of the same name.”

  Knobbe scratched his ear. “Sure, our names and deeds be written in the stars.”

  Fredrick smiled. “Or in our hopes and dreams.”

  A paw de trois from the dancing bears led to a standing ovation.

  Fredrick rose and addressed the Pandolinis. “In gratitude for your service, remain as our privileged guests for as long as you desire.”

  “Grazie.” Pandolini bowed. “Yet we are wanted home to the court of Venice. The Doge has held concerns about his neighbor, Waldland, and will be pleased by our report that all is well.”

  Fredrick raised a friendly eyebrow. “You’re close with the Doge?”

  “People see what they expect,” the showman winked. “Poor circus folk look alike to the world. We can come and go like hermits.”

  “Then give our best to your Venetian lord,” Fredrick declared. “We shall send you safe by royal escort.” He turned to Tomas. “As for you, Tomas Bundt, lawless highwayman and thief . . .”

  Tomas cowered.

  “The archduchy is in your debt. A full pardon to you and your men.”

  Tomas was so relieved he fell back against his friends.

  “Stand tall,” Fredrick ordered. “Our new poet laureate and his court musicians must have their heads high above the clouds.”

  “Poet laureate?” Tomas hopped to his feet in disbelief.

  “Court musicians?” chorused his men.

  “Indeed,” Hans said. “Who but an Artist and Poet Extraordinaire can pen the sagas of our land? And who better to set those poems to song?”

  With a great cheer, Tomas was hoisted high.

  The archduke’s eyes fell next on the grave robber. He drew his sword. “On your knees.”

  Knobbe dropped to the floor in terror.

  Fredrick placed the blade on Knobbe’s right shoulder. “Who but a plucky grave robber should guard the royal catacombs?” he asked. “Rise and henceforth be known as Sir Knobbe the Bent, Keeper of the Crypt.”

  Knobbe forgot himself. He bounced to his feet in joy, planted a kiss on the archduke’s cheek, hugged Hans, and took Nurse for a spin around the room to applause and laughter.

  “There’s yet one thing you’ve forgotten, Father,” Hans said. “Our land has suffered under the weight of what is. We need a glimpse of what might be. I propose that a court theater be built where we can see our stories on the stage, and imagine better endings than have ever been.”

  “And who should run this theater?” Fredrick asked.

  Hans turned to Angela. “Only the finest, bravest soul in the whole archduchy. The Countess Angela Gabriela von Schwanenberg: the first who dared to challenge the usurper; who risked her life to save her parents; and in whose service, and by whose light, I grew to be your son.”

  Angela blushed.

  Fredrick turned to the count and countess. “Has Angela your blessing to live at court?”

  They hesitated.

  Angela rolled her eyes. “Oh for heaven’s sake, it’s not as if I can get into any more mischief than I already have.”

  “True,” her parents laughed. “With Nurse as your chaperone, we’re agreed.”

  The hall erupted in revelry. Hans and Angela slipped out onto a balcony to enjoy the night sky. The young prince glanced shyly at Angela. “It’s been a grand adventure.”

  “Indeed,” she teased. “You’ve done quite well for a servant.”

  “And you for a witch,” he teased back. He took her hand. They gazed at the heavens.

  Angela rested her head on his shoulder. “I love happy endings,” she sighed.

  “Then just for you,” Hans smiled, “I’ll take my cue and say, ‘The End.’”

  Acknowledgments

  When I was a kid, my mom took me to every play at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival. My first was Twelfth Night when I was five. The spectacle got me—actors running on stage from all directions with brandished swords and swirling banners. Soon, though, it was the stories: magnificent tales of families separated by the sea and reunited; of evil, usurping dukes; of witches, star-crossed lovers, and bold comic characters with names like Sir Toby Belch and Justice Shallow. I was hooked by worlds of wonder in which the confusions of my young life found voice.

  I couldn’t get enough. When I wasn’t seeing the plays, I was reading the stories as told by Classics Illustrated Comics and Charles and Mary Lamb. In my teens, I did summer jobs at the festival: as an usher, a dresser, and finally as an acting apprentice. I remember barreling across Stratford’s thrust stage as an Albany soldier, cowering before Lear’s rage as a Goneril servant, and actually delivering a speech as one of Duke Senior’s banished lords in the Forest of Arden.

  Family and friends; secrets and identity; transformation and reconciliation—these are the themes I’ve held close to my heart since I was a child and that find expression in this tale. So, above all else, I want to thank my mother, the most courageous, inspiring person I know, who introduced me to the magic and power of words and the way in which Story can give shape and meaning to life’s chaos.

  I also want to thank Daniel Legault, Louise and Christine Baldacchino, Sebastien Amenta, Mark Citro, and David Stone, who read and critiqued the manuscript throughout its many drafts.

  Last but not least, I’d like to thank everyone at HarperCollins for the tussles that wrestled this book into being—especially Lynne Missen, Sarah Sevier, Catherine Onder, Susan Rich, Kathryn Hinds, Tyler Infinger, Jessica Berg, Alison Klapthor, and Hadley Dyer. And, of course, Beth Fleisher, Joe Monti, and Barry Goldblatt at Barry Goldblatt Literary.

  —Allan Stratton

  About the Author

&n
bsp; ALLAN STRATTON is the internationally acclaimed author of the Michael L. Printz Honor Book CHANDA’S SECRETS. His novel CHANDA’S WARS was a Junior Library Guild selection, and his other novels, BORDERLINE and LESLIE’S JOURNAL, were both ALA Best Book for Young Adults selections. Allan has safaried in Africa, hiked the Great Wall of China, explored pyramids in Egypt, and flown over Cappadocia in a balloon. He lives with his partner in Toronto with four cats and a whole lot of fish. You can visit him at www.allanstratton.com.

  Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.

  Credits

  Jacket art © 2012 by Jim Kay

  Jacket design by Alison Klapthor

  Copyright

  The Grave Robber’s Apprentice

  Text copyright © 2012 by Allan Stratton

  Illustrations copyright © 2012 by Jim Kay

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  * * *

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Stratton, Allan.

  The grave robber’s apprentice / Allan Stratton. — 1st ed.

  p. cm.

  Summary: Hans, a foundling raised by a grave robber, helps Countess Angela Gabriela, nearly thirteen, when she is torn away from her dream of being a professional puppetteer by an evil archduke out to destroy her and her parents.

  ISBN 978-0-06-197608-7 (trade bdg.)

  [1. Adventure and adventurers—Fiction. 2. Aristocracy (Social class)—Fiction. 3. Identity—Fiction. 4. Puppet theater—Fiction. 5. Grave robbing—Fiction. 6. Fantasy.] I. Title.