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 said 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.”