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.