All morning, town criers heralded the news that Angela and her parents were to be burned at the stake for witchcraft. As the people readied themselves, Knobbe was hard at work at the task Hans had given him.
“You know the memorial pillar in Market Square?” Hans had whispered before escaping through the lagoon. “The entrance to the foundation is in the catacombs. I need you to climb up the inside and chisel the bottom out of one of the memorial coffins. Then, follow the catacombs to the door leading up to the cathedral. I’ll meet you there, midday tomorrow.”
Knobbe would’ve acted at once, but Arnulf had arrived and he and Nurse had had to hide all night on a shelf of bones while the archduke’s new dungeon master had a training session on the old. When Arnulf left at dawn, they’d crawled from hiding as the new dungeon master was hauling his predecessor’s carcass to the lime pit. Nurse had whacked him silly with a thighbone. “Is he dead?” she’d asked. “No such luck,” Knobbe’d sighed. “Take his uniform. We’ll stuff him in a bone barrel, gagged with a dead rat.”
The delay meant that Nurse now had her own executioner’s disguise. But it also meant that Knobbe had only begun to hack the bottom from the pillar coffin with a chisel he’d taken from the dungeon.
“Quickly,” Nurse said, her bosom testing her new chain mail tunic.
Chunks of marble fell from the darkness and landed by her feet.
“By all the saints, woman, I’m hacking as fast as I can.”
A voice echoed along the passageway. “Dungeon master?” It was Arnulf.
Meanwhile, Hans and his father, Fredrick, were entering the city dressed in cloaks, tunics, and broad-brimmed hats from the hermitage trunks. Soon they were swept up in a surging crowd, the streets swelling like rivers, as citizens poured from their homes to the witch burning. The crowd flooded into Market Square.
The first thing Hans saw were three mountainous piles of wood, guarded by a four-ring cordon of soldiers. Each of the stacks towered twenty feet in the air and was topped by a ten-foot stake. How could they get to Angela and her parents? Even harder, how could they escape with them through the soldiers and crowd?
Hans waited until his father was in position near the reviewing stand in front of the palace. Then he slipped into the cathedral and darted through the shadows of the nave to the pipe organ. Behind was the barred door that opened onto the stairwell to the catacombs. An old friend disguised in executioner’s gear was waiting for him.
“Here as planned.” Hans smiled at his other papa.
“Not exactly as planned,” said Nurse, raising her hood. “Your Knobbe was called away by the archduke.”
Back in the forest, the Pandolini children limbered up for a grand performance, while the hermits retrieved the swords and bucklers they’d stowed in the hollowed tree trunks near the city’s edge. Those who’d joined the hermitage from nearby counties had spent the night galloping on the Wolf King’s horses to their former estates. Trusted neighbors, families, servants, and friends had returned with them to make a stand for their rightful ruler, Archduke Fredrick. It was a noble sight: a hundred stout hearts and a circus family prepared to throw themselves against the might of Arnulf’s army.
Tomas addressed the crowd. “For our fight to succeed, we must fulfill the three prophecies. Hans—the prince Johannes—has given us a plan. Its cunning shall inspire legends and plays.”
Tomas was interrupted by a rumbling beyond the trees. A carriage flanked by cavalry thundered down the hill from the asylum. The Necromancer was crouched beside the coachman, whipping the horses with abandon.
“They’re taking Angela and her parents to execution,” Tomas cried. “Do as Hans ordered! Chop down the leafiest bushes and saplings you can find!”