The Song of Seven

by Tonke Dragt

  In response the cat yawned wholeheartedly, giving Frans a close look at its predator’s mouth, with its pink tongue and sharp teeth.

  “Exactly,” he mumbled. “I’m tired too.” He gave the creature a nudge, but it didn’t take the slightest notice. It put its front legs around Frans’s neck and launched into a purr that matched its size.

  “You didn’t purr when I stroked you last night!” said Frans. “So now that you wish to purr, I refuse to stroke you.”

  The cat squeezed its eyes into peering slits, purred even louder and affectionately dug its claws in and out.

  “Ow!” said Frans. “Stop that.” He struggled to sit up, and then deposited the animal on the floor. A wasted effort – because, as soon as he lay down again, the cat hopped back onto the bed and assumed the same position. With a sigh, Frans came to the conclusion that he shouldn’t bother trying to get back to sleep. He stroked the animal a few times – and then he heard a different sound through the purring.

  A doorknob quietly turning…

  He felt around for his glasses, put them on and called sternly, “Come in here, this instant!”

  Geert-Jan appeared in the doorway, in his pyjamas and with bare feet. Frans sat up and the cat slipped from its comfortable position.

  The boy closed the door behind him and stood there motionless. He looked at his tutor, then at the cat, which indignantly slunk to the foot of the bed and started licking itself.

  “Good morning. What are you doing here?” said Frans.

  Geert-Jan stepped into the room. He looked much younger now, and seemed rather embarrassed. “I… I was looking for Ivan,” he replied.

  “Ivan?” repeated Frans.

  The boy touched the cat, which deigned to glance at him and to respond with a quiet “Prrr!”

  “Is the cat called Ivan?” said Frans.

  “Sssh!” hissed Geert-Jan. “Yes,” he said then, “this is Ivan. Ivan the Terrible.”

  He finds out more about the Sealed Parchment

  THIS IS FIVE

  Frans looked at the cat, who was now washing himself behind the ears, with an air of serious concentration. “Of course!” he said. “I should have known. Ivan is dark and silent… Ivan the Spy.”

  Geert-Jan stared at him. “How did you know that?” he whispered.

  “Oh, that’s quite a long story,” said Frans. “I was warned about a little black beast turning up at my window…”

  “Did he wake you up?” asked Geert-Jan.

  “Did you let him in here?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Why?”

  “To… um, I just did… But how did you know that about Ivan?”

  “His name,” said Frans, “was mentioned to me as an… as an ally.”

  Geert-Jan was still staring at him. All of his aloofness was gone. His eyes were gleaming; his face was glowing.

  Frans pushed off the covers and got out of bed. “But I didn’t suspect for a moment that he was just a cat,” he said.

  “Just a cat? Ivan’s a feline superspy,” said Geert-Jan.

  “Is that right?” muttered Frans. “And a cat burglar too, I’ve no doubt.” He gave a shiver, walked to the window and closed it.

  “How’s your foot?” asked Geert-Jan.

  “Fine,” said Frans. “But your feet are going to get cold if you stand there. Go on, climb into my bed before you catch a chill.”

  Geert-Jan did as he was told. Pulling the covers around himself, he said, “I never get sick. Don’t you want to go back to bed, sir?”

  “No,” said Frans, “I’m going to have a shave. That cat of yours has ruined any chance I had of going back to sleep.” He gave his student a searching look. “You never get sick, eh?” he said. “So why don’t you go to school?”

  “Uncle Gradus says I won’t learn anything at a village school,” replied Geert-Jan.

  “Ah, so that’s what Uncle Gradus says, is it?” said Frans. He picked up his shaving equipment and added under his breath, “Of course, I’m just an ordinary village schoolteacher, after all.”

  “What did you say?” asked Geert-Jan.

  “Nothing,” replied Frans, pouring water from a jug into the washbasin.

  “I think it would be much more fun to go to school,” said Geert-Jan. “I went to school in The Hague, but I’ve always had tutors here. They never stay for long though.”

  “Why not?” asked Frans, spreading shaving foam on his cheeks.

  “The first one didn’t like climbing all the stairs,” Geert-Jan told him. “The second left because there’s no electric lighting here and he was scared of the dark. The third had to leave because Uncle Gradus didn’t like him, and the fourth went because I didn’t like him. You’re the fifth.”

  Frans carefully began shaving. “And what…” he said between strokes of the razor, “will be the fate… of the fifth… tutor?”

  Geert-Jan suddenly appeared beside him. “You have to stay!” he whispered.

  “Be careful! Now I’ve cut myself!” said Frans. “Go on, get back into bed!”

  For a while neither of them said anything. When Frans looked at Geert-Jan again, he was sitting on his pillow with the cat. “Ivan knew right away,” he said quietly. “He purred, didn’t he?”

  “Like an engine,” replied Frans.

  “He never does that without a reason,” said Geert-Jan.

  “Hey!” said Frans. “Did you let that cat in here so he could judge me and decide if I’m allowed to stay?”

  Geert-Jan nodded. “But I already suspected who you were,” he said quickly. “Roberto told me he’d fire seven cannon shots to announce your arrival.”

  “My goodness me,” said Frans. “Seven cannon shots just for me? So then, who exactly do you think I am?”

  Geert-Jan flew off the bed. He raced to the door, pulled it open and looked outside. “I thought I heard something,” he explained. “You mustn’t shout like that. Manus always gets up early.” He approached Frans and whispered, “You’re my ally… aren’t you?”

  “Roberto announced my arrival and Ivan confirmed it,” replied Frans. He turned away and started brushing his teeth.

  “How was I supposed to know the ally would be a tutor?” said the boy apologetically. “And you mustn’t expect me to become an obedient student, sir! If Uncle Gradus realizes who you are, he’ll fire you too – like he did with Jan the coachman.”

  Frans rinsed his mouth and asked, “Was Jan the coachman an ally too?”

  “Yes,” said Geert-Jan. “Ivan slept with him in the room above the stable at first, because I didn’t dare to show him to Uncle Gradus…”

  “Doesn’t your uncle know you have a cat?”

  “I don’t have Ivan,” Geert-Jan said, correcting him. “He’s my friend and my helper, but he doesn’t belong to anyone. He wouldn’t like that at all. Uncle Gradus didn’t know he was here to begin with, but he does now. Ivan went exploring, of course. He sneaked into the Rococo Room and started rubbing his head on Uncle Gradus’s leg. And then he let him stay.”

  “So he’s a friend of your uncle’s too.”

  “Of course he isn’t!” said Geert-Jan indignantly. “Ivan only pretends to be his friend. He hates Uncle Gradus and Uncle Gradus hates him.”

  “You mustn’t let your imagination run away with you, Geert-Jan,” Frans chided him. “Count Grisenstein doesn’t hate Ivan. After all, he let him stay…”

  “Only because there’s a cat’s head on the Grisenstein crest,” said Geert-Jan, “and of course because Ivan has green eyes.”

  “Because he has green eyes? Oh yes, of course. I understand.”

  “Why?” asked Geert-Jan. He put his hands on his hips and looked suspiciously at Frans. “Why did you say that? What made you think that?”

  “Think what?” said Frans. “Well, Ivan rubs his head on your uncle’s legs and he has green eyes. So apparently that’s why he was allowed to stay. You just told me that yourself. What do you want me to say? That I don’t understand
?”

  The cat jumped off the bed and rubbed against his legs, purring loudly. Geert-Jan crouched down and said in a whisper, “Ivan?” Then he looked up and said, “Roberto smuggled him in. Do you know Roberto?”

  “I certainly do!” said Frans. “But how do you know him?”

  “He sometimes sneaks through a hole in the barbed wire to bring me news from… from the outside world. He did it when Jan the coachman was patrolling in the park.” Geert-Jan stood up and continued, “It’s a shame he’s been fired. My wicked Uncle Gradus chased him away! Why do you think he did that?”

  Frans didn’t say that he knew the reason why. And he wondered if he should allow a student of his to get away with calling his own uncle wicked. Before he’d decided, Geert-Jan was already walking to the door.

  “I’d better be off now,” he said. “See you later.” He called, “Ivan!” Then he left the room and the cat followed him.

  Was Count Grisenstein actually wicked? That was the question Frans was asking himself as he sat across from him at the breakfast table. His host was being very pleasant in his distant way. He fed the occasional piece of ham to Ivan, who sat beside his chair, staring at him with a hypnotic gaze. As for Geert-Jan, he was back to his unfriendly attitude of the day before.

  The boy’s a born actor! thought Frans. And I think he’s perfectly capable of running rings around everyone in this house, including me.

  After breakfast, they went to the library. Geert-Jan said he wanted to go outside, but the count wouldn’t let him. “It’s raining far too hard,” he said. “Go and play a game with Mr Van der Steg.”

  Geert-Jan pulled a face, but he took out a backgammon set and put it on the table, next to the vase that was covering the ink stain. The count settled down in a comfy chair with a stack of newspapers.

  Frans and his student played backgammon for a while, but their hearts weren’t really in it. Geert-Jan kept looking at his uncle and Frans felt more and more as if the count were spying on them. Maybe he’d even made little holes in his newspaper to peep through. At one point, he put the paper down and said, “Don’t be so rough, Geert-Jan! That backgammon set is a valuable antique. Our ancestor, Sir Grimbold, may once have used it.”

  Frans looked at the board with a little more interest and began to tell his student interesting facts about backgammon past and present, in the near and far east, and about how it was played by the Saracens at the time of the Crusades. But just as he was about to move on to the rules for tournaments and duels, Geert-Jan interrupted him.

  “I’m not in the mood anymore,” he said. “Shall I show you around the house instead?”

  Count Grisenstein rustled his newspapers and said, “Your tutor probably isn’t at all interested, Geert-Jan.”

  Frans replied that he certainly was interested though.

  He followed his student to Gregorius’s Small Banqueting Hall. Manus was sweeping the floor; he greeted them politely, but Geert-Jan walked by as if he weren’t there.

  The boy climbed one of the wooden flights of stairs to the first gallery. Ivan was sitting on the top step, with his tail wrapped neatly around his front paws, and his green eyes half closed. Frans bent down to stroke him, but the cat ducked under his hand and haughtily stalked off.

  “Ivan doesn’t want to be stroked,” said Geert-Jan. “Except for when he asks for it.”

  “What a terribly snooty cat,” muttered Frans.

  They climbed the stairs to the second gallery and then went up to the third, where they stopped for a moment to look down over the balustrade. Manus was still sweeping away. When he looked up, Geert-Jan stuck out his tongue, turned around and quickly climbed the fourth set of stairs. This one had no handrail and it ended in an arched opening in the wall. Frans had to duck to get through, and then he gazed around in surprise.

  They were in an enormous attic – on one side were small dormer windows that looked out onto the rear of the building. The room was empty and neglected; there were cobwebs everywhere. A rope ladder hung from a hole in the ceiling.

  “Good,” said Geert-Jan with a smile. “There’s only one other way in here. And if Manus wants to take that route, he’ll need at least quarter of an hour. He wouldn’t dare to follow us… Why are you looking at that ladder? It goes up to the loft. Do you want to go up even higher?”

  “No, no,” said Frans – which was the truth, as he could feel his ankle hurting again. “You must know this house like the back of your hand,” he continued. Geert-Jan shook his head. “I wish I did,” he said. “But I’ve climbed every ladder and every flight of stairs inside the house, as far as I know, and I’ve also headed down below…” He gazed thoughtfully at a spider, which was dancing across the floor with its long, spindly legs. Then he looked up at Frans and said in a serious voice, “I want to tell you the Secret of the House of Stairs… You’re an ally and I’m not going to be able to do it on my own.”

  They sat down together on the floor, and Geert-Jan told his tutor the story he already knew – the legend, the folk tale, the fairy story of the Hidden Treasure. The sound of the rain, tapping on the windows and the roof, accompanied his muted voice. He talked about the Sealed Parchment too, but he didn’t say what was in it, and Frans thought it was better not to reveal that he knew.

  “The treasure’s mine if I can find it,” said Geert-Jan. “But Uncle Gradus wants it too – and that’s why he’s spying on me. When we first moved in here, he wanted us to look together, and so we did…” He fell silent for a moment before continuing, “I can’t find the treasure on my own, you see… maybe I’ll tell you why later. Uncle Gradus knows that too. He knows a lot of things that he shouldn’t. I’m sure he secretly read the Sealed Parchment before he gave it to me! Now I’m looking on my own, and he’s looking on his own… It’s all very annoying…”

  “Annoying? Looking for a treasure?” said Frans. “Then stop looking!”

  “Never!” said Geert-Jan indignantly. “It’d be great if Uncle Gradus weren’t here. He wants to have the treasure and to keep it for himself. He doesn’t want me to find it, and if I do find it, he’ll try to steal it from me… But he won’t succeed!”

  “Are you sure you’re not being too hard on your uncle?” asked Frans.

  “No,” said the boy abruptly. “You’ll see for yourself what he’s like.” He looked at his tutor with a frown. “Are you my ally?” he asked. “Yes or no?”

  “Of course I am,” replied Frans.

  A warm smile lit up Geert-Jan’s face. “Then you can help me look,” he said “Just as long as you don’t let Uncle Gradus find out. You teach at a school, don’t you? How old are the children in your class?”

  “They’re ten and eleven,” replied Frans, rather surprised by the change of subject. But he soon realized why his student had asked.

  “I’d be in that class if I went to school,” said Geert-Jan with some regret in his voice.

  “You could be in that class now,” said Frans. “You’ll soon catch up if you do a bit of work. You’re clever enough.”

  “Am I?” said Geert-Jan. “But I’m not going to school anyway,” he added grumpily. “So why should I work?” Then he began asking Frans questions about his class. How many children were in the class? What were their names? What were they like? For every answer Frans gave, Geert-Jan had another question ready. Suddenly, though, he stopped talking. Jumping up, he said, “I can hear Manus! Let’s go back to the library.”

  Frans couldn’t hear Manus at all, but he scrambled to his feet, brushed the dust from his clothes and followed his student. He paused for a moment in the arched opening. Only now did he realize quite how high they’d climbed – he could see the floor of the banqueting hall far down below. The first flight of stairs had no handrail, so he had to be very careful going down. His heart was in his mouth as he watched Geert-Jan, who took all the stairs at a run and then waited down below for his teacher.

  There was no sign of either Manus or Ivan. Frans imagined them both sneaking ar
ound the building somewhere – along dark corridors and around twisting staircases, the servant going first, with Ivan following behind.

  When they got back to the library, Count Grisenstein was waiting at the window, looking terribly bored.

  “So, did you enjoy your little tour, Mr Van der Steg?” he asked.

  “Not much, I don’t think,” said Geert-Jan, answering for his tutor. “He’s terrified of going down stairs without a handrail.”

  Frans frowned. He didn’t think his student had noticed, and besides he didn’t like him saying so out loud, in such a sarcastic tone of voice. He knew that Geert-Jan considered him an ally now, but that didn’t mean he could just say whatever he liked.

  “The rain’s almost stopped,” said the count. “So if you’d like to go home, just say so. There’s a bus every hour.”

  So my visit’s obviously lasted long enough for his liking, thought Frans a little angrily.

  But Geert-Jan said, “He can’t go yet, Uncle Gradus! I still have to write my lines.”

  “That’s not…” began Frans, but the child gave him such a pleading look from behind his uncle’s back that he didn’t finish his sentence.

  “Well, well,” was all Count Grisenstein said.

  Geert-Jan quickly fetched pens, pencils and paper, sat down at the table, pushed the backgammon set aside and asked, “What do you want me to write?”

  “Just write: ‘I mustn’t tell fibs’,” said Frans.

  Geert-Jan picked up two pencils and started scribbling away. “With one pencil,” Frans told him sternly. “One line at a time – and neatly!”

  The count stifled a yawn and said, “I’m going to take a look around the garden. I’ll see you later.” Silently, he left the library.

  As soon as he’d gone, Geert-Jan stopped writing. “Sir!” he whispered.

  “Finish your work first,” said Frans. “You’re the one who wanted to do it.”