The Sign of the Cat

by Lynne Jonell

  Then there had been the year when she told him his father was an excellent swordsman. Duncan had worked very hard at his fencing after that.

  Could his father have been in the Island Patrol? They carried swords. They were like the King’s Guard, only on ships, and they went from island to island as needed, to keep order and bring lawbreakers to Capital City for justice. There wasn’t much crime on the island of Dulle (the worst thing Duncan could remember was when old Angus had had too much to drink at the wharf bar and stole three eggs from a henhouse), so the Island Patrol didn’t come around very often. Of course, there was always the possibility of danger from strange ships. Maybe his father had made an enemy on another island.

  The voices outside his door had stopped. Duncan flung back the covers and sat up, listening hard.

  A faint mutter of conversation came floating up the stairs from the kitchen below. Suddenly he heard his mother saying sharply, “No. I’m not going to tell him yet.”

  The front door closed. The double lock clicked twice. Through Duncan’s open window came the quick tap of footsteps in the street, rapidly fading away.

  * * *

  Duncan awoke to a thin crack of sun, piercing through a gap in the curtains. He had been dreaming again, that same dream of the bright window high in the dark. This time, though, something had been chasing him. He got up abruptly and pushed the hair out of his eyes. The dream was already fading, leaving nothing but a faint memory of dread.

  Downstairs, Grizel was happily crunching something in her bowl—sardines, by the smell—and there were rolls and fresh fruit on the table, along with a note. It said that his mother had gone to her first music lesson of the day, but she’d packed Duncan a lunch and hoped he would have a good day at school and remember to buckle his cap.

  Duncan stared at the food. Fresh fish, rolls from the bayside bakery, fruit from the wharfside grocers—his mother must have gotten up very early indeed, if she had walked all the way down to the wharf and back up the long hill.

  He sat down to eat and studied the note again. There was nothing about where she had gotten the money for food. Nothing about the strange visitor of the night before. He checked his lunch bag to see if, perhaps, there was another note in there, but there were only sandwiches and a chocolate bar that he recognized.

  Duncan felt his heart twist under his ribs. What was he supposed to do with a mother like this? She wouldn’t let him take a scholarship he had earned, she wouldn’t tell him anything he wanted to know, she held him back at every turn—but at the same time, she’d gotten up hours before the sun rose just so he could have the freshest rolls for his breakfast, and she hadn’t even taken one bite of Robert’s chocolate. She had been hungry, too, he knew. Yet she had saved it for him.

  Duncan shoved his chair back with a loud scrape. He went out to look for the key he had dropped the night before and found it behind the downspout. He washed his breakfast dishes and hung the towel to dry. Then he opened the new book that Robert had given him and walked slowly up the stairs to the sea chest by the window, where the light was better. He laid the book on the brass-bound chest and turned the thick, creamy pages with something like a return to happiness. Here was the picture of the ship being built that he had seen in the bookshop. He turned the next leaf with a careful hand and looked eagerly at the colored bookplate. It showed the ship at anchor, two men with bright uniforms and swords, and a small girl with a slim silver crown.

  Duncan gave a grunt of satisfaction. It was the story of the Bad Duke and the Lost Princess. Everyone knew what had happened, but it was still a recent enough tale that it wasn’t in the older history books. Here was the princess, only seven years old, her long dark hair in a single braid beneath her little crown. In the picture, she was just about to begin her royal tour of the islands of Arvidia so the people could see their future queen. The two men going with her were the king’s most trusted advisers: Charles, Duke of Arvidia, in the tall, pointed hat with the plume, and the Earl of Merrick, wearing a shorter, rounded hat with a wide brim.

  If the princess had lived, she would be almost fourteen by now. The king, her father, still had hope, but almost everyone else had given her up for dead.

  Here was a picture of that strange animal, the tiger, that had been sent as a present to the king from a far land. And here was a whole page about the tragic hero, the Earl of Merrick.…

  Duncan’s hand curled around the book, and his thumb smoothed the corner of the page. The earl was shown in bright, vivid colors, his sword half drawn, his noble face wearing a look of surprise and fury mixed. Behind him, leaping from a rock, was the dark and twisted figure of Duke Charles, sword already slashing at the earl’s unprotected head. In the background huddled the little princess and her serving woman, clasping each other, while bodies of various duke’s and earl’s men lay at their feet.

  The artist had put in a lot of blood. Duncan gazed at the earl’s head wound, just beginning to spout red. Suddenly, the picture was crumpled by two furry paws, then a leaping cat body.

  “Hey!” Duncan glared at Grizel. “What did you do that for? Now you’ve torn it!”

  Grizel flipped another page, as if to cover her mistake, and curled up in the sun. She blinked her golden eyes at Duncan. “Don’t you have to go to school?”

  Duncan put on his cap without enthusiasm. His feet lagged on the road to the monastery; they turned down the goat path to the stone throne instead. He lay on his stomach across the arm of stone, still cool from the night, and stared down at the dark indigo water in the shadow of the cliff. The cove was empty. The sailboat and the man who had come to visit his mother were gone.

  The morning was clear, and the sky was a bowl of blue with ribbons of cloud. In the distance, the monastery bell rang, three tones that hung and shivered in the still air. Duncan gathered up his books slowly. He had never been late before, not once.

  The wrought-iron gate was shut and locked; it rattled when Duncan pushed on it. Latecomers were supposed to ring the small bell that hung from the gatehouse. Then they had to go see the headmaster.

  Duncan did not want to see the headmaster. He did not want to go to school at all. There wasn’t much point if all his mother wanted him to do was fail.

  A cream-colored cat brushed through a gap in the gate’s iron scrolls, her whiskers held at a disapproving angle. It was Fia’s mother, Mabel, and her meows were sharp as she questioned him.

  Duncan shook his head. “I haven’t seen Fia anywhere.” He thought that Fia was probably too embarrassed to show her face after failing her kitten examinations, but he didn’t mention that to Mabel. “Isn’t she with the other kittens?”

  Mabel hissed her annoyance. “I can’t find them, either. They’d better not be getting into mischief.” She stalked off, her claws clicking on the flagstone.

  Duncan looked after her thoughtfully. He hoped the other kittens weren’t picking on Fia.

  He walked along the outside of the monastery wall. There was a stone missing where he could wedge his foot, and a tree branch just low enough to swing up on. He could see a lot from the top of the wall, and maybe he would see Fia. He was already late for school; a little later wouldn’t hurt.

  Duncan scrambled onto the stone wall. There was a friar cutting herbs in the monastery garden and another walking to chapel, but there was no white kitten anywhere.

  He had a good view of the cliff road and the harbor below. The schooner he had seen last evening, becalmed, was now at the wharf. He could see the harbor crane swinging, as small as a toy from this height, and the dockworkers, like tiny ants, scurrying to unload the ship.

  The wharf was a popular spot with cats. Could Fia have gone that far?

  Duncan balanced on the wall. If he went down to the wharf, he would be more than a little late. And his mother had strictly forbidden it.

  On the other hand, the monastery gates would be open for noon recess. Friar Gregory would probably excuse Duncan this once, after his score on the national test. A
nd he hadn’t actually promised his mother to stay away from the wharf.

  * * *

  The wharf was a cat’s paradise, as far as Duncan could see. Fishing folk were cleaning their catch, and fish heads and entrails lay free for any cat to take. Seagulls screamed for their share, and as Duncan watched, one snatched a morsel of fish out from under a wharf cat’s nose and flew, triumphant, to perch on a piling.

  He took a deep, satisfied breath. The wharf smelled like no other place on the island. There was clean salt air gusting in from the ocean, intermingled with tar and hemp and the sweat of workingmen, and over all was the pervasive stink of seaweed and fish. The wharf cats were meowing about the usual things—how to litter-train kittens, the best way to hack up a furball, and the latest gossip about the stupid beagle at the corner. Duncan rarely found cat conversations interesting.

  But the schooner fascinated him. He could see the rigging perfectly now. There were the usual triangular sails, easy to raise and quick to shift, good for fast sailing among the islands of Arvidia. Atop the mainmast, though, were two square sails in a bunt. Square sails were for long voyages, when the trade winds blew steady—so this must be a top-rigged schooner, good for both kinds of sailing. Duncan had only seen such a ship in books, and he gazed at it with hungry eyes. Ships meant for long voyages hardly ever stopped at the insignificant island of Dulle, but this schooner might even sail to distant kingdoms beyond their own.

  The ship loomed above the scurrying people on the docks, its side like a wall. Duncan looked with longing at the gangplank, a slanting ramp that led from the dock to the ship. Someday he would walk up a gangplank just like that. He would stand at the railing as they sailed and watch Capital City grow closer, and at night he would not need to squint to see its lights.

  “Get out of the way, boy!” a dockworker shouted. Duncan backed into a piling, one of the massive wooden posts wrapped in thick rope that anchored the dock to the seafloor. He wedged his foot in a coil of rope and hoisted himself up until he could see.

  Sailors were working, swaggering, shouting. Stevedores swore horrible oaths as they rolled some barrels off the ship and lowered others over the side. A crane swung heavy crates out of the hold and onto the dock, and its machinery made a clanking that drowned out almost everything else. Over all was the constant slap and suck of water against the pier, the creaking of the ship, and the incessant cry of seagulls as they swooped and dove. Duncan ducked as one came too close and snatched at his dangling chin strap.

  He held on to his cap, lowering his head, and saw a cat that he recognized. Old Tom was on the boardwalk, pacing back and forth.

  Duncan climbed down. “Have you seen Fia anywhere?” he meowed. “The little white kitten with one blue eye and one green?”

  The tufts over Tom’s eyes rose in alarm. “Another missing kitten?”

  “You, boy!” A harsh, grating voice came from the ship.

  Duncan whipped up his head and saw two men at the ship’s railing. One was big-shouldered, like a bull, and completely bald. The other was tall but thinner, with a long, sharp nose and a bandage showing beneath his wide-brimmed hat. He looked strangely familiar.

  The big bald man called again. “Does this island have a daily paper, boy?”

  “Yes, sir!” Duncan stood up straight.

  “Here’s a ten-copper coin. Buy a paper, run it back in five minutes, and you can have another copper for yourself.” The man’s shoulder bunched as he tossed the coin across the watery gap.

  Duncan’s hand shot out to catch it, and in the next moment, he was pelting toward the nearest newspaper stand, almost a block away. As he ran, he peeked at the coin with a furtive joy.

  The wharf was where the jobs were. Even the old women came down to the ships to sell the lace they spent hours making with their clicking needles. They didn’t sell much, their cats told Duncan, but a little bit was better than nothing.

  And there weren’t just ships at the wharf. There were horses and donkeys harnessed to carriages and carts. Another day, maybe Duncan could help out the drivers and earn even more coins.

  He was standing in line at the newspaper stand, shifting impatiently from one foot to the other, when a sudden thought stilled him.

  Could he earn enough to pay his passage to Capital City?

  Someone tapped his shoulder. “Are you buying a paper or not?”

  Duncan mumbled an apology and paid for the newspaper with an odd flutter in his middle. He ran back to the ship, thinking hard. Two days ago, he wouldn’t have even considered leaving his mother. But a lot had happened since then.

  The gangplank bounced under his feet as he trotted up with the newspaper. He came to a halt before the two men and bowed.

  The bald man had a heavy forehead sloping down to a nose that looked as if it had been broken in a fight. He snapped the newspaper against his thigh, as if shaking dirt off it, and handed it to the tall man in the well-cut coat.

  Duncan eyed the thin man curiously. Close up, he could see that the bandage showing under the hat was old and yellowed, with a small brown stain. The man’s face was pale and thinly handsome, with brows like ravens’ wings and dark eyes beneath. He gazed at Duncan with a faint frown.

  “Here’s your copper.” The bald man slapped the coin into Duncan’s hand. “Run along now. Don’t hang about. You’ve been paid.”

  Duncan narrowed his eyes. “I thank you, sir,” he said with cold courtesy. He walked down the gangplank, his back straight as a ship’s mast. The bald man with the pulpy nose thought he was just some dirty wharf brat, but the bald man was wrong.

  Old Tom was waiting on the boardwalk, rumpled and upset. “I warned them kittens would go missing!” he meowed. “But would they listen to me? Nooooo.”

  Duncan didn’t want to get Tom started again. “I’m sure Fia will turn up soon. Are you planning to sail on this ship?”

  The tufts over Tom’s eyes came down toward his nose. “That,” he said, “is not a cat-friendly ship.”

  “Really?” Duncan looked up again at the men standing at the railing. The big-shouldered man had turned to watch the unloading, but the tall man with the dark eyes was still looking in Duncan’s direction. “How do you know they don’t like cats?”

  “I’ve never seen a cat get off that ship,” said Tom, “no matter what port I’ve seen it in. It’s my opinion that the earl hates cats.”

  “The earl?” Duncan stared at the tomcat. An earl was a very high noble indeed—higher than a baron, certainly. The only noble higher than an earl was a duke—not including the king or his family, of course. “What earl?”

  “The Earl of Merrick, naturally.” Old Tom sniffed. “He sails all over, says he’s looking for signs of the lost princess (when everyone but the king knows she must be dead), but he won’t ship a cat to keep the rats down. I call it unnatural.”

  Duncan took in a breath. Of course! Now he knew why the tall, dark man looked familiar. That face had stared at him from Robert’s history book only this morning. That man had been wounded and almost died in his battle with the treacherous duke Charles. And to this day, it was said, the earl wore a bandage over his forehead to remind him of his failure to protect the princess.

  Duncan’s throat was choked with glory. He held the gaze of the Earl of Merrick—the hero of the nation—for a breathless, frozen moment in time. With a rush of blood to his cheeks, he remembered his manners.

  He tore off his cap with a sudden sweep of his arm and bowed. The morning sun blazed down and turned his hair to dark red flame. And then, like a spear leaping, Duncan whirled, jamming his cap back on as he ran. He had news to tell at school!

  CHAPTER 7

  A Noble Summons

  DUNCAN DID NOT GET IN MUCH TROUBLE for being late. When Friar Gregory heard who Duncan had seen at the wharf, he pulled open the large map at the front of the room and launched into a history lesson. The teacher showed the path that Princess Lydia had taken on her royal tour through the Arvidian Islands, and where the s
hip had battled a terrible storm at the edge of the Great Rift.

  Duncan had heard of the Great Rift—a strange, uncharted band of sea with fogs and storms, waterspouts that could destroy a ship, and whirlpools that would suck boats down, never to be seen again. No one had ever crossed it until that great storm of seven years ago. The royal ship had anchored near an unknown island. It was little more than a big rock with high cliffs on every side, the remotest island ever discovered in Arvidia. Suddenly the lookout had pointed to four people in the water, two of them very shaggy, clinging to the remains of a wrecked boat.

  Two of them were miners, men who said they came from the land of Fahr, on the other side of the Rift. The other two were not people at all, but their tigers—animals that had scarcely been heard of in Arvidia.

  Duncan knew that one of the tigers had been sent to the king, as a royal gift. If Duncan ever got to Capital City, he would visit it at the zoo.…

  Friar Gregory walked up and down the aisles. “Now, the ship stayed at anchor for some time. But what happened the day the princess was kidnapped? Can anyone begin?”

  Duncan’s hand shot up. He had read about it just this morning. “The Bad Duke—”

  “Call him by his proper title, please,” said Friar Gregory. “This is a lesson, not a character assassination.”

  Duncan shoved his hands in his pockets. Duke Charles was a bad duke—the worst that had ever been, and no matter how fair Friar Gregory tried to be, nothing would change that. “Yes, sir. That duke told the princess she should set her foot on the farthest island and give it a name. But there was only one narrow bit, on the opposite side, that she could stand on—all the rest was cliffs that no one could climb. So they decided to go to that spot with a small group from the ship.”

  Friar Gregory nodded. “Thank you, Duncan. Gavin, what happened next?”